28 Jan to 6 Feb 15

Brisbane

We continued our exploration of Australia (well the Brisbane area!) by land with a road trip on Friday 30 Jan. This time we went north. Our first stop was a detour off the motorway North of Brisbane. We saw the sign ‘Wild Horse Mountain and viewpoint’ and followed it. The viewpoint is a Firewatch tower which is open to the public. We parked the car at the bottom of the ‘mountain’ and climbed up the concrete road to the top and the squat Firewatch tower. It was a fairly steep climb, a rise of some 100m in the 700m walk. Still the tower afforded spectacular views over the large forest and the low lying Bribie Island with hill peaks in the mid and background. These peaks were interesting, seeming to be very large lumps of rock that just stood out from the surrounding terrain. They may not really be mountains, but the ‘lumps’ were over 100m high and impressive.
We continued north to the city of Caloundra. This was the first part of Australia that we saw back in November. Then we had noticed the headland, high rise blocks, and ‘mountains’ before we had to concentrate on following the shipping lane. On land, it is a busy tourist town. This is the start of the ‘Sunshine Coast’ and, like the Gold Coast to the South, it offers long beautiful white sand beaches with a gentle surf break. Add Australia’s warm climate and the tourist draw is obvious. That said the beaches are long enough and numerous enough to spread out the development. Caloundra is thus busy, but not overcrowded with people or buildings. It still has a pleasant ‘green strip’ of parks along the coast. We had our lunch in one on the headland overlooking the shipping channel entrance. And for the record there were six large ships entering or leaving the shipping channel; Brisbane is a busy port.
We continued along the coast to Mooloolaba. The coastal strip was beach, backed up by some developments. However, all were well spread out, and there were many national parks and reserves preserving the bush land. Mooloolaba is on a headland some 15km North of Caloundra (yes, all beach between headlands). It has a modern lighthouse on the headland giving good light and, with the elevated position, viewing distance. More importantly for sailors, Mooloolaba had a harbour. On the chart the entrance looks sheltered with a fairly easy approach. Walking along the headland, the entrance is as charted, with leading lights to make the approach even easier. This lives up to its reputation as a good stop over point. We drove toward the town, again, a tourist centre. The town is to one side of the river that forms the harbour. There are several canal-type developments, but we were able to get close to the water and look at the charted anchorage a little way up the river. That looked quite good as well. Mooloolaba does have a marina charted, but we only saw the pile mooring near the harbour entrance.
And so we continued north for another 40km to Noosa Heads. In between was more of the same; white sand beaches, surf, green strip, parks, reserves, occasional developments, small headlands and rocky lumps (only 30 to 50m high though). In short, pleasant.
Driving through Noosa heads town was best described as interesting. The roads were narrow, optimized for pedestrians, with few direction signs. Still we eventually got onto the road leading to the car park at the heads. Here we walked along the coast on the well developed path. The heads are a rocky headland with steep slopes to a rocky shoreline. It has a long aboriginal association, forming an ancient source of food and meeting place. Now it is a park with green space and well labeled walks. The rocky outcrops make some good surf breaks and we saw several people walking along the paths, surfboards under their arms, joining their companions already in the water. There were small beaches allowing access to the sea, although these warned of strong currents, dumping waves, underwater obstacles and a lack of lifeguards. To be fair we did see signs at the other lifeguard huts spread along the beaches we had passed. Our favourite was a warning of ‘stingers’ with a black jellyfish on a yellow triangle. It was locked away, but had it been out, we would have been out of the water fast! Back to Noosa, and with only a low swell the surf was gentle, with the surfers getting mostly straight rides.
From Noosa we headed back inland some 15 to 20 km to join the motorway heading south.

On Sunday Paul went to the Wynnum Manly Yacht Club (WMYC) for their Sunday Go Sailing Race. He literally stood there and declared himself and another visitor as available as spare crew. The result was a ride on a trimaran, ‘Hasta Lavista’. Now we had thought the club was for trailer sailors (i.e. small boats about 5 to 7m long). Paul was therefore surprised when the skipper was able to take on two more, novice, sailors as crew. The race brief finished, and handicaps announced, and we went to the boats. Talking to the skipper, Lyle, and his wife, Jan, it was clear the trimaran was fast, and the handicaps confirmed that as we would be the last to start. However, another surprise was that Hasta Lavista was berthed in East Coast Marina, just across from us. Now that is a distance to walk, but Paul had cheated and used the dingy to get to the WMYC, so it was with some relief that we all hopped into the ‘water taxi’. It also meant we could wave at Helen (still aboard Tai Mo Shan) as we passed. And when we got to Hasta Lavista, well, she is a real racing machine; just under 11m long, almost as wide, with some very, very nice composite material sails (ours are Dacron, which a durable and can be roller furled but do stretch a bit under load, these racing sails were more fragile, but absolutely hold their shape thus giving excellent power and control throughout the wind range – of course the composite sails cost more, about three times as much!). She is also very light, weighing some 2½ tons. The downside is that space is limited (she is not a live aboard boat!) and the upper decks are curved, making for some interesting foot holds. And, yes, maneuvering a boat some 11m long and about as wide out of a berth is … interesting! Still we got to the start line (the end of the channel to the marina) safely. The start is staggered, and the racing club level, so no start boat, the line is ‘close to’ the red mark, and timing is on an honesty basis. The course was simple, past Green Island, around the Red buoy to the East of St Helena Island, and back past Green Island (all to starboard) to the red mark. So back of the pack and off we went, some half an hour or so after the first to leave. The wind was light, perhaps 10 knots, rising to about 15 half way round. And we flew! Hasta Lavista is not a cruising boat, but she sure is fast.7 ½ knots upwind and 13 knots off the wind (broad reaching). The handicap worked fairly well with most of the boats approaching the finish line within minutes. We finished 6th, out of 26 boats, taking about an hour and 40 minutes to sail the course. Not too bad, given how much we gave away on handicap. Another interesting maneuver back into the berth, water taxi to the clubhouse and a good chat over the results. A good afternoon on the water!

Midweek, Mark, our Brother in Law and Matt’s dad flew into Brisbane. He is going on to Matt’s house and then both of them have the 1000km drive down to New South
Wales for the weekend. Why? Well, Bathurst hosts one of the great motor racing events, and they are going there to watch; petrol head heaven! For our part it was a useful recce to the airport and chance to chat and catch up.


Photo; Helen looking down the Sunshine Coast.