Chris and Andrea's Travel Blog: Our Fabulous Day

For the first Saturday in weeks it was sunny and warm. We have been cooped up in our apartment since Christmas because of the rain, and with the floods, we have really been house bound since the buses and trains were canceled for a few days. After too many days stuck in our apartment with cabin fever, we were so excited for a sunny Saturday.

Once again we rented a car and decided to drive up the Sunshine Coast to Eumundi and Noosa. We did this same trip before Christmas, but unfortunately is was pouring rain that day (big surprise), so it wasn't the most enjoyable of trips. This time, the sun was shining!

As I wrote before, Eumundi has an amazing market on Saturdays. You could spend your entire day walking the stalls, sampling the food, enjoying the music, and spending lots and lots of money. Having been there before, we knew what we wanted to get and made sure to pick up some souvenirs for our families. We also bought some passionfruit for cheap. YUMMY!

After a couple hours at the market, it was time to drive to Noosa for an afternoon at the beach. We were so lucky to get a prime parking spot, as it's school holidays right now and very, very busy. We found ourselves a lovely spot on the sand and just enjoyed the sunshine, breeze, ocean and our books. When we started to feel like the sun was a bit too strong, we decided to grab a beer at the Noosa Surf Life Saving Club. It's a great restaurant/pub right on the water and we were able to sit on the patio, overlooking the water, and enjoy a beer! We went back for some more time in the sun before we decided to call it a day.

On our way home, we wanted to drive through a town called Buderim, a mountain town about 30 minutes inland from the coast. After a long day in the sun, we were hoping for a nice little McDonald's detour so we could cool off with some ice cream and iced coffee. We plugged in the coordinates into the GPS and we were off to the races, ready to satiate our desires for iced yummies. To our great dismay, upon entering the house of Ronald, we were greeted to one of the most disasteful signs, proclaiming: "We are out of iced cream and iced coffees." Snacktime fail. No ice cream? That's just not Australian. So we made our way to Buderim, which has some amazing waterfall walks, but every time we've wanted to go, it's been raining. Even though it was getting a bit late in the afternoon for a hike, we decided to go there anyway and check out the town. It was definitely worth the drive! It's a beautiful town located in the 'mountains' with amazing views all the way to the ocean.

After our detour to Buderim, we hit the highway for our drive back to Brisbane. As we were getting closer to the Glass House Mountains, there was a road sign for a scenic lookout point. We decided to make another detour and find out what the lookout was all about. After quickly exiting the highway we followed the beaten up signs to the lookout. Based on the quality of these signs and the heavily pot-holed road, we were fairly certain this was a route meant to lure naive travelers into the woods for all kinds of "Wolf Creek" badness, but like true adventurers, we live for the thrill of the unknown! The lookout, much to our dismay, was not a 'Drive Thru' lookout and required a fairly steep 1km walk up a hill, but at the top was the most amazing 360 degree view of the Sunshine Coast. To the east we could see the Glass House Mountains, to the north we could see Caloundra, to the west we could see the Pacific Ocean, and to the south was Brisbane. It was such an amazing lookout, and we would never have known to go there if not for the road sign!

After our second detour of the day, we made it back to Brisbane, though we missed our exit off the highway and ended up taking the toll bridge over the Brisbane River into the Southern suburbs. Luckily we were able to turn around as soon as we got off the bridge, just to get back on it again to go back over to get to the Northern suburbs. We were both laughing and enjoyed our third detour of the day! And even though we should be dinged $6 in toll fares, because of the flooding, all toll roads are free.

It was a really great day and we were both so happy to get out of the apartment and enjoy the sunshine!

We hope that you have as good a Saturday as we did!