Kay & Darryl's Caravan Trip 2014: July 2014

We are now at the Cotton Tree Caravan Park Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast. We have met up with good friends Margaret & John, also Sue & Gwen. Our days are now taken up by walks along the beach or into the shopping complex. A favourite is coffee and cake at Banjo's Bakery. The special is $4.95 for cappuccino and cake. Choose any cake from their full range. Happy hour on the beach outside of Sue & Gwen's van watching the sunset over the Maroochydore River is very relaxing.

The Beachfront outside Gwen & Sue's Van

Kay, Sue & Gwen

Sunset over Maroochydore

Sorry the Blog has not been updated for some time, but I have been very busy doing nothing.
We did drive down to Brisbane to have lunch with Kay's Auntie Hilda. Kay's sister Carol and our friend Helen also joined us from the Gold Coast. A very enjoyable and noisy lunch.

Carol, Auntie Hilda, Kay and Helen

Ian Ashley Sue and Caitlin paid us a visit yesterday. They are part way through their first long caravan journey. Sue & Ian hired a Jayco wind up camper van and travelled up the Stuart Highway to Kings Canyon, Uluru, Mt Isa and then to Yeppoon on the coast. They have finally overtaken us. Now we have another family hooked on caravanning.

Fay visited the Sunshine Coast for a week, spending 4 days with us staying in a park cabin. We all reminisced about past trips, and had scones jam & cream cooked by Chris.

Chris, Fay, Kay and Shirley and the prawn lunch

A special lunch of prawns with crusty bread and wine / beer was a highlight of Fay's stay. The five musketeers had an enjoyable day sight seeing around Maleny, Montville and Mapleton. We had an enjoyable lunch at the Mapleton Tavern.

Glass House Mountains taken near Maleny

Kay, Shirley, Fay and their Bling from the Market

Toy Store in Montville

Lining up for a start

Paddling for all their might

The Sport of Kings

Kite Surfing

A visit to the Eummundi Markets is high on the agenda when staying on the Sunshine Coast. Plenty of market goods and lots of food stalls. Kay and I went on Wednesday which is the main day and soon ran out of money.

Departed Yeppoon very reluctantly. Everyone had settled into the veggie mode of doing very little. We stopped for 2 nights at a free camp on the north bank of the Calliope river.

The Campsite at calliope River

The count of caravans and camper vans for the first night was 61. Because the area did not allow campfires we made use of our little Butane Heaters. Amazingly they were efficient enough for us to sit outside for a bit longer than we normally would. During our stay here we celebrated Chris's Birthday. Kay made vanilla slices.

Kay and Shirley Soaking up the Warmth

Happy Birthday Chris

Next stop for 3 nights was Tannum Sands just south of Gladstone. We arrived mid morning and found a market just setting up on the foreshore. It was a great event with Buskers and a Band performing. There were plenty of stalls and lots of food vans. The event went on into the night so we went back and had our dinner there. Bratwurst Sausage, Hamburgers and Dutch Poffitgies. A great start to our time in Tannum Sands. The next day we went for a short drive and a walk around Canoe Point, a lovely picnic area overlooking Gladstone Harbour. On our way back we stopped at the surf club looking for coffee or a smoothie. We found both and had a bonus of a fabulous rhythm and blues group performing called Pop Standen and the Boys. (check them out on Utube) We had a great afternoon of live music reminiscent of Matsos Brewery in Broome.

Pop Standen

Leaving Tannum Sands we are now a 1770 a lovely seaside tourist destination. Beach walks and lookouts over the ocean. Great news we found out Pop Standen is performing at the Agnes Water Surf Club on Saturday Night. looks like we
better stay an extra day.

Below are a few of the campsite visiting Fauna

Double Barred Finch

Kookaburra

Today we did a few more walks on the beach and to lookouts in National Parks. Along one of the walking tracks we found ourselves walking amongst thousands of Butterflies.

Kay found an injured butterfly on the ground

A sample of the Butterflies

We have now extended our stay for another night and booked a table at the Beach Break Bar, Agnes Water Surf Club for a meal and the Pop Standen Gig. Then we took a walk along the beach at Agnes Water this morning. Watched a surfing school.

The Beach at Agnes Water

The Surf School The Waves were a Bit Big for Me

Our Site at 1770

We enjoyed the Pop Standen Gig at the Agnes Water Surf Club was just as good as Tannum Sands. The meals were good and an artist did a painting of the evening. He invited the audience to contribute to the canvas in what he described as collecting brush strokes. Then he added to the painting and created an interesting result. Not only being on Tv we are now immortalised on canvas.

The artist at work and the almost finished picture below

Chris Shirley Kay and Darryl at the centre table

From 1770 we travelled to a free camp Appletree Creek near Childers. Decideing to have dinner in the pub which advertised meals 7 days per week we were told they do not do Sunday night dinner. Next choice was the Pizza place but that closed at 4:00 PM. We settled for cold roast chicken and salad. Now onto Inskip Point which is a National Park camp ground on the beach opposite the Southern end of Fraser Island where the barge to the island departs. Inskip Point is roughly half way between Rainbow Beach and Tin Can Bay. This was one of those places we did not know about, but talking to a chap in Yeppoon he recommended we should stay here. It was so nice we stayed here for 3 nights and thoroughly enjoyed it.