Thursday Feb 23, 2013
Today is moving day and not the day to lollygag around. Everyone, but Hudson, is up by 6:30am. We have a little coffee and finish the last
minute packing. At a little past 7 the
train leaves the station and Hudson barely makes it. Today is a yucky day with dark clouds and a
steady rain, a great day for traveling we all agree.
At this early hour we encounter several back-ups of morning
traffic on our way to Brisbane. We have
to return the car by 10am to avoid a penalty charge and stroll into the airport
at 10:15 to discover that somewhere along the way we entered a different time
zone and it is only 9:15am in Brisbane….we could have slept an hour later
Sharon and I communicate with eye contact.
We tried and tried to just extend the car rental on-line to avoid this
scenario, but were unable to do so. We
had attempted to just keep the same car under the same conditions, but were
told it would cost approx. $400 more to extend the current rental, so we had to
turn in the car and re-rent a similar car from Brisbane forward. Anticipating a successful exchange we decide
to leave the bags in the car. At the car
rental it becomes a formality to turn the car in and fill out some paperwork
for the same car with a different return date and city….what a waste of time!!! Back on the road we decide to bypass Brisbane and boogie
on toward the next destination. About an
hour out of Brisbane we decide to pull over for lunch and Sharon sees a sign
for the Ginger Factory. What another waste of time!!! We get out, enter a building, taste a couple
of ginger samples, refuse to take a $50 45 minute tour about ginger production,
take a piss and decide not to eat at their overly inflated pricy and limited
options café. The kids do enjoy the free
sample of chocolate that is provided and decide to spend their daily allowance
on chocolate…so it wasn’t a total waste of time for the kids.
Back on the road we are still hungry and getting a little giggly
and giddy with our comments about the wonderful ginger factory. We see a sign for Noosa Head Beach and decide
we like the name and will eat there. We
discover it is 20km off the beaten path, but we are committed. It appears to be an up-scale boating town
with many residential boat slips, and as we cruise along the main drag someone
spots our favorite….”food court.” We
enjoy a lunch of kebobs, Thai food and a healthy chicken wrap for Sharon. The weather is still yucky and rainy as we come into Hervey
Bay. We are all, OK the grownups,
somewhat silent as we cruise into town toward the water front. This does not appear to be the type of town
we envisioned or thought it might be.
The beach is non-existent with rocky retaining walls and the sandbar appears
to have mold on it as if the water has not passed over it in quite some
time. We had planned to spend a couple
of days here but decide 1 night will probably be enough. After making a couple of stops of inquiry we
decide to head to the place we found on-line.
We negotiate a lower price than quoted on-line and decide to take it for
1 night. We do find a somewhat decent
place for dinner of fish & chips, calamari & chips, grilled fish and
some kebobs to tide us over. It has been
a long day so we retire to the apt and our research says that the weather is
supposed to be yucky for the rest of the week along the whole east coast. We
decide to call it a night and explore our options in the morning.
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