DAY 7 - LAST FULL DAY AT THE BAY...

Our last full day today....
The week has gone way too fast...
Starting the day with a good breakfast this morning..

My breakfast...

Steve's breakfast

Just enjoying a leisurely start to the day before going back to work next week....

We decided to go a little further afield today and check out Burrum Heads.
Once again Barb and John joined us and we set off after 9am heading towards Toogoom which was to be our morning tea stop.  We had decided not to pack food and take but rather eat out....

We drove along the esplanade... too nice not too, with the beautiful views of the ocean along the way.  I love too that the esplanade has lots of trees and parklands... I love how the Bay still retains that sleepy holiday village feel to it and isn't like places like the Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast...

We drove along the coast all the way around to Point Vernon before heading back to the main highway to then turn off and head of to Toogoom and Burrum Heads..

Beachfront at Toogoom

Beachfront at Toogoom

Our morning tea stop this morning...

They have a lovely little gift shop attached to the Restaurant, and Barb and I had a good time checking it out...

Inside the restaurant... Love all the hanging lights...

 We walked inside and were then taken and seated at table 27 out on the deck with a view of the water...

Placing our order...

We placed our order with the waitress and then I went for a walk out onto the landing, from where I could see families enjoying the water on the other side of the restaurant...

 By the time I had got back to the table our hot drinks and in Barb's case her iced chocolate had arrived...

 Barb's Iced chocolate arrived... it was massive... so pleased now I ordered the hot chocolate instead... I would have been lucky to get through the cream, never lone all the milk and chocolate topping...

We both ordered some Lemon and Blueberry cake to share, and it was delicious, the tangy taste of lemon with the sweetened taste of blue berries...

Our shared cake

 After morning tea which almost stretched into lunch it was time to take off and head off to Burrum Heads... This was possibly a further 20kms down the road....
As we were driving out of Toogoom, we came across this great little bee letterbox... Unfortunately by the time we spotted it, it was too late to stop... So blessed to have the husband I have.. He found the first spot he could to turn the car around and headed back so that I could photograph it....

 It didn't take us long to get to Burrum Heads... the thing that impressed me the most about Burrum Heads was the beautiful clear water at the mouth of the river.  This is definitely a sleepy little fishing village and hasn't changed too much from 50 odd years ago....

We did notice that there were lots of holiday homes that you could rent here...

Burrum Heads...

 There wasn't much in the way of shops around Burrum Heads,  not little restaurants anyway.. There was a little fish and chip shop, but we decided to head back to the van for lunch... 

As we had guests coming for dinner tonight I still needed to go out and get a few things for dinner... Still we had a couple of hours to spare so, I enjoyed a little camp out in the sun....  I think I even fell asleep....

Having an afternoon siesta....

 By half past two it was time for us to head out again... John had already gone off to explore RTM much to Steve's disappointment.  I think he would have taken off with John.. He would have much preferred to do this than accompany us girls to the Botanical Gardens....

Around 3.30pm we decided to head off to the Hervey Bay Botanical Gardens before heading to Woolworths to pick up a few things for dinner.  I remember last time we were there, we enjoyed looking through the Orchid House, but unfortunately we were there too late to see it this time... It closed at 3pm.  Still we did enjoy wandering around the grounds and checking out the different areas that we have seen before......

We headed off first to checkout the Chinese Gardens...

Barb photographing Steve who was photographing Barb....

From the Chinese Gardens we headed off to the lake area, but on the way came across a bubbling rock before stumbling upon a Labyrinth and Tucker Garden...

 The Labyrinth looked to be fairly new, as the grass in there hadn't grown too much...  We have seen better on our travels...

then we walked through the Tucker Garden, but it wasn't signed too well, so we were unsure of what plants were the tucker plants... It was not signed too well at all...

 They did have a native bee hive in the garden, so that was about the only highlight in it for us...

Native Bee Hive

 Then it was onto the Lagoon area...

 Steve enjoyed photographing some of the flowering plants in the gardens...

The birdlife around here was pretty prolific and there were some really large fish and lots of turtles in the lagoon.  In fact there were quite a few adults and children feeding the turtles bread....

checking out all the fish and turtles.

Lots of turtles in the water and some rather large fish too...

 We walked around the lagoon and came to the Orchid House... It has been completely revamped since we were last there...  It appears to be a whole new building... Just a pity the Orchid House wasn't open...

The Orchid House

 The last time we were here, I specifically remember visiting a little bush church that was in the gardens.  So far we hadn't come across it...  I remember it being the perfect setting for a wedding...
It was only as we were heading back towards the car that we came across it again...

 It was close to 5pm before we left the gardens.  It was then a quick trip to Woolworths to pick up some meat for dinner, along with a couple of salads as we had decided to have a BBQ.

Lloyd and Simone and the boys arrived around 6pm.  It was so good to see them again.  We haven't seen as much of them over the last few years as we haven't been staying on the coast as much. 

The Miller clan came for dinner...

We had a lovely evening sitting around chatting and reminiscing...  Lloyd and Sim headed home somewhere around 9pm, and then it was time for us to start packing up the furniture outside ready for our departure in the morning....

It has been a wonderful week, with fabulous company, good food, lots of sightseeing, lots of laughter, lots of chatting.  We need to do this more often..