Travels with Verne and Roy

QLD Odyssey – Part Six: The Whitsundays, 17-19 June

Bundaberg – arguably missable; rum from a dark Satanic mill; cane for the pain: spook and diesel; 1770 and Agnes Waters; 8 hours to Airlie Beach; Flaggy Rock – best pies on the planet; Tracy saves the day; ZigZag Whitsundays Day Tour – best beach in the world; Sorrento sundowners and dinner at The Rocks

The main reason to stay at Seventeen Seventy / 1770 or its immediate neighbour Agnes Waters – another memorable name, if not place – is that it’s a three-hour drive from Hervey Bay when heading north to Cairns. And a three-hour stint is, in my opinion, the perfect amount of driving time; four hours is OK, too. Anything longer becomes tiresome.

Goodbye to the Whitsundays – one to tick off the bucket list

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QLD Odyssey – Part Five: Fraser Island, Hervey Bay & Maryborough 15-17 June

Cold comfort in Hervey Bay; grilled fish and no chips; Fraser Island Day Tour: the wonderful Wayne and his whopping 4X4, horrible history, Central Station, Eli Creek, 75 Mile Beach drive and the Maheno shipwreck; a tale of two Marys – Maryborough and Mary Poppins

I’m being consciously strategic with this order of events. Maryborough came first; then Hervey Bay, the launchpad for Fraser Island. But an island is always going to be sexier than Mary Poppins – and Fraser Island was what we’d come here for.

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QLD Odyssey – Part Four: Noosa

From Craftsville to Glossville; coffee and a rare gelato; not-so-rare bush turkey sighting; a peach of a beach; kraken good salad at Peregian Beach; Bistro C review

With the prospect of sunshine and a predicted midday high of 22 degrees Centigrade – in the middle of one of the coldest spells seen in these parts for a very long time – we headed for the famous seaside town of Noosa*.

Beach bunny Verne in her element – and Roy? Not so much

(* Properly pronounced by locals in a faux-posh accent as Nyooosa, with a pinched nose – or so I am reliably informed.)

Noosa is less than half an hour northeast by car from Eumundi, the crafty hinterland haunt where we were spending three nights. But these two towns could not be more different.

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QLD Odyssey – Part Three: Eumundi & the Hinterland, 12-15 June

Eumundi’s mega-market; phrasal verbs and a self-indulgent flashback; curmudgeonly customer in a continual quest for coffee; Imperial Hotel and Joe’s Waterhole; those profusely perspiring Poms who headed for the hills; Dr Seuss in Montville; Maleny, a supermarket kinda town; Yandina, home of Buderim ginger; other recommendations from Max

We arrived mid-morning on a Saturday, one of Eumundi’s two weekly market days – described as the biggest craft market in Australia. (It also has a permanent, covered market.) Our Brisbane friends Max and Trevor having entrusted us with the keys to their gorgeous Eumundi house, we had set off in good time for the market, which closes at 2pm.

“It’s a great place to use as a base for Noosa and the beaches south of there. Plus there’s the cute towns of Maleny and Montville just 30 minutes away.”

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QLD Odyssey – Part Two: Beenleigh Rum & Gold Coast

Yo, ho ho! – and a bottle of rum; Gold Coast in mid-winter – not too shabby; seagulls at Surfers Paradise; terrific lunch at Tropic; Tommy Bahama, sashimi and sushi; new jacket – spoiler alert!

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QLD Odyssey – Part One: Brisbane, 7-11 June

Queensland’s coolest couple; on the road again: back in the travel saddle; pre-Plague pics; Are You Sleeping, Big Brother?; Like a Virgin; sightseeing synopsis; next-level street food – Luke Nguyen at Treasury Casino; trivia and pulled lamb at the Powerhouse; George’s ginormous soles

Maxine and Trevor are two of our Singapore expat friends. Culture vultures, foodies, and probably the coolest couple we know, they’ve also lived in Saudi, in Dubai, and in China for many years.

Max and Trevor – two decades on, they still like a G&T or two, but now they’re based in QLD, it could just as well be rum

We met them nearly 20 years ago, not long after we arrived to live in the city state. The circumstances were unforgettable: on the initial night of our first Star Cruise, we bonded with Max, Trevor and their friend Susan Beard over copious G&Ts in a private karaoke room. I seem to remember the staff evicting us at 3am.

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Perth City Break, 20-22 May – Roy’s 70th Birthday!

Three score years and ten – a biblical achievement; lawyers, tailors and chefs; Roy – a thing of beauty and a joy forever; revelry at Reveley; ferry to South Perth, lunch at Annalakshmi and all that jazz at Ellington’s; reprise of Facebook party pics, complete with cake and candles

Depending on how many spouses you accumulate in the course of a lifetime, it’s not often that your man turns 70. So now, with Roy achieving the biblical three score years and ten, it behooved me to push the boat out a bit – or at least as far as was reasonable in these travel-restricted times.

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This is the House that Roy and Verne Built: Part 1 – Breaking Ground

Boeries, bangers and snags; sangas, sarnies and sarmies; building malarkey background; turfed from the nest; Cyclone Seroja and quo vadis?

Here we are, celebrating the breaking of ground this week at 543 Burns Beach Road, Iluka!

Child labour is allowed in WA – breaking ground at 543 Burns Beach Road with Sam, Mia and Holly

Surrounded by the family – son Carl, Carrie, Mia and Holly; daughter Blaire, Colin and Sam – we broke ground today, Sunday the 17^th of April 2021. Son Carl brought the spade, son-in-law Colin furnished the Weber BabyQ, and we supplied the snags* and the mimosas. Only Daughter #1 was missing, sadly – cheers, Wendy!

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Camping at Coogee, WA: Snorkelling the Omeo Wreck, March 2021

Day-tripping to Coogee Beach; Roy’s first first sea dip in seven years; gratuitous Maldives flashback; back to Coogee; history of the shipwrecked Omeo; where to stay – then and now; feeling disloyal (again)

Is there no end to the magnificent beaches of Western Australia? I’d never even heard of Coogee Beach until a week ago. What’s more, this is supposed to be autumn – yet here we are, frolicking in the surf and bronzing our bods on the very eve of the annual collaboration between Lindt and the Easter Bunny.

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Flight of the Covid-19 Refugees, 1-14 February – Part Four: Glamping in Yallingup

Good morning, campers!; surf, turf, and Kim’s multiple skill sets; spectacular spelunking at Ngilgi Cave; Cape Naturaliste lighthouse trivia; big lunch at Little Fish; the culpable kookaburra at Caves House Hotel; of coffee and chillies in Commonage Road; post-mask postlude

I may have mentioned before now that Roy is not a happy camper. I don’t mean it in the sense of his being generally miserable and grumpy (not in this instance, anyway). I mean he doesn’t do camping.

He doesn’t like caravans. Or even campervans. This is inexplicable to me – I love these things, always have.

Let alone those portable shelters made of fabric or other material stretched over a supporting framework of poles and secured to the ground with cords and stakes. In the 29 years since we met, I had never known him to darken a tent flap.

Yet here we were, camping out for two nights in the grounds of Lynn and Kim’s holiday home in Yallingup, Margaret River.

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The House that Roy and Verne Built, Part 3 – Bye-bye, builder

Tiong Bahru Revisited, February 2024

A Taste of Bawah Reserve, 29-31 January 2024

Singapore Cultural Attractions, 17 July to 2 August, Part 2

Eating out in Singapore, 17 July to 2 Aug: Part 1

Peckish in Perth: Eating out in the CBD, June 2023

QLD Odyssey – Part Six: The Whitsundays, 17-19 June

QLD Odyssey – Part Five: Fraser Island, Hervey Bay & Maryborough 15-17 June

QLD Odyssey – Part Four: Noosa

QLD Odyssey – Part Three: Eumundi & the Hinterland, 12-15 June

QLD Odyssey – Part Two: Beenleigh Rum & Gold Coast

QLD Odyssey – Part One: Brisbane, 7-11 June

Perth City Break, 20-22 May – Roy’s 70th Birthday!

This is the House that Roy and Verne Built: Part 1 – Breaking Ground

Camping at Coogee, WA: Snorkelling the Omeo Wreck, March 2021

Flight of the Covid-19 Refugees, 1-14 February – Part Four: Glamping in Yallingup