On Saturday morning I got ready and checked out of the hostel in Maroochydore.\u00a0 Stuart wasn’t quite as sprightly but eventually we were ready to leave.\u00a0 He was driving and we headed South down the coast.\u00a0 En route we stopped at the most amazing beach (in Caloundra), drank white wine (well I did) and admired the ridiculously good, young surfers.\u00a0 There were also dogs to watch and one in particular (a dalmatian called Molly) was awesome.\u00a0 She was far more interested in eating some horrible, dead, sand-encrusted creature than playing fetch with her owner.\u00a0 She was also a delight to watch when other dogs arrived on the beach.\u00a0 After a little while appreciating the sounds, sights, sun and sand we continued South via a few places we decided not to stop at.\u00a0 Eventually we managed to find a campsite in Caboolture.\u00a0 When I say eventually here we drove up and down the same road several times.\u00a0 Upon arrival Stuart took a long time trying to cook bacon on his camp stove, much to my amusement, prior to realising that it wasn’t actually turned on properly.\u00a0 When he discovered this and corrected the error it actually worked pretty quickly.<\/p>\n
The following morning I woke up feeling like I had slept on several large boulders as the van was not particularly comfortable.\u00a0 We left the campsite and decided to head South via Bribie Island having both heard good things about it.\u00a0 I’m not sure whether it was due to half of Brisbane apparently being there on a weekend jolly, or whether it was more built up than we expected but neither of us were particularly impressed by it so headed pretty much straight off the island again.\u00a0 Well that is after Stuart bought an airbed and a lilo, the latter at my suggestion.<\/p>\n
We carried on from Bribie Island through some pretty spectacular scenery.\u00a0 At one point we were in rolling farmlands with field upon field.\u00a0 We headed through D’Aguilar (which I re-named Christina) and passed Mount Nee.\u00a0 The views were amazing, as were some of the roads.\u00a0 We took a road which was a designated tourist drive with a creature on the sign which looked like a manatee but is apparently some kind of animal native only to certain parts of Australia.\u00a0 Although this was very good at first, as you had to pay less attention to where you were going, we soon realised that you did have to pay -some- attention as we found ourselves backtracking a number of times as we blindly followed the little brown signs back down and round roads we had previously driven on.<\/p>\n
The names, as in much of Australia, were reassuringly English and we passed through places like Scarborough, Margate and Brighton.\u00a0 None of which, it has to be said, looked particularly like their namesakes back home!\u00a0 After getting slightly annoyed with the pesky manatee like creatures which seemed to like sending us in ever decreasing circles, it was actually quite a relief when a new brown sign told us that the tourist route was about to finish.\u00a0 We were on the outskirts of Brisbane and found a friendly motel and, more importantly, had a night sleep without waking up feeling crippled.<\/p>\n
The following morning we left the Bracken Ridge area and headed\u00a0to Ipswich.\u00a0 This was largely my doing due to the fact I wanted to see if this Ipswich was anything like the Ipswich near my parents’ house.\u00a0 We stopped at an out of town shopping centre and I booked my flight to Sydney.\u00a0 We didn’t actually head into Ipswich itself afterwards but I’d be willing to wager a fair amount that it bore no resemblance to its Suffolk counterpart.\u00a0 They should twin places like that, now that would confuse people, i.e. "Ipswich, twinned with the town of Ipswich".\u00a0 Maybe I should write to someone to suggest it….or maybe not!\u00a0 Anyway, we carried on driving to Darra where I had a cunning plan to avoid backtracking on the motorway in order to get to the Valley of the lakes.\u00a0 Unfortunately my cunning plan was thwarted by the scale of our map and the fact that all roads in Darra seemed to lead to the railway track and to do so several times.\u00a0 At one point I thought I had sussed it until the road we were on quickly decreased in size and we ended up next to some kind of factory.\u00a0 Eventually we got to Mount Crosby, which is where we were trying to get to, and drove to Fernvale.\u00a0 We passed through Lowood as it seemed slightly uninspiring and settled in Esk.\u00a0 Esk was the most amazing town with wooden fronted saloon type pubs and the most beautiful views.\u00a0 We set the van up with the airbed and lilo combo (I got the airbed) and headed into town for dinner and a quick drink.\u00a0 Well that’s what we thought we were doing.\u00a0 At this point it was around half eight and when we hit the high street (that’s a bit optimistic as a term there actually "the street" would have sufficed) everything was shut.\u00a0 We went into a garage and then asked a passing motorcyclist who informed us that the pub shut at seven thirty.\u00a0 Seven thirty?\u00a0 There was apparently one restaurant which he thought might be open which subsequently wasn’t.\u00a0 So we headed back to the camp, had some wine and retired to the, now more comfortable, van.<\/p>\n
Tuesday was my Birthday.\u00a0 I know, I know, you’ve all sent Ferraris, champagne and rich bachelors to my home address so thought it unnecessary to wish me electronic greetings.\u00a0 Anyway, we headed off towards Kilcoy which turned out to be somewhat uninspiring.\u00a0 We turned off onto a smaller road and headed to the Somerset dam.\u00a0 The dam itself was awesome with a huge jet of powerful water speeding out of it.\u00a0 I got out and took several pictures before realising that my comedy squatting angles probably looked to other motorists like I had been cut short.\u00a0 Did I just misquote another saying?\u00a0 Oh well, I’m allowed, it was my Birthday after all.\u00a0 The drive around the dam area was one of my favourite sections as the road closely followed large lakes.\u00a0 We headed via Brisbane valley to lake Wivenhoe which was equally spectacular.\u00a0 After which we turned left towards D’Aguilar National Park.\u00a0 When we turned right onto the mountain tourist drive we were confronted by several signs about how unsuitable the road was for various different vehicles and it transpired that Stuart’s van was not its greatest fan.\u00a0 It also transpired that this was -the- place to ride your motorbike and we saw several of them, many of which spent some time behind the rather slow van probably cursing into their helmets.\u00a0 The peak of Mount Glorious was just that and driving up that high not only caused havoc with my ears but was truly amazing.\u00a0 It was luscious and green and the air was so fresh.<\/p>\n
After the glorious Mount Glorious we drove to Samford where we bought burgers prior to deciding we would carry on.\u00a0 In Dayboro we found a great looking hotel, bought a couple of drinks and were then informed that they didn’t have accommodation.\u00a0 I don’t mean they were full either, I mean they were a hotel without one of the ingredients you may consider befitting of such a title, i.e. beds.\u00a0 It turns out that in Australia pubs like to call themselves hotels in order to fox stupid English tourists.\u00a0 Well maybe that’s not the reason and there is some clever difference between a pub and a hotel here but it escapes me.\u00a0 So, we carried on to Strathpine and then to Petrie and Kallangur.\u00a0 In Kallangur we pulled up outside a motel and I called them to inquire whether they had any vacancies and guess what, they didn’t.\u00a0 I then called a couple of others which also had no vacancies.\u00a0 Using our mighty number of leaflets (i.e. one) Stuart suggested I call another place.\u00a0 I phoned them and was informed that it was a children’s camp site.\u00a0 I started laughing over the phone and then, realising I may sound like some kind of weird prank caller, promptly apologised.\u00a0 Fortunately the guy on the other end of the phone also saw the funny side.\u00a0 I then called another motel, which did have beds and wasn’t exclusively for children on Scout outings and the like.\u00a0 I was reliably informed that a standard room was seventy dollars and a deluxe room was eighty one dollars.\u00a0 When I asked what the difference between the two was the guy said, "eleven dollars".\u00a0 Now, this completely threw me.\u00a0 I’m not sure if it’s just me but there appears to be some kind of logical gap between English and Australian thinking sometimes.\u00a0 While I’m on this subject an example from a New Zealand guy in a pub may help.\u00a0 Basically, if you aren’t familiar with it the New Zealand accent has a slightly different twang to that of Australia.\u00a0 Anyway so this Kiwi guy is in Australia and he wants to buy a new bed, so he goes to a bed shop.\u00a0 When he gets there he says that he’s interested in buying a bed.\u00a0 Apparently he received some very strange looks and comments prior to realising that the Australians thought he was trying to buy a beard.\u00a0 Now, this is what I am talking about about a logical gap…I mean, firstly how many people actually buy fake beards and secondly, would you ask for one in a bed shop?<\/p>\n
Right, back to the task in hand.\u00a0 So there were beards at the one place but I wasn’t overly keen having just been completely flummoxed on the phone by the eleven dollar comment.\u00a0 Stuart then suggested another place and I called them and was informed they didn’t have accommodation.\u00a0 This was actually an English error, or rather a Stuart error, as there was only a drink icon next to the name on the leaflet and not a bed, or maybe it was a cunning plan on his part to get to the pub or something.\u00a0 So we decided to head towards Brisbane in the hope of finding somewhere.\u00a0 Fortunately we did, although Stuart did try to kill me on several occasions on the way by disobeying road signs, ignoring other vehicles and deciding that the middle lane of the motorway had been exclusively reserved for him!<\/p>\n
The following day we checked out of the motel and Stuart drove me to the airport in Brisbane for my flight to Sydney.\u00a0 I was actually bricking it about my flight as I managed to work myself up about flying after my previous slightly dodgy flight from Sydney to Byron bay.\u00a0 I was searched for explosives at the airport which I am getting far to used to, flew with Virgin Blue and the plane was actually really nice.\u00a0 I was also distracted by a guy to my left who clearly had a real flying phobia rather than a stupid contracted silliness as I did.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Saturday morning I got ready and checked out of the hostel in Maroochydore.\u00a0 Stuart wasn’t quite as sprightly but eventually we were ready to leave.\u00a0 He was driving and we headed South down the coast.\u00a0 En route we stopped at the most amazing beach (in Caloundra), drank white wine (well I did) and admired […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.zelmastrip.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}