Well it is finally time to finish off 2011, since we've been home to Calgary and are now back and it is 2012. Man! Where does the time go?
O.K. so it's Nov/11 and we were heading into Mooloolaba Marina, this is an in between spot after exiting the Great Sandy Strait and making the run to Brisbane. It is a nice marina and everybody is extremely friendly. We met Peter there, who is one of the Nordhavn sales persons for Australia. He is quite excited to have two 64 ft Nordies so close. This is going to be our last night together with Eric, Anne and Bear so we have dinner out planned. Peter agrees to show us a really good place to eat and joins us for the evening, which is a good thing as he gives us a lovely walking tour of the waterfront/town area and finds us a great place to dine. Eric and Glen of course pepper him with questions about boats. We are quite pleased to learn that our sturdy little ships are holding their resale value well as they are of a very sought after model. Do we want to sell them???
The next day, Glen and I say our goodbyes to Oso Blanco at 2:00 pm as we are heading out on an overnight jaunt that will take us out and around the protective Islands by Brisbane so that we may enter the coast line further south for the Gold Coast and they will continue down to Brisbane where they will stay for the next 3 to 4 months. Gold Coast is more of an area than a separate city, and it is a very upscale area with multitudes of estate homes crowding the cannel waterways that go for miles and miles, manmade and natural rivers. After crossing the bar safely from the open ocean into the Gold Coast Seaway, we meander our way over very shallow waterways up to the Coomera River and after about two hours we are at our destination of Gold Coast Marina. This was recommended to us as there are lots of boat trades people and services here. But we find after a few days that it is a little too remote and too busy with work so we meander back along the Coomera to Sanctuary Cove Marina. This is a great place with great shopping and lots of restaurants and bars. The beautiful Hyatt Sanctuary Cove is located here. This marina will be our home base while we go home. There is a Horizon boat dealership here and because we like all kinds of boats, we tour some 80 footers just for fun. The salesman, Colin, turns out to be a "decent chap" and long story short, he agrees to step into our boat a couple of times a week to make sure that all is going well. The marina guys are supposed to be checking, but Colin will be our second line of defense.
We rented a car for a couple of days, mainly to get us to the Brisbane airport to go home, but also to explore a bit. So we head inland about an hour to a place called Tambourine Mountain, reported to be a quaint little community with rain forests and boutique shopping. The rain forest isn't quite like those of Fiji or Vanuatu, but nice just the same. We see some really strange birds. I can see where a bird book is going to be a must. We stop at a winery and wander through the shops and of course have a lovely lunch. The afternoon is spent driving through Surfers Paradise and Southport, towns, to view Marina Mirage, where we had planned to stay initially, but price and location got the better of us in Sanctuary Cove, less than half price of Mirage, quieter and all of the same amenities.
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