Our Final Farewelll

Andrew putting motor on our pushbike

The sunset, night before we leave Scarborough

The final touches have just about been made with Andrew fitting our new 69cc petrol motor to our pushbike at the marina.  Which should turn a few heads, but hopefully not the cops and make pedalling very easy!!!!   We then get up early on Wednesday 25^th July 2012 and as we walk through the marina we stop and say our goodbyes to a number of people we have made friends with since living in the marina.  Living on a boat in a marina is a very social way of life and some great friends can be made.   So after all our mishaps along the way it’s really time to say farewell to Brisbane.

Caloundra 

It is a slightly cloudy day with winds blowing about 15 knots and we motor through the bay, up the outside of Bribie Island and towards Caloundra, with a good view of the city in front of us.  We are only motoring at a speed of 15 kph and when Andrew tries to give Mingo full throttle; she just does not want to take off.  We are worried as we watch the fuel being eaten up every time we try and get her to 40kmph and she gets there but dies off quickly.  Are we overladen still ??  So we open the tap on the 200 liter water tank and let our fresh water drain out into the sea.  This makes no difference to our speed. 

Andrew and Christie arriving into Moolooaba, our first port of call.

We Motor into Mooloolaba at about 1030 hours and see Pete standing on the end of the jetty waving us in and taking photo’s, we then pull over at jetty further up and have chat before, Pete tells us he and Gay have booked us into the Kawana waters marina for a few nights, which was a lovely surprise for us as we were expecting to just stay in the canals.  So Pete gets in his car and drives around to the marina as we untie Mingo from the jetty and motor through the canals towards Kawana.  Low and behold about 10 Min's into the canal and the motor konks out.  Panic stations yet again.  We are now stuck right in the middle of the canal, so have to drop anchor and are now blocking the passage for other boats to pass.  Andrew gets on the phone to James the mechanic straight away but he is not available, Andrew speaks to Michael who asks, “ What Chinaman have you guys run over lately, with your luck?”  Anyway we patiently wait the hour for James’s phone call back.  He then talks Andrew through changing a fuel pump solenoid that has blown.  Phew, thank goodness James gave us a spare when he serviced Mingo.  Problem fixed and we motor into Kawana, through a very narrow marina and thank goodness Pete was there guiding us into what pen we were in.  Safely tied up and we decide we need to loose some more items from the boat, so the three of us spend the next hour and a half unloading and then loading Pete’s car with stuff that needs to be stored.    We then headed over to Pete’s and a shower and change of clothes then onto Gay’s where she and Michelle had put together a lovely chicken dinner.  We had an extremely enjoyable evening, chatting and laughing with a few drinks over dinner. 

The following morning we are up early and Pete comes to pick us up.  We head over to Bunning’s and spend an hour there buying some stuff so that Andrew and Pete can build Gay some shelving in her garage.  Next we head over to Gays and whilst Andrew and Pete get into their handy work, Gay and Christie spend the morning having a good tongue wag and look through some photos.  Christie has a good laugh at Andrew as a child, oh so sweet and innocent, “Angel like maybe?”, not sure his mother agrees.  We all once again had a nice day and just after lunch, the shelves in the garage were built, garden gate fixed, tummies full from a nice lunch and I think we were all ready to go home and have a nap… Gay and Pete came back to the boat for a short while for a coffee before we filled our petrol tanks up with the Jerry cans. 

Gay and Pete, waving us goodbye from Mooloolaba.

That evening we all headed to the Mooloolaba surf club for a delish roast dinner, and a huge thank you to Pete for taking us all out.  Again a very happy jovial evening spent with Andrews’s family. 

The following morning Friday 27^th July we are up again early to set off for the next stretch.  We motor out through the marina and as we head out, we watch and wave goodbye to Gay and Pete who are standing on the Mooloolaba rock wall jetty waving us farewell.