After a rather hectic time in Sydney, we packed our bags as well as packed in smoking and drinking for a full on new year detox ;o) So far no smoking but have slipped a few times on the booze. (Try not drinking on holiday - it's impossible!)
We flew to Brisbane where we picked up our hire car having decided not to do Greyhound buses. In the end they ended up more expensive than some of the flights we found so we opted for the car as you can get off the beaten track a little more.
We didn't hang around in Brisbane too long as we have been getting a little bored of cities and wanted to make a break for the beach or countryside as quickly as possible. Having the car was wicked! Instead of heading for the 'Gold Coast' (party town) we decided to head north to the 'Sunshine Coast' as partying wasn't exactly in the 'detox rule book'!
The drive was amazing - lots of long roads in the middle of big open spaces, plenty of farm land with the odd mountain here and there. Along the way we stopped at the Glasshouse Mountains which are amongst thousands of hectares of commercial forestland. The highest mountain was just over 500m which when you think about the trek in Nepal is nothing, but they still looked pretty big!
Our main goal was to reach Noosa by early morning so we could find ourselves some cool backpacker accommodation in town. Noosa is really nice beach town with a suave village feel. What we didn't realise that the entire east coast Australian population (well it felt like it) love to go to Noosa for their holidays - this meant that we were driving around for hours trying to find a decent bed for the night. Eventually we found this wicked place just out of town that was also a winery (bonus), it was really secluded and had a lush pool. We even got to cook our own meal that night too as they allowed us to use our BBQ - you may think we are a bit weird getting excited about cooking for ourselves but seriously when you have visited as many restaurants as we have it is a real novelty ;o)
The beaches on the sunshine coast are really nice and there are plenty of them so we managed to get some chill time on the beach along the way.
We only stayed in Noosa 1 night and then we turned around and started our journey back to Brisbane. On the drive back we passed through this cute little town called Maroochydore where there is a huge lake and river heading out to the ocean. We hired a little speed boat which was fun and cruised about for a while. We were given a map and instructsions on what markings to look for so you don't drive into shallow water - we forgot these a couple of times and found ourselves in really shallow water. Luckily we didn't ground the boat (much) and got back safely without being stuck on an island or drifting out to sea. It was fun messing around in boats for a while anyway ;o)
Our last night on the sunshine coast was in Caloundra which is a rather non-descript town but nice enough. We had great fish and chips and watched the sunset on the beach - nice!
So with no rest for the wicked we were back in Brisbane within a couple of days to catch a flight heading further north where we will pick up another boat - this time a proper sailing yacht - sweetie darling.