Day 13 - Monday, 7 January 2013

Today we were leaving Fraser L. We packed up all our gear and left by 10am, because we needed to be travelling at low tide to make it all the way south on the beach run which would it much quicker than going down the inland track. Still some spots were pretty tight to get around the rocks with the waves coming in. All I did in the car was read - I am reading my first Year 7 book, getting an early start. Mum read it first and said it was good and I would like it, well I couldn't put it down!! We caught the Manta Ray Barge to get back onto the mainland. I stayed in the car the whole trip across and read my book… it was only a 10 minute trip, quite a rough bumpy ride and cost $70.

When we got off the barge at Inskip and drove the short distance to Rainbow Beach, the dads aired up the tyres and found an underbody car wash so had to pull in there to wash off all the Fraser salt and sand. Quick stop we thought but the dads had a different idea catching up on weeks of car washing - the worst being BT - the locals couldn't believe how long we took! We had our first bakery lunch, pie and cupcake for me. The cupcake was so good I went back to get another one for Ron and mum got a Jam and fresh cream filled donut to make up for the one on Fraser being so bad - mum ate so much for lunch anyone would think we starved ourselves on Fraser! We went strolling down the main street of Rainbow Beach, there were lots of surf and souvenir shops. I bought a pair of orange sunglasses and a mini-surf board ornament - it is a bit delicate so hope it makes it home. We saw Brucie driving down the road as their family were staying there and finally got to meet cute little Ava!

We left the Thiele's in town for a doctor's appointment to get Harri's plaster off his arm, after scissors and saws and a few nips of his skin, he is now right to go swimming with the rest of the kids. We got to Tin Can Bay quite late, setup our new camp, put 3 loads of washing on (very smelly towels by now), finally scootered down the concrete roads and then even got to jump into the pool for a dip - Harri came in too, yeah! We went back to camp to shower, have dinner, play 40-40 and spotlight tigi, read a bit more and then went to bed because I was tired!

Day 14 - Tuesday, 8 January 2013

This morning we were going to see the dolphins at Tin Can Bay. We had to be there by 7am so we got up very early. Bruce and the boys met us there too. The dolphins were Indo Pacific dolphins and had a lot of scratch marks on them, they had pink skin on their fins which tells you how old they are. Two of them came close to us and were trying to splash us, we were not allowed to touch them otherwise it would be an on the spot $300 fine but we could put our hands out for them to touch their nose on our hand. Later we all got to feed them some fish. After we had finished with the dolphin feeding we stopped at a café for hot chocolate. We gave the owners a heartache with a group of 24 turning up prior to 9am for orders all round.

We were going to do the Rainbow Beach run today, you have to be careful because when the tide is in the water goes up against the cliffs and there is no way out. Lots of cars get stuck and people have to stand on car roofs or swim to safety… scarey!!! Anyway we made it safely across the beach, enjoying the beautiful colourful cliff faces and travelled all the way down to Noosa North Shore. Travelling along this stretch of beach was the same scenery as driving along the beach at Fraser!

We had a lovely lunch at Great Sandy Restaurant, it had a real outback feel with lots of exposed timber beams and steel. I had a pizza and a bit of dad and Peter's chicken parma and then polished off Harri's burger too - it was all delicious! After lunch the Hoskings left us to travel a bit further south to visit some locals relatives, they will meet us at the Gold Coast in a few days.

With dad getting itchy feet for the travel back home along the beach with the tide times we headed back with the sand soft up the top and slushy sand at the bottom with the tide coming in. We got to the turn off to Rainbow Beach and the sand was really slowing us down… completely… yes Peter got bogged :-) sad for Peter but exciting to do a recovery as we got through the Fraser journey with none! Out came the snap strap, all action and dad pulled him out quick and easily. We got through the track to Rainbow Beach and started heading home foregoing a swim at the lovely inlet - we haven't swam all day - what is going on! But very soon we had to stop, we could not see any cars travelling ahead, the sand was too soft and the tide was too high to take the risk to keep going. So we doubled back through the turn off and radio talk had us a bit worried that we may be stuck out on this point until after high tide … late this evening - we started calculating the snacks on board! But we gave it a go to get back to an earlier exit and with the cars struggling through the soft sand, engines working hard we made it to Freshwater Lake track. We stopped briefly to recover and then headed to Seary's Creek for a swim. This was a lovely spot just off the highway, with a board walk leading to two fantastic swimming holes.

When we got back to camp we scootered and jumped into the pool. We were waiting to have dinner… Dad had gone for a drive to check out the local fires as there was heaps of smoke in the sky. Finally dad came back with lots of photos of the red glow from the top of Tin Can Bay - when it got dark you could even see the red glow from the caravan park, someone googled where the fire was and it was across the river at an old military base in Tin Can Bay - a bit scarey really! Peter cooked up some fresh dart fish that he had caught couple days ago - yum! I finished my book earlier today as I haven't stopped reading it since I started so had no book to read so I just went to bed because I was so tired!

Day 15 - Wednesday, 9 January 2013

This morning we woke up early for 7am take off to Eumundi market - it was massive!!! There were so many stalls - I bought some earrings, ate some mini fresh cinnamon donuts, had a giant snow cone, shared a banana smoothie and also had a massage! My neck has been extremely sore and not getting better so mum thought we start with massage. Although it was nice, it didn't help all that much so mum will find another solution when we get to the Gold Coast. When we had all finished at the market, sweating away with the heat and found Alex, we headed into Noosa. I went surfing and stood up a couple of times and also went boogie boarding. It was really windy again… so it was quite difficult to catch waves. Jason, dad's cousin met us at the beach and had a swim with us then took us to the Noosa Surf Life Savings club where he works for a drink and some snacks. The club overlooked the beach and all the doors were open, it was an amazing view and would be amazing to work there everyday!

We travelled back to Tin Can Bay and stopped at the top of town to check out the fire situation - there was a lot of smoke in the air, it really smelt bad. We went back to camp and just about straight to bed because we were all tired.