How do you say Maroochydore?

 

When you first see the name of the capital of the Sunshine Coast, you quickly realise why the hotel we had booked calls itself the Holiday Inn Express, Sunshine Coast - as I suspect only locals would be able to spell the city name - Maroochydore. But more about the city when we get there. First let's update you on the journey.

From Brisbane to Maroochydore

On this Saturday afternoon (21st of September) we leave the car park of the Holiday Inn Express, Brisbane at 12.40pm and travel towards Maroochydore following the route below

Google's time warning on the map reflects the busy route from the Capital of the State of Queensland to the quieter, but still busy resort city of Maroochydore.

As Google maps warned there was lots and lots of traffic on the route, with a 23 minute solid holdup, i.e. we were stopped, on the M1 at 1.21pm as we headed along the piece of road called The Bruce Highway.

We even went past the turn for the Australia Zoo which is on Steve Irwin Way!

At 1.55pm we saw our first rain for many days as we entered the Sunshine Coast!! The blotches on the photo being rainfall, not a dirty windscreen.

At the same time our phones burst alive with a Thunder Warning - clearly the title of the place is a little over egged!!

We arrived at the hotel at 2.50pm, two hours and 10 minutes after departure, rather than the predicted worse case of 2 hours, but while it was stop-go driving for almost the whole route we didn't have any unpleasant incidents.   

Holiday Inn Express, Sunshine Coast

Having arrived just before check-in started at 3pm, there was a queue of eager travellers at the check-in desk. However, the hotel was well prepared and with four people on reception we were all cleared and up to our room within 10 minutes of arrival.

We are in Room 220 and the similarity between it and yesterday's Room 1017 is stunning. Clearly the franchise building team keep very consistent. 

Laundry

Avid readers will recall that instead of our planned laundry visit in Ballina we had used the washing facilities in Port Macquarie as described here, so we were very glad to see that this hotel offered guest laundry facilities too, perfect timing for us.

We enquired at reception and were pointed to the 8th floor and a well laid out laundry room with a large washer and dryers. It was $2 (£1) for a 20 minute wash and $2 for a 45 minutes dry, the receptionist also gave us three sachets of washing powder for free, though we only needed one. The washing and drying was all done and we had hung up the clothes in the wardrobe by 5pm. 

Maroochydore

For those of you wanting an answer to the question which is the title of today's post, the video at this link provides the simple pronunciation. 

But there is a bigger question, why are we here in Maroochydore? When planning the trip up the coast we schedule a range of stops with an absolute point of the ferry to K'gari as the end point. There will be more about K'gari in the next few posts, but to set the context, visiting the island is via ferry and vehicles are to be left on the mainland (with some exceptions for four by fours). So we had a deadline of arriving at the Mainland reception at River Heads by 1pm, Sunday. So with this in mind I looked for Catholic churches between Brisbane and River Heads so I could go to Mass either on Saturday evening or early Sunday before heading up to the Ferry Terminal. It turns out that along this coast the main centre of Catholic life is at Maroochydore, to find that one of our favourite brand hotels [Co-pilot's note: I think, dear reader, I speak for all of us when I say, eh!!] was also in the town was a clincher to our arrangements.   

Maroochydore, as it turns out, is interesting in its own right. It is a fairly new City, with the establishment of Stella Maris Church in the town as one of the spurs to growth, so others, not just us had come here for the church. The church was built in 1950 and led to the town becoming a centre for the dispersed population of the Sunshine Coast, so when the growth of tourism and other industry took place at the turn of the century Maroochydore was established as the capital of the region and major investment is still taking palce in the town. This means that looking for our hotel on google maps, leads you to a picture of bulldozers on a beach! The same is true for much of the rest of the city, which has a very new feel to it. In 1920, just 100 years ago, the area had a population of 90 - it now has one of 21,833 with an estimated increase of 2.5% per annum! 

More details of the grand plans for the region can be read here.

  

Mass 

The distance from the hotel to the church was only a few half a mile. So I left the hotel at 5.35pm following the route below:

A very simple set of directions that was as easy to walk as it looks on the map. I was very conscious as I walked to Mass, that while there are aspects of Australia that remind me of America, like the range of big stores on one side of the street, there are other things which are almost the opposite of the US, for example on this route there are pavements, zebra crossing and pedestrian crossings things that would be missing in a town of a similar size in the US, where everyone is expected to drive. Maroochydore, like other Australian cities has a very pedestrian friendly environment. 

Views on the walk

I arrive at the church, called Stella Maris Church at 5.45 pm and settle in for 6pm Mass. 

Stella Maris is a large, open airy church with a large congregation of many ages and cultures at the 6pm Mass which is celebrated by a visiting priest from the Diocese of Toowoomba as the local priest is leading a Youth Weekend in Brisbane.

The Mass was led by a folk group and the modern hymns were all familiar to me from Irish, English and American authors, all with the focus on welcoming people to come to know the Lord. The gospel for this weekend is Mark 9:30-37 and here, like in Sydney, the translation used is the New Revised Standard Version of the scripture:

As verse 36 and 37 say:

Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

and the young priest, Fr. Nathan Webb, focussed on how we welcome others to the church, to our homes and in to our lives, as a way of welcoming Jesus and his Father anew. A great reminder that faith isn't just about churchy things, but about living the gospel values in interaction with others.

Uplifted by the prayerful Mass and short, but pithy, homily I walked back to the hotel which looked very pleasant all lit up

and met Drew at 7pm ready for our dinner which was booked for 7.30pm.

Dinner at the Market Bistro

We booked dinner at the Market Bistro a day or two ago because we really liked the look of the menu. Little did we know, until we had arrived in Maroochydore, that it was 300 metres from the hotel. So we left the room at 7.20pm and still arrived just before 7.30pm.

While choosing from the menu we decided to have a basket of bread, this was wonderful. A sourdough baguette with confit garlic butter and olive tapenade. The Sourdough is made with a dark wheat giving it a lovely depth of flavour, the tapenade was rich and delicious - there was none left at the end.

For his starters Drew choose Kilcoy beef tartare, semi-dried tomato, parmesan custard, cornichons, egg yolk and potato crisps, Kilcoy being a ranching town in Queensland. The usual joke, about it not being cooked very much! was recalled. Drew enjoyed the freshness of the flavour, one of the better beef tartars in his experience.

I choose crumbed Brie with cranberries, almond and sourdough baguette. The rich, tangy brie was perfect in the crumb and the cranberries and almonds provided an earthiness that accompanied it well. It did amuse me, however, that I had yet more sourdough - still, it was just as nice as it had been earlier, and I didn't waste it.

For mains Drew choose Risotto with Morel Mushrooms and pecorino. This was proper carnaroli, i.e. risotto, rice with sauteed Morel mushrooms served with mascarpone and pecorino. I think Risotto is one of the more difficult dishes to photograph, often looking a bit bland, but the richness of flavours in the risotto was heady and tangy and the mushrooms gave a lovely bite. The whole dish was seasoned to perfection.

I choose roasted half duck with mushrooms "a la grecque" and a garlic cream served with a side of roasted duck fat potatoes with rosemary and garlic. There were no fear of vampires for anyone eating this dish. It was perfect in every way, the crisp skin, the juicy duck, the crunchy potatoes flavoured with the duck fat, truly memorable. 

For dessert Drew choose Lemon mousse gateaux which he described as deceptive. From the look of it you might think it would be sweet and heavy, but in reality it was light and refreshing with just a hint of sweetness and a very strong taste of citrus - excellent.  

I was delighted on reading the menu to find that I could have dessert here too. A lovely choice of cheeses. These three, in the photo below, from right to left are:

Tin Tin  -  A creamy washed rind - buffalo milk chese made entirely by hand. Tin Tin is subtle and elegant with a hint of entry level washed rind aroma. Woodside Cheese Wrights, Adelaide Hills, South Australia 

Vigneron - A soft cheese made with goat milk. When ripe, this cheese will ooze a velvety paste and give you a pleasing mouthfeel, full of earthy complexity. You can eat the leaves, but that is a matter of taste. Woodside Cheese Wrights, Adelaide Hills, Southern Australia 

Buffalo Blue - A semi soft cheese made from buffalo milk with a relatively mild blue taste, a long creamy finish and a unique lactic flavour from fresh buffalo milk- Berry's Creek, Gippsland, Victoria 

What an absolute delight, though a bit amusing that the accompaniment was some more sourdough, this time accompanied by some delightful lavosh. It perhaps need not be said that none was left!! 

We finished the meal with a proper cup of Italian espresso, from the moment the cup arrived with the aroma, it was clear that this was real Italian coffee, not some local attempt, a fitting end to a delightful meal.

We walked the short distance back to the hotel, happy and replete, and we were in bed by 10pm, ready for tomorrow's adventures, which will be reported in the next post.