Rainbow Beach - Father's Day

Doing nothing is on today's schedule - it is, and has been raining now for about 24 hours, so I have time to play with the blog and photos. Yesterday morning we enjoyed a Father's Day brekky down at Barnacles, toasted a coffee to Ian across the Tasman, and his Father's Days wishes the night before , and watched the dolphins come and go again, the day was glum in the sky, but the breakfast and mood was very good.

Immy and Ethan's art work for Dad's Day blogged across the Tasman

****

Absolutely no weather complaints from us, we are the lucky ones - cannot believe how many people are suffering in Christchurch with the earthquake damage and southern Australia with floods and winds, Nalda tells me Batemans Bay really received a bashing - trees down, and no electricity, and loads of damage. Fortunately we decided to make the most of the sunny skies on Saturday afternoon and took off for Rainbow Beach - as the weather forecast for Sunday and today was going downhill fast.

****

I have found a map which shows where Rainbow Beach is, took us about 30 minutes to drive there from Tin Can Bay..

Below is an aerial photo (not mine) of just a tiny little bit of the Great Sandy Strait

Below-Rainbow beach on Wide Bay - 22 klms

Very popular for surfers and 4 wheel drivers - who are watched carefully by the police - we saw one get chased along the beach after he had been wheeling in circles just near some people walking.

We watched some Lifesaver training

And yesterday when reading the local paper (Caloola News) I found that the Queensland Lifesaver of the Year (Lleam Rees ) who has just been awarded Australian Lifesaver of the Year - is from the Rainbow Beach Surf Club - he also undertakes a lot of the training.

Rainbow is a delightful spot

with plenty of revegitation as well

back up to the Surf Club for a cool lime and bitters.

Then we drove up to the Caloola Walk towards the Carlo Sand Blow, the photo below (not mine) shows it sitting above Rainbow Beach - it's about 35 acres in size and was named by Captain Cook after one of his crew - Carlo!

It is used by hang-gliders and para-gliders

The walk through the rainforest to Carlo Sand Blow, is very pleasant unless you get caught behind a hang-glider dragging his gear to the top - which we did, but managed to pass him.

At the top - we decided against the difficulty of walking on the hot Carlo sand blow. You can see the start of the coloured sands (supposedly there are 72 different colours along Rainbow Beach).

Backdropped by Double Island Point