The Sometime Coast

The coastal path to Kings Beach

We traveled north of Brisbane to the Sunshine Coast. I am calling it the Sometime Coast because sometime we'll have to come back and have more of a look about. Coming here was part of a home exchange with Jerry and Cathy McBrien, who stayed at our family's house in Lake Tahoe during their "Ski Around the World trip" (I love this: three months on the same ski pass to resorts in Colorado, Lake Tahoe, France, Switzerland and Japan!). This exchange gave us two weeks in Pelican Waters, in their lovely, new, and very comfortable home. We were lucky enough to be met by Lyn and Jeff Freebody who live across the street and who gave us a great intro to the local beaches, shopping and the coastal trail. They have been our constant source of local knowledge, beer, laughs, and all around assistance. And just his morning, Jeff delivered our dive gear which we weren't sure was ever going to make it through customs, quarantine, DHL, and the robots. Long story but Jeff and Lyn are our heros.

Rainbow lorikeets boozing it up

When we first landed here Jeff said "We went to sleep in Brisbane and woke up in Florida". He was right, this area closely resembles where I grew up on the west coast of Florida with lots of water, development, retirees, and holiday rentals. As we got to know the place, the differences became more apparent. There is the vast open ocean and accompanying surf; the nearby mountains and hinterlands; the amazing birdlife; marsupials (kangaroos, wallabies and koalas which we have seen nearby out in the bush), and the charming Aussie accent. OK, so not so much like Florida when we got to know it more.

The vegetation leans towards more tropical species but two ubiquitous trees there remind me of Florida: Australian pines and Melaleuca trees (paper bark). Those are two trees introduced to Florida for various reasons and have become invasive species there. This is their natural habitat and you see swaths of them. One difference here with the Australian pines is that they feed several incredible birds including the glossy black cockatoo, corellas and the riotous rainbow lorikeet. We've seen flocks of them in the coastal trees. Apparently they get a little sauced on the sugars in the cones causing them to squawk up a storm and sometimes fall from the trees. The other tree, Melaleuca were planted in Florida to drain low lying areas and spread to cause many problems. Here's they are quite lovely and produce tea tree oil. But I digress...

Paper bark tree forest

With two weeks in one place, you think we would have gotten out and explored all the area has to offer: the nearby Glass House Mountains, numerous small hinterland towns, Steve Irwin's Australian Zoo, the Big Pineapple and so much more. While we did get out in the mountains a bit and got to explore Noosa, we've seen very little. And that's OK. There are four simple reasons for this:

1. The house is too comfortable. It has central air, a great kitchen and lots of room. It's hot here and, like Florida in the summer, inside is the place to be after, say 10 AM until the late afternoon. 
2. We have both have had colds. It was bound to happen sometime over this year and it's really good that it happened here where we can recuperate and before we start the Great Barrier Reef portion of our trip. 
3. It is so nice to cook our own food. We'll be on Lady Elliot Island eating their food for a week and then on a liveaboard dive boat for another week soon after that. So for now, we cook our own food and enjoy what we like to eat. 
4. It's a very relaxed vibe on the Sunshine Coast. We've enjoyed just riding bikes along the coastal trail (see above), watching the surfers and swimming. Inside the shark net* and flags, of course. It's serious ocean out here folks. 

The concept of  Shark nets are a new for me. Apparently they sprung up along the Queensland Coast in the early '60's as an attempt to control the incidents of shark/human interactions that may actually bring more sharks in to feed on things that get caught and die in these huge nets. Baited drumlines were also a part of this scheme. While swimming one day, I heard the lifeguards come over the loudspeaker and announce "there's been a few sharks spotted in the area and we suggest you stay in knee deep water". Of course, no one moved. I decided to use that as my cue to get out. And it made me think about sharks a bit more than I'd like to, especially since our upcoming liveaboard trip includes several shark dives... yikers. I discovered a new favorite website, Shark Tracker. The website tracks shards from around the world that have been tagged with GPS to collect data on their natural history. I've adopted a tiger shark named Maroochy as my totem shark, she lives off Hervey Bay and travels around the lower reef, and out around Lady Elliot Island where we are headed. I hope that I don't see her. 

There, again we are lazy, bad tourists. Or easily entertained. From here we drive north to Hervey Bay to fly out to Lady Elliot Island. Let the diving begin!

The Glass House Mountains

Noosa Head National Park coastal trail

Can you find the rainforest wallaby in this picture?