Kelly was up at 06:30 and had some coffee going very quickly. She clearly has the process down pat! A little trip planning with Google Maps and we decided to take an alternate route to our destination. Having driven Highway 15 into Warwick we choose a more northerly route to Mooloolaba. Pronounced "Mo-lou-lou-ba"
She is off to the shower now so I had better get moving.... Today's trip will take a little long but we will get a different perspective as there is more farming etc along the way.
After several trips down the stairs, the car was finally loaded!
We departed the motel at 09:30 and headed north through Allora via the A3 then hung a right onto 80... this left the flatter farming lands behind as we started winding our way through Ma Ma Creek, Gratton, then the Gratton -Esk road to... yep Esk. We decided to take a right turn and head down the Atkinson Dam Road to see the RV park. We just wanted to compare their setups with the ones back home in BC etc. Not the same.
It was an earth dam and the water was quite low.
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| A shot of Kelly at the lake. |
We retraced our route and returned to the Gratton -Esk road towards Esk. Kelly did some quick sleuthing and found a nice place to stop for lunch. It was the Nash Gallery & Cafe and it had significant history in the area. The food was very good and we would highly recommend this to anyone traveling in the area. I had the smoked salmon croissant and a vanilla slice. The local birds also enjoy a snack before the table was cleared.
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| It tasted as good as it looked.. best meal by far on this trip! |
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| Mark will tell me what bird this is and I will put the name here :-) |
We joined Highway 85 and headed through Stony Creek, Stanmore, Commissioners Flat and out to Beerwah. A very windy but fun trip through the rural parts of the country. We went by the zoo (which we will get to at some point) and onto Hwy 6, M1 and finally Hwy 70, back to 6 and into Mooloolaba.
We easily found our rental accommodation we booked through Booking.com. called "Beachcomber On The Spit". We had been in touch with the property owner and had the keys in hand shortly after our arrival at 14:35. The key was for #15 but we had booked #14 (The one I originally wanted!) so we tried to confirm with her in case she had been mistaken with the keys as several groups would be checking in today. Nada.. no contact so no joy. The text thread confirmed the unit was #14... oh well #15 is still very nice. We will see how this plays out later.
Numerous trips to the underground garage and we had our luggage all upstairs. It was very convenient as the elevator was 1) close to the car and 2) very close to our room! Bonus! The unit is well appointed and a huge step up from the "work" accommodation in Warwick. I'll take some pictures in the coming days an give everyone a tour.
We went for a walk down to the end of the spit and enjoyed the great views. It was a beautiful park and even had a well hidden geocache placed in it. (Found it)
On the walk back, we checked numerous restaurants in the area.... we will not have any difficulty with nourishment! Back at #15 we did a short search and I decided that we would go to "The Dock" for dinner tonight. It was a short walk from our place to the Wharf area that had many restaurants, bars and kids clothing stores within it's footprint. Plenty to see and do right here.
Dinner was excellent as Kelly feasted on Prawns and Roasted Duck Breast while I suffered through some lamb ribs and a Rib Eye steak. Even Kelly didn't have room for desert... and that is saying something!
After dinner we headed back but made a quick detoured through the RV park just opposite the restaurants. It's always interesting to see the different rigs they have here. Most all are smaller in size and have pop up tops. They are jammed in pretty tight but everyone was enjoying the camping atmosphere... and it was very clean and quiet as well. We could do it :-)
Back at #15, we settled in and I finished today's blog update while Kelly watched some TV.... and cruised the internet for quilting shops close by.
Not 100% sure what's happening tomorrow as we have friends staying in Noosa Head just up the road about 35 minutes... might pop up there. ??
