Leaving Hervey Bay, we headed directly south down along the aptly named Sunshine Coast. It really is beautiful beach after beautiful beach. It is known as the skin cancer capital of the world because of the intensity of the sun and the outdoor lifestyle. They aren’t kidding, that sun is fierce. We took the proper precautions and bought a liter of sunscreen that comes with a pump top.
Along the way we stopped at Mount Tinbeerwah, a rock with a 265 meter summit. To the right of us is a salt water lake, and in the distance is the ocean. The next picture looks back east along a winding river and lush forests.
This is just one of the nice beaches just south of Noosa Heads, which is a ritzy tourist spot that is like a mini La Jolla.
We spent the night in a town on the southern part of the Sunshine Coast named Mooloolaba. We were completely butchering the pronunciation of the until we got there (oh Mah-lew-luh-buh, right). There was a rocky portion of the beach connected to a lit up portion of the beach, pretty cool for night activity like beach cricket.
The next day we drove back north to hike up Mount Coolum and got this amazing view up and down the coast. In the bottom right you can see a Peregrine Falcon, the fastest bird that can dive at 200 mph (fun fact provided by Gary Lloyd, Megan’s dad). Here’s the little speed demon close-up:
On our way to Mount Coolum we made a wrong turn and got directions from a nice guy, who also gave us two tickets to Day 2 of the Australian PGA Championship. After the hike we went in and watched a few holes along a really nice course. The only major US player there was John Daly (we didn’t catch him), who ended up shooting 85 (melt-down!) and missing the second cut. The group with by far the biggest gallery was Geoff Ogilvy and Adam Scott (which Megan dubbed the good-looking, young group without knowing who they were). One other observation was the large number of Asian golfers smoking cigarettes between holes, I think golf is the only sport you can get away with that.
The following day we visited a ginger factory, since the region is known for their ginger production. Ginger from local farms is transported to this large facility where they clean and cut the ginger before it is processed in these large vats. Afterwards, we got a little ginger tasting platter of some of their products. Then we walked across the road and visited to Macadamia Nut factory and bought some delicious chocolate covered nuts.
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