Down Under '09 : Chapter 3

Australia Day on the Sunshine Coast

Australians celebrate Australia Day on every 26 January. Australia Day is a national day of Australia. It commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788, the unfurling of the British flag at Sydney Cove and the proclamation of British sovereignty over the eastern seaboard of Australia. This year it fell on Monday, so most Aussies had a long weekend to their disposal. Majority of Aussies born with surfboard tied to their feet. It is only natural for them to flock the beaches comes holidays. So I guess this is a good dad for a trip to Australia’s famous Sunshine Coast. 

We rented a car from AVIS in Fortitude Valley and drove north. It was a great feeling to drive in Brisbane again. I did not even use the map they provided. I just drove based on the memories and visualised the route I took several times eight ten years ago. There was a lot of roadwork along Bruce Highway. We were lucky not to get caught in the holiday rush traffic.

We took a detour from Bruce Highway to Steve Irwin Way and then onto Glasshouse Mountains Scenic Route. The drive along this scenic country route was really pleasant. It was totally different scenery from Qatar. It was so green with fruit farms, grass land and pine forest with Glasshouse Mountains as backdrop. It was only disrupted intermittently by quaint villages and towns along the way to the lookout. The view from the lookout was simply stunning. Glasshouse Mountains is a series of ancient volcanoes rising up from the otherwise flat Australian landscape.   

From the Lookout, we came back on Bruce Highway and headed north to Noosa. Noosa is my favourite beach town on Sunshine Coast. It is more elegant and subtle than its cousins on the Gold Coast and apparently not very touristy. We were the only Asians there. The streets of this small beach town was full of holiday makers mainly young Aussies. Everybody was in a joyous mood and some were extremely high spirited. Singing and screaming, proudly draped in Australian Flags. Most had their body painted with the Australian colours or had a flag sticker on. Not to be outdone, we also got a flag on our faces. 

 headed for the beach after a quick lunch and finished with our travel ritual (shopping that is). We had so much fun playing with the waves and swim in the ocean. Well this is Noosa Beach! Sam, who wasn’t very adventurous decided to play in the shallows looking for stones to bring home as souvenir after repeatedly failed to transcend the point breaks. He found one peculiar looking stone, It was not hard, but rather soft. Out of curiosity, he smelled the thing. It was not a stone at all but a human faeces. You cannot imagine how funny it was. We still talk about it until now.

We left Noosa just around 5 pm and drove south along the beautiful coastal road. We stopped at Coolum for some pictures and admiring the panorama of the Pacific Ocean from the high cliff of Point Ferry. The drive back to Brisbane was nice too as we pass the many towns and resorts along the Sunshine Coast.