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Maragaret's Fiftieth

A Quick Trip to Aussie

 

Margaret decided she didn’t want a party this time, but instead wanted to celebrate with her brother and sister-in-law in Noosa. John and Stella had at last settled there, and John was commuting to Gympie where he was working for a private organisation which had taken over the Commonwealth job creation and training functions. We also took Marg's Mum, Ruby, with us; she stayed with John and Stella for another couple of weeks after we had moved on to Sydney. 

 

We all celebrated Marg's birthday at the local Surf Club and you can see us in the photo waiting for our lunch to be served.

 

As it turned out, friends from New Plymouth, Ian and Jocelyn Gabites, were also holidaying on the Sunshine Coast and they joined us on several occasions.One day we went for a tramp with them through the National Park, the photo caught us discussing which track to follow.

We visited the area with John and Stella, the highlight of our stay being a trip to Fraser Island, which has the distinction of being the largest sand island in the world. We saw a stream which flowing quietly over its sand bed, but we had to concentrate and look very carefully to see that there was any water at all. We caught sight of a dingo in the distance on the beach, and a wreck on the sand about the high-tide mark.

 

To reach Fraser Island we travelled by bus up the road north and then caught a ferry over the short channel between the Queensland mainland and the island. The photo shows me with the bus waiting on the beach to board the ferry. Our journey home was along the long straight beach on the coast north of Noosa to Teewantin, which is a western suburb of Noosa town.

 

Another very interesting trip John and Stella took us on went to a local lookout at the top of Mt Tinbeerwah, and then to see some of the projects John had been working on with the trainees his company was working with: a tourist steam railway project, and the refurbishment of several country community halls, like this one.

After four days in Noosa, John and Stella drove us to Nambour, where we caught a local train to Brisbane, to stay in an inner city hotel, and the next morning we walked over to the main station to board the Express service for Sydney. This train travels on a newly-built standard-gauge line between the two capital cities, and covers the hilly country to the south of Brisbane and then across the more open country in Northern New South Wales. Queensland normally uses the same gauge as New Zealand (just over a metre), while NSW has the winder standard gauge (about 1400 mm).

By the evening we had reached the coast at Coff’s Harbour, where we stopped for a couple of nights to explore the district. We liked Coff’s Harbour, it reminded us of home. There were banana plantations nearby and a sheltered marina in the harbour itself. 

 

We hired a car (a Kar as it turned out) and drove around the district. In the process we caught up with one of Margie's second cousins, Blair Burnard, and his family for morning tea. Again the local Surf Club was a good place to socialise.

The next day we continued our train trip, eventually reaching the Hunter Valley and the last leg to Sydney, where Terry and the grandchildren met us and took us to their newly-acquired house in Cammeray, near the public school the children were attending at that stage. 

 

The highlight of our stay in Sydney (Karen was visiting her folks in the UK) was a day trip to see our friends, Bev and Les Glover in Orange. Fortunately, there is an express train service to Dubbo and back each day, so we were able to leave Sydney around 7 am, spend four hours on the train to Dubbo, have four hours in Orange over lunch, and return to Sydney in the late afternoon. 

 

 

We took the three grandchildren with us on this journey, and we all enjoyed the day. Bev had made special preparations to entertain the children, including giving Nina a quick lesson on her piano, and showed us the town and the mountain view. The photo shows us at the top. Bev told us they have snow on this mountain in the winter.

 

 

The kids loved the train trip, as you can see from the photo of them on the train, and so did we. We caught sight of kangaroos in the paddocks. The rail line passed quite close to the stadium being built at Homebush for the Olympic Games.

 

 

Another day we had friends Martien and Anne Kelderman, who were living and working in Sydney, come and visit us over coffee.

 

 

So you can see we packed quite a lot of social activity in to our few days in Australia - it was a fitting celebration for an active half-century!

 

 

 

Frank, Margie, Penny 6, Nina 10, Terry, and Rowan 8.