Scarborough

P-day May 7th was Labor Day in Australia.  We joined the masses at the beach.  We have wanted to go north to Scarborough - about a 45 minutes drive.  Paul served in Scarborough, England which is also a beach community in the north east.  The two are very different, but both lovely.

We began collecting shells.  I went down to the water's
edge and noticed that most of the ones down there were
moving.  We gathered the ones at the high tide mark
thinking that most of those would be empty.

We thought we might have three or four with hermit crabs,
it was more like twenty!  Sorry, guys, no pets allowed in
the flat.

The sand wasn't as nice as the Sunshine Coast, but it was a great spot - another day in paradise!                           

Joseph Smith descendants

We have been given the assignment to take genealogy packets to descendants of Joseph and Emma Smith.    One of the Smith granddaughters - Ina Inez Smith - married Sydney Wright from Australia.  They moved to New South Wales and had ten children.  From those ten, there are now over 500 descendants living here in Australia.  We went north to Maroochydore to visit with Dawn Schmith, a descendant and recent convert.  Maroochydore is on the Sunshine Coast and a beautiful beach community.  We had a lovely visit with Dawn and her family and then found a place to stay for the night.

We found a nice little resort in Coolum called the Sea Cove, dropped our stuff, and headed for the beach.

The BEST fish and chips ever!!!  The snapper was super fresh and the batter light and crispy.   Yum!

A whole tree full of cockatoos!

This area has 65 K of uninterrupted white sand beaches.  We set up
the camp chairs and settled in for the afternoon.  It was a georgeous
day!

We bushwalked through Mapleton Falls National Park.

There are several places along Mountain View Road that
gave us a great view to the Glass House Mountains.

This is the little annual plant that
Heather likes to plant in her front
yard.  Here it is a six foot bush!

 We took the interior track through the Hinterlands - through such lovely towns as Mapleton, Montville, and Maleny.  They run along a ridge that has a view all the way to the ocean in places.