Family tour Part 9: Sunshine Coast

From Gold Coast to Brisbane, the following day we drove up north to Sunshine Coast to visit the Big Pineapple which was also recommended by my friend, Suang Suang. We were looking forward to visiting this place after reading reviews about how beautiful the place was and how fun the tour was. Unfortunately, we did not enjoy ourselves there at all and found that the tour ride into the pineapple plantation and macademia orchard was a waste of time and money.

We were brought into the macademia orchard in a macademia nut-like train carriages. That was the cute bit of the tour. Hehe. However, the tour was not educational like the Honey World we went to the day before.

We were driven into the orchard where we stopped by a little hut to have some macademias, and that was all! We thought that we could spend a little time eating some macademias but unfortunately the tour guide was rushing us that I could only crack open one macademia nutshell to eat. Yes, just one! :(

Cracking the macademia nutshell

The pineapple plantation tour was also a fast one. The tour guide thought us how to plant pineapples in the tropical climate (which was quite boring because we have pineapple plants in our own home and hey, Johor in Malaysia has tonnes of pineapple plantations!! :P) and we couldn't even taste the pineapples at all. We bought one back and disappointingly, it wasn't sweet.

The pineapple plantation

Rows and rows of pineapples

Small pineapples

Super humongous gigantic fat pineapple! I think they fed this with tonnes of fertiliser. Haha. :P

The super humongous gigantic fat pineapple was even larger than us!

I guess what made this entry worth it was the up close and personal with the koala bears. We even got to touch this bear! :)

Usually, one has to pay to have a picture with the koala bear. But we had the golden opportunity to take a picture with the koala bear for free. Gee... :)

Rainforest trekking

We also visited Sunshine castle at Bli Bli but we were not interested in entering the castle so we just took pictures outside. Hehe.












We also went to other places nearby like the Ginger Factory and another Macademia factory but did not enter the factories because we weren't keen in paying for the entrance fees and get disappointed again like the Big Pineapple. So, we head on to the Glasshouse mountains lookout instead. Hehe. :) On the way, we stopped by Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo to have a picture at the entrance too! Well, at least now I can say that I've visited Australia Zoo. :P

On the way to Glasshouse mountains, we stopped by at a private pineapple plantation. Hehe.

Up at the Glasshouse mountains lookout

We all felt that our trip to Sunshine Coast was not an fun day but at least we still did buy some macademia nuts (my parents' favourite) home to munch on while watching TV. Gee.. :)