May 17/18 - The Not So Sunny Sunshine Coast

 Unfortunately this part of our blog will not be filled with pictures of sunny beaches, us enjoying ourselves eating gelato on Hasting St, sunny walks through Noosa Heads National Park.  Throughout most of our stay in the Sunshine Coast it rained.  However, there are lots of things one can do here in the rain or drizzle.  But firstly we had some visits with family and friends.  We spent one day visiting my Aunt and Uncle in Brisbane at their lovely house eating an equally lovely BBQ lunch.  David and I also have a couple of friends each up here that we wanted to see, which is why  we chose a caravan park at the southern end of Sunshine beach to keep us closer to Brisbane.  We had also discovered (in our night time search for food) that we were very close to Buderim and that it had a really nice tavern with amazing views (when it wasn’t raining) and with a kids play area.  We arranged to meet David’s mate there for dinner after he dropped in for a chat at the van.  That left most of a wet day free so we went to Underwater World in Mooloolaba.  I was concerned that having just been to Seaworld this might be a bit of a hard act to follow.  But it wasn’t.  Seaworld is a much more outdoor open theme park with sea creatures.  Underwater World is a more traditional aquarium (perfect for us because it was indoors the whole time). 

The highlights of our visit there were:

• the seal show;

• the jelly fish tanks (which look like uber cool organic lava lamps); 

 

I want one for our house

• the walk through aquarium which lets the fish, including the cool sword fish swim over you;

"Well hello down there"

• the hands on tank; and 

•  the kids loved the playground situated conveniently next to the café. Mostly we have been taking our own lunches, snacks and water everywhere to reduce our costs.  We hadn’t had a chance to do much shopping so this time we splurged and ate lunch their and I will say it wasn’t too badly priced.

We had a delightful dinner with David’s mate at the Buderim Tavern and found the place so convivial we went back the next day with my friend for lunch.  The sun finally broke out for little bit so we popped down to Alexandra Headland for a stroll and play.