Sunshine Coast to Cane Farm

Sunshine Coast to Cane Farm

We left Brisbane, and all our friends and family, and headed north spending a few days as tourists and a couple just relaxing on the banks of a river.

First stop in the late afternoon was the Ginger Factory in Yandina which was closed, but the touristy type shops in the same complex were open and George came away with a packet of crystallised ginger anyway. We also visited a Macadamia one across the road. 

The next few days were spent browsing through several towns.

Maryborough... 

We drove around the old port city and looked at the interesting buildings and architecture, then spent the bulk of our time in Queens Park admiring the trees, sculptures, old canon placements and fountains where lorikeets were playing in the water. The town dated back to the 1800's and the Botanic Gardens were a place of early signicant plantings of tropical specimens by the man who was to become the state's first royal botanist. The canon and gun placements were for the defence of the river mouth during war. Below is a photo of a very large Curtain Fig, one of the oldest specimens in the country.

 The park also had this wonderful sculpture of a soldier in the remembrance area of the park, commemorating a local resident who fought in WW1 and received a Victoria Cross.

                                                             Hervey Bay... 

Once more we took in the beaches and walked out along Urangan Pier then hit the shops for a change. Our most interesting purchase was a pre-loved guitar for George which involved hunting down a pawn shop find for the first time ever. i had decided that we could not go any further without a guitar for George. His pride and joy, or his 'first wife', was being repaired in Sydney and due to the wet weather there was still not ready to be brought up to us when Jessica came up.

Calliope ...

 We also spent time at Calliope, a favourite free camp of ours from our two previous trips up this way. This time, without our girls, we camped on the north side up on the embankment with a beautiful view along the river. In the past we have camped on the south side which gave the girls' access to the river for paddling and swimming. 

Rockhampton ...

We were once more taken in by the architecture and old buildings and could see from the main road the spires of 2 different churches. The first was St Josephs Catholic Church which was the central church for the parish area. We were able to walk through and look 

inside the Cathedral which had been restored beautifully. Unfortunately George didnt stop to allow me time to take some photos of the other one which had an amazing widows walk at the top of one section.  

Our final stop before heading in to stay with friends on a cane farm was a night at St Lawrence where we waited in expectation of meeting and getting to know new friends better. 

By Lynne