Come along on Emmas weekend adventure
Traveling Australia and seeing all of the little unlisted places has become a passion for me in my life. Living and growing up on the Sunshine Coast has provided me with an opportunity to see and thrive in an environment that is exciting and forever changing. The Sunshine Coast offers so many sights and locations that can fill each and every weekend with thrill and adventure. Power Curve Automotive came along as a reflection of that passion. With a love for adventure means finding hidden weekend waterfalls, broad and sometimes unforgiving beaches, rolling hinterlands and vast farmlands. The Sunshine Coast truly reflects the well known misconception other countries have of Australia. This beautiful area is never ending!! It can take hours to get from one part of the Sunshine Coast to the next. So much so that in my child hood they broke us into sections for the council to better manage. A divide Im sure many locals still talk in open tones as controversial and divided.
MY PASSION - Adventures | Nature | freedom
The vast terrains, hidden adventures and journeys for me mean an array of vehicles that reflect my life style and that of many here on the Sunshine Coast. A vehicle set up to tow the family caravan, a family sedan to shuttle the kids to school, work, art class and weekend catch ups. My love for adventure has also seen a ute converted with a canopy and roof top for hidden adventures and finding those waterfalls and couple hinterland weekends away or our next big adventure to the cape. I have also taken on a little self contained van that I can personally or get away as a couple. This little van has become a passion for me. Its given me the ability to read a book by the beach when I wake up at 3am like today and listen to the waves by the water while the Sunshine Coast yet again lies about its name and keeps things green with another day of rain. This is the lifestyle Power Curve was made for. To keep our hopes and dream alive on the road and keeping our love for adventure high.
The latest of our adventures saw us get a way for an over night stay at the Bunya Mountains. Honestly if you are a big walker and explorer you could spend much longer there. Getting away for the short adventure and explore to the waterfalls and lookouts clenched the need for a weekend brake and back in time for the next work drop off for one of our teenage daughters. The Bunya mountains was about a 3hr fast drive from the Sunshine Coast. The trip was slightly extended and over the years we have made ourselves slow down and explore.
One of our newest tricks or travel hacks has been to utilise the attractions feature on google maps. I have also found a bit of a kick out of finding and appreciating some of the amazing and odd locations artists are putting up murals that reflect our lives in Australia and the locations we travel. Nambour is such a great community for this art and as we travel the appreciation for the talent has become a hide and seek adventure for us. Along a dirt winding road and navigating our way under a bridge to one of the old train trails just outside of black butt we found two large train murals beautifully hidden under the old over pass. Possibly an old high way or well loved and used road over the rail line that is now just a well ridden trail for bike riders following the old rail trail.
food tips!
Finding nice food on our travels and the fact that we are traveling means sometimes we are popping into a camp to sleep and are off the next day. This kind of adventure is about seeing and exploring not so much chilling out around a camp fire cooking a camp oven meal or drying a new damper delight. With our camping vehicles we have got two different and equally effective food preparation hacks. The canopy has a kickass pie oven and the little van who I call Vallery has a 12 v travel food warmer. We started our travels with the basic frozen pies and a few store frozen meals. Given we live on the Sunshine Coast where there is an abundance of adventurous food vendors, creators and farming there is always something new to eat and try. I was able to find some delicious frozen thai meals that we could pop into either vehicles fridge or freezer and pop in the pie warmer as we travelled along ready to eat when we got to our location. Not just for dinners we also tried out the pie function of this with some cold pies we organised from the girls at Post Coffee House that we heated in the warmers as we went on our walking adventure at the Bunya Mountains. Now only to figure out how I get their great barrister skills to pop on out to our next travel location for my Morning long black. The 12v warmers are a new game changer for us and I am now experimenting with frozen meals we are preparing and freezing at home so we can have amazing meals on our trips and spend more time adventuring and less time cooking and preparing.
GOOD OLD VALLERY!
Vallery was a well loved old van and had probably seen better days. Not unlike a lot of vans like her she has not been well loved. While the lay out of the van was close enough to what I was looking for to curve my travel desires it has taken a fair amount of bookings and hours with the Power Curve team to get her to a reliable fashion where I am confident to take on an adventure away from the coast. The team have given her a revamp and ticked of the items of maintenance that most travellers forget are needed. Vallery the vito or Vallery DeVito as I lovingly call her has a few km on her. So the Power Curve team have replaced the clutch, water pump, all of the fluids have been well flushed, suspension was boaty and bouncing all over the road and been replaced with an easy aftermarket upgrade. Keeping her at a standard height and just putting back some shock absorption has meant that I love driving her and getting around in my home on wheels more than I do my family BMW… although I do rather love the diesel tune we did on the BMW and the power and confidence it gives me scooting around the Sunshine Coast.
BE PREPARED!
On our way up to the Bunya mountains we stopped in at a free camp for lunch and checked out the interesting replicas of a mining, and days gone by community at Nanango off the D’Aguilar Hwy. I meat a delightful lady with a nut stand and bought back some maple pancake macadamia nuts a flavour I can say really does taste like Maple pancakes and no there are none left to share haha. Heading up the range towards the Bunya mountains we stopped in at the Coomba Waterhole with a short 5minuite walk into its idyllic water hole and trickling waterfall. An obvious favourite location for locals. Traveling in the small van gives us an easy access ability to see these spots and to make quick stops without having to find a spot to park our much larger family caravan. The road into Coomba Waterhole is not recommended for caravans due to its narrow and very steep decent. The road up to the Bunya mountains is also high and long and not recommended for caravans. I did notice a well used campground at Coomba behind the hotel, this would be a great and close location to park a van and day trip to the mountains and surrounding areas.
SHOPPING | WALKS| WATERFALLS
The Bunya mountains has a few camping locations, the best would be at the main town area where the national park grounds also has nice hot showers and clean and well maintained toilets. The camp ground is really an oval where there is limited spots and if you are looking to stay I would recommend pre booking as all of the spots we looked at where full. This location also offers quick and easy access to the main walks and water falls. It is also only a few hundred meters to the local shops and eateries. The local shop was friendly, the coffee was warm and really hit the spot after an early morning walk to our first water falls. There is culture and history to read and learn. I also learnt that the store sells frozen bunya nuts as there are not many locations you can buy them and also has some really lovely local craft. I picked up a scarf for my motherinlaw for Easter… need to get here something nice because she cant eat chocolate and that is so sad for the lovers of chocolate!!
We chose two walks that where in total under 10km. It took us to about 5 different waterfalls and had us moving through the area from dense rainforest and waterfalls out into overlooking the valley and a delightful kiss from the sun when you emerge out of the forest and into the sunshine. There are so many walks and adventures at the Bunya mountains but with just under 10km under our feet we where ready to jump back into Vallery and adventure off. I am so grateful for the Power Curve team noting the water pump on the Mercedes. Had that not of been replaced I could see a much sadder story being had with and over heating engine and the cost of a tow from this location back to the workshop would have been a very different memory had I not given the approval for this repair.
We went the long way back to the coast to Wooroolin where they have an old rail way station set up like the train station would have been. This is still on the rail trail. There is also a very well used free camp here. Unlike some there was a lot of people here but no evidence of long term or permanent residents. There are free showers at the toilets and the area was well maintained. We popped out and visited the Wooroolin dam and spent an afternoon watching the fish jump from the water the farmer on the hill move his machinery and the cows grazing in the field. We stayed and saw the sun set and every special time like this and adventure we take we are reminded of why we love making sure your vehicles are well kept on the road so you too can see the great and amazing hidden treats that are just outside our door.