Day 28 - Goodbye Bundaberg, Hello Noosa

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This morning… I was actually taking my shower when my alarm went off!! I know, it was a shock to me as well. I think that after a month, I’m finally getting used to the early mornings!

It’s now 8:30am, I’m sitting on the porch having my last cup of coffee, my Hydralites are ready to go into my water bottle, my day bag is sorted, and I have extra croissants and an apple for on the bus, my case is on the drive! It’s only about a three hour drive today.

Today is bittersweet because Johanna is leaving our tour. We are being joined by a new guide for the rest of the tour.

We are stopping off in a town called Maryborough which is the birthplace of P. L. Travers. Maryborough is a city, and a suburb in the Fraser Coast Region, QLD. P. L. Travers is better known as the author of Mary Poppins.

Maryborough was first settled in 1847 which makes it one the oldest towns in Queensland. The city was named after the Mary River which is the river it sits aside.

When we arrived, most of the group went for lunch. As I want The Story Bank, I opted out of lunch to allow time for my visit. I stopped for a coffee before going. I enjoyed the visit. This is the house that P. L.Travers was actually born in. The ground floor was actually the bank that her father worked in, the family house was all the upper floor building. If you’ve seen Saving Mr Banks, that would all make more sense! Just a note; the

I continued my walk. I came across The Heritage Centre. I had a nosey inside. They held the immigration information if each ship that came in, where it sailed from, and every immigrant that came on each ship. So interesting! Continuing my walk, I arrived at the bank of the Mary River, which is where all of the ships would have landed the immigrants into the country. The style of the houses, and other buildings is very much old time authentic. Again, really interesting to see the different styles.

Johanna just mentioned that so far, we have travelled about 2000km so far! We are now heading for Noosa, which we are told is the surfing capital of the world.

We are passing through a town called Gympie. It is a famous gold mining town known as 'The Town That Saved Queensland'. thanks to James Nash, who had a really lucky streak of finding gold, he found gold right where the Town Hall currently stands.
Like Maryborough, Gympie is located on the Mary River. In the gold rush days, Gympie was known to have at least 72 pubs on the main street!

At 3:15pm, we arrived at Habitat Noosa Everglades Ecovillage. We are staying in glamping tents. The camp is in the Great Sandy National Park and about a half-hour’s drive from Noosa, with a 500m lake frontage.

As we arrived, we were allocated accommodation for 1 night. As I sat on my porch, I had my first visitor. I think it is called a noisy miner. There are three roaming kangaroos in the area next door, I did take a photo, but currently, they are all sat down! Maybe I’ll get better pictures later!

I wandered around for a while with Temu. We saw many kangaroos, jumping wild and free! Especially as we walked back to our accommodation. There were so many kangaroos, freely wandering around, some of the females had their joeys in their pouches. Then about ten minutes later, I spotted a kookaburra in a nearby tree. I’ve heard their loud, laughing call a lot, but this is my first sighting!

We met at the bar to meet our new tour guide Lyndsey, also to say goodbye to Johanna. We had our evening meal all together. I had a vegetable tagine. It was ok, but Angelika and I did follow up with salted caramel ice cream, now that was nice! Tonight Johanna fully joined in with the drinking, as she had officially left the tour. She was close to tears as we gave a homemade tnank you card, which we all wrote in, and also a good thank you tip.She was genuinely overwhelmed with emotion. The drinking was quite heavy tonight, although Angelika and I did leave a bit earlier than everyone else. That move didn’t actually help us, as we sat chatting on my porch, everyone else passed us on their way home. It is 9:40 now, I’m showered, and in my bed. It is a killer morning tomorrow … We have a 6:30 start!!!! Heaven help me!

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Comments

[Julie w]

Day 28
Some more beautiful photos Hun, wow 28days already, so glad your enjoying your journey, I am too take care 😘

[Lesley2912]

Hi Julie
Yea, I’m still going strong, loving it! Xx