Thankfully Rainbow Beach was about the best place on our whole trip to be stranded without a car. The caravan park was 1 minute from the tiny strip of shops and 2 minutes from the beach. They gave us a site away from the other van sites and right beside the pool, which we had to ourselves for what turned out to be five nights. The kids could make plenty of noise, swim and ride their bikes around. The township had a supermarket, coffee shops, butcher and bakery as well as a good pub and interesting clothes shops and the beach was just perfect for swimming, walking and fishing.

The Mitsubishi repairer in Gympie diagnosed a busted radiator and thermostat which only took 3 hours to replace however - they received the car Monday, ordered the part on Tues, received the part on Wed and replaced it on Thurs, then as there's only one bus a day from Rainbow Beach to Gympie, Toby collected the car on Fri and we left Rainbow Beach on Saturday!

Luckily we'd planned to spend 5 days on the Sunshine Coast, although had hoped to perhaps spend a few nights in Cooloola National Park and visit some of our favourite places jn Noosa and Sunshine Beach. Alas, we stayed just in Rainbow Beach but managed to fill in our days with morning walks, afternoons at the beach and lazing around the pool. We walked to Carlo Sandblow and rolled down the dunes which was fun, but the kids preferred the Sandblow at Fraser Island.

One afternoon when Neve was a little bored we said she could wander through the shops by herself and meet us at the beach in half an hour. After an hour or so and no sign of Neve, I wandered through town looking for her. I expected to find her at the icecream shop or trying on shoes but none of the shopkeepers had seen her. I finally located her, curled up on a couch in the local library with her nose in a novel!

The longest day was on the Thursday when the rain started at 9am and continued for the next 10 hours. The van suddenly seems awfully small with 5 of us inside for a whole day! We played games, read, tidied cupboards, sent emails, watched a movie and generally got in each other's way! Toby nearly caught the bus into Gympie as there was a 50/50 chance the car might have been ready but if it wasn't, he would have needed to stay in Gympie overnight until the next bus, which didn't sound very appealing. Luckily we'd found out about the Greyhound bus that went to Gympie, previously Toby was preparing to take the locals advice and catch the morning school bus which would have been funny to see!

To top it off, we ate really well with amazingly good BBQs and prawns from the butcher and a good pub meal - always good to vary from the usual camping meals!