Balloons

I found these balloons hanging at the back of an arcade in Montville, and thought what a cheap and gratuitous way to celebrate a birthday!

Actually I like the colour contrast between the entirely artificial pink and the dark rainforest in the background, even if it doesn't say too much about the Sunshine Coast.

Montville

Casuarinas

Casuarinas or River She-oaks. Early morning on the banks of the Mooloolah River. The little lumps are cicada shells, discareded as the insects within have grown and moulted.

Mooloolaba

Living on the Point

Apartment buildings on Port Cartwright reflect the afternoon sky.

Point Cartwright
Buddina

Sirocco

There's no need to risk life and limb by going to sea! In Mooloolaba, one can visit the far flung corners of the globe simply by walking down the street.

Here, "Sirocco" provides a nifty perspective illusion as it actually steps outwards as it gets higher.

Within shouting distance one can also find Caribbean, Zanzibar, and Malibu to name but a few of the host of other exotically named apartments in the area.

Sirocco
Mooloolaba

The Islander

This will be the last shipwreck picture until the next catastrophe, I promise!

I originally thought the Islander could consider itself lucky that the surf was so mild, in a larger swell it would have been destroyed in a night.

But I didn't count for the fact that it wasn't able to be salvaged quickly enough, and by yesterday the superstructure had been obliterated and the hull was nowhere to be seen. I don't know whether it has been saved, or simply broken up in the waves.

Buddina

The Cavalry

Our beach side version of Mounted Police!

The Boys in Blue on patrol at the shipwreck scene!

Buddina

Another Day Another Shipwreck

Forgive me for indulging myself, but it's the weekend, so I thought a few days of shipwreck wouldn't hurt anyone but the skippers of the vessels concerned. This one just a few kilometres down the same beach, and on the same night.

Notice the complete absence of any logical explanation for running aground!

I suspect that due to the influences of Global Warming, the Bermuda Triangle has moved to incorporate a part of Mooloolaba. It's the only logical explanation I can find for two groundings in one evening.

Note to file: if you are going to steal a boat, stay clear of the hard bits round the edge of the water!


Warana

Lighthouse Man I'm All At Sea

We live in strange times.

Yesterday I woke up to the news that not one, but two ships had gone aground along the beach in what were very mild conditions. Occasionally in extreme weather, say once every ten years, this might happen, but yesterday was quite bizarre.

Perhaps the skipper was holding the map up side down, and simply passed on the wrong side of the lighthouse?

Buddina

Regatta Place

There's a whole new town centre being built at Kawana. It's not that anything else is old, but with so much growth new offices, shops and service buildings abound. While not all are going to win awards for architectural novelty, most office buildings are in a similar informal style.

The very term 'town centre' is misleading though, as the city has many of them, but no central CBD, nor as yet any place where one might logically emerge. It will be interesting to observe the process over the next decade or so.

Here's part of a new residential building facing the new rowing lake.

Innovation Parkway
Wurtulla

Flaunting the Rules

The colours of the towels may contrast very nicely with the modern finishes, but the building manager will only see red!

Hanging anything on the balcony rails is strictly forbidden. We must keep the place tidy after all.

Mooloolaba

Tickets Please

No one can work out why the Tickets Sign keeps fading half way along.
Cooroy Station

Cooroy

Opposites

In the background, the new way - $2,000 per weekend
In the foreground, the old way - $2,000 drive away, no more to pay, the Kombi camper.

Both work for me!

Mooloolaba Beach

Colours

If you wear clothes from this shop, you'll stand out in the crowd, unless of course you are shopping inside it, in which case you will become near invisible!

Eumundi Markets

Sea of Bins

Tidy towns are great, and civic mindedness is better still, but do we really need this density of refuse bins?

I wonder too, at the urban planning thought behind the camouflage paint on the electrical switchboard. Can you spot it? Happy? Playful? Silly?

Wouldn't it have been so much nicer to have had them designed integrally into the picnic shelters?

Mooloolaba

Longboard

One of those new fangled standup boards with a paddle that pretends to be an old board but unlike an old board, it weighs nothing. It can however, be ridden on a wave no bigger than a ripple like this one on the Spit.

Mooloolaba

Lost Soles

I know it's a cheap shot, but have a personal aversion for this behaviour. Someone has paid enough money to keep a family in another part of the globe for many months if not a year, yet has so little consideration for all that it's funny to vandalize a public utility.

I must be getting old, but they don't deserve new shoes.

Posted today even though I used it on my other blog a few days ago, because I've seen enough similar shots to realize it's a world wide habit.

Mooloolaba

Boat Girls

The Caloundra Surf Club girls crew trains at Mooloolaba in an eerie slick. Boats like these were originally used for surf rescue, but are now purely racing craft.

Strange lighting indeed for a place in which overcast days are relatively rare (unless it's raining of course!)

Mooloolaba

Red Towel

The house rules always forbid anything hanging from the balcony handrails.
No one ever reads the house rules.

Alexandra Headland

It's Showtime!

Drinking and driving do not mix at the best of times, and here the penalties are severe. It's very common for Clubs to provide a courtesy bus to deliver patrons to their homes after a big night out, and this club has a five storey carpark as well.

I'm still trying to figure what the carpark reflection in the window of the courtesy bus is trying to tell us!

Maroochy RSL Club
Maroochydore

Pandanus

Pandanus roots, top of the bluff.

Alex Headland

Mick's Meat Barn

In the 70's shopping was done at these small strip centres. Mick's Meat Barn has been serving customers from these premises for over two decades, and is likely to do so for the forseeable future, having narrowly missed total destruction after an arson attack a year or two ago.

Here's what you do if you don't have enough paint to paint your whole wall.

Wurtulla

Alex Surf Shop

If you like window shopping, here's your chance to pick your next surfboard.

Alexandra Headland

Waiting for a Wave

The water has started to chop up, the tide is high, and the swell is starting to disappear, but this young lady waits for a wave to take her back to shore till the new day.

First Point
Noosa

Fish - No Chips

Japanese rice paper fish taken to a whole new level in coloured nylon at the kite shop.

Eumundi Markets

Cat and Mouse

Feel my slippers....... Too late!
(They're felt!)

Eumundi Markets

Lighthouse

The modern lighthouse at Pt Cartwright is white except when it catches the last orange ray of the setting sun.

Pt Cartwright

Young Fisherman

Waiting patiently for Dad to bait the hook. Sunset at La Balsa Park, Mooloolah River Mouth.

Buddina

Cafe View

Looking out under a torn awning from the Art Cafe on the corner, a glimpse of a timber "Queensland" vernacular house.

Eumundi

Blonde

It's been a few days since the redhead appeared here, I suspect my theory about them breeding is correct. This one is definitely a new reproduction rather than an antique (a shamtique?).

Eumundi Markets

Big Cow

Some of our entrepreneurs are so insecure with reliance on the abundant natural attractions, that they feel obliged to prop up the local economy, by creating their own.

The Big Cow
Nambour

Seventy Seven

77 The Esplanade Mooloolaba, is an office building on the beach surrounded by Norfolk Island Pines. Quite a pleasant location to work from if work one must!

When the architecture is uninspiring, it's time to try the "old mirror trick" for the camera!

Mooloolaba



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