We are a month into our trip and decide to take a break from our too-fast-due-to-colder-weather-than-expected travelling schedule and stay for more than a-couple-a-days at the very quiet and lovely Noosa River. Who knew there was ANOTHER beach in Noosa? We catch up on stuff. We get haircuts, wash our sheets, we buy more books, we clean our van. The more locals we deal with the more we notice; the non-pretentious Noosa locals aren’t locals at all; they are all from Eumundi.
We’ve already been to the famous markets (twice), bought locally grown fruit and veg from the half-café-half-grocery store and lusted over silver gemstone jewellery but decide to back track the 20 minutes. Our 4-year-old spends the day with friendly local kids playing in just about the best playground you’ve ever seen underneath just about the biggest fig tree you’ve ever seen. Fig Tree you say? But not like you know it. These trees do not even closely resemble those indoor fiddle fig plants architects with their interior design partner and big fluffy dogs in Southern States have in their trillion-dollar bay-view home offices. These trees look like childhood, lemonade icy poles and summer days that never end (with a faint whiff of grape Hubba Bubba).
We eat a trendy meal in the loveliest pub I’ve ever been to then go for one last drink to the only other pub in town – the local that ‘hasn’t changed in 30 years’. The greyhounds are on one TV and the news on another. It’s pretty much empty and it’s 7pm. I wonder how much busier it would have been pre-COVID. The owner serves us our beers. He asks us where we’ve been and where we’re going. He shares his must-see list of the area and is even able to rustle up a glass of milk for our 4-year-old travelling companion.
In the morning the awesome local café/grocery store makes our little one a pint-sized chocolate peppermint milkshake, just because she can’t decide which flavour to have. I have a home-made pepper and steak pie and soy latte extra hot (yes, seriously) sitting in an armchair by the window and try to think of reasons to stay here another night.
One thing I know for sure though, we don’t need to stay for the pubs – Australia is full of them, and truthfully, have you REALLY seen Australia if you haven’t been to the local pub in at least half the places you visit? Maryborough. Gimpy. Bundy. Townsville. Mission Beach. We visit them all and more. We stop off at the local pub for lunch at 11:30am. Or dinner at 5pm. At 11:30am you are alone with the barflies. And maybe a few grandkids drinking pots of raspberry post-mix being minded by their grandpa if their parents are working and its school holidays. They are the real Australians and don’t even judge when we order lemon, lime and bitters with our Bangers ‘n’ Mash and Roast of the Day for lunch. In Childers, it’s just past 11:30am and I’m included in the latest local gossip of the plain clothed policeman doing the rounds of local pubs pretending to be a customer and giving $9000 fines to pub owners if the daily COVID register isn’t completed in full. Luckily this pub owner hasn’t seen him yet, still, there’s a hell of a lot of cursing for an early lunch.
In every beautiful but isolated waterfront town we chat to the now-locals, who all tell a similar story – they came for a holiday 20 years ago and just decided never to leave. It sounds so simple. I wonder which town will be the one I don’t leave, but for now there are just too many beautiful places to visit to stop at one.
1770, and the most beautiful piece of travel writing I’ve ever read. The article published recently in The Australian weekend magazine made me fall in love (from afar of course) with the amazingly talented Tim-Wintonesque Brisbane journalist Trent Dalton. Do yourself a favour and read it. Chances are, if you’re reading this (awesome!) magazine, you’ll love his piece too. And then I get to the town itself and there truly is something magical about this place. The shared experience at sunset with cheese, crackers, Chardy and camping chairs is as close as I’m ever going to get to a religious experience. Each and every night after doing pretty much nothing all day but reading a book in the sand, I, with about 50 other people, sit on our sinking-in-the-sand beach chairs, sip our celebratory drink of choice and take photos of the sun going down with our iPhones, so we can somehow capture this spiritual moment where we feel like we are part of something bigger than we can grasp. Hard to believe something this special could happen 365 days a year.
And the spiritual experiences don’t end there. Be sure to visit Innit Hot Springs (bordering Atherton Tablelands). Just don’t be a sucker and sit in a small and very un-social-distancing man-made pool with the 30 other passers-through. Do like the locals and walk 10 metres out the door of the campground, turn left and make your own natural spring as boiling hot as you’d like in the banks of the river itself. Apparently, the locals come down with shovels to dig their own perfect bath, but we did just fine with our hands. Alone and under a palm tree it’s moments like these when you know you are without a doubt the luckiest person on the planet right now.
And our other Bests of the Best? The best of Queensland’s East Coast. Well how can I answer that question when I don’t know what you like, what you search for? What gets you up in the morning. Is it trendy cafes (are you a coffee snob) or authentic pubs (or trendy pubs!)? Weekend markets or art trails? Windy beaches (yes, my husband is a newly addicted kite-surfer and for every day of disappointment I couldn’t read my book on the beach was a kite surfer’s paradise). Is it waves, mountain bike tracks or 6-hour hikes? I can only tell you what speaks to me. No matter what though, let’s all agree on one thing, and always stop for a homemade pie. Hayden’s Pies in Ulladulla has everything you could dream of plus cherry and apple pies for dessert once you’ve finished your lunch. Jochheims Pies in Bowen has the Bowen Special with beef, tomato, onion and mango(!) Plus Hugh Jackman’s pie of choice when filming Australia there was the one with the biggest chunks of meat (no surprise there). And we can’t visit Port Douglas without a seafood pie from Mockas (although recently discovered they make surprisingly good sourdough bread there too).
And then you are out of the city long enough to stop being a wanker and complaining about the crappy bread and start appreciating the real Australian bakery. The ones that sell cakes with mock cream and home-made jam rolls (you know, the ones you thought only existed in the supermarket).
You get over the beaches and start searching for ‘water holes’ and find the best two in Queensland (promise!). The technicolour blue green waters of Stony Creek in Byfield National Park (1 hour north of Rockhampton) and Big Crystal Creek in the Paluma Ranges (1 hour north of Townsville) will be worth the drive (wherever you live!).
And the town that stole our heart (I’m going to call it a town because of the name!) was Townsville. It’s optimistic about the future. It’s one of the very few Australian regional towns that feels like it’s going places (good ones!). Uni students, FIFO weekender’s, ‘booming industry’. Whatever it was – this town had lines around the corner to get into clubs at a time my 4-year-old is still up eating dinner (how else would I know?). There are trendy cafes and gentrification. There’s real street art. There’s a cute middle eastern café with friendly locals sitting on brightly coloured little wooden stools. And the botanical gardens! My lovely husband discovers his favourite tree in the world and declares it to anyone who’ll listen all evening – it’s called the Rain Tree and its branches make you feel as insignificant as the tiny blip on earth and in time that you really are. Just about sums up the reason for travelling right there I’d say.
Article by Tania from Achtung Camper. Read all the Around Australia We Go columns here.
