Warwick to Maroochydore
Having awoke at 5am by the 100�s of parrots that were making a racket in the nearby field and finding Darren and Sarah not slain in their sleep we headed north again with the intention of getting to the Sunshine Coast.
Passing the Glass House Mountains we ended up in Maroochydore in mid-afternoon and treated ourselves to a caravan (the first camping experience having scarred us) and settled in. Maroochydore is part of the Sunshine Coast (above the Gold Coast nr Brisbane) and is one of Australia�s popular holiday destinations � although a lot less high-rise than the Gold Coast it is still very touristy. However a good campsite, a nice beach, and warm sea made it a very pleasant place to be. Oh and there�s a good Indian restaurant as well.
Friday 17th Jan
Darren and Sarah decided to go to Noosa for the day and Mr Finch and I decided to walk into the central town area. You know a nice healthy walk. In the sun. At 35 degrees. Taking forty minutes. We fell through the door of the air-conditioned shopping mall realising how unfit we were before catching up on email and the like (I am writing this up weeks late).
The rest of the day consisting of a relaxing dip at the beach, watching the Two Towers (excellent � can�t wait for NZ), and a BBQ back at the caravan park in the company of Darren and Sarah and then later joined by two drunk lesbians (one who thought Darren looked a bit like Keanu Reeves � �no way!�). Another hotly contested game of scrabble (apparently I�m allowed to use �Qi� even though I now know what it means�.mmm) which Finchy won by a whisker.
Saturday 18th Jan
Maroochydore to Bagora (Bundaberg)
Leaving the Sunshine Coast behind we headed once more up the coast making for Bundaberg and more importantly the Bundaberg distillery for a tour of the rum making process. Passed though Childers on the way (infamous for the big fire a couple of years back where several backpackers died) and over the Bundaberg bridge (noted for where a female backpacker was thrown off the bridge after being robbed last year) so a backpacker friendly place then??!? The Bundaberg region is possibly better known as a large sugar growing area a lot of which is used for the manufacture of the Bundaberg dark rum. With this in mind we headed straight to the distillery to see whether we could catch the tour and luckily got on the last one of the day. A good tour (ahhh the smell of the molasses vats mmmmmmmm), the rum is stored in large custom made barrels for a year before being release � apparently each barrel is worth $10m dollars of which 2/3 goes in government tax for doing nowt which seems rather good on the governments side of things. Two free drinks came with the tour and in the slightly rosier world that existed after these Darren and I bought a bottle of the Bundy Black (matured for 10years) and Finchy got a bottle of the liqueur.
After a brilliant suggestion by me we headed for Bagora on the coast for a nicer caravan park and hopefully to meet up with Jess you was on the Oz Experience bus and currently staying in Bagora for the turtle watching.
The evening turned into Bundaberg and coke, fish and chips, Bundaberg and coke, a very nice moonrise, Bundaberg and coke, and a drunken conversation with Mr Lever who seemed to be settling into his Melbourne house. The rest of the evening is a little hazy with the thought of �oh my god I said I�d meet jess at seven thirty tomorrow morning� nagging away in the back of my mind.
Sunday 19th Jan
Managed to catch up with Jessica although I suspect neither of us was at our best at that time in the morning � hope to catch you later on in your travels around Oz Jess! Lazy day mostly spent on the local beach that was quite small but not at all busy � bit of beach cricket, bit of Aerobie, and a quick dip (23 deg). Number of times Aerobie retrieved from a tree � 3.
At half five we set off to go to the nearby national park of Mon Repos where at this time of the year there happen to be turtles nesting and hatchlings hatching. Apart from a few mishaps along the way (following Mr Finch down a wrong turning to get there, almost poking my eye out on a branch, Darren being unceremoniously shoved out of the way by a German man) we saw out first turtles at about nine when we went out in the second group to see a turtle nesting. Its seems quite intrusive (we were fairly close up) and the group is not small (70 people) but we were assured that is not detrimental to the turtles themselves as we were accompanied by a number of guides. Only 1 of 1000 turtles is likely to survive to 35 when they have reached maturity and start to breed so everyone apart from the groups are kept off the beach after 6pm. After an hour or so she was done and having filled in the nest returned to the sea. Quite amazing really. We headed home via the pie/fish and chip van outside (where Darren sustained a hot pie injury to his hand) and stumbled in the dark to the caravan site.