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Day 1 - Nambucca Heads
My sister, Naomi, lives in Nambucca Heads so we decided to visit on the way. After driving for just over five hours from Sydney we arrived at Nambucca Heads. We stayed at a very good Bed & Breakfast called Beilby's Beach House. The hosts are extremely inviting and the rooms spotlessly clean and comfortable. The garden is well maintained with a pool and BBQ facilities. Breakfast is a choice of cereals, fresh fruits and toasts with a selection of jams. At $50 to $60 a night for a couple including breakfast this place is an absolute bargain. We've stayed at a number of different places in Nambucca over the years (some at twice the price and half as nice) and this would have to be the best value for money so far. Oh and they have Internet access too so you tech heads out there can surf the web or read your email if you feel the need.
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Day 2 - Brisbane
After taking about five and a half hours to drive from Nambucca Heads to Brisbane we stayed with a friend in Brisbane. Thanks to Susan and her housemate for having us for the evening.
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Day 3
We spent the day driving north from Brisbane to the southern Sunshine Coast region and then through a number of the small villages near where we were to spend the next few nights. We visited Maleny, Kenilworth and Yandina, amongst others.
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The Glasshouse mountains as seen from the Mary Cairncross Park lookout near Maleny.
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We took the Kenilworth Tourist Drive (to the west of the Blackall range) and this is the main street of the town of Kenilworth. Just down the road the Kenillworth Cheese factory has tastings and a cheese shop - their Vintage is pretty tasty.
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If you ever come this way you will find a great little restaurant just off the main street of Kenilworth called L'Escapade. This place is a real find out in the culinary wilderness. Now this is a restaurant so don't expect fast food - you will have to wait for your food to be prepared from scratch but the menu includes all sorts of excellent dishes and the price is incredibly low.
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The Buderim Ginger Factory (which is actually in Yandina now and not Buderim - go figure) is a major supplier of processed ginger to the world.
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Day 3 - Yandina
For the next three days we stayed at an extremely luxurious Bed an Breakfast called Ninderry Manor. This place was absolutely fabulous with immaculately presented rooms and two course cooked breakfasts (different each day), Kerry our ever helpful host catered to our every need. On the day we arrived we didn't feel like going out to dinner (and most of the local restaurants aren't open on Mondays and Tuesdays) so Kerry made us dinner, which was great.
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Ninderry Manor is located on the ridge atop mount Ninderry with expansive views over the Blackall Ranges from nearly every room. If you are ever up in this region I can't recommend too highly that you stay here. You won't regret the decision.
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Our room in the manor.
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The view out our window.
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A great view of the Manor itself with the ranges in the distance. My wife, Louise and I had an absolutely fabulous time here - thanks Kerry.
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Day 4
We spent the day travelling around a number of the small picturesque villages in the mountains. Here we are at Mapleton Falls which you can probably skip as you can't see the falls themselves (???) and the tracks were very muddy at the time we were there.
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The view to the ocean from Flaxton. We bought some wine here at the cellars on this ridge just behind us.
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Montville; this was probably the most interesting of these small mountain towns. There was an abundance of art galleries, craft, shops and eating places in this small village to fill your day.
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A place to have lunch but it takes a verry long time to get your food :-(.
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Well - it had to happen, after seeing numerous "Big" things on the way we had to stop at at least one of them and have a look. The Big Pineapple...
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A load of pineapple plants at the Big Pineapple.
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Mooloolabar, a coastal town just south of Maroochydore.
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The swamp weed (err.. sugar cane) fields at Yandina with the local cane railway tracks - it was just on sunset. The field on the left is sugar cane in flower (almost ready to harvest) while the field on the right was planted later and hasn't flowered yet.
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Day 5
Eumundi Wednesday Markets; not anywhere near as huge as the famous Saturday markets (so they tell us) but still interesting none the less. We also drove over to nearby Noosa Heads to take a quick look and to have lunch.
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The sugar cane fields at Yandina with the local cane railway tracks.
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The first sugar cane burning of the season as seen from Ninderry Manor.
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The Spirit House Thai Restaurant at Yandina. This place has the most remarkable pavilions and buildings set in three acres of tropical gardens. You really must try and have a meal at this place - maybe lunch so that you can better appreciate the extensive grounds around the restaurant and cooking school. This place boasts impresssive cuisine and a very popular cooking school for those eager to learn the culinary arts of Thai cooking. This place is just five minutes drive from where we are staying and you have to book if you want to ensure a table.
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Day 6
A two hour and fifteen minute drive from Yandina brings us to Hervey Bay where we board the Kingfisher II catamaran for our forty minute trip to the Kingfisher Bay Resort at Fraser Island.
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Day 6 - Fraser Island
Kingfisher Bay Resort at Fraser Island was where we were to spend the next three days. You can see the Jetty ahead and the resort is hidden in the trees on the right.
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The walkway from the Central Resort Complex to our Hotel room. Fraser Island is the worlds' largest sand island and is classified a World Heritage Area. Over the years the island has been used for sand mining and timber logging. Over one hundred of the purest remaining dingos live on the island and we saw a number of them wandering about the resort.
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The Centre Complex is fairly impressive and the Island looks spectacular, it is just a shame that the hotel room was so disappointing. After the luxurious accomodation we had for our last three days - the dark, damp, mouldy and smelly room we have now was a real letdown. Housekeeping's helpful (not!) solution was to saturate the room with surface disinfectant and room deodoriser (they left us the can :-() which made the room wetter and smellier!
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The Jetty and Beach just before sunset (4:30PM).
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We decided to take the champagne and sunset cruise (Blue Dolphin Sailing Tours) which was a great way to spend the early evening. We cruised around the waters of the great sandy straits in a 10.5 metre catamaran with drinks, cheese and fruit platter 'til after sunset. We saw a few dolphins at play and watched the sun go down - very nice...
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Day 7
Hooray - they've moved us. The reception manager was extremely helpful, informing us that some of the lower rooms down at the dark end were a bit musty after heavy rains and that they would be moving us to one of the Villas - MUCH nicer.
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Anyway the 2 bedroom (four person) villa (in the Cooloola Villas section) is fabulous - spacious, clean, sunny, dry and no smell - excellent. They also have villas for six and eight people at the resort.
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The view from the balcony through the forest - believe it or not the resort central complex is just through those trees. If you ever come to Fraser Island I can recommend one of these villas; if you do plan on staying in one of the hotel rooms get one on the second floor (not on the first which is at ground level) or at least ask to avoid any of the lower level rooms which face south east (which seem to never get any sun and may become waterlogged in heavy rain).
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We took an afternoon half day Kingfisher Bay Range Guided 4WD Tour to a couple of places on the island. Here we see some of the local wildlife.
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Some of the huge pine trees at Central Station. Formerly a forestry station, the area was cleared and replanted - it lives in the heart of a sub tropical rainforest region on the island.
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Just a short (five minute) walk down a trail from Central Station is Wanggoolba Creek in the heart of a lush rainforest wilderness. You can see the giant fronds of the prehistoric Angiopteris ferns in the creek below.
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Seeping up from the dunes, the fast running water in the creek is crystal clear - amazing stuff.
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Pile Valley hosts some giant forest trees.
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Giant satinay trees abound in the forest.
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Lake McKenzie. This is one of 82 perched lakes in the world (45 of them are on Fraser Island). The lake is 130 hectares in area and is 80 metres above sea level - a blue lake surrounded by pure white sand.
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The 4WD tour was great, although I should warn you that the ride is a little bumpy so be prepared. Our Ranger guide was a fount of interesting facts and we saw some fabulous scenery. It was a very well spent half day.
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Day 8
Well, the weather up until now had been absolutely perfect - not a cloud in the sky. Last night it began to rain... We spent a relaxing morning resting indoors. These are some of the villas near ours.
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The rain held off in the afternoon and we took a lovely walk along the beach.
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This really is a magnificent place and the local wildlife was everywhere as we ambled up the beach.
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Well in the end we had a very pleasant stay - this is a pretty marvelous island. Michelle at reception was great at smoothing over things when they went awry - Thanks. Oh and the cost - about $650 for two for three nights which included the catamaran transfers to and from Hervey Bay, full buffet breakfasts each day and two half day ranger guided tours.
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Our villa is just on the left in the trees. Louise is about to walk down the steps (just where the garden light is in front of her) to the front door. We ate at the resort's premiere restaurant that evening (Seabelles) and although the menu looked pretty interesting with some great looking produce the meals weren't that spectacular.
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Day 9
Well our last morning here and the rain is still with us. A view over the heated pool.
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And the non heated pool with one of the "window lakes" just behind.
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Noosa Heads
Just over two hours drive from Hervey Bay and we are back in Noosa Heads. We were a little apprehensive that the accommodation we had booked in Noosa was going to be disappointing (because we had some difficulty getting anything at a few other places we tried - booked out?). Anyway we needn't have feared as the two bedroom apartment we got was fabulous. Here are some pictures of the living area with kitchen/dining and the main bedroom.
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The place is called Bella Casa apartments and it is a very comfortable place right on Hastings Street (the main strip in Noosa Heads). This is where many of the good resorts and apartments are and many fine shops, cafes and restaurants. If you are going to stay in Noosa I'd highly recommend staying at one of these types of places on this street. This place is $525 for a two bedroom apartment (sleeps up to 4) for three nights.
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By now we've seen just about enough so called "Big" things - what with the "Big Banana", "Big Pineapple" (two of them in different places), "Big Avocado", "Big Prawn", "Big Mower" (??? - no really!!!), "Big Macadamia", "Big Shell", "Big Bottle", "Big Ned Kelly", "Big Pelican", "Big Whale" (although I suspect the real thing would be bigger than the display). If we don't see another "Big" thing it will be too soon.
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We ate at a local restaurant called Sierra Cafe for lunch which was cheap and good (which made up for a previous bad eating experience here in Noosa a few days ago). The cafe also had live jazz. That evening we were at a well awarded restaurant called SaltWater (NaClH2O) - the meal and service was good but I'm not sure I would have raved about it. The next day was spent checking out all the shops in the area mainly (as it was still raining). We had dinner at an Italian restaurant called Lindoni's (also in Hastings street) and the food, service and atmosphere were great.
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Day 11
Our last full day in Noosa Heads (we will be making our way back towards Sydney tomorrow) and the sun decided to show. I can't say I was very impresssed with the beach - not much beach really - more like "rocks"...
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The view from the breakwater back towards where all the resorts and apartments are near Hastings Street.
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This was Louise's favourite shop on Hastings street - it had some pretty unusual stuff in it.
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The view down to Noosa Heads from the lookout.
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That's Noosaville and Tewantin over there.
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You can see the Sheraton resort down below (the large pinkish building) which is just down the road on Hastings street from where we are staying.
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Noosa River.
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We took a stroll around the headland at Noosa Heads in the afternoon. The place is a National Park and there were a huge number of surfers out catching the afternoon swell after the rains.
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A nice rainbow to end the day. We had dinner at a very nice Thai style restaurant called "Chilli Jam". The place is out of the way, not on Hastings street, but I'd really recommend that you make your way over there as the food is really very good. All in all Noosa was pretty good - even with the rain. If I had any complaints it would be that there were a number of construction sites about (on Hastings street) so the building noise early in the morning and through the day was a bit annoying.
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Day 13
We decided to once again visit my sister in Nambucca Heads on the way past. We stayed for the night and Louise's mother also joined us (driving across to Nambucca Heads from their home at Yarrowitch (near Armidale)). It was good to see them all again.
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The view from our room at Nambucca. We'll be driving back to Sydney today.
If you are interested in more information about Noosa and the surrounding region then I'd suggest visiting the excellent web site Noosa Australia the Guide. Extensive information on the Sunshine Coast region can also be found at SunZine's Sunshine Coast web site. SunZine also have information on Noosa and the Fraser coast.