A 4 hour flight on Air Pacific brought me here from Fiji to the Sunshine Coast, north of Brisbane. I am staying at the Rydges Oasis in Caloundra which is the southernmost point of the Sunshine coast. A funny little place, it feels like I have come to Bournemouth – but a little warmer! The hotel is like a small housing estate with a mix of terraced houses and 3 storey flats. I am in one of the flats – a studio that is fine and clean although a little tired (especially after my room at the Hilton). There’s a little kitchen area in the room too – but a dire warning on the wall about the danger of burning your toast and you then having to pay for the fire brigade turnout if the smoke alarm goes off! There is a little lake, a reasonable swimming pool and a restaurant that also does takeways. Today is Australia Day so I as soon as I arrived (about 5.30pm), I ventured out to see what was happening. The whole town (and country I assume) seemed to be “en fete”. There is a lovely boardwalk along the coast from here to King’s Beach, and it was thronged with families out enjoying the warm evening. There was a bit of a wind off the sea and some big surfing waves, but loads of people in there watched over by the lifeguards. Picnics everywhere, and people cooking their food on the public bbq’s they have out here. Stalls selling candyfloss, fairground rides and Oz flags everywhere, on balconies, cars and beachtowels. There was even a campervan with a huge model of a kangaroo wrapped in a flag on the top. Lots of “tinnies” too, but no sign of anyone being drunk. So different from at home. It’s so nice to see, it seems to be a nation who take a real pride in being Australian and today there are also a lot of citizenship ceremonies where people who have emigrated here take their oath of allegiance before being officially naturalised. Everyone it seems, men included, also had a little Australian flag painted on their face, I felt quite left out! And as I sit here on my balcony writing this, I can hear the firework display in the background. The weather in this part of the country has been really bad recently with some very bad flooding – they did need the rain as Queensland was running very short of water, but in some areas it has been catastrophic. But at least the rain held off here for their Australia Day celebrations, and hopefully for the next couple of days, Sunday and then Monday which is a National holiday.
