16^th - 19th December Hope Island

Friday (16th) - Hope Island

Hope Island to Tweed Head

As we left in the morning we spotted three dolphins in the water just around the corner from the house. They hardly surfaced but enough to spot the backs and fins.

Dolphin near the house

Fred kindly drove us down the coast going south identifying all the key points and places where Helen and Fred had either lived or owned property while Bert and Helen reminisced over the places they had stayed during past holidays. The trip took us along the Gold Coast, through Burleigh Heads, Coolangatta and onto the Tweeds Heads just north of Fingal Head.

Sheila, Bert, Helen & Fred with Gold Coast skyscrapers in the background

In the evening we had a BBQ that Helen and Fred had prepared. Following the BBQ we sorted out the surround sound hi-fi system. The main issue was that quite a few of the 5.1 DVDs were playing background music but had no vocals. This issue was eventually resolved and a pair of WiFi linked tweeter speakers were coupled to the system. We fully tested the system the following evening by watching the latest version of Dad’s Army.

Saturday (17th) - Hope Island

The plan was for Sheila and I to drive up to Beenleigh Historical Village and Museum with my Uncle Bert and meet with my other cousin Carole and Jim, as well as meeting their adopted daughter Tima and her newly born child Alanna. I set up the route using Google Maps on my mobile phone and somehow between setting up the route, checking it with Fred, passing it to Sheila to relay to me while I was driving it got changed to a Seaworld destination! How that happened we will never know. Seaworld is on the coast and miles from Beenleigh and by the time we got there and realised our error we were miles from Beenleigh and at least a 40 minute drive away. I promptly rang Carole, apologised for the delay and explained our error and headed north.

Settlements in Beenleigh started about 1860 and the museum is a collection of the old buildings from the town, including the church, boot maker’s shop and fire engine shed, with a wide range of memorabilia, some of which were familiar since they were still in use in the 50s and 60s.

After the visit we headed into the nearby town for lunch and meet up with Tima and her six week old daughter Alanna.

Coopers & Co.

We managed to get back to Hope Island without any mishaps and after a cuppa walked around to Doug and Anne’s house, two doors up to take part in a Christmas drinks social.

River view from Helen & Fred's

Sunday (18th) - Hope Island

On Sunday we headed up towards Brisbane Airport for the matinee performance by Cirque du Soleil of Kooza, a combination of clowns and acrobats. The location was close to a large mall, which allowed us all to do a bit of window shopping, although some did part with cash.

Cirque du Soleil

Monday (19th) - Hope Island

Route to O'Reilly's Rainforest Retreat & Tamborine

On the Monday Fred generously offered to take us all on a car trip through Cangungra to O’Reilly’s Rainforest Retreat followed by a drive over to Tamborine Mountain. We stopped off in Cangungra for a coffee and spotted a stick insect climbing a post.

Stick insect

The route took us through regions were Fred & Helen used to live and ride their horses and in the final few miles it was incredibly steep and twisty with one very narrow singe track section. We stopped off at an alpaca farm to take a look at the animals, feel their fur coats and take a look at some of the clothing that is produced from their wool.

Alpaca

View from Alpaca Farm

The rainforest retreat had a number of lorikeets and parrots flying around. These were very tame taking seeds from the hands of visitors and flying into the gift shop. 

Smiles all round from Bert & Helen

We took a walk on a treetop gangway and were a little unlucky to miss the opportunity to see a python devour a small creature within the rain forest area only a couple of metres from the path.

A stroll in the woods

After a picnic lunch we headed to Tamborine Mountain. This area is rather cute with a number of craft and speciality shops but with some very attractive houses and plots around the upper sections of the mountain. We spotted a bamboo clothing stall and headed for it. I had become aware of the benefits of bamboo and cotton material for clothing whilst in Ayers Rock so was keen to pursue this material further. The vast majority of the clothing was for women, although Fred found and bought some white socks that were supposed to be cool to wear and moisture absorbing. 

We narrowly missed the opportunity to take a look in the cuckoo clock shop. By the time we had finished viewing the bamboo clothing it was 4pm and the cuckoo shop had closed, a disappointment to Bert who in his younger days had worked for a few months on clock repairs.