Rainbow Beach

We were packed and ready to leave by 11am. As always with leaving the house for an extended period of time (one day, hah!) there was a certain amount of stress and tension in the packing and preparedness department.

As we backed out of the drive muggins remembered that a key aspect of preparedness had been left unattended to and to Nicole's disgust went in to activate the computer and, yes, print out the directions... just to be on the safe side, you understand.

Progress up the Bruce was good but I was starting to get tired at Gympie, so we stopped off at a nice little park, which was suspiciously waterlogged, for some sandwiches and a toilet stop and leg stretching.

Then onwards for the 70km leg to Rainbow Beach up Tin Can Bay Road. Rolling green hills gave way to forested plains with the archetypal road stretching away into the distance. The drive was punctuated by short sharp showers, which were generally followed by shared glances filled with meaning and trivialised dread.

I was a proud Dad when Eloise started to recite from one of her books. "Roar roar roar! Snap snap snap!" we shouted as we cruised toward our destination, half an eye on the dark clouds rolling up from the south.

The camp site, when we arrived, was extensive and offered waterfront camping, which we took advantage of. We found ourselves a nice little spot not too close to the beach under some trees, and proceeded with a little urgency to pitch the tent as we didn't know what we were doing and it felt like it might start raining any minute.

However the tent went up without incident and, that done, Nicole put the billy on the stove and I went off to stretch the dogs' legs on the beach which Nicole inflated the double bed we'd bought the day before.

The beach was reminiscent of Nudgee in that the sands stretched away as the tide seemed to be low, with mangroves along the shoreline. The mangroves here were a little different in that the roots protruded from the trunks above ground level, then probed down into the sands a little way from the tree, giving the impression of spiders' legs.

The sky was dark overhead. Gravid clouds moved in from the trees behind and darkness spread over to Tin Can Bay. Pretty soon a breeze built up, and, sure enough the first spots of rain began. I hastened back to the yurt, sorry, tent, to find a vexed Nicole.

The double mattress we'd bought was obviously designed for supermodels or people who were tremendously thin. As far as we could tell it was a single mattress in all but name. We had a giggle about it before sitting down indoors to wait for the rain to pass while we sipped our drinks.

Then, as we obviously had a potential nocturnal crisis on our hands, we went to Rainbow Beach to locate a camping shop where we could upgrade our sleeping arrangements to the status of vaguely acceptable.

This was easily achieved at a little shopping centre where a camping shop sold Nicole a genu-wine double mattress.

Thence to the actual beach. Down a wooden staircase from the parking space and onto another one of those damned beaches that stretch as far as the eye can see with perfect sand, roaring surf, et cetera. This one was a little different, though, as a short walk south there was a massive sand dune, probably oh a hundred feet high rising up behind the beach.

I remembered we were literally just a few minutes south of Fraser Island, a famous tourist trap which is an island made of sand, and ah-ha this is the Great Sandy National Park. Actually come to think of it the camp site was pretty sandy and by the side of the road the landscape seemed predominantly composed of, not wishing to be predicable, sand.

The sand at the beach though was multi-coloured, some of it was as you might expect sandy-coloured, some of it was darker. Rocks poked through and sat on the beach, and they too were two-tone. There were little caves of dark rock with lighter streaks over them, apparently made by running water by the looks of them. We wondered what could be in the water to cause this.

We picked our way over the rocks and through the deep pools. Eloise sat down in the pools. One set of clothes down. And a nappy liner. "Have you packed more than one nappy liner" Nicole asked. "Oh probably" I said.

Over the water we could see rain moving.

Some four wheel drives made their way up the beach, at the end of a day of hardcore off-roading no doubt. The beach led up to Double Island Point, where there is a lighthouse, then round the corner from that a the wreck of a ship called the Cherry Venture, then beach south of that called the 40-Mile Beach. Promising!

At the south of the beach, the cliffs were obscured my a mist. "Is that rain" Nicole asked. "Oh probably" I replied. "Maybe we should think about going" Nicole suggested. "I am doing that already" I ventured.

I climbed up on some rocks to get a picture of a rock formation. The dogs climbed up with me. "Daddy! Daddy!" I could hear from the beneath.

The first spots of rain came down. I jumped down from the rocks. Eloise squeaked delightedly. We legged it. And were pretty comprehensively drenched by the time we got back to the car.