Day 226
Friday
11 August 2017 – Finished
the novel ”The Missing Ones” by Patricia Gibney . This was a great read. I have
forgotten how much I enjoy the crime thriller genre and this one had me wanting
to read all night. I have a second book to now read in this series and hope it
will also keep me keen to read on.
Eumundi – Maleny – Montville – Nambour – Maroochydore
I am starting to feel like I am stuck in Groundhog Day. Wake
up, read, eat breakfast and get out into the glorious day, lucky for us it
doesn’t get old and we are in no way sick and tired of it.
We set off at 9.30am tracking back to Maleny, out in the
hinterland, I had been given a heads up by a friend to check out Mary
Cairncross reserve and that became our first destination of the day. This is
only a small park by comparison to the ones we have been checking out but its
sole purpose is to showcase the views to the Glass House Mountains.
We wound our way along the boardwalk and up into the purpose
building where a view deck sits above the road and provided sweeping views of
the monoliths standing in the distance. The sandstone that once encased the
channels of magma now eroded away leaving only the hard rock to stand against
the elements. The mountains were named by Captain Cook as he sailed past in the
1770’s.
I wondered whether the viewing deck had been built due to
residential pressure. The homes in the area are obviously owned by those with
plenty of cash and there are signs around their fences saying “not a public
viewing area” and “no drones”. I thought they may have become upset with
constant onlookers walking their fences to gain a better glance of the vista.
Hmm who knows.
We checked the view from here and then moved on down the
road to McCarthy lookout for a view from a different angle and then we followed
the Blackall Range Tourist drive, completing a loop back to Maleny.
We past Brouhaha, but were too early so we made our way to
Lake Baroon just out of town. This is another dammed watercourse where you can
boat and kayak. We took in the view across the water and out over the rolling
hills, admiring the homes that overlook the lake.
With enough time killed, we returned to Brouhaha where Paul
could get another Raisin hell and I could enjoy a hot chocolate all provided by
the brewery free of charge. Cheers to that!
We finished our drinks out on the deck and then made our way
towards Montville, stopping at Maleny Cheese Factory to try the great range of
cheeses and to pick up a few for afternoon nibbles. Yum.
Montville was a short 15min drive further on. Once there we
struggled to find parking, it was substantially busier than Wednesday. We made
our way down the main street finishing up at the clock shop, where there were
hundreds of cuckoo clocks and grandfather clocks to admire. Cuckoos were
sounding the hours like a bad choral tune, how the workers stand being in there
is beyond me. There was a constant tick of mechanisms thrumming through the
store and bings and bongs going off all of the time. However, apart from the
noise the pieces they had on show were stunning and if I had a spare $8000 I
just might have strapped a grandfather clock to the roof of the motorhome and
come back to Perth with it.
We made our way next door to the chocolate shop, they had
plenty of truffles on show and some bagged chocolates but no samples so we came
away empty handed.
I took some photos of the architecture as we climbed the
hill towards the Wild Rocket Brewery where Paul entered and grabbed a tasting
paddle to try their four beers, I could see from his face that he wasn’t
impressed with what he was having. The place was busy though as it is primarily
a restaurant.
We didn’t hang around for long, making our way back to the
car to grab out lunch and return to a park picnic table and eat.
We stopped in at Ben Messina’s photographic studio to check
out the beautiful prints on show and admire the destinations he has
photographed around OZ. Paul all the while wondering how he can pimp me out so
he can retire. I wish mine were that good.
Being early in the afternoon, we opted to head on to
Sunshine Brewery in Maroochydore. Darryl and Craig were very welcoming and
happy to chat about their newly opened brewery while serving Paul. They use
some orange peel in one of their brews and have an abundance of fresh juice, so
I was able to enjoy that which I am sure was just as good as the beers.
We hung around for an hour enjoying the conversation before
making our way on to The Basement in Nambour that serves as the taproom for
Your Mates Brewery. The place is dark and grungy but the feel is still
welcoming. The young bloke behind the bar was very friendly and more than happy
to talk up the two beers made by the new brewery. It was a good little find and
obviously has quite a cult following.
We returned to the centre of Maroochydore as we had heard on
the radio that there was a night market on Ocean Street. We parked in the
shopping centre car park before walking to the stall area where vendors were
still busy setting up. The smell of food had both of our bellies going and we
didn’t even know we were hungry.
Ocean Street is obviously the restaurant street for this
suburb with plenty of choice and variety. After we did the walk down the centre
of the market, we checked out the food menus and opted to eat at Junk, a funky
Asian style restaurant. We chose three dishes and every single one was absolutely
delicious, I could have licked the plates clean if I wasn’t a lady!
With dinner out of the way it was time to head on home
following the motorway for 30min and finally pulling up in the dark at the van.
Paul rang Ballsy, before getting into his three write ups, while I went through
the next batch of photos.
It wasn’t long though before we were ready to retire and get
back into our books.
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