We have been here at Rainbow Beach for five days. Doing nothing, or perhaps, more correctly, very little. No site seeing, museums, tours etc. Largely just sitting around crafting or reading. Allthego has gone down to the beach for a swim each day. Rainbow Beach is a busy little town, taking advantage of it’s gateway status to Fraser Island and being at the end of the long beach drive up from Noosa to Double Island Point.

We are staying at a Big4 Breeze campground. It is about 3 km out of town at Carlo Point on the Tin Can Bay side of the peninsular. We have stayed at Tin Can Bay before. Allthego finds one annoying thing about these campgrounds, beside still water and tidal sand flats. Midgies. They like Allthego and attack aggressively as the sun goes down. They eat Bushmans spray for entree. Legs and arms covered with itchy bites. Here at Carlo Point it is no different. They ignore Homealone because of her daily intake of Vegemite, or so she claims.

The camp is undergoing some significant capital works. Allthego suspects it has not been long acquired by Big 4 and they are now tarting it up to meet their market. In other words they are spoiling it by building rows of box filing cabinets for people to stay in and will be relegating vans and campers to less salubrious areas of the park. Also installing games rooms, TV rooms and jumping pillows. The kids do get outside though and ride around in bikes and various carts.

At least they let us have a fire where we are holed up and we have grilled some rump over the embers, flame wood grilled beef beats gas fires hands down. You do have to let the flames subside though for best results.

We have had some entertainment with the local goanna, being chased around the grounds by a couple of magpies. Perhaps the goanna has got at their eggs or maybe the little magpies at some stage. It hid under our truck for a while before making a dash to some trees. Two Sulphur Crested Cockatoos also joined the chase as it scuttled off into the bush. We managed an out of focus long distance photo during the action.

Have had a meal at the local surf club overlooking the beach and up and down the coastline. Some nice Barra and chips and a Turkish melt, with prawns and avocado. The beach is a little unusual in that it runs almost east-west and has the sun on it most of the day. There is little shade at the back of the beach as the sun slips away in the afternoon. The storm clouds gather late in the day. Apart from one night when we had a fair amount of rain, but no wind, they never came to much. Put on a good show though in the early night sky.

Earlier Allthego climbed a section of the Carlo sand blow that is slowly edging back into Rainbow Beach suburbia. It will take a few years and maybe climate change and rising sea levels will beat it, then again the sand blow might hold the sea back!

On arrival here we were between two other rigs for a couple of days. They have departed and we have had the area to ourselves, apart from workers coming and going on the redevelopment. It has been a nice break but we now head back home to Brisbane and the festive run in to Christmas.

The weather had certainly improved on our last day at Lake Cootharaba and after lunch Allthego set off on the short loop walk to Mill Point. About 5.5 km, say an hour or so. Homealone remained behind for some quiet time.

Mill Point is where, in the mid late 1800s, there was a saw mill on the shores of the lake. Timber felled in the Hinterland was transported there to be cut and barged down the Noosa river and then by sea to Brisbane.

Some 60 families lived here in very basic accomodation. The Mill closed in 1898 and the area was given over to dairy and cattle growing. Allthego diverted down another track a kilometre to the old cemetery, a grassy patch surrounded by forest.

No headstones or burial mounds, but a memorial rock engraved with the names of those buried there. A quiet place to reflect on the times.

The grazing stopped in 1973 when the area became a national park. National Parks has done a lot of revegetation work and the area is reverting slowly to its former state. Still a lot of weeds and pests. There are some big stands of paperbarks beside the track.

All that remains of the old mill is a rusting boiler and some pipes being consumed by vegetation. Some fence posts and rails can be seen in amongst the trees. A brick chimney and stone steps are all that remain of a dairy building.

The diversion to the cemetery and the reading of the information boards has turned the one hour stroll into a two and a bit wander. Some perspiration and thirst had also been worked up and back in camp CootharaBAR called for a cold Amber ale before dinner.

We now head off for Rainbow Beach, one of the gateways to Fraser Island.

As we headed off to Boreen Point it started to team down with rain. Absolutely cats and dogs. A few ducks as well. There is no bakery at Boreen Point. So we headed to Pomona, kept raining even harder at times. Water was lapping the side of the road in spots.

In Pomona we initially couldn’t find the bakery. So called into the IGA store for the milk and see what the bread was like. Waited in the truck for a while to see if the rain would ease up, it didn’t so Allthego went for a slow dash through the puddles. Got the milk and left the shop. Rain had stopped suddenly and the sun was trying to make an appearance. Found the bakery too. Next door to the Pomona Hotel in which we had stayed for a night 15 years or so ago.

We were at Pomona then, with some people from the Brisbane Club’s movie interest group, to see a silent movie at the town’s Majestic Theatre. A Rudolph Valentino classic from the 1920s, ‘ The Son of the Sheik’. An organist played along with the movie for the dramatic effects. They still play the movie now on the first Thursday of the month, although now paused for a short time.

Their Christmas movie is Holiday Inn, Bing Crosby, Fred Astaire and others. A must see! Maybe we will come up for it.

But, back to the bakery. Apart from a loaf of bread and some buns Allthego was tempted by a french vanilla slice, as opposed to an ordinary vanilla slice. The french vanilla slice has a layer of cream on top of the custard and no icing with the swirls of chocolate like the ordinary one. We took this back to the van for afternoon tea. A sausage roll was also acquired to fill a hole, it was getting well past lunch time. This was excellent, nice flaky pastry.

We then headed back to the campground for lunch to be followed by the vanilla slice. It was pretty gooey and oozed out between the pastry, which was a bit chewy. Have had better.

We were getting some late afternoon sun and a pink sunset over the lake. “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight”, maybe the weather is turning for the better?

We are off again but it is with the threat of plenty of rainy days. This is going to be a short outing in our near backyard. We are heading north for a few days at Lake Cootharaba. The lake is north of Noosa and is quite shallow, no more than 2m. It is more or less a big pool of water in the upstream Noosa River channel. We may then head further north to Rainbow Beach before returning home.

As we set off from Bedwell Pl the weather was not too bad, warm and steamy. Stopped for a quick sandwich lunch along Steve Irwin Way in the shadow of Mt Tibrogargan, one of the Glasshouse Mountains. There was a cairn here marking the spot where Matthew Flinders camped in 1799. He had intended to climb the mountain, but didn’t as he was put off by the steepness of the climb.

Arrived at the habitatnoosa everglades ecocamp (a mouthfull) beside the lake mid afternoon, it is a few km from the Boreen Point township, out from Pomona. Five nights for the price of 3, a good deal for grey nomads. This is a great spot.

Besides van and tent sites there are a large number of glamping tents. The admin block houses the cleverly named ’CootharaBAR’ and a restaurant. Craft beer made on the spot too! Not a lot of people around. Would be crowded come school holidays. Have had a good burger for lunch at the restaurant, plenty of chips fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately.

We are now midway through the stay and the weather has turned out as forecast, cloudy with on and off drizzle. Quite heavy one night. Patches of sunshine though. Relaxing though under the awning, plenty of birds around as well as a resident goanna.

About to head to Boreen Point to stock up on milk and bread at the bakery, maybe something else as well.