While Not Working

We stayed in a little blue caravan tucked in against a verandah with an open-air ad-hoc kitchen, two sun loungers outside under an umbrella, and a neat little bathroom which quite possibly did not have any type of council approval.  Pineapples plastered the curtains and throw pillows, dangled from key rings, and clustered as decorative containers in corners. It was a veritable Pineapple Palace.   Our host served breakfast on the verandah in the morning with,  as befitted an eccentric host providing a pineapple palace, no discussion as to what breakfast would entail. We did as we were told and ate what was put in front of us and very nice it was too. We spent a few days in the Pineapple Palace.  Every morning I walked down to the sea to watch the night retreat before returning to the Palace to find out what I was having for breakfast that morning. Morning light on city buildings, ...and on the bridge.   We spent the days adding to our tea and cake overdose and catching up on two year

"I'm in Queensland! I should be warm!" Roger resolutely donned his t-shirt and shorts, willfully ignoring the winter that nipped at his toes as he sat shivering in the Mapleton morning sunshine.  "It's not fair. I was cold all last year and in a week I'll be going south and be cold again."   Some of us were upset because the sun was out but not doing its job. We had a fantastic view of the Glasshouse Mountains on our way to Toowoomba. Winter slapped a bitter wind across his face and whistled under the door of our unit in Toowoomba.  Nothing much, including the weather, had changed in Toowoomba in the two years since we were last there.  We both had to work and after six months of employment Roger finally got to go and do actual work at his employer's office, wearing a shirt and proper pants and shoes like a grown-up instead of slumming in front of a computer in his trackie daks.  Me? I was, as usual, in the second bedroom of our unit with my head stu

We had a bird's eye view of Baroon Pocket Dam from the F's back deck. As we ate our breakfast the lake lay snuggled under a blanket of cloud and mist traced the path of the creek folded into the hills. By the time we'd chatted our way through our first cup of tea the cloud had burned off and the lake glittered blue and inviting in the winter sun.  "Let's go kayaking!" Said Mrs F.  So we did. The road curled past the F's and straight down to a picnic reserve with a convenient boat ramp.   Having spent one weekend whitewater kayaking on the Derwent River in Tasmania over 30 years ago, my kayaking knowledge was limited to knowing which end of the paddle went into the water (easy, both of them, just not at the same time).  Roger and I started out in single kayaks under the assumption that two of us being inept in the same kayak would be too much marital stress for 0900 on a Saturday morning. The Fs took the double kayak and very patiently waited for us as we s

25 years ago we came to Caloundra regularly to visit grandparents, walked the boardwalk and built sandcastles on Bulcock beach. From Bulcock Beach we watched the water surge with the tide, in and out of Pumicestone passage across the Caloundra bar. On the other side of the passage lay Bribie Island, accessible only by boat. In July 2022 the ocean broke through Bribie Island, turning it into two islands and changing the movement of water and sand such that the Caloundra bar quickly silted up and all of a sudden anyone with a working pair of legs could walk across to what was now North Bribie Island. We had to see this for ourselves, so to Caloundra we went on a pilgrimage to personally walk across the bar to Bribie Island. It was quite exciting to see all the sand where once there was water. Not to mention signs that no longer applied. Someone had gone to a great deal of trouble to drag logs out onto the sand to build a... bonfire? Looking back towards Caloundra from N Bribie Island.  B

Bang! Something in the back of the car overturned as we drove the winding road up to the Cape Byron Lighthouse. "Must check that,' I said, and promptly forgot all about it. We checked into the Tweed Heads Caravan Park and spent two days working, watching the rain pour down outside, and congratulating ourselves on not being in a tent.  Meanwhile in our locked-tight car, the contents of our upturned 4L water bottle slowly dribbled out and soaked the carpet and anything else that wasn't in a dry bag or a box. Then, in our locked-up car, all that moisture turned its energies to mould production. Not tent weather.   I went to get something out of the car and oh my goodness it was putrid! An orgy of unpacking, drying out, and parking with all 5 doors open ensued. Thank goodness that a) the sun came out and b) we had already decided to stay another night (which was free given the parks mid week 'stay 3, 4th one free' policy, bless their little cotton socks). Smelly car wo

The rain took a breather on Monday so we checked out of the Middle Pub lickety split and took ourselves off to Burringbar to ride the Northern Rivers Rail Trail (NRRT).  The NRRT was NSW's newest rail trail and part of its catch-up push as recent legislative changes had opened the way for more disused rail corridoors to be converted to rail trails.  The NRRT line only closed in the 70's and the rail trail was fiercely disputed by some factions of the community, to the point of seeding the trail with sneaky thumb tacks and other dastardly deeds designed to destroy bicycle tyres. Oh look, blue sky. The trail was slightly soft, with occasional spatters of rain but not a thumb tack in sight. We passed multitudes of dogs taking their owners out for walks, and quite a few cyclists like us. In fact, we kept crossing paths with the other cyclists as we were all riding a variation of there and back again with different start points. This made for quite a congenial atmosphere with lots o