Maleny Tropical Retreat

... birds she call big beekies.<br>we then traveled up to gympie, a commercial town that had great house prices, but although we loved the style of the queenslander homes the town was not for us.<br>anything north of the sunshine coast would be too hot for us in summer, so candy had to zoom back down the highway again.<br>the search continues!!!!!

... much chance saving any data on the laptop including the photos. I was disappointed but accepted the fact that a lot of our photos were probably lost. It was now a waiting game to hear back from VW and the computer shop. At least we were on the Sunshine coast and could enjoy the beautiful beaches and scenery while we waited. The first call back was from Volkswagen and they confirmed our worst fear - the transmission had gone and they would need to completely ...

... few days to get back to Brisbane. This is our final blog until we head North from Brisbane at the beginning of August. We hope you have enjoyed your visits as we have enjoyed telling you our story. We have thoroughly and totally enjoyed our adventure so far. The lifestyle has more than lived up to our greatest expectations. The motorhome is more than comfortable and when plugged into 240V it ...

... Buderim More swimming, at the beach this time where we played in the surf. Went to Undersea world in mooloolaba. An air museum in Coloundra full of old dusty tatty plane but still pretty good and on Friday did a little more diy. Finished the ceiling and some lights. Flooring on Saturday and almost a bbq in the evening, but the home improvements ran on a little.... We still had it.. Just no-one else was there!! Chilli and lime prawns followed by boozy bananas ...

... and protected headlands. Unlike Surfers Paradise, it's kept to low rise development set back from the beaches. Evidence of past battles between the "development at all cost "brigade and local residents remains however. Conservationists have the upper hand with a cap on population growth in the area. But as Wayne noted, the jury is still out as new road and residential development inland attest. Our ever gracious host gave us a good insight into ...

... well presented. From time to time you can spot some keepers walking around with some of the critters. We saw dingos and wombats on leads, and got to pet the wombats. Eventually the day came to an end and we grudginly left the confines of Australia Zoo. And that's about all our news. Our next stop will be Hervey Bay so that we can organise a trip to Fraser Island. Until then folks...

... relish that night. We left Paris sadly the next morning, and all went well with our maxi-taxi transfer to the airport, and with the Singapore airlines flight to Singapore. We pretty much lost a day and night to the travel (although it's only about 12 or so hours in the air). Singapore provided a great stop-over, as we felt fairly fresh from the flight, Singapore has a dream airport, and we were efficiently ferried to our pleasant hotel, the Grand Plaza Park Hotel City Hall ...

... the beach and shops in Bongaree. We were, after all, coming to this sleepy little holiday island because Emily camped here as a child. We found (we think) the caravan park where she camped, the beach where she played, and the ice cream shop where she ate. Ice cream, that is. The place was called Scoopy's, with a dog on the logo, which I thought was hilarious for some reason. I really liked Bribie, mostly because the commercialization of the ...

... a good base for a while to explore around a bit. We are stopped at the show grounds at $10 a night and like everything here it is immaculately maintained. Been having a look at those free real estate magazines and I can see why people buy up in these areas, there are some really expensive properties, but then there are heaps of really nice townhouses and homes in either the coast or the country in the low ...

... shortly, I hope you have a pleasant Monday. Mine was good. And when you go to sleep take solace in living in a country where geckos sell car insurance instead of chirping like some weird ninja cricket that shuts up when you near it and then attacks with some kind of aural Street Fighter move like a tiny reptilian Guile punching you in the eardrum every time you try to drift off. So with that, I wish you sweet dreams. Buenas noches, Matt