Blogs from Maryborough, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

We had to wake up early to drive to Hervey Bay and all three of us were very tired. But we had pree-booked a tour to explore Fraser Island which left at 8.30 am so there was no time to be slow. Fraser Island is the world biggest sand island and world heritage listed by UNESCO. We spent the day exploring and got to see things like the central station, Lake McKenzie, Seventyfive-mile beach, Eli Creek, Maheno Shipwreck and The Pinnacles Colored Sands. The island was stunningly beautiful. We had buffet for lunch at Eurong Beach Resort which was included in the price of the tour. The price was 160 AUD per person as we got the Off Peak Price. The tour also included the national park fees and the fully-day guided 4WD tour. The tour ... read more

Was up early this morning again, but this time with some purpose. It was a cool night and mist drifted along the still river water. Started getting the boat ready as the weather forecast was still favourable. Popped back to the marina, dumped off some rubbish, collected another 20 litres of water and hoped to say goodbye to Brett (the marina manager) but his boat looked closed up so I think he was still in bed. Anchor up and headed up the river saying goodbye to Maryborough. This has been the longest we have been anchored in any one place... ever! A beautiful clear sunny day but still cool. Had to dodge debris in the river in places again, mostly branches. We did plan to anchor at Beaver Rocks which we could see had about 20 ... read more

Another 2 days of windy weather and scattered showers. Saw a news feed from the Gold Coast about the beaches getting battered by bad weather so makes us appreciate that we are sheltered by Fraser Island. And also that we got over the Wide Bay Bar when we did as otherwise we would be spending at least a week in Mooloolaba waiting for conditions to improve. With the weather not showing signs of improving soon we have extra time to sight-see in this area. Tuesday after some tasty banana pikelets we took the dingy north as there was a "disused log-dump worth seeing" according to the cruising guide and also an old shipwreck. Stopped off to explore Buff Creek and at its mouth jumped out on the tiny beach there. Naomi found me some new shorts. ... read more

Up at 6am for my traditional Christmas morning jog - just this year in considerably warmer temperatures. So once completed I jumped straight in the pool to cool off. We all sat and had a very yummy breakfast of fresh fruit salad together before Dell and Cheryl headed off to church and Matt, Rowena and I headed to the beach. We headed to a beautifully quiet beach, and the tied was going out so we splashed and walked out in the shallow water for ages. Eventually we got far enough out to be thigh deep and go for a swim. We realised however that there were lots of jellyfish in the slightly deeper water going out with the tide, we must have past around 30, and after successfully dodging them it got increasingly harder, so we ... read more

Up early to finish sorting my room and giving it a good clean before heading off on our Christmas holiday. Left the house at 11am and we expected the traffic out of Brisbane to be terrible, but it was flowing freely the whole way. We were spending Christmas with Matt’s nan (Dell) in Maryborough which was around a 3.5 hour drive, so pretty close in Australian terms! Dell is a fantastic lady, very sharp and intelligent and so very welcoming, which was lovely. After a cold and refreshing drink and an hour or so of chatting Rowena, Matt had a quick change and headed into the pool. It was heaven after the long drive and the heat and we stayed in for several hours, emerging slightly prune like! We all had a lovely chilled evening, with ... read more