It took a little while to get to sleep last night with the sound of the waves crashing ashore wafting in through the window. But that's no excuse when you've paid an AU$5 maintenance fee for your boogie board for you must arise early (well, 7:30) and head straight for the beach. The sun was quite high in the sky and felt warm (close to burning for me) but the sand felt cold. Not quite as, erm, "cool" as the water. Like last night our spot on the beach was deserted bar a lone surf fisherman (surfcaster?). To our right there were three surfers in the dim distance but to our left there was a score of people. Did they know something about our spot? Maybe their stretches were warmer as it was a bit of a shock to the system. Of course, once in it was fine but those first few splashes on the midriff and torso were "exhilerating." Not to mention when the water hit last night's injury: a chaffed inner thigh. The waves were a bit less uniform this morning. The good waves brought you in 'til you struck ground then there would be lean spells with no waves, useful to us at any rate. Obviously, once you've mastered the waves, as we had, you can only go on so long and a quite long drive north beckoned.
We wanted to go to Noosa today following Rob's advice that the waves were easy and predictable making it easy to learn to surf but Noosa YHA was full so we booked into Hervey Beach (pronounced Harvey) another couple of hours north. We stopped in Byron Bay for a coffee which is a bustling backpacker/surf-ville. I could at this point divert onto the agricultural finesse of Aussie driving but I think that says enough.
The drive up the Pacific Highway was going well until we hit the Gold Coast at which point it all went pear shaped. The Australian Roads Authorities like to hold sway over any particular section so the national circumlocutor(?) yellow labelled route 1 becomes the state's white labelled route 1 and sometimes the state's blue labelled route 2, then route 10, or was it 7? Anyway, our road had entered a long line (and by long I mean about twenty miles) of tower block hotels. In the hour it took us to escape we didn't see the sea once, maybe some inlets, but no surf, only hotels, hotels, hotels. Quite extraordinary, especially to come down the hill just after the state crossing from NSW and see this landscape of skyscrapers. We thought it was Brisbane. It was about this time that channel hopping from dire local radio playing the latest boy bands to dire local radio playing the latest boy bands that we decided that perhaps we'd changed time zone. The erudite reader will know that this state transition is a rare intra-national north-south border that has a time zone change. But we didn't. On reflection I think Mark might have told us but his nature is to tell people a lot of things. I for one don't recall them all.
Having extracted ourselves at Surfer's Paradise (maybe once) we hit the Bruce Highway (route 1) then promptly left it again to head for Noosa for lunch. Noosa (when you get there via the Sunshine Coast "Motorway") is a pleasant clean modern little town. Seemingly more family orientated its shops were bustling and the beach full and, as Rob reported, easy waves coming ashore. Noosa and environs lacked useful signposting and as a side effect we ate at the wrong end of town (too near the beach) though Helen's salad was OK.
Our map of Queensland is the top right corner of an A3 map of Australia (Helen bemoaning that the flip side map of South East Australia didn't give any distances in Northern Queensland) but it did give enough information (read: any town name at all) to avoid us having to re-run the Sunshine Coast Motorway and only take 10km to regain the Bruce Highway. Our final two or three hours of pretty straightforward driving to Hervey Bay. You knew that wasn't true, didn't you?
In Maryborough, not too far from Hervey Bay, the advertised Tourist Route 12 (the brown signed Tourist Routes are an added dimension) went straight, then left, then hit a T-junction. We guessed right and hit another T-junction. At this point, with no more clues we headed right to double back then found a sign saying left. We followed that and just before the next junction the 4 foot by 2 foot Tourist Route signs changed to a 4 inch by 3 inch Tourist Route shield with a right arrow. We started round that and Helen noticed that from the other direction there was a green state sign saying Hervey Bay was (effectively) straight on. Being a bit non-plussed by now with route 12 we did a U'y and followed the green sign. We went over several junctions with no clue until we reached a T-junction. I went left as I felt the junction "leaned" left but that was all we had to go on. Fortunately a Tourist Route 12 shield appeared at the side of the road two minutes later.
Hervey Bay is much like "The North," you see a few signs for it coming out of major towns in the UK then it incredibly disappears and is replaced by some towns you've never heard of. Such was our run into the place. Guessing that straight on was the best policy (except the roundabout where we detoured to fix the yellow "no petrol, sonny!" light on the dashboard) and amazingly the YHA appeared on the left. We tried a quick "round town" (having shot past the YHA) but there were a lot of dead ends.
The YHA is three rooms to a cabin, sans air-con. Oh dear. We make a second "round town" but there's nothing here (including road signs). Hervey Bay exists to farm people over to Frasier Island. I can't see the attraction in Frasier Island myself, I think we've seen too many riches in getting here. We resign oursleves to the "cheap" cocktails and food in the YHA restaurant/bar. In happy hour I convince Helen that we should have a jug of Stella (following a jug of VB and two dodgy cocktails, one still standing). I must say, Stella doesn't travel.
Hervey Bay YHA S25.29498 E152.90396 Elev. 10m
Ever willing to plunge the depths of the drinkers barrel I have just exchanged AU$3.50 for a bottle of Castlemain XXXX Gold. "Full Flavoured" read: dulled to the point of no taste. I was somewhat dismayed to read it was a mere 3.5% alcohol.
Copyright 2003 Ian Fitchet. All rights reserved.