First Camping Getaway For 2016 - Part Three 28 January 2016

There had been severe storms forecast for the Noosa area overnight but all we had at Lake MacDonald was a few minutes of impressive lightening and loud thunder but no rain or wind.  I woke early but laid in until about 7.00am when had my normal breakfast of orange juice, tea and toast sitting under my awning.

Wendy, Jeff and Sue had full cooked breakfast under the barbecue shelter.  They were all moving on today.  Jeff and Sue back to Hervey Bay where Jeff had a job to go to and Wendy down to the Sunshine Coast Airport to park her huge camper and fly off to Sydney for a few days.  They took their time packing up as it was a warm morning with the temperature  nudging 30C.  I took it easy and read in the shade and about 10.00am we all sat in the barbecue shelter for morning coffee.  Wendy had time to kill before she had to go to the airport and we decided to have lunch together in Cooroy at the RSL.

Jeff and Sue drove off about 12.00noon and I followed Wendy to Cooroy where we sat for an hour over lunch.  We both wished each other good luck.  Wendy did not expect to be back for a couple of years.

After lunch I went to the Noosa Botanical Gardens on the other side of Lake MacDonald from where I was camped.  This had been a favourite place for Margaret and I when she was still fit enough to walk our lovely black standard poodle, Pierre.  We would take a Thermos flask and have morning tea in the amphitheater looking over the lake after we had walked through the gardens.  The amphitheater had been built by local volunteers before we arrived in Noosa in 1998.

I enjoyed my walk but as the temperature got into the mid 30s decided to returned to camp and sit in the shade of the barbecue shelter until the sun went down.

Wendy's campsite had now been occupied the smallest camper van I have ever seen.  I was a small delivery van with a double bed and some cooking facilities.  It had been hired, sight unseen, by two girls from the Netherlands and they were setting out on a trip to the tropical north of Queensland and the Northern Territory.  We chatted for a while before I went back to my camper trailer for a light dinner, beans on toast.

After dinner I went for a shower and on the way back found the girls in some alarm.  They were in the barbecue shelter.  One was huddled in the corner and the other standing on  bench.  Between them was a large, but harmless, spider called a huntsman.  Now I don't like spiders but huntsmen are timid so I stamped my foot and it ran off into the bush.  The girls were saved!  They returned to their dinner and questioned me for for some time about their perceived dangers of the Australian Outback.  I advised them that most spiders and snakes were timid and, if left alone, were no danger.  Crocodiles were dangerous but there are warning signs throughout the North where it was unsafe to camp or swim.  I am not sure if they were convinced thatnthey were in more danger of a traffic accident than from the local wild life.

Overnight we had another tropical thunder and lightening display and I wondered how the girls were getting on in their sardine can.

Noosa Botanical Gardens Amphitheater looking across the lake to my campsite.

 

Pierre visiting Margaret in Noosa Hospital December 2003