Waking early and not having too far to drive today meant we could spend a little more time exploring Noosa before we left. There are so many things to do and ways to explore (boat trips, horse riding etc) but we stuck to walking. The coastal boardwalk to Noosa Heads National Park begins at the southern end of the main beach just off Hastings Street. A few people were already on the beach.

You can also drive to the park if you wish but we were trying to keep up some exercise on this long drive. The path is being renovated so there are some diversions and as it was Sunday there were lots of runners. We reached the park and continued along the coastal path. It goes all the way round to Sunshine Beach which takes about four hours, so we just did a small section. The first part looks over Laguna Bay to Cooloola sandmass which has been building up for 500,000 years and is one of the biggest accumulations of wind-blown sand on the Queensland Coast

continuing past the Boiling Pot

until we reached Tea Tree Bay

It was then time to return to the town, leave Noosa and head back to the Pacific Highway which we joined near Cooroy. Before we did this, we visited Noosa Botanic Garden which is on the shores of Lake Macdonald. It is free to visit, owned by the council and much of the work is done by volunteers. 80% of the plants and trees are native. There were also quite a few birds around.

Back on the highway we had a brief rest and cold drink at the Golden Nugget Road House. There are many signs on the highway exhorting you to stop and rest every two hours, but things have got to a new level up here. A sign said that playing trivia could keep you awake. A little further on was the question: What is Rockhampton famous for? We knew the answer: beef cattle. This was on the next sign. The landscape was getting drier and large cattle farms could be seem as well as pineapples and sugar cane. More traffic was heading south than north. At Maryborough we turned off towards Hervey Bay and found a shady corner in their Botanic Garden for lunch. A white ibis came to see us

and there were several turtles sunning themselves on rocks alongside the water.

Finally, we reached the esplanade and our motel. The beach here is sheltered from the ocean by Fraser Island so the sea is very shallow. Today’s mileage was 131 bringing the total so far to 1214 miles and the temperature reached 28 degrees. Tomorrow the car will be going nowhere.