One of our walks...

On this walk we stayed on the concrete path above the beach. We started just across the road from where we were staying...

This is the view looking south from Alexandra Headlands...

 Just looking straight out to sea here...

 I noticed this cairn so we went over for a closer look...

We found out that it was a memorial for dogs who served in wars...

Some of the conflicts in which they served...it was certainly an interesting find...

As we walked a little farther along the path, DH pointed out another cairn (big rock!) to the left of the path in a grassy area...it was erected in 1970 to honour Captain James Cook, who claimed the east coast of Australia for the British King George 111.

We stopped for a while to watch the paragliders...

 In this photo we are looking north towards Maroochydore and Cotton Tree...

 Just beautiful!

Some more on our visit to the Sunshine Coast...

Readers in Australia would know the name, Clive Palmer. For those who have never heard of him, he is an Australian mining magnate who claims to be a billionaire. He is well known for 'splashing his cash' around on grand schemes. 

More recently, he has formed his own political party and in the last federal election, a number of the Palmer United Party candidates won seats in the federal parliament's Senate. Now Clive himself also stood as a candidate here in Queensland, in the seat of Fairfax, (House of Reps) . On the first count in the September 7 election it would appear that Clive won the seat (by a tiny amount) but a recount is still in progress and it still appears that Clive is the winner by a narrow margin but until the recount is complete he won't be declared the winner in the seat. Clive's scrutineers slowed down the original count by challenging validity of ballot papers and this challenging has continued with the recount...note the election was September 7 so that's quite a while for the people of the electorate to be without a representative... but that's enough of the politics...Clive bought a resort (Hyatt Coolum) at Coolum on the Sunshine Coast and renamed it...yep! Palmer Coolum Resort...DH and I decided we just had to go and have a bit of a 'sticky beak'! lol 

Looks like this is the place...

We travelled up the side road until we came to the resort's entrance...

 Yes! Your eyes do not deceive you; that is a billboard showing Titanic 2. You see Clive is spending millions having a replica built of the original Titanic. It is being built in China. DH has said that it can't be an exact replica as no one would pay to travel in steerage like the poorer people on the original, and I think I agree with him. Lol

The sign promises 'fantastic food'!

Ah here we are; this is what we came to see. Jeff the Dinosaur! This is on the resort's golf course and has had mixed reactions (mainly adverse)especially from players in the Australian PGA last year. This comp was played there last year as it the original Hyatt Coolum had a contract to stage the event up until 2012. The PGA didn't obviously renew the contract; I wonder why???? Any way getting back to Jeff; apparently he is the first of many dinosaurs that Clive plans to purchase as he wants to create a type of Jurassic Park attraction at the resort. I did say he loves to think up grand plans...

Jeff was getting a bit of maintenance when we drove in...

 We then drove into the carpark to turn around ...and look what was parked there!

We took another photo of Jeff as we drove back towards the front entrance. The men have obviously finished and lowered the 'cherry-picker'. This photo also shows how close to the green Jeff is.

 DH did say that he read/heard that Jeff is able to move/roar etc as he has animatronics...we were lucky, the staff could have 'set Jeff on us' for driving through to have a 'look see'. :-)

 Later in the day we were at Sunshine Plaza Shopping Centre (looking for men's shorts for DH) when I saw this number plate on the vehicle parked in front of us. Just couldn't resist taking a photo.
Ha ha! It turned into a 'selfie' with that shiny bumper bar!

Hmmm that accidentally turned out to be quite an interesting photograph...

FNSI...

Naturally I packed some crafts when DH and I went away this past week, so I was ready for Friday Night Sew In.
Last night I started to sew the squares in the long hexie Christmas runner that I've been working on for a while. But I'm afraid that sewing without my Daylight (and magnifier too for those tiny stitches) proved to be a bit of a challenge. I persevered for a while and managed to stitch 2 in place and 2 sides of a third one, but then had to admit defeat.

So then I got out some crocheting that I had brought along and worked on that. (Just some squares which I work on every now and then and which will eventually become a blanket for K4BN)

There were 52 FNSI ers last night, why not go and visit some, or all! :-)
Here is the link to Wendy's blog, and many thanks to Wendy again for organising FNSI. 

Out and about on the Sunshine Coast, Qld...

Some retail therapy at Kimz in Warana...where I got a lovely welcome...

Where I found some lovely cream with gold flecks fabric, some Christmas prints and some off white homespun for tracing some Christmas designs on to. While I waited my turn to be served I eavesdropped on an overlocker maintenance lesson and heard about 'Dust away'. I thought, not only the sewing machines but the computer keyboards at home, could benefit from that product, so I bought a can.

DH had decided that he needed some new shorts for playing golf in, so our next stop was at the Eumundi Markets . This is a rather large market which is open for business Wednesdays and Saturdays. I didn't think to take any photos showing all the market stalls situated along the town's main street and continuing on down the hill in orderly rows. And in the next photo, instead of the stalls on the side of the hill, you can just see the lovely trees that the stalls nestle under.

 To cater for the huge crowds that come to these markets, there is a large car park beside a  purpose built markets' building below the hill which slopes down from the main street...

Garden sculptures were in evidence near this building...

 The dusty carpark at Eumundi...

 No luck finding shorts for DH at the markets though...

Our next stop was the Buderim Ginger Factory which is actually in Yandina. (it moved from Buderim a number of years ago)

And just as we arrived, the little tourist train was passing the entrance...

One this area was criscrossed by tracks for the little cane trams (like the one in the photo) that took sugarcane from the local farms to the mill in Nambour. The mill has closed and many, if not most of the farms have gone

I loved the tropical gardens at the Ginger Factory...

These impatiens were so colourful!

DH met a new friend...a sailor gingerbread man, no less!

One of the flowering gingers

This was in a boat ride type attraction at the Ginger factory complex...that's the 'NZ All Blacks team' doing the haka to frighten the people in the boats! lol

Next stop was just across the road from the factory...coffee shop and Roastery

 

We ended up not buying any of the coffee beans, but I was rather taken with the sign

Next door to the Coffee place is the Nutworks... 

Quite a lot of stock on display and a small observation area where you could view the workers coating nuts in chocolate. 

On the way to the large shopping centre at Maroochydore where DH hoped to find those elusive dress shorts, we saw a large mauve coloured building, Lincraft! So I popped in there and found some more Christmas fabrics. With the 50% off sale you had to buy a minimum of 1 metre

So I ended up with 3 metres of fabric at quite a low, low price... 

At the end of the day, DH still hadn't found some new shorts to buy...mostly finding the right size was the problem although some he rejected on quality...my darling has realised that cheap, poor quality is not good value for money. I've taught him well! lol

Springtime in the garden...

In my last post I wrote about my 'battles' with the bush turkey...but all is not lost, gardenwise...

The daylilies are flowering, despite being neglected...

This plant is flowering for the first time since I got it as a Christmas present...

The year before last, I got a cutting of this cactus from a friend. Last year it had one bud. This year there were lots of these buds, but this year these buds opened up before they fell off.
So, buds...

 Turned into these flowers...

A few months ago, I bought a galliardia plant. My mum had these flowers in her garden...I loved the colours. This one is a bit different to mum's...a bit frilly. But it's been flowering really well this month...

Most of my hippeastrums are in pots. Despite having twigs and even a piece of ceiling insulation from the building site next door on top of the potting mix, these hardy plants had buds developing...

 Nearly opened here...I dug up the bulbs of these red ones from the garden of the house where I lived with my first husband, and brought them with me :-)

 Here are some of the pots of hippeastrums gathered together in one spot...

I was given this one as a housewarming gift when I moved to a little rental house in 2000

I potted up this petunia seedlings in early September and most of them are flowering now; here is my favourite one...purple!

And lastly, some of my tomato crop...

The first photo is a bag of the larger tomatoes that we gave to Tim, along with a bottle of red, as a thank you for Faux Turkey...

And this is a bowl of cherry tomatoes including some yellow ones...all self sown.

I decided to not take photos of the prolific weeds that are also in my garden lol! I weed a little bit each day but it doesn't seem to make much difference.