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Published: June 24th 2009
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Day 58 - Coohin Creek at the bottom of the Sunshine Coast!
Yippee! It’s not raining!! Better than that, it’s sunny and warm!
With the forfeit paid up we headed out to explore the Glass House Mountains and to try and find somewhere to store our caravan while we’re away in Melbourne. We headed to the Tourist Information Centre near the mountains but they couldn’t help with the search for storage so we hopped on the internet while the signal was good! We found somewhere and negotiated $150 for the van and the car which isn’t bad seeing as it was going to cost $205 to leave it at the Big 4 site we’re staying at tomorrow night - they have no storage area unfortunately. Whilst I was sorting that I spied a Barbers shop advertising $8 ‘Apprentice Clipping for Men’ and immediately gave Darryl the nod as his hair is so long I could nearly platt it! Shaz gave him the star treatment whilst getting her Mum’s approval - Mum runs the salon - and he left feeling far more light headed than he has been!
We wandered through one of the Glass House Mountains circuit walks,
the Tibrogargan, taking in Mounts Ngunun, Beerwah, Coonowrin, Cooee and of course Tibrogargan. They’re quite a stunning set of mountains which we missed out on seeing the last time we were in Brisbane because it was misty and raining! We heard plenty of birds on the walk and saw plenty of butterflies which just wouldn’t sit still for the camera! There is a summit walk to the top of this particular mountain but given that it said ‘experienced climbers only’ and that it had poured with rain all night long we thought we’d skip that one today! We do want to do a mountain climb though but we need to work on our fitness and my climbing down techniques!
Back towards the camp we went with the sun still high in the sky. We drove the full length of Roys Road which follows the creek until it eventually reaches some private, rather spunky looking houses. We passed an Orange plantation and a Strawberry plantation where we could see plenty of people hard at work filling up the trays on the tricycle like collection machines. We had a short discussion about my want to take photographs of everything and everyone
and the probable privacy intrusion this could cause, grrrrrrr, ok, perhaps I shouldn’t just randomly photograph things like that but I was just interested!
We reach camp and go on the search for firewood. We’ve got ‘across the way’ neighbours, Reggie and Mary who are over for a month from San Francisco although Reggie is originally from Dublin. We’re cooking a stew, using our new fire pit cooking stove, tonight so Darryl builds the fire and I start peeling the veg! The fire is quite stubborn to get going today, the wood is still really damp but it’s soon roaring and our stew is underway! It is of course a secret recipe handed down through generations, at least that’s what Darryl tells me! The sun goes down and soon we’re tucking in to our delicious dinner, it’s totally gorgeous! What a success!
Reggie and Mary come to join us around the fire after they’ve finished their dinner, it’s not long before we’re roaring with laughter at the stories and finding out all about each others lives! They’re a great couple and have, coincidentally, been married for 9 years the same as us. A few more people have arrived
on the site tonight so there’s a lot more life to it but the majority of lights seem to disappear early and when we check the watch it’s only 9pm! Then, through the shadows of the night we see a figure walking towards us with bottles in his hands, we wondered if we’d been making too much noise with all the laughing but no, it was the lad who has a tent pitched nearby who thought we sounded to be having too much fun for him to just go to bed! We’d seen him come back to the site around 4pm and I wondered if he worked at the Strawberry picking place and it turns out he does. His name is Seamus and he comes across as a nice lad, but doesn’t look that old so we’re all surprised when he tells us he’s got a missus and 4 kids at home in Gympie! Anyway, we all enjoy each others company and we’re laughing away like you do. The conversation turns to Seamus, who tells us that he used to work on the fishing trawlers, it was tough work but good money. Mary wondered why the change but none of
us could have predicted his tentative response and what came next stunned and shocked all of us, you really never know who you’re talking too and what their circumstances are. Here’s a link to a newspaper article which gives the reported details of what he told us should you want to hear it. The clue is in the title of the link and I warn you, it’s shocking.
Two remanded over body in Bauple So there we sat around the campfire, looking up at a fantastically starry night wondering what the bloody hell to say next. Somehow we got off the subject and returned to discussions about musical tastes and finished by listening to a Johnny Cash album where he sings covers of his favourite songs. We heated up the remaining stew for a bit of supper but struggled to keep the fire going after that! There were still a few camp fires burning around the site but once ours faded we all decided to call it a night and bid farewell to Seamus as he will have gone to work by the time we get up in the morning.
We tidied up best we could by the lantern light as it’s not
a good idea to leave food or rubbish outside as the scrub turkeys will rampage for any scraps and they make a right mess and row!
And so to sleep, we’ve been ravaged by mosquitoes today so it might be a restless night for one reason or another!
Dar and Sar
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Stuart Hall
non-member comment
Climbing down techniques
Don't you just point yourself downhill the run until you fall over ;-0