27th Feb - Bundaberg to Brisbane

A longer day for us today, with quite a few stops, but we knew we had 3 nights in Brisbane and would be sharing the 6hrs of driving and napping whilst the other drove.

Our first stop on the drive down was the town of Maryborough. This is home of the Mary Poppins author P L Travers. There are quite a few items acknowledging her including her home (which on reflection we wished we had stayed longer and visited) by we did get to see these amazing items.

Statue of the character as depicted in the book

Even the traffic lights have been adapted. The house behind is the museum where she lived.

However, the most amazing thing about Maryborough is the artwork and murals everywhere. It is such a fabulous town to visit and our few hours stop, including breakfast, was nowhere near enough to do it justice.

Lots of extra people and items in this mural

Even one set of toilets have been extensively painted with multiple murals

The electrical boxes have been art attacked

Next stop for us going south was Noosa Heads on the famed Sunshine Coast. Parking was a right pain to find so we had a trudge back into town after finding somewhere. Mark went off to the beach to splash around and sun for a while. There were the usual surfers and beautiful people around and the sea was very warm and the waters clear and the sand hot but not a fish in sight.

Noosa Heads beach

Meanwhile, Pam meandered around the shops - which were very expensive. The shops were a mixture of clothes shops and restaurants, definitely a very busy area. We grabbed ice creams and moved on south.

A bit of Hastings Street in Noosa Heads

Another place with seaside apartments and boats. Lots of money (or debt) in Queensland state

A bit further down the coast is the town of Mooloolaba. We preferred this as it had the same beach layout but more picturesque and more of a fun vibe and activities. We grabbed drinks and took in the beach views. There were lots of people swimming and we sat down with our drink outside an area called Loo with a view (toilets with a balcony and benches above it)

mooloolaba beach with volleyball setup

Pamela found her fudge shop.

Then we wandered to the wharf area for our sunset canal cruise. We joined our fellow passengers onboard a small old wooden ferry boat from the 1960s. We travelled around looking at lots of expensive houses, boats and amazing views. The cruise took us along the river and then up and down the local canals. We also watched the sun go down which was very nice.

All aboard!

View expensive hours around here

Sunset aboard our canal boat

After the cruise we headed towards Brisbane but made one last stop at a suburb on the outskirts called Redcliffe. This is home to a small attraction called Bee Gees Way as this is the town that the Gibb brothers grew up in. There were sculptures, murals and a wall of information plus a plasma screen with filmed narration by the surviving brother Barry. It was very touching and, as Bee Gee fans, a lovely attraction to be experience especially singing along to their songs during a light show.

The fabulous Bee Gees Way

The way during the nightly light show

The rest of the evening didn’t go so well as our hotel was in a road that was closed to traffic due to building work and the instructions on how to enter were far from clear. Even ringing the hotel led to confusion but eventually we got there, laden with bags, at 10pm and checked into a very large room - not that we noticed as we crashed.