Waking up in the morning at Beachmere was a pleasant experience after witnessing the “real life zombie apocalypse wasteland under the bridge caravan park” at Caboolture. Even more pleasant was the day we had planned so we’re excited to fill you in about it. We set off at a good time in the morning to go for a run around some of the tracks at the Glasshouse Mountains, which is nestled up in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland 64 kilometres north of Brisbane. The Glasshouse Mountains are plugged volcanic peaks that have been inactive for approximately 25 million years. Named by James Cook, he described them as Glass factory buildings with their close proximity to each other and impressive elevation. The rich resources in the area made it sustainable for Aboriginal people over thousands of years, it also has very spiritual significance, which made for large ceremonial gatherings that are still happening presently. We lapped around Mount Tibrogargan on a track and run along the Trachtyte circuit. The circuit took us up to the Jack Ferris lookout and gave us great views of five of the surrounding peaks. Stoked with the views we ran ourselves back to the car park and thought we would go and find a beach.  Glass House Mountains National Park
We decided to make our way to Caloundra, a tidy popular beach town that is the most southern beach of the Sunshine Coast. Ever since 1875, it’s been a destination for tourists to soak up beach and sunshine. After an epic smoothie bowl at the Greenhouse Café, we strolled down to the beach and threw ourselves into the water. The beach was amazing to swim at; the waves were pleasant, no harsh rips and clear water that we could just sit in all day. Refreshed with an early afternoon swim we made our way over to Bribie Island for dinner.
 Bribie Island Surf Beach Driving on a bridge that takes us over the Pumice Stone River, it landed us on the island. With some time to spare before dinner, we went and had a look at Woorim beach, which had good views over towards Moreton Island. Watching endless waves of water took us to dinner at the Kai Restaurant. The views here were just as good, we got to watch the sun drop over the horizon and see the glare of the city lights rise. A beautiful storm made its way over and gave us a decent light show too. After nature’s performance, dinner made its way out with a garlic bread entrée and a pair of lamb shanks resting on top of a flavoursome risotto, finished with a brownie for desert. We certainly didn’t go home hungry.
The day was action packed but amazingly relaxed. It was filled with everything from running on dirt tracks between mountains to drifting between waves on the beach. Graciously eating acai bowls to devouring the shanks of a lamb. Highways to gravel roads and then parked back at Florence to hit the hay. What an awesome day! 
The one-hour trip up into the Sunshine Coast Hinterland takes you into another world with small quaint towns, rainforests and waterfalls. It made us quickly forget that only a half an hour away is the hustle and bustle of the peak Bruce Highway traffic. Every moment up there is absolutely enjoyable, even if it is considered posh.
Florence was scheduled for a service the following, so we headed straight for Caboolture, stopping at Eumundi to purchase some amazing honey, then straight into the shonkiest caravan park we have come across. Notices on the female toilet doors to "Report any suspicious behaviour to reception" and "See reception for the disable toilet key as these have been locked due to misuse" were only a few of the indicators that it wasn't the place for us and our caravan home. Grateful for the cancellation at Beachmere, so we were able to shift camp and into a beautifully maintained caravan park by the water that looks across to Redcliffe. We are now only about 50 kilometres from Brisbane.
 It’s an amazing place to be out in the water, kayaking along the ocean gives you the best view of the multi coloured sand phenomenon.
Rainbow beach is a fairly new town, only being gazetted in 1969. Originally known as Black Beach, it was renamed Rainbow Beach due to its 72 various colours in the beach sand. The town started off facilitating the sand mine, which ceased operations in 1976, since then it has focused on tourism. Its main attractions are beaches, 4WDing, fishing and walking tracks. Another attraction was the shipwreck Cherry Venture which was beached at double island point, sunk in 1973 and removed in 2007, it brought people in to graffiti and eat ice cream at the stand. Even though her rusted remains are removed, a prop is nicely displayed to represent its tourism legacy.  Around the town is nice and quiet, the beach is certainly the main attraction. The burger we had with a wagyu beef pattie well past the used by date gave us a hint that we should be out on the beach fishing for a meal. The beaches are wide, sandy and filled with colour. Wide beaches stretch up to Inskip point to connect to Fraser Island and down to the northern shores of Noosa, creating a highway for four wheel drives to commute sensibly along. Making for a spectacular drive on Double Island Point for a kayak tour, we felt concerned to see the layers of oil and black residue it leaves, especially up towards Inskip point. We drove to Searys Creek, which was a nice gentle 200-metre walk, with gorgeous tea coloured water and greenery made it great for dipping the feet in. 
We decided to jog the bush track to Poona Lake from the Bymein Day Use Area, located off Freshwater Road in the Great Sandy National Park. It's about 2.2kms to the lake, so we jogged there and back twice over, making for a fun, yet heart rate raising jog of about 8.8kms, the track of which climbs steadily towards the lake. Poona lake has a brownish tinge, coloured by the surrounding Tea Tree plants and although a beautiful spot with perfect white sand, the dark water didn't look appealing to venture into. During the jog, Shovel stood on what we think was a tree snake before it slid quickly up a tree and almost ran straight into a huge gonna, before it too hurried up a tree and he was almost knocked out by a falling branch. Just as well I let him jog in front.
 We were up at 5am, earlier than we'd been up since leaving Mount Isa two and a half weeks ago for a quick breakfast smoothie before piling into the back of 'Troopy.' To venture on a one hours drive along a very bumpy bush track through beach forest in the Great Sandy National Park, to reach our destination on the beach near Double Island Point, south of Rainbow Beach. We were here to Sea Kayak. Although Shovel had kayaked previously in Canada, I'd never given it a crack until today and I'm so glad I did. I'm hooked. We had a blast as we started off paddling through calmer waters before heading out to sea and getting rolled by waves and fighting off shore winds. We had tonnes and fun and laughed heaps as we turned over the capsized kayak to continue on our way.
 A wrong turn at Maryborough had us driving an extra 70 kilometres than anticipated on our journey to the next stop, Rainbow Beach, situated at the top end of the Sunshine Coast. The road conditions were wet and visibility limited at times as we ventured through the range making caravan towing tricky. Unfortunately coming into Rainbow Beach, I received the harsh reality check that not everyone tolerates "Caravaners" when a spray came across channel 4O on the UHF telling me to expletive expletive get off the road. Shovel, use to this kind of banta having worked in mining for over a decade, gave the guy a friendly serve back and we continued with the angry guy speeding off into the distance. Although we try to pull over or slow down where we can I guess you can't please everyone.
 
 Named after one of Captain Cook’s crew, Carlo, Carlo Sand Blow is one of the main attractions of Rainbow Beach. A short walk brings you out to a great big opening of some of nature’s finest work. This natural engineering project is thousands of years of work and some of the tallest in the world. We walked a lap around the Sand Blow and caught every view you could possibly soak up there. Sunset brought out the gold in the sand and the orange in the clouds leaving us with a wonderful afternoon. We even caught a view of a whale in the distance! Carlos Sand Blow is a great place to see out the end of the day, whether it's just taking in the views, body boarding down the dunes or raising your heart rate running up them.
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