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Ken found this beaut little spot. We are wanted to do a bit more free camping and in particular try and always find a good free camp on ‘Free Camp Friday’. The drive in had a few interesting points for Goldilocks. It is not recommend for van our size but Ken did an amazing job getting through some narrow passages and we now having 2 ARB tyre deflators and let the 8 tyres down twice as fast. Just need to teach the kids this one and Ken and I can just stay in the cool car. 😉

Arriving close to sunset and with cattle roaming round it was beautiful. It’s a popular spot so we didn’t have it to ourself but it was spacious enough.

No denying we are in croc country now. Signs everywhere with warnings and then a memorial to the fella who was taken while launching his boats here, yep it really happens and happened right here for Neville John Olh. So why are there folk still fishing off the waters edge? I supsose it’s a matter of perspective, we are still more likely to be a road fatality than taken by a croc, but we don’t think twice about jumping in the car. However when it comes to crocs the 3 rules we are working with are, don’t go in the water, near the water or over the water.

Crocs aside the vista was spectacular. Sweeping views across the bay, mangroves, mountains in mist, roaming cattle and vast tidal changes to the landscape making it a most remarkable camp site.

We all enjoyed the change of pace that free camping offers and decided to stay two nights. With no where to go or be it’s a chance to relax and catch up with MORE bits and bobs about the van, spend time with the girls, find firewood, sit around campfires, and the girls love to get their toys out enjoy some creative play.

Free camping is definitely our favorite way to over night and we hope to do more as we make our way to Cape York.

After Fraser we overnighted at Tin Can Bay again, before pushing north. Needing to get a move on and get some kilometers clocked today we past a few places we would like to have stopped at. But we have realized you just cant see everything. Being in school holidays now we have booked ahead and the kids are going to love this one. A Discovery Park with bouncing pillow, water slides, bmx track and more.

With so much at the park to entertain the kids it was a great opportunity for Ken and I to catch up on a few things and after 5 days on Fraser Island washing was top of the list. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t kind, being humid and overcast, getting anything dry was challenging. It felt like I was chasing up and waiting for washing machines and dryers to be finished of free for two entire days. And having put over $20 worth of one dollar coins into the machines. I am certainly glad we have our own matchine in the vans and can avoid using the machines in the caravan parks most of the time. Just the shear volume this time and the weather got the better of our little 2kg washer.

Yeppon is just north of Rockhampton on the Capricorn coast. I was expecting a sleepy little place but not the case. Anything that has a McDonalds, Target, BigW is considered civilization. The Keppel Islands are just off the coast, Great Keppel being the largest and most well known.

We have lost a little momentum on planning and sight seeing but have engrossed ourselves in an audiobook detailing the life and history of Captain James Cook. It’s has gripped both Ken and my interest and has meant we haven’t been blogging or planning much. This contributed to our failing to catch the ferry in time to make it to Great Keppel for the day. We must have looked quiet rediculous turning up an hour late for the only ferry of the day. So disorganized but on the upside, it did provide Llewella with the opportunity to learn a new phase, which she delighted in repeating over and over.

“Oh no, missed boat!”

”Yes love we missed to the boat.”

Epic fail Mum and Dad, and bless her, she reminded us all day and the next day and every time she sees a boat now.

So while in Yeppon we enjoyed a couple of meals in town, a little bit of shopping, a beautiful drive and drone flight at Sandy Point, a bike ride, explored the foreshore with its amazing new lagoo / water park and the water slides in the caravan park were a hit.

Next we are looking to do some free camping. Having been parked under a pretty large tree here it meant we needed to give the solar panels a good clean. With the cloudy days we have been having and free camping ahead of us we are going to need all the solar power we can get.

Fraser is a bit of a ‘Mecca’ for 4WD enthusiasts and it’s somewhere I’ve always wanted to visit. With us having to get up to Cape York and back before we head to the UK we did wonder if we had the time, but with being so close and unsure when we’d be in this area again it wasn’t too hard to commit.

Colin the service manger at Zone RV suggested we take the Van, but this early into the trip and not yet quite knowing how well I can tow tonne 3.5T through soft sand we had settled for leaving the van in Tin Can Bay, taking AUdrey the cruiser and staying at Kingfisher Bay resort on the west of the island.

We caught the ferry at River Heads, just outside of Harvey Bay. The weather was gorgeous and we could see a couple of dolphins playing just where the barge was moored before coming into pick us up.

Thirty minutes later we we’re rolling off up the wooden pier to the resort. I did wonder  if I needed to deflate the tyres before getting on the island but the resort was mostly tarmaced – the sand would come later!

The bay looked fantastic with a few sailing boats moored up – reminded me very much of Monkey Mia in WA. After getting ourselves orientated we headed back down the beach to watch the sunset before dinner. What a sunset it was – the best so far of the trip.

 

After a buffet breakfast (the girls do love a buffet) we aimed to go visit the east of the Island and the wreck of the SS Maheno.

It was nearly right way we left the comfort of the bitumen and really got to understand what is meant by Fraser being the largest sand island in the world. Dropped the tire pressures to 25psi all round and drove over the Dingo Proof electrified cattle grid that helped protect the resort.

The tracks are narrow, with regular passing points but go straight through and up and down the island cutting through the differing forests. The tracks are not particularly tricky, but you do have to concentrate having to slow right down regularly so I don’t have our passengers and fridge bouncing off the roof or slicing open a tire with a jagged tree root. 

The colours of forrest and sounds of the birds are soul warming. My new favourite – the Eastern Whip Bird – or as I like to call it the ‘Whip-Saw Bird’ sounds powerful, piercing through the trees. 

It takes quite a while (at least an hour) to cross the width of the island to get to the Eastern beaches, but you are well rewarded leaving the closed in forest track and opening up to the wide expanse of Eastern beaches and the constant rolling waves of the sea.

We learned that the Western end of the Island is receding by 1cm per year while the Eastern end is growing at 2cm. So the Island is constantly getting bigger.

Driving up the beach at 80km/h is fun. You feel the sand through the steering wheel, there is a bit of looseness and a lag when turning. The word that comes to mind when trying to describe it is ‘flowing’, it kind’a reminds me of skiing!

There were a few occasions when we had to brake hard at washouts (caused by creeks running into the sea) that suddenly appeared in view, sliding 3.5 tonnes of car up the beach. A couple of times we needed to reverse a bit after these quick stops, to go either closer to the sea or island to find a less steep point to cross.

Leonie deciding to drive up one such ‘washout’ which turned out to be a reasonable creek!

When we’ve been driving north up the beach for at least 30 minutes you start to understand the scale of Fraser. It’s length is about 120km (same length as Hardrian’s Wall), and you can basically drive the whole Eastern side.

Eventually a large shape comes into view on the beach way in the distance through the sea spray, It’s awesome driving closer up the beach and seeing the shape come into focus and eventually drive right up beside Fraser’s famous landmark – the wreck of the Mahino.

Turns out the SS Mahino was built in Dumbarton, Scotland which is less than 5 miles away from where I was born!

And just to give us the prefect Fraser shot – a Dingo rocks up.

This is what the Mahino looked like in it’s heyday as an ocean liner transporting passengers between New Zealand and Australia around 1905.

All the kids wanted to do the next day was chill by the restort pool. So  we went for a (long!) wander down the beach toward the old jetty. It turned out to be very long walk, but the girls had a ball especially seeing the thousands of soldier crabs marching down the beach.

Fraser’s other most famous attraction Lake Makenzie was on the agenda the next day, but the weather was looking a bit iffy! 

Sure enough, we we’re on the beach for about 20 mins and it started to bucket it down. So  we went to one of the fenced (dingo proof) picnic areas to have our luxury packed lunch the resort had made for us and I decided to go for a short walk along a tiny bit of Frasers great walk which goes through the length of the island.  

On the walk I came across this waterhole/billabong through the trees and knew it would make some great footage/photo, which I ended up entering in a Fraser calendar competition. Of course, another downpour occurred with me 2km from the lake. Forest was beautiful in the rain though. 

We checked out the fine dining restaurant that night and couldn’t go past their Fraser interpretation of Chilli Sand Crab – correct choice! The girls, with Charlotte in particular love going to proper restaurants and mostly behave brilliantly, meaning Leonie and I can have a great time as well.

Another big forest and eastern beach driving day with some great winter weather took us to Champagne Pools near the northern tip of the Island and Eli Creek on the way back.

The Champagne Pools get its name from the way the ocean waves spill over as froth into the natural pools. The girls loved it, the colours we’re magical and there we’re even a few large fish in the pools. (Nice recommendation Shane V).

It’s quite amazing to find out that Eli Creek’s flows 4 million listers of fresh water into the ocean every hour! It’s a popular spot and the girls had a ball floating down it twice.

On our final day, as we planned to leave Fraser via the other ferry point on the south of the island taking us to Inskip Point, we had time to squeeze in a sea kayak to a little mangrove lined creek just north of the resort in the morning. Leonie loves canoeing, but it turned out Llewella wasn’t that keen so it ended up being quite stressful intermingled with some real beauty.

The drive to the souther tip was majestic given the weather really turned it on. We watched a pod of dolphins while waiting on the beach for the ferry to pick us up. There is facebook page called ‘I got bogged at Inskip Point’, so I made sure I was in low-range coming off the ferry and kept the gas on till clear of the point, turned out to be a non event, the rains must have made the sand nice and firm.

Easily go back to Fraser, we really only saw a fraction of it, might even take the van next time, or better still just the 4WD and a couple mates.

Is another one of those charming little towns you’d probably only visit if you were travelling up the coast or lived in the area and wanted to get away somewhere sleepy for the weekend. 

Leonie had booked us in for over a week as we planned to leave the Van here while we visited Fraser Island. We arrived later than we planned as I spent a few hours at Zone RV HQ on the way up while they diagnosed why our fridge would only work on 240v and not 12v. 

We’re finding out when your home is the van – any sort of repair or maintenance can be a bit of ‘federal case’ – the logistics of what you do when the van is being repaired, especially if you need to move out and in again can be a right pain. In this case we we’re glad we didn’t have to empty our fridge/freezer or have it completely replaced. Zone arranged for a Dometic engineer to visit us in the park the next morning – one PCB swapout and all was well.

The late arrival meant it was easy to justify getting Fish ‘n Chips from the ‘Snack Shack’ as recommended by the park owner. Correct Decision. Turned out to be the best fish ‘n chips we’ve had so far across 3 states. It was the salad that made all the difference – massive amounts of really crispy green lettuce leaves combined with delicious ‘Red Emporer’ fillets made it 5 star! Still not sold on the need for grated cheese with a green salad though. Highly Recommended.

Next day, we got the bikes down and all five of us went for a ride to explore the town. There is a great path that starts near the CP and takes you right to the marina. We past a great kids park, the ‘Snack Shack’, Fresh fish Market and found out where you can feed the famous Dolphins of Tin Can Bay at the marina.

I love these bike rides with the whole family, it’s really quality family time, and I’m so glad we made the call the to bring the bikes on the trip even though they weigh quite a bit, we’ve used them loads.  

Rest of the day was spent chilling around the CP – the girls we’re entertained till night time playing with some new friends they met in the CP. At every opportunity they are frantically asking can we go back and play with our friends.

This is only their second time on the trip  that there have been other kids in the park and they’ve had a chance to make friends. I suspect as we head north this will happen more often – kids are so good at making friends quickly.

We headed out to Rainbow Beach for the day and planned to drive the beach for a bit and have lunch. I had read about the ‘Carlo Sand Blow’ and it being great for sand surfing so we stopped in town to hire a couple of Sand boards and found our way there. 

It’s a great big sand dune that stretched all the way to the ocean with fantastic views down to ‘Double Island’. We all had a blast flying down the steepest part of the dune but the lady in the hire shops was right – it’s exhausting climbing back up it! 

Onward to Rainbow beach itself – I had planned to maybe drive on the beach as far as the lagoons at ‘Double Island’ but we had left it too late, the tide had turned and I didn’t fancy being the subject of one of those facebook vids of your 4wd bogged and flooded on a rising tide!

So we setup on the safe side of the rocks for probably the most relaxing afternoon on the beach since all the work I had been doing recently and out time in Byron Bay.

We couldn’t pass up the opportunity of getting some great photos of the girls at this clever piece of public art in Rainbow Beach before heading home for the day. Fortuitously, the girls had a rainbow outfit, perfect!

On our last day, before heading to Fraser Island we just had to go and check out the ‘Dolphin Experience’.

It was a lovely morning with the river glassy. For $10, you got to get up close to the dolphins who come say hello most mornings and feed them. 

After experiencing the ‘Dolphin Feeding’ lottery of Monkey Mia in WA and the careful controls to ensure the level of feeding does not impact the natural hunting abilities of the Dolphins, we we’re a bit surprised to learn everyone would get a chance to feed these Dolphins. 

However we only fed them very small fish, and we learned the feeding only provides a very small percentage of their daily requirements. Needless to say the girls loved it and it was well worth getting up early for.

After a great breaky at the Dolphin Cafe – it was on to Fraser Islan

It was going to be a short travel day today so we stopped along the way to visit the Big Pineapple. Seems it may have seen better days but we still enjoyed our visit. With an ice cream and ride on the little train that takes you through some forest, orchard, and a zoo the kids thought it was great.

Our next stay was at Lansborough Pines Caravan Park. A beautiful setting and well maintained park nestle amoungst trees on a little man made lake it had a lovely rural feel. With goats just along the fence line chickens and a wide variety of water birds there was always something to observe and many distractions for the girls. The goats were a big hit and nicely fattened up after our visit.

Landsborough itself is at the base of the Blackall Ranges. It came to being as a “port of call” for the Cobb and Co coaches stopping for refreshment but became a larger town supporting the early logging industry. Once gold was discovered further north in Gympie it grew even more as the rush for Gold brought larger numbers of people through the region. It was durning this period it was renamed Landsborough after William Landsborough (born in Scotland) the first European explorer to cross Australia north to south.

Our first day was a quiet one around the caravan park, schooling, washing, cleaning, working and playing. The next day we packed a picnic lunch and where making our way to Kondalilla Falls National Park for a picnic and walk. Fortuitously we stopped at Gerrard’s Lookout to take in the views and grab a coffee and it turns out Mr Gerrard not only ownes the property but makes coffee and offers great tourist advice. He whipped out a map and showed us a fabulous circuit to drive and spots to stop. The coffee was good, as was the map and we ended up having a cracker of a day.

 

We did a beautiful walk to the rock pools in the national park. The trees were stunning, views vast and rock pools freezing. You could only dip a toe in briefly before it was burning with cold. It was only 4 km’s with about 150 stairs and there was much complaining from the peanut gallery but they loved it in the end

We decided we had earned afternoon tea so stopped at the Flaxton Barn and had a best lemon meringue pie and Devonshire tea you could hope for. Completely worth the calories!

The rest of the drive was gorgeous. Lush rural landscapes, rolling hills and climbing peaks, bathed in the light of late afternoon.

A stop at Kenilworth treated us to a fun and creative playground. We have come across a number of playgrounds with equipment we’ve never seen before. It’s with great delight that the girls try it out and Ken and I have been known to get in on the action.

It was getting late and the setting sun was casting a lovely light but we weren’t going to make it home before dark so we opted to pop into a German restauant in Maleny for dinner. What a Fantastic place! A family run business only opening two nights a week, with spectacular views of the Glasshouse Mountains. The hostess/owner was so good, making us welcome and really caring for all her customers, it was old fashioned service. The food didn’t disappoint either.

All in all, the day was one that nourished all the senses.

The following day we only ventured out in the afternoon to visit Montville and views of the Glasshouse Mountains, in daylight this time. Beautiful but chilli, the weather has really become cold with a bitterness to it. Mental note, really must press on to the north!

 

That night we stayed in a cabin in the caravan park so that Ken could get an early start and hitch up the van to get it down to Brisbane to have the suspension serviced. Us girls just hung around Landsboroughs cafe’s, playgrounds and the caravan park, on the look our for any cats but none to be found. Folks in the park were very kind offering us shelter and water as the day went on. We must have looked a little strange sitting on our empty camp site with no van and we put on a fabulous show with a massive meltdown over school work. Argh, same shit, different scenery. Still the scenery was lovely and school outdoors beats the alternative, even if it was bitterly cold.

Our last day here was one we had all been anticipating with excitement, a visit to Australia Zoo. And it didn’t disappoint. It really is a wonderful zoo, the animal enclosures are really fabulous for the animals and all day you see animals out and about walking or being walked around the zoo giving you an opportunity to get up close and speak to the keepers.

 

 

The girls both did an animal experience, Charlotte and Ken with dingos and Georgia and I with a couple of wombats. They loved this and it was a great educational experience. Turns out wombats are very stubborn and can be unfriendly so while we learnt a lot there wasn’t the cuddles Georgia was hoping for. The show at the crocoseum was terrific and again educational for us especially as we are heading for croc country in the next few weeks.

We had a full day but didn’t get to do all we would have liked to, the option to do it over two days may have been best, but as always, so grateful to be able to share these experiences at all. The lovely thing is the girls have both been inspired by the message of wildlife conservation which is what Steve and the Irwin family are so passionate about.

The added little bonus was the introduction to Bindi’s series of books, well written, engaging and always have a great message. After three months of reading the same things over and over this is been a breath of fresh air for us all.

There is much more we would have liked to explore around the Sunshine Coast. Striking a balance between work, maintenance and repairs have meant we may just have to visit here again. I’m already looking forward to it. 😉 For now, north to a bit more warmth.

After Byron bay we decided to park up the van and stay in an apartment for four days and explore the city of Brisbane (we couldn’t park the van in the middle of the city because there where no caravan parks.)

We arrived late in the afternoon, dad had to drop off the car so we where all wondering wether he went over the top (which he some times dose).The billiding had 74 stories, and geuss what… we are on the 73!!!!!! I am a tinny baby bit afraid of heights, but the view made up for it all.

On our next day we got up and ready to explore Brisbane. We walked along South Bank and then we dicided to catch river cruise and they had morning tea, yum.

 

Then we went for lunch, on to the museum and shopping for a new out fit. It was such a long day and I just wanted to get home. That night we ordered take away to the room.

The next day we mainly just explored but in the evening we went to…….ALADIN 🧞‍♂️It was amazing the dancing and all.

 

The last day we went to …… ……. DREAMWORLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So much fun, even if we missed all the scary rides. I really enjoyed the water park.

I loved Brisbane! 😀

 

Lotte out 🦄.

 

We had arrived at Coolum Beach and were unpacking the van when this little kitty cat came to say hello. She was a  friendly cat, as soon as she saw us she came running to us and smooched me. She seemed to have lots to tell me.

I  patted her and she followed me up to the van. I must have turned around to talk to someone or get something from the van and when I looked back, poof, she vanished into the bushes.

cats of Australia out😼

 

Our final week in Coolum was flat out but not from all the sight seeing. There was a few little follow up issues with Goldilocks (12 volt system, fridge, fly screen replacement, hydronic jack replacement) and the car was now booked in for a bit of work and service.  However, frustratingly each time we fixed one issue, it has created another.

Eventually Zone RV got it together and have been great at getting stuff sorted for the van as have the folks we have dealt with for the car. Having these follow up issues sorted in a timely manner with no fuss has been fabulous, allowing us to get back on the road. Everyone seems so layer back and cruisey, haven’t met a bad or grumpy Queensland yet! Should note there are a lot of Kiwi’s here and we always love the Kiwi’s.

We got the van back late on the Friday and after getting it cleaned and re loaded we checked into the caravan park on the Saturday. We were all thrilled to get back in the van and with the caravan park being right on the beach what’s not to love.

During this week Ken was still heavily involved with his work so it was full on for everyone.

We did manage to have an afternoon in Noosa, hire a couple of boogie boards for the kids and do a cruise on the Maroochy River.

The boogie boards were a bit of fun. Initially we just walked down the beach from our camp and the girls got in the water there. The surf life saving club and flags were probably 750m up the beach and we were just being lazy. I stayed out of the water with Lulu but was becoming increasingly nervous. The surf was reasonably rough, the girls were out there on their own and with Lulu in arms I may not be able to make a quick intervention if they got into trouble.

It had just dawned on me how stupid this was. Why was I standing on the beach fretting when we should just be up the beach between the flags where i’d have help if needed! And then, like the voice of god, over a loud speaker all the way up the beach, we were told to get between the flags. As there were no other crazy people in the water that afternoon we made the walk of shame up the beach and Ken arrived not long after. It was only then I got in the water with the girl and felt how strong the current was. It was a great reminder to ALWAYS swim between the flags and gave us an opportunity to discuss tide, currents, rips, water safety.

All that aside we had some fun that afternoon and the conditions the next day were even better. If you ask me, it was a little too cold to swim but the girls just loved it and don’t feel the cold. The Sunshine Coast is the perfect place to swim with shark nets in place and the stingers (stinging jellyfish) don’t come down this far or the croc’s for that matter, but with each day sitting in the low to mid twenty’s it was a little cool for me.

A morning cruising up the Maroochy was very pleasant and a chance to learn a little more about the area. We had dropped the car off for some work and caught a taxi into Maroochydore for breakfast. The cruise then took us up the river with commentary about the ecosystem along the way. We stopped at the Maroochy Wetland Sanctuary and had the chance to have a walk, explore and observe the mangroves and spot some fiddler crabs. Tiny little things with one large orange claw.

Treated to a Devonshire tea and the Dreamtime story of how Mount Coolum and the Maroochy River was created was a delight. I just love the Dreamtime stories about how the land was formed and created. Upon hearing the Dreaming story its hard not to feel some connections to the land or scenery you are experience. Just another beautiful part of our first peoples culture.

 

And that’s a wrap for Coolum. After three weeks here we have decided to move a little south to be closer to Brisbane for one final bit of maintence. Hopefully this should be close enough for Ken to just pop down to Brisbane for the day but give us more of a chance to explore more of The Sunny Coast and The Hinterlands.

Having had two wonderful and full days on the Sunshine Coast today we were visiting the Eumundi Markets. We had heard they were probably the best in the area and we were not disappointed. Being a Saturday we had no schooling, so got an early start, which also meant a chilli start. Endless markets stalls of beautifully quality food, artistry and wares of all kinds. Something for everyone and busy but not over crowded with a really lovely feel.

The kids loved the markets, food, crafts, Bonsai Trees, face painting and meeting a beautiful rainbow macaw called Jasmine. Hopefully we’ll get the chance to come back.

After three busy days we opted for a few quieter ones around Coolum. Being a Sunday morning we enjoyed a slow start before heading out for brunch. We had been wanting to try a cafe called Raw Energy. Healthy, simple but delicious. Turns out they are a franchise and there is one in Fremantle. Bec and Bruce might be making a few extra trips to Freo this year.

Sunday afternoon we caught up with my cousins Bryn and Renee and their lovely little one Darcy. With our family spread all over the country and the world it is always lovely to catch up.

Monday we stayed local again, school, brunch, shopping, sorting and organizing before Mum and Dad head home the next day. We wrapped up our week together with a nice meal at home and a family talent show.

Lulu performed her sublime dance moves to her favorite tune, (still Gangnam Style), Dad gave us a couple of poem’s the last of which was more of a ditty that mentioned the word fart, the girls were a little surprised but amused. Mum and I did a rendition of My Favorite things with various props and actions to add a little flare, fun and chaos and the girls did a medley of tunes and dialogue from Aladdin. It was a memorable evening  but hopefully the footage will never see the day of light.

Before taking mum and dad to the airport they minded the kids for me while I was able to pick up a few outstanding items from office works, bunnings and Howard’s storage world. I was searching for the location of these stores here on the sunny coast and noticed they were all on the same street, my lucky day. What are the chances they might be in the same complex I wondered and I hit the jackpot! Small pleasures not wasting time finding my way all over Maroochydore.

We are so blessed and grateful to have such wonder loving family around us. It was magic to spend a week here with Mum and Dad and the granddaughters just loved it. Thank you and love you very much!!!!!! So glad the weather held out during your stay and hope you recover from the head cold and lack of sleep.

With Ken not arriving back in Coolum until the next night us girls have had the next day to ourselves and after a bit of schooling I wanted to visit the wee village of Monteville in the hinterland of the Sunshine Coast. In my mind I imagined a quaint little village and that is what we got. What I hadn’t imagined was how cool it was going to be. A cold front was coming in again and with the elevation into the hills it chilled right off.

The that didn’t stop us from having a delightful leisurely potter about the craft stores, galleries, fabulous toy shop and other lovely little boutique stores. It was a great choice beacause Ken would have not enjoyed this pottering and I would have felt pressured to not keep him waiting in the street too long. So a perfect few hours and lunch in Monteville and then on to Melany Botanical Gardens and Bird World.

Upon arriving here I was a little surprised at the cost and realised we could have spent at least half a day here not just the hour and a half we had left. With the last aviary tour just about to start we jump on that. With Lotte not being comfortable around birds after a spring magpie swooping encounter in Perth this was a face your fear experience for her and she embraced it. I was very proud of her and she did great.

Three large aviary housing birds of differing sizes they were mostly very friendly and definitely a little cheeky. Being totally unprepared we didn’t have the correct shoes. Both Georgia and I coped a lot of attention from the birds trying to eat our sandles and they did eventually break Georgia’s. They were also keen on Gigi’s glasses but we got of lightly compared to another lady who’s jacket with press studs and zip was totally ruined by the time she left.

The gardens were lovely and the views of the Glasshouse Mountains stunning. The girls were very disappointed to have to leave. There imaginations just came to life in these gardens. Hopefully we can return with Ken.

The drive home was going to take us past Maroochydore Airport and right on time to collect Ken. The rain set in just in time for Ken’s return. He left here in the rain, coped rotten weather in Perth, and the rain was back again for his arrival. Hopefully he will get so experience  some of the Sunny Coast as we have.