Left Miami on Thurs. 15th and headed up the Esplanade for a look through Surfer’s Paradise before rejoining the Pacific Motorway up to Brisbane. Surfer’s is just big and glitzy with the obvious huge number of high-rises etc. The girls all got a kick out of seeing it all.
After this we gunned the Mill. Paj. back out on to the highway and continued our quest northward. The aim today was to push through Brisbane and head to the Sunshine Coast with the possibility of a stay at Noosa.
The trip up was pretty uneventful. Cling and Clang continued their quest to watch every single D.V.D. that they had as many times as possible.
Liv and Rube buried either their head in a book, ears in an ipod or eyes in the computer whilst they were able to get Internet reception.
Andy did some research via the Internet on possible places to stay.
The road from the Gold Coast to Sunshine coast was Motorway the whole way, so no traffic lights once we left Surfer’s. Pretty handy!!
Arrived at Noosa by about 2.30pm to find no accommodation at the park by the river. Disappointing because the park looked really relaxed. Turned out that the Noosa food and Wine festival was on for the weekend, so everything was booked out. So we headed for Tewantin right next to Noosa.
Here we stayed at, despite what the reviews said, the Tewantin-Noosa Caravan Park. This was another very pretty park set amongst palm trees with a little creek flowing through it.
We were staying here for 1 night before we set off into the Cooloola / Great Sandy National Park for 5 nights.
We set up very efficiently by about 5.00 pm and did all that we needed to. At about 7.00 pm it started to rain. It was the first real rain that we have had since we began the trip. Boy did it rain!!!
The Chariot of Love stood up to it though and we all awoke in the morning to blue skies and dry sleeping bags. What a bonus.
Day 53……To Freshwater Creek in Cooloola / Great Sandy Nat. Park.
The tent was still quite damp as we packed it up but this was no problem as we were going to be unpacking it again in a few hours. We drove out of the park and down the street to the Qld National Parks Info. Centre and booked our permit for the next 6 days.
Then back into town to stock up, as there would be no stores or supplies for that time.
Cooloola Nat. Park is adjacent to Fraser Island, but just south of it and still on the mainland.
The terrain is very similar to Fraser Is. (sandy with rainforests) and you can drive on the beach. We drove through some light 4wd sections of the park, which gave me a chance to test out the car in these conditions whilst towing a fully laden camper trailer. So far so good.!!!
Then we got to 16 km of some serious sand based driving in order to reach Freshwater Creek campsite. The Millennium Pajero powered through this with the “Chariot” following behind, with ease. The kids really enjoyed this part of the trip with us travelling through open bushland as well as dense shadowed rainforest with brush turkeys and all types of birdlife plentiful and Daisy yelling out from the back of the car “It feels like we’re floating!” as the car wallowed along the sandy tracks. We even saw 2 dingos beside the road as we were getting close to the site.
The Freshwater creek campsite is very peaceful and secluded and located about 300m from the beach. Although it is quite isolated it is a popular destination for fishing types, surfers and campers alike and the beach is wide, clean and offers access to 4wd’s along its entirety (approx 70 km). This was a surprising aspect of the park as during the weekend, there were literally hundreds of vehicles that made their way up and down the coast from Tewantin. There were campsites in the dunes along the beach, where people could just park their campers, tents etc for any period of time, so many would obtain their permit enter the N.P. and find a spot along the beach to set up their rigs for some surf fishing.
It has been great to once again have the opportunity to “camp”, without the luxury of power, rather than just stay in caravan parks. We set up quickly once again and were very soon having dinner and into bed. An unfortunate aspect of many of the Qld N. P's is that there are no campfires allowed. The evenings were surprising chilly so there was only one thing for this and that was to jump into bed. One particular evening we were all the sack by 8.45 pm. I said to the girls that this is a joke!!! I haven’t been in bed at this time since I was about 10 years old.
When we awoke next morning we had another unfortunate “discovery”, when Olivia jumped up onto the roof rack and discovered that virtually all our luggage that had been stored in the rack sack on the roof was wet from the downpour when we were in Tewantin the 2 nights previously. This meant of course that the area around our campsite became a makeshift clothesline for a day or 2. Bit of a bummer but we managed to get it all dry.
The Freshwater Creek site is however, very well set up for campers and day visitors alike with hot showers ($1 for 4 mins) and toilet facilities available. During the weekend the area was quite busy, but by Monday we virtually had the campsite to ourselves, except for a couple of retirees (Len & Dorothy), from Brisbane, who were camped about 40 metres from us. They were a very friendly couple and Daisy and Jasmine soon had them somewhat entranced, especially when Daisy walked up to Len in her Snow White outfit and started curtseying to him and Jassy constantly informed him of the number of sleeps it was until her birthday!?!?!!?
We took the opportunity to do a bit of beach driving ourselves, up to Double Island Point to the lighthouse and across to Rainbow Beach, which is the town just below where the barge launches for the trips over to Fraser Island. You can only drive the beaches in the 1&1/2 to 2hrs before and after low tide, so you have to base your sightseeing around these “windows of opportunity”. Thankfully when we were there, low tide was in the early afternoon, so we were able manage a good chunk of sightseeing at a good time of the day. The weather was magnificent and it was quite surreal to be cruising along a beach in a car with the sun shining and the waves breaking.
We spent 5 nights in the park and on the Wednesday we needed to leave to head back down the coast to Maroochydore to meet the Vears. Once again we had to judge our run by the tide, as we needed to head down the beach for 40 kms in order to exit the park. Low tide was at 2.15 pm so we left Freshwater Creek at about 12.50 and made our way down the beach once again with the “Chariot” in tow. By 2.15 pm we were driving on to the barge for the short trip across the Noosa River at Tewantin and back to “civilisation”.
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