Tin can bay here we come.

We arrived in Tin Can Bay on the 9th of March for a week and stayed at the Kingfisher Caravan Park. The town is roughly 218km north of Brisbane and has a population of approximately 2000 people, a sleepy hollow that has very little in the way of tourist activities.  The highlight of our one week stay however was feeding the dolphins at the Barnacles point and restaurant.  The dolphins arrive at approximately 7.30 am every morning and interact with the rangers.  We were fortunate to get up close with four of these amazing creatures to feed them .

Shirley feeding the Dolphin

A Bottle nose dolphin's life span is approximately 45-50 years and grows to 3.5 to 4 meters in length.

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This fella has scars on his back brought on by another male.  Obviously fighting over the same female










The second highlight of the week was a day trip to Frazer Island which is a world heritage site and is considered to be the largest sand island in the world.  It is 120 km long and 24 km wide and has pristine beaches and lakes.  Fishing from the beach is awesome and the variety of fish is in abundance.  We had to travel to Inskip Point and met up with our 4 wheel drive coach for a short ferry trip to the bottom of Fraser Island.  The coaches are specially designed to drive on beach sand without getting bogged down and can reach speeds of up to 80 km/h.  They are quite comfortable and we were quite fortunate to have a friendly and informative driver.  We spent the whole day on the island and only stopped for a 40 minute meal break.  We visited Eli creek, Lake McKenzie and the famous Maheno shipwreck as well as the rain forest.

The photos above show Shirley on board the ferry to Frazer Island and the luxury 4 wheel drive coach.  Note the tight squeeze on the ferry and the soft white sand that we were driving on. The photos below show the rain forest, Eli creek, the Maheno shipwreck and the fresh water lake at Lake McKenzie

            
 The squeeze and I at Eli creek .

George Clooney swapped his six pack for a keg

George Clooney look alike, or so I am told.

Lake McKenzie, pure crystal clear water with pure white sand, that is good to exfoliate with and also clean gold jewellery.

On our travels that day, we were fortunate to see two dingoes.  They are wild dogs that live on Frazer Island and have been known to attack small children.

The cherry on the cake that day, was when we decided to take a scenic flight in a small plane which lasted for about 30 minutes.  The plane had a perfect take off and landing on the beach. We were able to fly over some of the lakes and ocean and the views were breath taking.

                                                     The butterfly lake from the air

Fraser Island Coastline

After having had such a wonderful time on Frazer island, we went inland for a bit and visited the small town of Gympie which we were not too impressed with, so done some shopping and visited a Gem stone store and that was basically it.  We then travelled through to Maryborough, which is a city situated on the Mary river on the way to Hervey Bay.  It is a quaint historical town with a beautiful garden called Queens park along the river edge.  Maryborough is also the birth place of the author of Mary Poppins, P.L Travers who was born there in 1899.

Photos below are all from this beautiful garden.

We also went to Rainbow Beach, done a bit more inland touring to Kin Kin, Cooran then back to Tin Can Bay.  As shown on the map the green highlighted route is what we done.  Not much inland traveling/exploring as previous, what we have noticed though is the distances are getting bigger, and a lot of these smaller places are literally dead over the weekends.

Next port of call is Hervey Bay from 16.03.2016 - 23.03.2016

FROGGLES TRAVELS

After months of packing, selling and renting out of properties, we are getting ready to hit the road, and hopefully complete that lap of Australia.

Anticipated departure date is the 26th February 2016 and our first port of call will be Scarborough Holiday Village in Redcliffe north of Brisbane.

Good bye Palm Meadows Drive and looking forward to our return to this lovely home.

Townhouse being packed up

 


 

 

 All belongings packed and safely stored and ready to leave the beautiful Gold Coast.

AND NOW OUR TRAVELS BEGIN

 

Caravan Hitched and ready to go

Good luck hug from Sue at Currumbin Caravan Storage

26th February we collected our caravan from Currumbin Caravan Storage, Sue & Tony (the owners) were fantastic, they helped us get the caravan correctly leveled up with our car, and not to mention a wealth of information, tips and advice on doing the lap of Australia.

Our trip from Currumbin to Scarborough went well, we were heavily packed as we had all the excess stuff from the Townhouse that could not go into the container that was going to be distributed between Angelique and Adrian.  

Our Setup at Scarborough

Set up at Scarborough as can be seen not much shade, was very hot

Our first leg of the adventure did not go without it's own problems.  Due to the caravan having being stored for such a long period of time, the batteries that fit underneath the bed in the caravan, was at an all time low.  

With this happening, it meant that one of the batteries became defective and decided to give up the ghost. 

Our defective battery

  


It bulged and split wide open giving off an acid smell, throughout the caravan. 

Super bulged battery

The problem was remedied by Marshal batteries on the Monday 29/2/16, at a staggering cost of $800.00. 

 

Our Saviour's of the day

                                                      

Fortunately we were able to stay with Angelique and Blake on the Sunday night, as we had to disconnect all the electrics to the caravan.

Bee Gees Way - Redcliffe

Information on all the Bee Gee Brothers

Once our 1st Challenge was sorted, we did do a bit of exploring around Redcliffe that boasts this lovely walk way in honour of the Bee Gees.  The Gibb brothers grew up in Redcliffe as young teenagers before becoming famous.

Statues of the Bee Gees

Wall showing all their songs

On our explorations we discovered a lovely walkway on the esplanade of Redcliffe, it has a BBQ area and a pool area, a real gem hidden away from the everyday hustle and bustle of life.  

Swimming pool

Walking along the path with the views

 Scarborough caravan park also had a lovely walk along the waters edge, and a lovely cafe close by to get good coffee and a great breakfast.




We left Scarborough on the 2nd March and made our way to Bli Bli which is situated inland from Mooloolaba and Maroochydore, and stayed at a place called Riverside Caravan Village.

Setup at Bli Bli Caravan Park

View from our site to the waters edge

The first few days we went to Coolum, Maroochydore, Mooloolaba, Marcoola beach spending this time walking on the beach with the dogs.  Bernie also went boogie boarding and the waves got the better of him, with him coming out with badly grazed forehead and injuring his left shoulder.

Needless to say the rest of that day was very subdued and sat in our shelter on the beach and had cheese and crackers for lunch.

After this we decided we were "beached out" for a while so went inland, and what a fantastic decision.  Saturday 5th March we made our way to Palmwoods, Montville & Mapleton.  We stopped in Palmwoods for breakfast at an organic cafe, horrified to find that it was definitely organic and there were some worms in the food, either from the salad greens or the tomato.  However, I was so thankful for my investigative eyes, that spotted this.  Needless to say the owner was horrified and gave us a refund.  Must say did not have much of an appetite the rest of the day.

Montville main road

Lily ponds at Mapleton 

Next day we travelled inland and decided to head towards Yandina, from here we started driving towards Wappa Dam only to come across Wappa Falls Astronomical Observatory.  What an amazing find.  2 Hours later we left, this man reminded us of Doc from back to the future.  He built this astronomical observatory via donations, and holding lessons in astrology in his back yard, he also goes out to schools, etc.  What an amazing man. 

Outside his auditorium where he showed us all his telescopes, some videos, very fascinating.  Spoke mostly about the suns effect on the earth.

In his observatory, here he was showing us all the different stars and different galaxies out there.  Next to him you can see the bottom half of a telescope that he built.  

So much like the Nutty Professor.












 

 A little later we made our way to Wappa Falls and Wappa Dam

Wappa Dam gorgeous spot with BBQ facilities really lovely.  However for us travelling with dogs could not stay too long, as dogs are not allowed.

Portion of Wappa Dam and wall.

We then travelled through a national park road making our way back to Mapleton to then travel to Kenilworth, Imbil, Kandanga taking the Mary Valley tourist drive.  All very scenic.  Attached below is a map showing our travels while we were in Bli Bli - 02.03.2016 - 9.03.2016

The Green highlighted areas is what we travelled from Bli Bli

Next port of call is Tin Can Bay 09-03-2016 - 16-03-2016