Tags
Australia, Bistro C, Lunch with friends, Noosa, Noosa Food and Wine Festival, Queensland, RACV Noosa Resort, travelling with friends
A long weekend away with friends
Friends of mine travel from Canberra to Noosa every year to escape the cold. This year they invited me as it was our friend Mandy’s 55th birthday. Noosa is an Australian resort area on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast. It is known for its lovely weather (21 degrees in winter), sand and surf as well as its main street (Hastings Street) with cafes, restaurants and overpriced boutiques. 
I travelled by plane to Brisbane with a short stop-over in Sydney and took the two hour shuttle to Noosa. Initially my friends and I were going to meet at Brisbane Airport and hire two cars to drive to Noosa. But…my friends were unfortunately stuck in Canberra Airport for seven hours due to an issue with their plane. They didn’t arrive in Noosa until just after midnight so luckily there was a shuttle to drop me off right outside my accomodation!!
I arrived around 5pm at the RACV Noosa Resort. A really lovely place with several swimming pools, a tennis court, restaurant and bar and small shop. I stayed in a good sized apartment with a small balcony which had views of ducks in the pond. Very noisy in the mornings but I guess that’s nature and I really didn’t mind.
I decided to go for a walk to familiarise myself with the area and walked to the main shopping street which took about thirty-minutes. It was lovely how lush and green the vegetation was along the way. When I returned to the resort, my friend Mandy and her partner came over for a glass of wine before I retired to my room for an early night.
Early the next morning I did the same walk down to the beach and then met up with Mandy for breakfast at a cafe overlooking the beach called Bistro C. 
Lots of people out and about swimming or surfing or just relaxing like us enjoying breakfast.
It turned out that this was not the only time I was to eat at Bistro C. One of the girls who had arrived late from Canberra messaged me to say that a birthday lunch had been organised that day for Mandy and it was at Bistro C!!
Mandy and I then took the six-kilometre round walk to Dolphin Point – a lovely walk with beautiful views. We started off along the beachfront then took some stairs up to a pathway within the national park where koala bears live but as much as I looked I could not see any.
I decided to take the shuttle bus back to the resort as I was a bit weary after my walks…and a couple of hours later, it was time to return to Bistro C for lunch. One of the girls and I chose the roasted beetroot, feta and legume salad with fig, spiced pumpkin, radish, pomegranate and pea hummus. I opted for no cheese and mayonnaise and it really was absolutely delicious. Coupled with a glass of champagne it was a great way to spend a couple of hours!!
Now I know there are many wonderful restaurants in Noosa but I had seen something else delicious on the menu. The next day I walked back into town and stopped off for lunch at Bistro C...the dish I wanted to try was the fried shiitake mushroom, water chestnut and spinach dumplings with Sichuan eggplant, sesame broccoli, snow peas, green onion and ginger broth. Unfortunately I was very disappointed with this dish. The dumplings tasted like they had been sitting around for a while and there was no Sichuan eggplant or ginger broth on the dish.
At the time of our visit the Noosa Food and Wine Festival was on so we had tickets for a four course dinner at Peppers Resort with a few guest Aussie chefs. Matt Moran whose restaurant is Aria overlooking Sydney Harbour and Matt Preston from Australian Masterchef were two I saw and had photos with. Nice to spend time with the girls but the vegan food was incredibly disappointing; so much I didn’t even stay for dessert!
The girls have kindly invited me back next year…no more formal functions at the festival though just time with friends and long walks!
Warwick is significant in the establishment of the Australian Federal Police as its the location of an assault of the then Prime Minister who was in Warwick giving a speech at the local railway station when an egg was thrown in his direction, knocking off his hat. The Prime Minister asked the local police sergeant to arrest the offender but interestingly, the sergeant refused, saying it was not in his jurisdiction to take action.
We walked in through huge wooden doors with stained glass windows and were taken to our rooms – there are thirteen in total; all very lovely and some with beautiful stained windows similar to those above the front entry doors. 
The manor also has a guest lounge room with open fire for the cold winter evenings and a dining room with gorgeous velvet covered chairs.
Our first official event was to view the re-enactment of the famous egg throwing incident at the train station. Really well put together by the Warwick community. 
As we were representing the AFP, we all wore our uniforms and three of us had a quick photo opportunity outside the main doors of the manor and a larger group photo outside the train station after the re-inactment.
A commemorative plaque was unveiled by our Commissioner and the local Member of Parliament followed by our Commissioner doing some quick media interviews.
Our next official function was a dinner so we went back to the manor and changed into our Mess uniforms and again had some photos taken, but this time on the stairs in the manor. My friend Jane and I had a couple more photos taken along with a few of me and the Commissioner as this was the last time I was to wear my Mess uniform as a member of the AFP; I have since retired – 30 November after thirty-four and a half years!
And finally a photograph of all of us at our dinner function; a great weekend representing the AFP.
Then as if we hadn’t had enough to eat the previous evening, we went for brunch at this lovely little cafe within a rather large shopping centre. The meals matched the size of the shopping centre; huge!!
As were the views at night….
