EC-Rider Travels

The forecast today was dreadful, with the cyclone still whirling around the East Coast, and due to bring torrential rain. Anyway we awoke to beautiful sunshine and decided to go for a walk at the neighbouring Coolum Beach. Another built up seaside town with huge apartment blocks and hotels. The sea was very rough and the surf huge with some brave/crazy surfers doing the most amazing things. We walked around the beach – again on a smart board-walk – and down to the white sands. It was all pretty blowy but lovely.

We then decided to visit the much talked about Mt Coolum. This is a 25million year old volcanic dome, and the second largest monolith after our friend Uluru. It is 208 metres hight and home to more than 700 plant types. We had heard it was a pretty serious walk, and certainly not advised in the heat of the day, but here we were at half past midday, and it still was not raining so off we went. It was indeed quite a tough climb, up many, many, many steps, but somehow we made it. Diana reminding me that Michelle (our host) runs up it …. Really?!

Strangely, we did not pass too many others on the way, but I since discovered there is an Aboriginal legend which says couples climbing Coolum together break up due to an ancient Aboriginal curse – possibly not ideal on Valentines Day! We saw some wonderful Scribbly Gum trees and also a rather sweet blue-faced honey-eater at the base and lots of corellas nestling in the trees. The birds, by this time, were getting pretty agitated which made us think the storm was now pretty imminent.

Still somewhat red in the face, me not Diana, we went into the town to try and find some lunch – but a bit late at 1.30! So we went shopping instead! Diana bought some very chic swimsuits and I found some rather snappy bright green linen trousers for my forthcoming travels. We then thought we would go and choose a restaurant for our ‘last meal’ together and again struggled – we had forgotten it was Valentines. We were offered a set meal at 5.30pm with ‘alternate drop’. This was a new one on me, but apparently common here….. a set-menu and an option for each course, but you do not have that option …. they go round the table ‘alternately dropping’ one to one and the other to the next. Can you imagine the food envy! Luckily our friends at Periwinkle could accommodate and we had a delicious last dinner together, before poor Diana had to get back for another meeting …. She is supposed to have retired!