(A rare, current post from Cyndi)
January 8, 2015
Usually by this time of year we’ve sailed south for the season, arrived at one destination for a few weeks and, with the exception of a few driving excursions, are taking it easy for awhile. This year not so much.
After an exceptionally long cruising season that began early last May and didn’t end until just before Christmas, we found that we are unintentionally still cruising.
This all stems from a decision we made in New Caledonia. We originally planned to go to Coffs Harbour, Australia, about 230 miles north of Sydney, but with Bundaberg (Australia) being so much closer and easier to get to, we decided to start there.
We knew better–Bundaberg is way north of where we should be the southern hemisphere’s summer, so close to the tropics that it’s susceptible to both its cyclones and its heat. But the temperatures didn’t look that bad, and with some islands nearby, we thought it might be a good place do a little local cruising.
Well, not so much. Bundaberg is a nice place, with a very nice marina and staff, but we underestimated how hot the area would be. Worse, though, were the sandflies (aka no-see-ums). Rich and I were soon covered with bites. The only thing worse than being hot was being hot and itchy, and sandfly bites can take weeks to heal.
We decided to head south towards Sydney, hopefully getting there in a series of day trips, and if we found places we liked maybe we’d stay awhile. Our first step was to cruise down the route between the very large Fraser Island and the east coast of Australia known as the Great Sandy Strait, about a 2-day trip with overnight stops. It was beautiful, but it was also hot–too hot to linger and go ashore. Below are pictures from our Fraser Island anchorages.
After emerging from the strait by crossing the dreaded Mad Mile, an area of sand bars, shallows and confused seas, we made the day-long trip down the Sunshine Coast to a place called Mooloolaba, getting a slip at the lovely Mooloolaba Marina
Mooloolaba is resort town, like a mini Honolulu, located on the Sunshine Coast of Australia. It’s a beautiful area where open-air cafes line a curving, covered walkway at the base of the tall buildings. Across the road is a large bay for surfing and swimming. Between the marina and town is a beautiful walking and jogging area amidst planted native bush. Miles and miles of beautiful beach stretch up and down this coastline, with only a few scattered beach towns along the way. Below is someone else’s aerial photo of the marina area.
We liked the area; so we did two things that enabled us to stay awhile. The first one was buying an air conditioner for the boat. As long as we’re at a marina, we have enough power to run it, and we pretty much run it all the time. The other thing we did was rented a car (with air conditioning, of course). Now we can get around town in cool comfort. So far, we’ve done two driving excursions, one of the 37-Mile long Sunshine Coast, and the other of the Sunshine Coast Hinterlands (mountains and forests). The coastal drive was beautiful, and the hinterlands were spectacular (see Rich’s blog post). Below is a gallery of pictures from our coastal drive.
We’re currently enjoying a period of gray skies and rain, which makes the temperatures reasonably comfortable. If only it could be like this every day, but the sun has to come out sometime so we’re planning to head south once again. Since summer is the rainy season here, maybe we’ll see more of these lovely cloudy gray skies that cool things off so nicely.
Now, it’s time for me to get back to Fiji posts. In the meantime here are a few pictures from Mooloolaba, our current home base. Click to enlarge and scroll with any of the picture galleries.–Cyndi
