Beerwah – back with buddies!

After Christmas, we spent a few days lounging around with the family before hitting the road again. It was such a lovely catch-up and we all enjoyed it immensely. But then it was time to move on, and now we knew which roads to take to avoid the hills!

We headed off to the showgrounds at Beerwah, right near Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast, and where our dear friends Marty and Belinda were waiting for us. They had moved out of their caravan park as the rates had risen over New Year’s Eve – from $250 a week to over $400! Sheesh!! Marty and Belinda were joined by their friends Bronwyn and John, so we had 6 children to entertain each other, and Beerwah has a skate park right next door. Bertha was also parked right next door to the bocce piste, so we were set. And all for $20 per night – you really can’t beat showgrounds!

Sadly it appeared we brought the rain with us. It pretty much bucketed down from the moment we arrived for a good day or two. It was really rather insane and at one stage I was seriously concerned about the possibility of contracting trench-foot, from walking around on sodden camp matting for so long.

Duncan took the opportunity to join Marty in his hobby of cruising the "tip shop", where he managed to swap Angus' old bike for one with gears for a grand total of $10. Plus $25 for a new chain and $15 for a bike stand. But still... not too bad!

As soon as it cleared up, we thought an afternoon out might be fun and decided on a 4WD through the Glasshouse Mountains. Sadly the people at the Visitor Information centre were no help what-so-ever. They don’t want to encourage 4WDing through the National Park, so didn’t have any maps for us. Kind of understandable, but there are tracks in there which are not gated off, so why not give people the information about it?!

Anyway, we decided not to let a little lack of information stop us – we just went for a drive, looked for a likely track off the main road and went for it. LOL. Our first go was a little tame and boring, but the second track was anything but. It didn’t take long to get a little bit steep, so much so, that I asked Dunc if he thought Baby Bertha would make it back up if we had to go back the way we came. “Ummm. No. The only way out is forward!” was his response… Eek.

  

The track got really fun, with deep ruts and fun curves. It was only about 4km, a little short one, but still it took us a good 45 minutes with all the stopping and walking and discussing and crawling along. Sooooo much fun! It culminated in one last turn followed by a steep drop and these 4km were the most extreme 4WDing we have put Bertha through in this entire trip. We all had a ball but were all happy to head home after that track!