Our last week in Kings Beach, Caloundra started off hot & sweaty too with the temperatures hardly going below 35 degrees with at least 70% humidity – phew! Even all the hardy Queenslanders are complaining about the never-ending summer (imagine that)! Thank goodness we got an apartment with a pool because even the beach is too hot!
We’ve spent some time catching up on some home schooling, and to make the curriculum more varied and interesting for the 
boys, we booked an art class for all four of us; the boys making mosaics and Ben & I trying our hand at stained glass making. It was boiling hot in the workshop, hence the red faces in the photos, but we all had a great morning with Cheree, learnt some great new skills, an
d produced some original souvenirs. We also visited the Eumundi Makets, famous for it’s make it, bake it, grow it
, sew it ethos, which means that everything here too is original, hand-made and interesting – such a shame we can’t buy much, but it was interesting to see the amount of love and effort that the artists put into their work. But it was SO hot again we nearly melted just walking around.
We also had some visitors, Mum & Dad came up for a few days; Dad took the boys to Mooloolooba SeaLife Centre which they absolutely loved, while Mum & I hit the Caloundra shops, and we celebrated Mum’s birthday together for the first time in years.
Then the Schnitzerlings came up for two nights and Rob & Ben took all the kids fishing and crabbing in the boat, while Cath & I reminisced and drank coffee (and cocktails!). Our next visitor, Annthea, flew up from Sydney for a few days and we took the boat up to Noosa, a gorgeous spot an hour north and travelled 10 km’s north via two rivers and 2 lakes of the Great Sandy National Park. Here, the fish were plentiful but also nasty, as Ben spiked himself twice getting catfish off the line (they sting you like a bee – very painful). Luckily, we had a first aid kit and a nurse on board! The fish and crab we caught were again not big enough to take home, but they are getting tantalizingly bigger! The evening skies made up for the lack of fish – simply breathtaking sunsets.
Ollie has also been getting to grips with yabbie pumping which is a great way to find live bait! You find a hole in the sandbank, pump up the sand into a sieve and hopefully a little yellowish yabbie is left behind ready for the hook! We also got some little blue crabs the same way, but they fight back!
We’ve managed to squeeze in a trip to an ENT specialist for Cam who’s been suffering with a nasal sniff since we started travelling. Fortunately, it turns out there is absolutely nothing wrong with his nose, but it cost us $300 to find this out! Oh well!!
It was not a complete loss though since we did combine this with another day in Brisbane, focusing on the South Bank of the river, an area of gardens, terraces, outdoor eating and swimming in man-made beaches. Really beautiful to walk around, despite most of it being washed away in the 2011 floods (do you remember footage of floating restaurants being washed away?) and it’s the spot for stunning views of the river and the Brisbane skyline.
Finally, the weather has changed, and Ben has started to show signs of getting itchy feet by surfing the net for new destinations. So, we are taking the boat and heading south after spending time over Easter with Mum & Dad, our friend Anne and my brother and family for the weekend. We plan to spend the next six weeks driving down to Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, Tasmania and Wagga Wagga before heading back to Brisbane. It’s already getting colder down south, so we’ll be putting away the thongs and dusting off our walking boots again too!