Maleny – the prettiest little town

We left Caboolture and headed about an hour North West to a beautiful little town called Maleny. Situated on top of the Blackall Mountain Range, it was a very slow and steep drive up there. We sat in 2^nd gear on about 20 kph and had a long train of cars following us. Driving along the top of the range, we were greeted by spectacular views east towards the coast.

McCarthy's Lookout

The Glasshouse Mountains

Maleny Showgrounds

We stayed at yet another town Showgrounds. The Maleny Showgrounds hosts the local gym, the soccer grounds, a horse training yard, a dog exercise area, the local tennis club and a sports oval. It runs parallel to the Obi Creek and is the beginning of the beautiful Obi Obi Boardwalk into town. They charge $15 per night for power, water and hot showers and - after sweet-talking the groundskeeper, he let us ignore the “3 day maximum stay” rule. We stayed here for a week and could easily have stayed for longer.

We fell in love with Maleny! It reminded us of so many of the beautiful little towns near home in the Dandenong Ranges. The town is surrounded by beautiful bush land, rainforests and gorgeous old-fashioned buildings. The town has everything you need and the people are extremely friendly. (Even teenagers smile and say hello as they pass you in the street!)

If our visit to Maleny had happened at the end of our trip, we would be seriously considering relocating from Melbourne!

We spent an afternoon on the Mary Cairncross Rainforest Walk. It wasn’t until we left Maleny that we discovered who Mary Cairncross was.  The mother of three daughters who inherited a massive section of land in Maleny, the daughters left a small section of their land to the local council on the condition that it be left as rainforest and open to the public.

The rainforest was beautiful. We were all fascinated by the massive trees and the equally massive vines.

Inside the info center

Mark and Amanda arrived in Maleny a day after us. After getting their winch fixed the boys ‘had’ to try it out. Dan drove the Patrol in front of Marks Cruiser until it looked like they were having a Mexican Standoff. After connecting their winch to our car, the kids wanted them to have a tug-of-war but were disappointed when the guys wouldn’t agree. The cruiser had no problem pulling our Patrol across the carpark which made Mark one very happy fella!

As we were camped next to the local Tennis courts, we had to have a hit. Mark went up to the Pharmacy and hired the courts for a couple of hours and the kids had a great time practising their shots. Then it was the grown-ups turn! As we had already experienced, Amanda has quite a competitive streak. She beat Mark in the first game but - after all her gloating - Dan whooped her butt in the next one.

We all spent the next few days seeing the sights that Maleny has to offer. We went to a lovely little waterfall called Gardner's Falls and the kids had a ball playing on the rocks. Amanda and I got wrapped up in taking photos of the scenery and the Dads followed the kids along the edge of the river. Sam nearly fell to his death (thanks God I wasn’t there to see that or I would still be having nightmares) but thankfully stopped himself just before he went over the edge. Dan and Mark emerged with very white faces and it wasn’t until we were safely back in the car that I realised how shaken Dan was. Sam thought it was all a big joke until we explained what ‘nearly happened’. Then he too looked a bit shocked!

One night, just as we were putting the kids into bed, we heard the sound of a helicopter close by. We dragged the kids outside in their PJs so they could see the emergency helicopter land on the oval in front of us. It was raining and the water looked fantastic flicking off the blades. The paramedics were collecting a patient for transport but were not in a hurry. It was over an hour until the helicopter took off and disappeared into the night.

We drove to a gorgeous little town called Montville and had a wonderful afternoon walking around the shops there. We stopped at a cafe and had scones and tea while the kids made a lovely mess with ice creams.

Amanda and I spent a very luxurious afternoon wandering around town, browsing in all the shops and stopping for coffee, child-fee!  We both agree that we love spending this time travelling with our families but we felt like we needed an afternoon off. The dads were happy to stay home and spend the afternoon watching the kids play, and chatting over a few beers. Everyone was happy!

That night we walked into town to go to the pub, but didn’t realise just how popular the pub was! We couldn’t get a table so went to the local Italian restaurant instead. The staff thought we were mad when we asked if we could sit outside. We explained that we were Tasmanians and Victorians and that even though they were rugged up like it was winter, we thought it was a beautiful evening.

We stuffed ourselves on Pizza, and Amanda and I finished our day of pampering ourselves with a few strawberry daiquiris.  We walked home along the Obi Obi Boardwalk and tried to spot some wildlife. The kids all had their lanterns and were so excited that we had no hope of seeing anything with all the noise they were making.

We once again said farewell to the Woods family and are heading to Noosa to meet up with my parents. Next week Dan’s family are flying up from Melbourne to meet us in Noosa and help celebrate Sam’s 9^th birthday with us.