Friday Five: The Mooloolaba edition…

Yes, yes, I know that it’s Saturday and Friday was so yesterday, but I’ve spent the last couple of days in a car so surely that’s an excuse…right?

We’ve spent most of the last week up in Mooloolaba. It’s a place that we’ve been coming to regularly since Miss 18 was just 6 months old. It’s also a place that we’ve been talking more about in the last few months as we contemplate a sea-change.

This time around the break was necessary to put a very firm full-stop against my old partition job- before whatever is next. Is it a move up there? I’m not sure that I’m ready for that just yet- but I’m absolutely getting closer and closer to making that decision.

Here are five reasons why…

The sunrises….

If you follow my instagram, you wouldn’t have been able to get away from my sunrise photos. Like this one.

Somehow it’s easier to get up for that morning walk here. The birds sound different here too- less squawky- as though they don’t need to be competing with everything else to be heard. Besides, nothing can compete with a light show such as this.

What really makes it easier to get up, though, is the ocean. There’s something so…hopeful…about standing on a beach and watching the ocean change as the sky changes.

The sunsets…

Also best enjoyed from a spot on the beach.

Whatever else we were doing, we’d make time to pause for those few minutes as the sun said farewell for the day.

It feels easier to be healthier…

I said before that I find it easier to get out of bed to go for a walk. I also walk for coffee, walk for groceries, walk for prawns…walk. I’m not alone- there are heaps of lone walkers, dog walkers, couple walkers out each morning. Naturally, there are also loads of runners…each to their own, I suppose.

Even now, in winter, when it’s too cold for most of us to be swimming, there’s a band of hardy souls that gather here each morning- many before the sun is up- to swim, kayak, paddle-board. Sure, there’s life-guard training going on, but most of these early risers are my age or older- some much older. And boy, do they look healthy- so much healthier than older people at home look. There’s definitely something to this healthy lifestyle thing.

Morning coffee…

My hubby isn’t big on the whole walking thing. He says that it’s because of knees and 50 years playing soccer, but it’s also because he’s just not big on it. In Mooloolaba though, he’ll walk up to the beach and meet me after I finish my walk. We have coffee, talk, watch the beach come to life, and watch (more than a little enviously) as the early morning swimmers gather under the life-guard tower to dry off, warm up and chat.

And the best coffee? At Hustle and Flow at the surf club right near the lifeguards tower. It’s only open in the mornings- from 5.30am- and the coffee is well worth getting up for.

The prawns…

Oh, the prawns.

Mooloolaba prawns are, in my humble opinion, the absolute best prawns anywhere. Ever. I crave these prawns.

We buy them from the fisho down at the Spit, where the boats come in. They’re super-fresh, super-crisp, and so so sweet.

The best place to eat them is at one of the tables nearby, overlooking the beach.

You’ll share the view with the scrub turkeys (they’re everywhere), but ignore them and they’ll ignore you.

Oh look…another sunrise