Sunshine Coast Part 2
Tuesday 3rd March we caught the local bus from outside Dicky’s Holiday Park to Maroochydore, a bigger town (or city) 20 miles up the coastline!

We arrived at our Caravan Park in Cotton Tree which is another great camping site. Its double the size of Dicky’s, however their facilities are not so good. We didn’t have a fridge to store food and there isn’t a pool or tv room. But thats ok because the location of the site and our pitch more than makes up for all that. We pitched up only steps away from Maroochy Beach and River, where the two join and form the most amazing gigantic swimming pool ever! It was stunning! We spent the afternoon lazing on the golden sand and cooling off in the clear waters where there were no waves. It was so perfect! We walked along the coastal line of the river and ocean and have never experienced anything like it, a few sand islands hover in the river and Pincusion Island is evident out to shore, we reached the SLSC at Maroochy beach and then headed back to camp!

Our pitch here however was on sand, not grass so by the time it was bed time it did feel a tiny bit harder on our bums as we are sleeping on mats, not inflatable’s  . But we survived....the location was so totally worth it!!!

Maroochydore is a fair bit bigger than Caloundra. Lonely Planet describes it as the business area of the Sunshine Coast. Cotton Tree area is very pleasant with lots of little shops, bistro’s and boutiques. We were able to buy fresh meat from the butchers every evening for our bbq’s so as you can imagine Darren was loving that!!

We didn’t laze about by the beach our whole time here.....many of you will be shocked to hear that in the 4 months we’ve been away there has not been one day where Daz and I have spent the whole entire day down the beach (the norm for a summer holiday for me!) Its either a morning or afternoon or less really! We have been trying to be pro active and on the Wednesday morning (after watching another spectacular sunrise) we took a beach walk to Mooloolaba (a hip, young person’s resort about 2 miles along the coast). We walked along the beach on the way there and stumbled across a snake curled up on the sand (half way between the ocean and the grassy banks) As we looked closer we could see that he had caught breakfast and was half way through eating a rather large lizard (say about 10inches long!). I was in shock!!!! It was crazy....we just stood and watched him guzzle up this lizard in which must have only been 30 seconds or so!!! Astonishingly the lizard made no bulge on the snakes body and then the snake started to slither away up the beach towards the grassy verge! A local also walking along the beach came and had a look, he said he was most probably a common brown snake which is venomous so he advised us not to go too close!!! Well its always fun to start the morning off with a bang!

We carried on walking and reached Alex Beach at Alexander Headlands. We had a chill at the beach for an hour before climbing the road of the headland which led to Mooloolaba (pronounced Moo-lool-laba)! We cant decide which beach has been the best, they are all so pretty, kept in pristine condition and all have certain elements about them which we adore! Mooloolaba beach was no different, the ocean was like bath water and when the sun shines, the blue colours sparkle.

We took a walk to the wharf where similar to Surfers Paradise there were lots of homes on the water with big boats out the back, lucky them! The wharf also had plenty of restaurants and entertainment for families which makes this town more of a touristy holiday destination. And the nightlife here brings the flock of youngsters here every weekend. We bought lunch in the supermarket and then walked back to Maroochy.

On Thursday we had another very pro active day (Mum and Dad Beynon you would love the walks out here, we appreciate the Gower is spectacular but you just cant beat the weather here im afraid! So we caught the bus to Mount Coolum which we could actually see from the campsite as its the closest mountain to the ocean on the Sunshine Coast (maybe even Queensland, I can’t remember). Its 208m to the summit, yes not gigantic but still about just over a mile with a constant incline. It’s 10 miles from Maroochy and the bus dropped us off right by the trial walk to the top! It was around 11am and the sun was hot! We did plan to get there for 10am but we missed the first bus...ooops! Ah well we’re used to walking in hot conditions in the outback so this should be a piece of cake!!!!

The first 5 mins was a doddle as there was steps and a pretty smooth pathway...after that it was hilarious! We were literally climbing rocks to get up the rest of the way!!!! It took us about 25 mins to reach the peak (which is good going) and once we reached the top it was so totally worth it! The views north and south looking over the coast line was just incredible. We could see all the way south to Mooloolaba (Caloundra at a push) and north to Noosa Heads. It was fab. Inland was the glasshouse mountains and plenty of green space with a few farms scattered here and there!

We met an Austrian guy at the top who has been living in Oz for 25 years (5 on Sunshine Coast) and he takes this walk 3 times a week. Its good exercise plus I can imagine its a great stress buster, no need to worry when you’re on top of the Sunshine Coast! We headed back down slowly...it was just as hard going down as it was going up, our legs acting as a constant brake!

Well we didn’t do much else for the rest of the day, we had a quick look around Maroochy shopping mall which we were both very impressed with. Modern, clean and plenty of good shops and restaurants and the Maroochy river runs right through it. Theres also a lot of building construction going on, new apartments and homes are being built, apparently there is high demand.

The Sunshine Coast is completely different to the Gold Coast. Less touristy and commercialised and its not half a busy. The beaches are also more individual and it seems more like a family place.

We were in bed by 8pm that night after the mountain climb! And up the next morning again at 5.30am!! We packed up again and this time we headed to the more popular backpacking town of Noosa Heads (the most northern town of the sunshine Coast)
Our bums were feeling the hard floor at this point so we decided two nights rest in a hostel would do us the world of good!