Sunshine Coast to Bundaberg

Sat 30 June – We left our site and sat in the carpark for lunch before driving to Little Mountain where Judy and Frank McAlister live. It’s basically a suburb of Caloundra. We parked in their drive and had a great catch up. Val and Judy took Lucy (Debbie’s dog) for a walk while I used Frank’s workshop to fix our bed ladder. I also replaced a TV aerial on Franks RV. Drinks and then a great dinner.

Sun 1 July – We meet up with Jill and Bob Rice for coffee at an outdoor café at King’s Beach. We parked and walked a boardwalk to the café.  Another good catch up. After lunch back at Judy and Frank’s we drove to Mooloolaba and booked into the beach camp. (expensive!) We had arranged to have drinks with Peter and Rana Eggleton. We walked the beach and back thru the shops, changed and then had a short walk to their luxury apartment overlooking Mooloolaba and Alexandra Heads. Val played badminton with Peter for many years. We had a nice time with them and some friends who were staying from Christchurch. The views from their 9^th floor apartment were spectacular. We wandered back to “Andy” buying fish and chips for dinner.

Mon 2 July – We drove to Woolworths (food) and Bunnings (LPG) then followed the Sunshine Highway thru Noosa to the ferry across the Noosa River and into the National Park to the beach camp at North Noosa. We were going to come here last year for a night but it was not worth the expense of the ferry crossing. We got a site overlooking the beach. The day was beautiful despite the forecast. Spent the afternoon enjoying the view. We were outside until after sunset around 5:30pm.

Tue 3 July - We have booked in for 3 nights here and, after breakfast outside, we went for a long walk along the beach. This beach looks back into the main beach at Noosa. Another lazy afternoon.  We took our chairs onto the sandhills at the rear of our site. Weather was the same as yesterday.

Wed 4 July – It was overcast and windy in the morning. I changed the bathroom light to LED. “Andy” is all LED now. The weather cleared a bit so Val did some washing which we hung up in the awning. After lunch we walked along the beach in the other direction. Some of this beach is like 90 Mile Beach, a public road for 4WDs.

Thurs 5 July – We left this great beach and back across the ferry ($9 each way) and joined the Bruce Highway to Maryborough. We are following a different route from last year to Bundaberg. We stopped in a carpark in the centre of Maryborough where there is a designated area for self-contained RVs and caravans. We are all backed in with a great grassy area behind us. At the Town Hall (next door) we picked up a free parking permit for 48 hours. There are about 20 parking spaces. A great way to promote the town. We also picked up some info on the place and will do some of the historical walks.     

The other thing we discovered was that Maryborough was the birth place of P. L. Travers, the author of Mary Poppins.
We walked around the CBD (not very large). They have really played on the Mary Poppins theme with a statue and even the “Don’t Cross” lights are Mary Poppins.






This town is on the Mary River and was famous for ship building. They also have replica of a locally built steam train, Mary Ann, with the tracks right behind our parking place.

Fri 6 July – Breakfast outside on the grass and then a walk around the town until it started to rain. After lunch we continued our walk thru the gardens and along the banks of the Mary River. Quite a few yachts moored in the harbour. Back into the town where we checked out the RSL for dinner. The Huge Anglican church bell tower was chiming a very disjointed version of “Home on the Range”. Strange we thought until we spied a sign saying that, with a group of 8, you could learn to ring the bells. Pre-dinner drinks in “Andy” before a short walk to the RSL for a roast of the day. Very yummy!

Sat 7 July – After dumping and fuel we continued up the Bruce Highway and then turned down to the coast to Woodgate, a trip of 90kms. We are camped at the local hotel on a big grassy site over the road from the beach. We put out the awning just as it started to rain. Later the rain stopped and we biked a great cycleway following the beach for 5kms passed many lovely holiday homes and a couple of shops. Just as we got back the rain started again.

Sun 8 July – It was really cold in the night but a sunny morning with a cool wind. We shifted sites to get some shelter. We walked down to the beach where the tide was out and the sea was calm. After lunch we biked along the beach in the opposite direction from yesterday to where a creek joined the sea and then back along the road to our camp and continued on the cycleway to the shops and an ice-cream.

Outside at dusk several kangaroos graced us with their presence before hopping away. It was slightly warmer in the night thank goodness.

Mon 9 July – This is a great beach so we have decided to stay another night. We took our chairs down to the beach and sat and read. There are surprisingly few people here considering it is the school holidays. The water is still too cold for us to swim! In the afternoon we took a long walk along the beach. This beach deserves a better name than just Woodgate!

Tues 10 July – Back on the road for a short drive to Bundaberg. This is as far north as we came on last year’s trip. After a big shop up, we checked into the CMCA park for a night. The CMCA is the Aussie equivalent of the NZMCA in NZ. They have very few camps however, this one is great, but we will not be renewing our membership. 

There are some interesting vehicles here including a house boat on a trailer. (Boat a Home). It was a cool evening but it did not stop the more hardy folks assembling for “happy hour” including us.