The Next Level: Perth, Bribie Island and up to Tin Can Bay

22-26/6/2015

Perth and Bribie Island

Spent some nice days in Perth, caught up with friends, colleagues at work (even spent about 5 hours in the office) and got some progress on various matters – more about that later.

The Causeway - South Perth in the Background

Gordon Street Garage - cool coffee shop in West Perth

At Gordon Street Garage

Walk to Claisebrook Cove

Perth was great – cold at night but beautiful and sunny during the day. The sky is blue over here as almost nowhere else.

The flight back to Brisbane was good – used some old Emirates miles to get a business class seat which offered a flat bed to cure some of my lack of sleep and hangover from the last few days.

A330 Lie Flat Seat

Early morning at Perth Airport

Looks and feels so much better than sitting at the back

Great Australian Blight, I drove that a few months ago ;-)

Breakfast galore at 41,000 feet

Hung over, listening to Tangentially Speaking

Moreton Bay, shortly before landing in Brisbane

From Brisbane I drove up to Bribie Island to catch up with Matthew, a colleague from work, who invited me to stay over at his place on this wonderful spot. We had a lot of fun the first evening, some friends came over to Matthew's family home and we had an obscene amount of wine. In short, funny conversations, a lot of wine, sparkling wine & I think gin and dinner around 23:00 if I remember correctly. Old war stories from our projects and hilarious experiences were shared and discussed and everybody cracked up big time.

Friday morning was a bit slow but I got a lot of work on the van done (disassemble the bike mount, clean up the hazed headlights, reorganizing my clothes and food) and I finally read most of the private emails that were piling up.

In the late arvo, shortly before sunset, Matthew took me four wheel driving on the beach. Entertaining and a beautiful sunset!

I found out that Matthew is a great cook and likes to prepare most of the meals at home. We had some home made beef and mushroom pie on Friday and a roast with vegetables on Thursday, exactly what I needed. We even checked out a new restaurant/entertainment place called Sandstone which I liked a lot.

Sandstone Restaurant

Bribie Island

View from inside the car, quite soft sand

Home made beef and mushroom pie, yummy!

Distance traveled: 80km

27/6/2015

Bribie Island to Tin Can Bay

Started after two breakfast coffees towards the Glass House Mountains. A picturesque assembly of mountains in the Great Dividing Range. I hiked up Mount Beerburrum (probably Aboriginal for 'rainbow lorikeet'), a 280 meter high hill with a very steep track winding up. Great views from the top as the sky cleared up a little bit.

What a great view from up there

Some of the other peaks in the Glass House Mountains

Next stop was the Eumundi Market, an artisan market that is held twice a week. Ordered some coffee and had a chat with the young barista girl. Turned out that her mother, who also working in the coffee stall, is from Austria. Speaking to her was amusing as she is originally from Klagenfurt (not that far from home!) but has been in Australia for over 26 years. As I liked their coffee, I asked them where they get their beans from and if there is a local roaster on the market. I was lucky and went to the roaster straight away as I needed some fresh roast coffee for the Aeropress.

Geeking out with the roaster about the Aeropress was great – bought a blend called “Cheeky Monkey” and got a receipt how to get the best out of these beans on the Aeropress – he even wrote it down on the coffee package I bought.

Cheeky Moneky & brewing instructions for Aeropress inverted method

I browsed around the market for another while but eventually left and drove to Noosa, which is part of the Sunshine Coast. Noosa Heads is an amazing, bustling place and has a lot more 'soul' from my perspective compared to say Surfers Paradise or most Gold Coast towns that I know. The beach is great, wonderful waves rolling in and the national park out to Noosa Heads is amazing. As I didn't do any sports for a while, I put the running shoes on and ran along the beach and out into the national park. Reasonable pace for my current fitness level, but the total lack of food and the fact that I didn't drink much water all day but a large quantity of coffee made the run harder than it sould have been.

Noosa Beach

Running along the coast in the National Park

What an amazing place

Just when I returned to the van, the next shower came in. Probably the sixth time this day that the outside of the van got wet and I was happy to be inside when it happened. Drove to Gympie next for a bit of grocery shopping and phoning up some camp sites in Tin Can Bay to get a spot for the night. This is the first weekend of the two week school holidays that start on Monday. Hence I had to put several calls in to finally get a spot.

It was a scenic drive for most of the day and the last bit was no different. The sun is still setting extremely early here, sunset is currently at 5:06 pm and it is dark by 5:30pm. I picked up a roasted chicken and ate it all (actually wolfed it down would be the better description) as I was really hungry after not having eaten all day.