We couldn’t check in at our CP in Brisbane until 2pm and the traffic heading south from Maroochydore on a workday morning isn’t pretty, so had to take our time this morning, lol. An easy start to the day again, I don’t know how we do it! Deb looked out the front door and her first reaction was, “Oh wow, can you see the rainbow?” and then a bit of dismay when she realised the view also contained a whole lot of high rise buildings, not a sight we were used to.
We watched a bit of the Olympics while we were letting the morning slip away a bit. Australia played Venezuela in the men’s basketball so that featured on the TV from about 8am. We were up about 12 points at half time so I packed up the outside of the van, well everything except the power. With a few minutes to go in the 4th Quarter there was no way Australia could lose so we put the TV away, the aerial down, the power off and hooked the van up to the car and drove out of the park at about 10am.
Our first planned stop was Gerrads Lookout in the Mooloolaba hinterland. The morning was overcast after some night rain, and the air was hazy. We had been looking forward to vast views down the coast, but the haze and overcast conditions took the edge off the view. I am sure it would be magnificent on a clear day.
Our next stop was Montville, a small village in the “mountains”. We managed to get a park for the car and van on the edge of the strip shop area. It reminded us both of the small towns around the country that we both enjoy. A mix of shops from local artisan traders to beautiful décor shops, to quirky little shops full of interesting things, and of course your usual “Tourist” shops.
We then moved onto Melany, but were disappointed with the look of it. It just looked like any other country town, so we didn’t stop, rather we drove straight through and onto the McCarthy Lookout over the Glasshouse Mountains. We found the lookout carpark and thankfully there was only one other car there and we managed to take up half the car park with our rig. We got out and soaked up the view, before making lunch in the van while we admired the view from the comfort of the van.
The Glasshouse Mountains
After lunch we plugged the address of our Brisbane CP into the GPS and set off. I forgot to mention that the roads up to the lookouts and “mountain” villages were steep, and then “Very Steep” according to the road signs! (7 deg incline going up to 12 deg). Needless to say (and for Deb’s sanity) I took it very easy coming back down being chased by the van!
It wasn’t long before we were back on the highway and then with about 50km to go we started to come into heavy traffic. This was something we both knew would happen, but NOT 50km out of Brisbane. The traffic remained heavy all the way to and through Brisbane. The GPS decided to play games with me and sent me on a couple of interesting turns, first it got me to turn off the highway then to immediately make a u-turn to go back onto the highway. The next it tried to get me to do a couple of illegal turns, one into oncoming traffic and the next into a narrow private dead end road!! Luckily after the first hiccup, I was a bit wary of its turn suggestions, it was harrowing!
But we made it to our Eight Mile Plains CP without any real drama (nothing a beer wouldn’t fix anyway) and were checked in and settled by 3pm.
We needed a top up shop, so I left Deb in the van and went to the local shops, a HUGE Westfield Shopping Centre only about a km up the road. I got there OK, parked no problem, made note of the area I parked in and headed into the shops. I did the shopping and a little Ingress and then do you think I could find where the carpark was, I couldn’t find where the exit was for the car park I had parked in. I retraced my steps a bit, asked for some directions and eventually worked it out, and there was our car, right where I left it. LOL
We had dinner with an old friend of Deb’s, Emily, and a couple of her boys. It was fun catching up with her and sharing stories with her and the boys. Her boys are all very personable and all have interesting stories, we had a good night with them.
Tomorrow we venture into Brisbane to see a bit of the city.
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Great post Greg, had a few chuckles, Love Tom and Von xoxo