Today was a really easy travel day. We were up and packed early as seems to be the norm on this trip and headed off to Mooloolaba. We stopped quickly to get some coffee and then we were on the road. We travelled for a while before pulling over for petrol. There was a tiny fresh fruit stall at the petrol station so I decided to go and grab a little pineapple. This turned out to be a good move as number 1: This area is where the majority of Australian pineapples are grown. Number 2: We were going to the big pineapple.
Our next stop was for lunch in Gympie. We ended up stopping at the gold museum at a food truck. The whole town of Gympie was flooded back in the February floods. We were talking to the lovely lady who worked there and she was explaining all the damage and how high the water got. Turns out the area we were standing in was nearly 4 metres underwater. The museum which is on top of a hill was flooded and will not be reopened for a couple of months. It was crazy to see in person how bad the floods actually were.
After a quick bite to eat we were back on the road again this time continuing on to The Big Pineapple. We took a couple of photos and made sure we posed with our baby pineapple. There is going to be some major development happening in this area over the next few years so it should be super interesting to see that up and running as a tourism centre.
We checked into the hotel. Did some washing and then cut up our baby pineapple to eat. We chilled for a bit before heading to Bunderim Forest Park. The whole suburb around the park is stunning. We drove into the forest and then meandered down the cute forest path to the waterfall. It was strange that this was in the middle of the suburb. There were people swimming down at the waterfall and playing in the river so it seems to be a popular spot.
Tonight we are just going to chill and get some dinner. Its been nice to have a quiet day after a few bigger days.