I caught my flight south from Cairns in the morning and by mid afternoon I arrived at the Sunshine Coast airport for a Holy Crap Adventures first. I got picked up by my Aunt and Uncle who live in nearby Coolum Beach for a little family visit and sight seeing on their home turf. The sight seeing started by driving a bit inland for some local waterfalls. First up was Mapleton Falls. It was a quick stop and just a short walk to the top of the falls. I still don’t understand why they put viewpoints at the top without a way down to the bottom, but there it is. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough super scientific data to take an accurate gusher scale reading on this one, but it was somewhere in the six to eight range.

The longer hike of the day was in Kondalilla National Park to Kondalilla Falls. Along the way you first pass by some smaller cascades and rock pools. I’ll give these a seven on the gusher scale. Not exactly “gushing”, but the location was really beautiful.

There were also some amazing viewpoints of the Obi Obi Valley below. None of these places were even on my radar from all the planning I do. It always makes me wonder with all of the amazing places I’ve been to, how much am I missing at all of these stops.

Around the bend from the rock pools was the first view of Kondalilla falls from above. Thankfully, there was a trail along with some steps of doom down to the bottom. So down we went to see this eight gusher up close and personal.

The next day we were off to visit Noosa National Park. Noosa is a forested cape jutting out into the ocean with lots of hiking trails and some incredible coastal views. Near Tea Tree Bay we found some more of that tessellated pavement that I saw so much of in Tasmania.

Around the other side of the cape is Alexandria Bay and the Hell’s Gates. Sounds pretty ominous for such an ideallic spot.

The real excitement for me, though, was spotting the sea turtles swimming around the cove. I don’t think I’ve ever seen sea turtles before, not even in captivity. Seeing them in the wild was definitely a highlight though. There were about three or four of them out there. They would swim around the rocks at the bottom for a few minutes, but when they came up to the surface for air they were mine.

We then hiked down the opposite side of Hell’s Gates to Alexandria Beach and eventually turned inland to walk up and over Noosa Hill and back to where we started. It’s not hard to see why my Aunt and Uncle love it here so much. My final day in Coolum we set out to climb the local landmark, but first we had to make our way along the coast a bit closer to home. That’s Coolum Beach in the pic below.

I saw about two or three sea turtles here from Point Perry too. When these guys surfaced it was only for a couple of seconds though. It was hard to get pics of them. I managed to get this guy just as he was diving back down.

The local landmark I mentioned was Mt Coolum. It was a fairly short, but very steep climb up a lot of steps of doom. And we spotted a rock wallaby on the way up. Awesome!

The views from the top of Mt Coolum were awesome! I could see all the way down to Sunshine Coast and the Glass House Mountains to the right, and to the left, Coolum Beach and all the way to the tip of Noosa National Park. It helped that the weather was cool and the sun was hidden behind clouds all day too.

We walked from the house all the way here to the summit, now it was time to make our way back. You know you’re in Australia when the golf course has resident kangaroos.

From Mt Coolum we walked down to Yaroomba Beach and headed back north enjoying the waves along the way.

At the end of Yaroomba Beach we climbed around on the rocks at Point Arkwright for a bit. I must be more famous than I thought because I also got ambushed by some paparazzi while there… Oh no, nevermind, it’s just my Uncle Ron.

From there it was back up the cliffs and we finished up with a walk along the beautiful foreshore trail back to Coolum. I got a pretty lucky shot of what I thought was a honey eater along the way. I looked it up later though and it turns out he’s a wattlebird. There were a bunch of them flying around.

This was not the usual way I end my adventures. But spending a few days with family, eating, drinking, and meeting some of their friends on their home turf was definitely a good way to end it. This Australian adventure has been pretty phenomenal. Now it’s time for the long flight back home to put the finishing touches on planning my next adventure. Yes, even while exploring one country, I’m always plotting and scheming about the next one in the back of my mind. There’s still a lot of planet earth left to explore!