Beautiful one day, wet the next

Queensland is awash with variations of the theme “Beautiful one day, perfect the next.”
Drizzling one day… you know where this goes.
We are at Maroochydore on the “Sunshine Coast” with nothing but grey skies and alternating sessions of misty drizzle and wild dumps of rain impeding our enjoyment of this otherwise pretty part of the world.
John and Anne’s Jeep has gone in for yet another service on the engine cooling system. They were barely 5 kilometres from Coffs when the car started overheating. This after $27,000* repairs and service since we were on the WA trip last year where their car and caravan had to be towed halfway across Australia.* John’s fervent indulgence of all things Jeep is being tested and I have seen him glance less sneeringly at Navarras, Landcruisers and even a Great Wall ute!* Look, the last thing I want to do is give John a hard time over his Jeep, but you have to agree, there is a limit.
For us, it was an easy drive up from Coffs to Brisbane. The countryside was quite waterlogged from the autumn rain. We were keen to get there by early afternoon to be able to spend some time with Fiona and Don and Casper. Casper’s Oztag practise had been cancelled because of the wet weather. It was a pleasant, if wet, few days in Brisbane and we were able to spend some time with our friends the Schulzes and Colefaxes, and attend an under 8’s activity morning at Casper’s school. Jenny Schulz is a volunteer guide at the Roma Street Parklands, so we had an enjoyable and informative walk in the park amongst some of the amazing bush tucker flora.
On Monday we decamped from the secure compound of Fiona and Don’s home and headed north along the motorway, joining the (other) tourists and workers who are heading for the “Sunshine” Coast. Actually, the drive was much less chaotic than previous attempts on this stretch of highway when we have had to contend with wall to wall traffic inching along all the way to the Coast. We rendezvoused with the Menn along the way to refuel and attend to alarmingly low blood-caffeine levels. The roadhouse had all the fast foods – Maccas, Krispy Kreme, KFC and so on, and fortunately a genuine coffee establishment. It is hard to imagine the virtue of Krispy Kreme, an American invention with supra levels of sugar and overpriced doughnuts, but they seemed to have a steady trade.
Our home for a few days is a camping ground not far from the Maroochy River. It is quite small, but very well laid out and with excellent facilities. A major impediment to our enjoyment of the area has been the constant rain with occasional intense squalls. I discovered that I had left my spray jacket at home, so that meant a quick trip to BCF to get a replacement and to coincidentally check all the enticements of the camping store.
Between squalls we have managed to get out and see some friends – the Priests whom we travelled with on a few occasions around Australia, and Robyne and Phil Moore who relocated here from Canberra a couple of years ago.
John Mann had his unscheduled service on his Jeep on Wednesday. Yesterday I drove him to Coolum for the repairs and replacement of an injured oil cooler. When you buy a Jeep, you are basically buying a cooling system and they throw in the rest for free. Hopefully now, with every component having been replaced at a cost now of over $45,000* the rest of the trip will be trouble-free.
We lift off from Maroochydore on Saturday for a little place called Howard which is a bush camp. I think it will be a quiet couple of hopefully dry days there with a chance to catch up on some chores and maintenance.
I feel this blog is a bit light on with things of interest, but it is early days yet and with luck we can have the odd disruption to make things a bit more interesting.

* This might be slightly exaggerated!