Today was a proper beach day and one that included visits to not one, but two surf clubs to pay homage to their great locations and reasonable prices!

Andy carried out his daily ritual and got his 10k run completed by 8am, enabling us to breakfast and hit the beach by just after 9.30am. Needless to say this is ‘late’ by Australian standards with many making it to the beach well before 7am when it’s cooler and the surf is up.

We started our beach marathon with a visit to Alexandra Headland beach and dipped into ‘Alex’ surf club for our 10.30am caffeine fix. We would normally go a little later, but have learnt to our cost that some of the espresso bars do close at midday. In their defence they are often open from 5am.

Alexandra Headland beach offers an enchanting blend of soft sand and warm waters with views down to Alex Bluff lookout and down to Mooloolaba main beach.

As we wandered down the beach we were overtaken by one of the surf rescue buggies, and the driver kindly stopped so Andy could resurrect his ‘Baywatch’ extras pose….not very convincing!

Andy then tried to get in on the act by standing next to one of their surf boards which gave him a little more kudos but still not the full blown, body perfect Aussie lifeguard.

After spending a couple of hours enjoying the sunshine and cooling off in the surf, we decided to walk on to Mooloolaba beach. This meant for a 2k walk along the Esplanade, with an initial saunter along the beach passing the signs about rips and currents that make swimming in these waters a little more challenging.

After spending time on Mooloolaba beach we felt it best to take a well deserved break from the heat of the sunshine and enjoy a cool beer and vino at Mooloolaba Surf Club. We last visited here almost 15yrs ago with our daughter Amelia and our friends Paul & Naomi. Nothing much has changed other than the prices! Still a great place to hang out and enjoy the coming and goings on the beach.

On our way back we stopped to take note of the surfers code – Give respect to Gain respect – lots of good tips for budding surfers who are unaware of the etiquette in the ocean.

It’s so hard to pass up taking a photo of a beach as you pass it and so was the case this afternoon – great views down Alexandra Headland beach.

Despite it being 15th Jan, there were still Xmas decorations up along the Esplanade – got to wonder how they managed to get the star to the top of the tree.

Tomorrow we are driving just 40k up the coast to Noosa for 2 nights. It’s one of our favourite places on the East Coast. Such a beautiful spot with shopping on Hastings Street and drinks in one of the bars fronting on to Noosa Main beach.