Living it up on the Sunshine Coast

Hello everybody - sorry for being so slow to update the blog recently - normal service has now resumed. This blog is a bit of a combined monster effort, me first then Gareth. There is a lot to tell so get a cup of tea and a ginger biscuit and enjoy...

Off we all set to Caloundra, with Dai's car loaded up with stuff and a trailer behind us carrying surfboards, a fake Christmas tree, the laundry basket and an ironing board. After only a short while in the country, the new Australian residents and the two cling-on backpackers had managed to accummulate quite a lot of new stuff. Once we'd unpacked all our stuff we decided to celebrate by ordering a takeaway from the Chinese down the road - so Gareth and Dai set off and came back with a massive box of food - our hopes were high - but dashed when we tucked into the food, which was awful. I don't know whether it was the stress of the move, but we persuaded Dai to phone the takeaway to complain and then Di and I marched back down the street with the box, still full of food, to demand a refund. They gave us back about half the money after a lengthy discussion during which Di and I tried and failed to explain to the owners of the takeaway exactly why we didn't like their lemon chicken and chilli beef - so at least we went to bed with our wallets a bit fuller even if our bellies were still rumbling.

Next day we decided to split up for a bit of fun. Dai and Gareth headed off for nine holes of golf and Di and I booked a trek at a local horse-riding centre. As usual, there is a bit of a story behind this. At Christmas time, Dai and Gareth bought me and Di a lovely Christmas present each - a manicure and pedicure at a beauty salon in Tweed Heads called Splash (remember this name if you ever plan to visit Queensland). This was perfect, especially for me, who after a few months travelling, had forgotten how to put nail polish on. We were booked in for the day before we flew to Sydney for New Year's Eve - so we would be all poshed up in time for our big night out on the harbour. Sadly, things did not go to plan - my manicurist was a bit over-eager with the cuticle clippers and ended up drawing blood (and as I remember it, nearly severing my little finger from the rest of my hand) and it was Di's manicurist's first day at the salon - she had less beauty school experience than me - and Di had to ask her to take all the polish she'd done off and start again. Basically it was a terrible experience which has led Di to sign up to a beauty therapy course in Australia with plans to open her own beauty salon, since there is clearly a gaping hole in the market for beauty salons that actually know what they're doing.

Anyway, the other upshot of what should have been a lovely treat was that Dai managed to persuade the owner of Splash to refund a big chunk of the cost - mine and Di's Christmas money - and we were going to spend it all over again on our horse-riding trip. So we set off to the stables - ready for the hack which was due to set off at 2pm. Sadly, at 2pm the only life in the stables was me, Di, another couple booked in for the same trip and a selection of horses wandering around the yard, plus a dalmation dog that was hiding inside the little office building. Eventually, the stable owner turned up and over the course of the next hour, we got ourselves a riding hat and a horse each - mine was Cherokee and Di's was Dagfoot. What they didn't tell us was that Cherokee and Dagfoot were arch enemies - who we ended up having to keep apart for the whole ride. At one point during the trek, Cherokee, who had up until that point refused to think about trotting, decided to go for it and broke into a canter. I have so little riding experience I still can't work out how I managed to get him back under control - by rights I should still be clutching the reins and whizzing through the Australian bush on his back. At the end of the trek we got off our horses as soon as we could (good job too - Cherokee reared up on his hind legs moments after I got off) and ran off for the car, leaving behind a scene of total chaos, with horses, shetland ponies, a couple of donkeys and that scared little dalmation wandering around aimlessly. I think this is a clear sign that it's time for me and Di to take up caddying....and give up with the Christmas money.

Gareth continues....

While the girls went riding Dai and I met up with a friend of his from Carmarthen, Levi, for a round of golf. It was a fairly leisurely round on the nine hole par three course, with the only excitment coming from nearly hitting the group in front of us, who were the slowest golfers in the world. In the time it took the three of them to play one hole we were able to play one hole, walk to the bar to get a beer each and tee off on the next hole!!

We made a decision early on that any balls that went into the rough would not be searched for, as nobody wanted to risk a meeting with a snake, that would really have wrecked the scorecard!

We returned to the apartment to find that the girls weren't back yet from riding and it was a while before they arrived. They had apparently had a very poor trip and had not enjoyed themselves at all. (A week later we saw the owner of the stables in Coles supermarket and she looked like a fifty year old Vicky Pollard from Little Britain.) Anyway, Di and Sarah were left very unimpressed.

The next day we waved Dai off to work and then went off to pick up a (bright yellow) hire car so that we could get around for the week. We headed off to Maleny in the mountains above Caloundra (mountains is an exaggeration, hills would be more accurate), which is a nice little place where Dai and Di were considering moving to. It is quite nice there, but seems to have become a bit expensive recently, and it's full of hippies and new age shops.

On Tuesday we decided that we would head north a little to see what was inland from there, so first stop was a ginger factory. Unfortunately the gingerbread men we had there were the worst we had ever tasted, but fortunately there was a fudge shop on site, which more than made up for it. We then crossed the road to the Macadamia nut factory, with it's free factory viewing area, it was all so promising. Sadly, yet again we were disappointed, the factory only runs for about two months a year when the nuts are harvested and February is not one of those months! We did however see a man covering his nuts in chocolate.....

From there we went to Eumundi, where they have a weekly market. Thankfully for once we had arrived on the right day and the market was busy.....but mostly with people selling assorted useless tat....I think it was Diane who suggested that the world would be a better place if these people just got a proper job! By this (1pm) time we were getting hungry so we headed into the main street to a cafe. As we walked in through the door the owner told us that they were now closed!?! We were a little confused as everywhere else in the world one o'clock would be considered lunchtime, obviously not in Eumundi!

Next stop was Noosa, where the beautiful (ie. rich) people hang out, we decided to have a walk around to Tea Tree Bay and on the way spotted a koala. We had a bit of a paddle and then headed back through the forest where I turned into the 'The Koala Hunter' and spotted loads more. I can smell them out - they all smell of poo.

Not much going on around here

On the Friday we decided to head over to Pelican Waters, the massive new residential area in Caloundra to have a look at a few showhomes to give Di some ideas. There were some great houses, the first one we looked at was really plush, I asked how much it was and was told that it was $900,000. Not bad, I thought, for such a nice house, approximately 360,000 pounds for a 4 bedroom house with a jetty onto the canals for your boat and a pool. Then she said that the price was only for the build of the house and that the land it was built on was an extra $1 million!!

Dai and Di's new place was really plush

We had a look around a few others, which thankfully seemed to reduce in price as we went along, then the following day we took Dai back to have a look, before heading up to Bli Bli for a spot of wakeboarding.

This was wakeboarding with a difference though......there was no boat! What they have there is a lake with a set of cables attached to pylons all the way around and you do circuits of the lake. Easy you would think, but alas not so. Unlike with a boat, there is no smooth acceleration to lift you out of the water, instead you sit on the edge until the pulley comes around and then you brace yourself as it whips you away from the side. Dai managed to get up and going first time, but it took me quite a while to get it. What was most frustrating was that every time you fell off you had to go to the back of a twenty minute queue to have another go, which was a bit of a pain when you had only gone five yards. After a while I cracked it though and got a few laps in before the end of the day.

Knees bent, arms stretched, RA-RA-RA!

The girls were so impressed that they decided they would like to have a go too, so a couple of days later we all headed back there to have another go. Thankfully the queue was almost non-existent this time so we were able to get straight into it. Sarah nearly managed to stand at her first attempt, but looked so surprised by it that she fell off! After a few attempts Di managed to make it all the way down the lake before falling off, which was very good, unfortunately this meant crawling through all the weeds to get out of the water, then a long walk back!!

After all the exertions of wakeboarding, Sarah and I decided that we would spend the next day relaxing by the pool. Or so I thought, in reality Sarah wanted to learn to dive into a pool properly. Since we went scuba diving in Thailand, Sarah has become a bit of a waterbaby and you can't get her out of it. The first few attempts were rather belly floppish, but after a while she got it sussed, below are before and after clips of Sarah's perfectly honed olympic technique!

Before....

...after

We hadn't really planned to go to Australia Zoo, but we found that we had time on our hands and thought we'd have a look. We had a good day there, saw the Wildlife Warriors show, including a pretty big croc and some very bored looking snakes. Sarah then had a flash of inspiration and decided that she wanted to have a picture taken with a snake. On my list of Top 5 things that I would least like to do, having a Burmese Python draped around my neck comes pretty high, but Sarah has a way of persuading me to do things that I don't want to do and once again she prevailed.

It wasn't as bad as I had expected, the snake (called Medusa) didn't try to strangle me, she must have already been fed, but she was very heavy. Thankfully the photographer was very speedy, because she started moving her head in my direction and I wasn't too keen on that!

Ssssssthcary

Australia Zoo appeared to be very well run, and the handlers seemed to genuinely love working with the animals, but I couldn't help thinking that they would be happier in the wild, especially when we saw a Tasmanian Devil running around his enclosure constantly, looking desperate to get out.

Not dead, just sleeping!

For our last weekend we decided to head up to Noosa again with Di and Dai. The weather was scorching again so we headed straight for the beach. As usual with our round the world trip, the surf was distinctly underwhelming, there was a fairly powerful wave breaking on the beach, but it was completely unsurfable, so instead we did a bit of bodysurfing. It was great fun, but we took a few heavy beatings from the waves and I was washing sand out of ears for days!!

Anyone for a swim?

That evening we went to a very nice restaurant overlooking the beach and had probably the best meal we had in all our time in Australia. It was fantastic and the service was excellent, although it was probably one of the nicer restaurants there it still worked out much cheaper than we would have paid for a similar meal at home.

The next day was our last full day in Australia, so we headed out to lovely Tea Tree Bay to have a look for some waves, as we rounded the headland we were shocked to find that there were some!!! Unfortunatley we were not alone, there were at least fifty other people in the water and because it is a point break, there is zero chance of getting a wave. Every wave already had at least three people already on it before it got to you, so in the end we gave up and headed back around to the main beach for some more bodysurfing.

Late that afternoon we headed back to Caloundra for the last time to pack our things up again and ready ourselves for moving on to New Zealand. But first we decided that we'd have a final dip in the pool. It all seemed to be going fine when Dai suddenly started racing to get out and shouting at me to do the same. What I soon discovered was that he had spotted that one of the electric lights was floating in the pool!! Thankfully, we managed to get out before being electrocuted, but it was a bit worrying really.

One minute they're there ... then they're gone

On Monday morning we said goodbye to Di at home and Dai drove us to the airport to get our flight. We said goodbye outside, the last time we'll see him and Di (except on MSN!) for a while. We had a great time both times we stayed with them and they really looked after us, we'll miss them both a lot.

So that was the end of our time in Australia, exactly three months, we'd used every last day that our visa had allowed and we had a great time. The people were very friendly, if a little cheeky about the cricket, although they did seem to quieten down a lot towards the end of the one day series!!

One of the main reasons why I was so keen to visit Australia was to get a chance to surf as many of the world famous surf breaks as possible. Unfortunately this never materialised, we must have been there for the worst couple of months for waves in years!

I'm sure we'll be back to visit anyway, I've got a brother to keep an eye on.......