Leaving Canungra, we headed to Buderim, to visit one of Liz’s uncles. Rather than going straight up through Brisbane we took a round-a-bout route via Ipswich. The only ting this achieved other than making the drive more enjoyable was to allow me to change Harry's chair over.
After his original one went up in smoke in the Watagin Forest I had bought him a new one while we were in Coffs Harbour, however that collapsed the first time it was used so I was waiting to come across a Big W (not the high quality of the replacement) to change it over. This time it seems to be holding up to actually being sat on.
Arriving at Buderim itself was fantastic, as Tim, Suzanne and the kids have always been welcoming and good company, although things were a little frantic. Sarah had only returned from being on exchange in the Netherlands two days before and Lotte (the daughter of teh family she had been staying with) had arrived two days before that to spend a year on exchange in Australia. I think the transition from one daughter to three was taking a little to get used to.
Luckily for us Tim was on holiday and around the whole time we were there. Buderim is a lovely town on top of a mountain North of Brisbane. During our time there we managed to mix the mundane (changing oil etc in the car) with the magnificent (Buderim Ginger Factory). One of the early highlights was climbing My Coolum. Max was the funniest – whinging about how hard it was for the first half of the climb, until Tim offered to carry his camera (all 500 grams of it) at which point he then ran the rest of the way up!
We started out by visiting Maleny (where Tim and Suzanne used to live and still have a small farm) for lunch. This reminded me a little of a mix between Nannup, Margaret River, Balingup and Bridgetown. It didn’t appear to have the industry backing Margaret River of Bridgetown, but offered more than Balingup or Nannup.
That night Liz and I disappeared for what is likely to be our only night without the kids – Indian in Buderim followed by coffee in Mooloolaba (which I think Liz now wants to move to just to provide an excuse to say the town name more often 
In between me swearing at the Pathfinder (Nissan seem to have an ability to make oil filters virtually impossible to access – and then when I finally got to it it had been over-tightened at the last service) we spent a lovely afternoon at the Buderim Ginger Factory (located in Yandina). This was significantly better than our expectations and we all left feeling that we probably should have given ourselves a few more hours there.
We visited Maleny again after that, this time to wander around the farm. Tim has planted part of it to rainforest trees with a view to the craft timber market in the future as timber becomes more difficult to access. The highlight of this trip was probably however the kids and Liz playing with a back hoe.
All in all our time there was very enjoyable and Tim, Suzanne, Sarah, Rachel and Lotte were all extremely accommodating – especially considering the circumstances. Once again it is time to move on again, I think Liz is appreciating the fact that we are definitely getting into warmer country now.
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