Queensland is a beautiful place to visit so when we got invited to attend a wedding at Sunshine Beach on the Sunshine Coast, I immediately looked up Google maps to see if there were some nearby trails. Well maybe not immediately, but it was pretty soon after I had sent off the acceptance RSVP.

I was travelling with the Outlaws (my name for the in-laws) who are great company and we were staying at a place called the La Mer which overlooked the ocean, check out the view from our apartment when we arrived on Friday night.

We had dinner at the Noosa Surf club with most of the other wedding guests and I drove us home for an early night before tomorrow’s run.

The alarm went off at 5.30am so I could be dressed and ready to run just before the sun came up. I really love being able to catch the sunrise when I’m out running, especially as it’s generally cooler at that time of the day too. But unfortunately there was a lot of cloud cover and a lot of fog so there wasn’t much of a sunrise that day.

I followed the Coastal Track (Number 5, very well signposted) for my first lap of the park and and at one point it brought me out to the beach for a short sand running section. Good practice for me as I generally avoid sand running at all costs! ha ha

I followed this trail up and down and around the coastline and saw many other walkers ans runners out doing the same thing. I actually managed to overtake a few runners which is not like me. It was so nice to be running somewhere different and the view was magnificent, however the humidity soon slowed me right down as I was sweating like a pig and my clothes became quite damp very early on. Gross!

I got talking to some lovely local ladies (say that fast a few times) at a spot called Hell’s Gate (see image below), they gave me a run down on the Park which was very helpful. We chatted about area and they talked about you wouldn’t want to get swept into He;;’s Gate or it would be a death trap!

I wished them well and kept running along the coastal track. At the end of it was a parking area and some public toilets so i made good use of the fresh running water and filled up my water bottle. I was wearing a Camelbak 600ml flask belt and the bottle sat in the small of my back. The belt had a pocked in it so that I could carry some gels and my mobile phone so it was perfect for today’s run.

After that pit stop I decided to take the Tanglewood Trail which also linked in with the Noosa Hill Trail. The fog got very heavy and I looked very creepy by the time I got to the top of the hill, and I almost wet my pants when a bush turkey came out of nowhere and scared the beejeezus out of me!!

And here’s an awful selfie!! Yuck!!

The Noosa Hill Trail took me back down to where the Coastal Track had ended so I filled up my water bottle again and set out to complete the Tanglewood Trail again, as I had only done part of it the first time as I took the turn for the Noosa Hill about halfway along it.

I followed that trail all the back back around to one of the sections near the beach at the start of my day’s run and decided to head back along the coast down towards the apartment. There was another little trail along the beach front over the cliff top and down some huge stairs and I was keen to check it out.

So I ran along the beach and I was the only person around for miles….

At the south end of the beach I had to compete with the rocks and the tide coming in to reach the trail I wanted but it was quite cool and refreshing for my feet.

I eventually found the trail which was quite hard to spot and is not signposted, but I hoped that my trusty map would not fail me. I saw a couple more bush turkeys and headed up to the top of the cliff and the view was spectacular when I got there.

I rounded the bend a little further along the track and there was a concrete staircase going straight down all the way to the beach. At 2 sections on the staircase there was actually a seat for you to sit down and although it looked very inviting I did not accept the invitaition and kept on running.

The soft sand under my feet at the bottom made my legs feel heavier than ever and I slowly dragged my body down the coastline.

By the time I got back to the apartment I had been running for 2 hours and completed 14km, not a bad effort. I had been hoping for a lot more kms but given the humidity I decided to cut it short and rest before the wedding.

I had a quick shower and we headed for breakfast, how good does this look? It was delish!!

Happy Running 😀