The wreck of the 226 tonne Steel Screw Schooner “Dicky” is visible at low tide on Dicky Beach. At 10.35am on 4th February 1893, in lashing rain and cyclonic winds the Captain beached the schooner to avoid hitting nearby rocks. There is a longer story, but here the Dicky rests. Or what’s left of it. The propellor has been restored and now sits at the end of a sculpture replicating the ship. Little known fact: Dicky Beach is the only recreational beach in the world named after a shipwreck.

We are back, four years after our first caravan trip up the Sunshine Coast. We choose Dicky Beach for our first six weeks for a couple of reasons: an hour from Brisbane and Scott flies to Papua New Guinea part way through for a dive trip, so it will be an easy drop off and pick up ten days later. Secondly, we really like this Southern end of the Sunshine Coast. It is much more low key than up Noosa way, which feels a bit more flashy and over wrought. Our caravan park is about 50 metres from the beach and, at the beginning of Winter, very quiet. The beach runs for kilometres and there’s a shared bike/walkway up and down the coast.

We join the local Surf Club which is just over the fence. Our year’s membership is $5, $1 if you are staying at the Caravan Park. Bargain. Scott has a burning yearning for a Chicken Schnitty, a crumbed chicken breast run over by a Mack truck, famously the national dish of Australia and sharing honours with it’s ritzier cousin, the Chicken Parmi – the difference being a bit of tomato passata, ham and cheese slapped on the latter – so we go for dinner. There’s raffles, and I love a good gamble. You may remember I won big bucks at the Cairns Casino playing roulette. Anyway, who can resist a meat pack raffle, and there’s ten, yes ten, up for grabs. $10 for 20 tickets, the odds have to be good. Well my luck is in – it’s winner winner meat pack dinner! And Scott still gets his chicken Parmi. How proud am I? I don’t know why it is a surprise when we cook up the meat that it is all delicious.

We love a good country A and P show (Agricultural and Pastoral). Last year we had a great time at Kununurra, WA, which features competitions such as Hay Bale Stacking and the Cowboy Challenge – you can read my colourful description in this blog 

On our first weekend we are off up into the hinterland for the Maleny Show. It is the 100th anniversary so we are expecting great things. I fail to guess the weight of the prize bull, but then so does everybody else. There’s no Cowboy Challenge, but we check out the Comedy Races. I’m not sure what the ducks and piglets think, but we find the piglet race very entertaining. Actually as both the Cowboy Challenge and Pig Races end with guzzling a bevvy, I guess they are similar: the difference is a warm can of beer or a trough of caramel milk.

These shows definitely give rise to childhood nostalgia. The smell of candy floss (fairy floss) and chips and hot dogs – you want them til you have them, then wish you hadn’t. And the scarier rides – once you are on you can’t wait to get off.

Scott gravitates to the baking competition like an Aussie to a can of beer. The calico covered trestles groan with cakes, loaves, biscuits, and some offerings that beggar description. The kids decorations have the most imagination, though it’s hard to tell what some of the creations represent. I love that there’s craft section for the “70 years and over”. They probably have to separate them as they’d show up everyone else.

We spend an enjoyable hour at the show jumping, clapping clear rounds and gasping if a horse refuses a jump, or knocks down a rail. It’s nail biting stuff. We watch a real life Horse Whisperer, Guy McLean, who wields magical powers over the young horses he trains. Mounted on his feisty stallion, Guy releases three young horses from their halters and then, with tactics reminiscent of a sheep dog herding ewes, canters, turns, stops, divides, brings together and completely and effortlessly controls the horses. Look him up on Youtube and prepare to be amazed.

This year our plan is different: longer stays in fewer places along the Queensland coast. As this is the stamping ground, or more appropriately shuffling ground, of the southerners who head north for the Winter months, this requires some pre-planning and booking of desirable sites. Not our preference, as we would rather move, or stay, as the mood takes us. However since the pandemic more Australians have caravans and campers and travel within the country. A marked difference from our first trip in 2018 when we never booked ahead, nor need to.

At the moment, however, life is still very quiet here at Dicky Bay, just how I like it. I suspect it will all change with the advent of the school holidays.