Mooloolaba - Tin Can Bay

Mooloolaba is a beach resort, a surfing center, a fishing harbour, a marina, and then some. Very busy, lots of tourists, but a very pleasant atmosphere of people enjoying their vacation. One thing, which is a general observation for Australia, everything is very clean. No trash on the ground, lots of public toilets which are all clean and in well maintained. everything looks neat and tidy.

One of the consequences, is that there are lots of rules and interdictions. Don't do this, don't do that, or e

lse . . .

But the result is there, it makes the place all the more enjoyable.

We spent practically the whole Easter Week-end in Mooloolaba and had a great time. Walking, shopping, having a drink on a deck by the side of the river, enjoying other

people who are all cheerful and welcoming. In fact, we had not tied up the first mooring line when we arrived that we were already invited for drinks on the boat next door.

Having done everything that we needed to do, repair a faulty zipper on the bimini, refill a gas bottle, do

some provisionning, we decided to leave on Monday night to arrive at the Wide Bay bar late morning for the beginning of the rising tide.

Well for the first time, we could not slow Papy Jovial enough and we had to heave to on arrival to wait for the tide. In fact, the bar turned out to be very well behaved and although it took a long time to get through, we had no real problem and we got into the Tin Can Bay marina by late morning.

Tin Can Bay feels like a very small town, deep in the back country of Australia. We went to the only pub in the town and it really looked like very very local.

Again, very clean town, few shops to cover the essential, nice marina with floating docks, clean restrooms and laundry, ans wifi available.

However, it is so small that one afternoon was all it took to cover the whole place, and we will leave tomorrow morning to try and get close enough to Fraser Island to visit.