South Towards the Sunshine Coast
A small island beach in the Whitsundays
A four-hour bus ride south from Cairns brought me to Townsville, and a beautiful small ninth-floor AirBNB overlooking the ocean and set in an upscale waterfront district, North Ward. A mile-long deep green park extended back from the beach and its natural buffer, and included several zones of parks, memorials and play areas. The beach buffer itself was a linear outdoor sculpture exhibit, Seaside Ephemera (here) that was very diverting. Exploring other parts of the city revealed some interesting architecture and increased vacancies, adding up to much less of interest as the blocks got further from the water. The ferry terminal was within walking distance of my little suite, and it connected me to a day on Magnetic Island, with easy local bus connections, hiking forests, WWII ruins and Horseshoe Bay, a small, secluded town with a long, sweeping white sand beach, absolutely perfect for a getaway week of solitude someday.
Sunrise from my balcony, with Magnetic Island on the left
My favorite of the many examples of fascinating colonial architecture
This was attached to a Catholic school
Detail of the metal panel system - is it modelled on lace curtains?
View of Magnetic Island from Townsville
Looking down on a Magnetic Island beach
Curled up just so
A World War II “fort” entertains along a major hiking track on “Maggie” (Magnetic Island)
Horseshoe Beach, Magnetic Island
The tiny cafe district across from Horseshoe Beach
Then it was time for the next 4-hour bus trip south to Airlie Beach. The dominant elements of the landscape from Cairns north to Cape Tribulation, and south to Townville and Airlie, were huge, golden sugar cane fields with green peaks rising as backdrop. Endless sugar cane fields. Every so often a sugar mill would appear in the middle of nowhere, looking like an industrial hulk much like a small oil refinery, or a massive blackened field where the remnant stalks had been burned away. Not something I've seen much of before.
One thing I’ve learned is that Australians love their pumpkin. So much so that they made “butternut squash” a pumpkin too.
And while you are at the grocery store, you might pick out a new cell phone too.
Airlie Beach is a smaller town, relatively new and specifically oriented towards its beach, boating and the nearby Whitsunday Islands, known for their beauty. The main drag is roughly six blocks of shops bars and restaurants, and there are mainly vacation rentals surrounding. It's a pleasant enough place, with the feeling of a staging area to get out on the water. My daysail on a wooden, high-masted ship was adventurous given high seas and strong winds. Like something out of a 19th-century sailing novel, the waves washed the deck and the spray lashed our faces.
On the good ship Providence, back in the protected harbor
This northern Queensland leg of my Australian journey ended with a substantial threshold: a fifteen-hour, all-night bus journey from Airlie Beach to Noosa and the Sunshine Coast, about 90 minutes north of Brisbane. That 15-hour stretch demonstrates how really big Queenland is. I was dreading it unnecessarily. When I had booked reservations, no good options for flights remained. The train would take even longer. Instead of booking with popular Greyhound Australia, I booked the local Premier Line, at a substantial discount. Turns out both companies were on the same schedule, so I witnessed the Greyhound bus filled to overflowing at our Airlie stop. The Premier bus was about 10 minutes late, there was one person on the bus plus three who boarded, and we more than made up the time and arrived in Airlie well before the Greyhound. With that much space to spread out, I got some sleep. Premier, in that case, was a great call.
One of the many beaches to see in Noosa National Park
I watched the kite sailors for hours; they are mesmerizing -Peregian Beach
I stayed about 8km south of Noosa in Peregian Beach, my kind of sleepy beach town without much going on. Noosa is a well-known beach and vacation destination, a flashy, expensive, newer, suburban-style village, very car-oriented with the exception of the upscale district of beachfront shops. The town developed along the outskirts of a national park, where a forested rocky peninsula yields cliffs at the sea. The cliffs define white sand beaches in multiple sizes and configurations. Other than the big, beautiful sweeping beach adjacent to the village, these beaches require a walk at varying distances from parking - up to roughly a mile. As a result, there are few people and huge expanses of sand and surf. Heavenly. My hiked lap around the peninsula was roughly 4 miles, touching six beaches. South of this peninsula, there is a straight shot of about 14km of wide beach with Singing-Beach-quality sand. Multiple times a day, groups of kite boarders set off from the north end, and sail their way to the south end, cutting back and forth perpendicular to the surf, their big colorful sails soaring in figure-eight patterns a dozen of them in a mesmerizing, floating dance. My stay in Peregian Beach put me in the middle of all of this, and I walked up and down that beach for a week, following the kite board sails.
One of the reasons I stayed nine days in the Sunshine Coast is that, with the Women’s Soccer World Cup Thirds Place game in Brisbane on Saturday night, I could not find a place to stay there until Sunday. It's been a great rest after my grand tour. I'm looking forward to seeing Brisbane, and then starting over in a new country, New Zealand, a week from today.
