Mooloolaba…

So anyways, I’m on holidays. In Mooloolaba. On Queensland’s Sunshine Coast.

We’ve been coming up here on and off for over 16 years. I have a photo in a scrapbook somewhere of Miss 16, but then just 6 months old, sitting on a towel in the sand out the front of the Surf Club touching sand for the first time.

We love the place.

What do we do up here?

We walk. A lot.

Somehow it’s easier to be active up here than it is to be lazy.

I do a walk each morning- up to Alexandra Headland, meeting hubby back on the main beach for a coffee.

Sometimes all of us go, and check out the rock pools

and views along the way.

Some days I’ll also walk down to the lighthouse at the end of The Spit.

From here we can see across to Maroochydore and Cotton Tree,

or just watch the prawn trawlers go out to bring me back more prawns.

The rest is incidental- up to the Esplanade for coffee, up and down the beach, down to the fisheries for prawns, to the Surf Club/Thai/Yacht Club/ Deck/etc for dinner. It’s all so incidental that I don’t notice how quickly the steps are clocking up on my fitbit.

We’re also at the beach and in the surf a lot. My hair has dreadlocks. When it’s this thick and curly- dreadlocks and frizz are a given. No matter, I’ll deal with that at home.

The beach is endlessly fascinating.

There’s no daylight saving time here in Queensland (something about how it makes the curtains fade, the chooks go off the lay, and the cows milk dry up), so first light is just before 5am.

By 6- when I’m usually up and walking- the first of the beach swimmers are already drying off and the paddle boarders are about to start.

By 7- when I’m usually sipping at that first coffee- the first of the families have given into the pleadings from their beach anxious offspring.

By mid morning the sand is full of umbrellas and deckchairs, and the water of boogie boards.

Later in the day, beach entertainment is provided by the hotly contested games of beach cricket- the Dads all secretly wondering whether they could perhaps have worn the baggy green, and whether on this batting/bowling performance it really isn’t too late.

By the time the sun is dipping, the lifeguards are out doing their training (as an aside, worth the watch).

The other morning we sat and watched a storm roll in from the north…it missed us, but was highly photogenic.

What else do we do? Eat…of course.

We have some favourites- Thai Lotus, the Surf Club, Hot Pipis, Spice Bar, the Yacht Club, the wood-fired pizza place down on River Esp and Augellos near the Coffee Club.

For us, a visit to Mooloolaba wouldn’t be complete without a visit to the Deck on The Spit for fresh seafood, or at least a couple of kilos of the best prawns you’re ever likely to eat…don’t write to me.

They are sweet and crisp, and best eaten close to the beach.

And when it rains? The colours take on a different hue- no less inspiring, just different. Muted in some ways, intensified in others.

In between the walking and the eating and the beaching, I’m finding time to read…and even a little time to write.

It’s bliss.