An Update from the Sunshine Coast

Australia is a huge country making it difficult (and expensive!) to get from one place to another. We do have some upcoming trips planned, but most of our time has been spent here on the Sunshine Coast which does have plenty of its own beauty to offer.

Noosa National Park

There are national parks all over the place along the Sunshine Coast. Noosa is to the north of Peregian Beach about 15 minutes. We drove up here to go for a run one morning.

Mt Coolum National Park and Coolum Beach

Mt Coolum is to the south about 10 minutes from Peregian Beach. There is a nice bike path that makes getting here real easy.

Beekeeping

Warren and his dad are both beekeepers. One morning I was able to join Warren on a trip to his beehives located out at one of their friends’ homes. I stayed well away from the hive, but it didn’t stop a couple bees from getting stuck in my hair! After visiting Warren’s hives, we went to his dad’s house and saw the hives he has. His were cool because they looked like two little houses in the backyard. He also had a small native bee hive which is comprised of bees who are stingless. Their honey is distinctly different from that of honey bees, but I haven’t tried it so I can’t tell you how! Graham then gave us a short lesson on how to extract honey from the frames once the bees have capped it.

Critters

At this point, I still have yet to see any of the cute animals that one thinks of when they think of Australia. I did see a kangaroo but it was from a far distance and the bus went by too quick for me to snap a photo. There have been plenty of other critter sightings though. The magpies are very brazen in their mission to get food. One morning, Julie, Kaitlyn and I had all left to go for a run and Warren could hear the tapping of footsteps in the hallway. He thought his parents had stopped by and brought their dog with them. Turns out, one of the magpies just came on in, made his way down the hallway into Warren’s bedroom and was tapping on the window, trying to get out!

The last three pictures here feature our new house pet, Charlotte. She is a huntsman spider who was hanging out on the wall in my bedroom one night! Warren had to rescue me and remove her from the room but because these spiders are actually good to have around, he just moved it to a room upstairs, clear across the house. The next day, Kaitlyn found her again right outside our bathroom! She moved her outside to the garden. That very same night, Charlotte was back, this time in the bathroom! We finally just let her be and haven’t seen her since then but I am now always on the lookout for when she is going to make her appearance again.

Food

There is really nothing that stands out as super unique about Australian food in comparison to back home, however, when I saw kangaroo burgers at the store, I had to try them! They were basically just a lean meat that wasn’t really anything to write home about. We also had ‘shrimp on the barbie’ which is actually NOT a thing Australians ever do. Warren just cooked some up for us to satisfy the stereotype.

Random Extras

Warren and Julie’s niece is a surf boat racer so we headed to the beach to watch a ‘Surf Carnival’. There were many events including kayaking, surf boating (5 people paddling one big boat), and surf board paddling.

We took a drive ‘out the back’ into the Hinterland and saw some views of the hills and the ocean from afar.