Camping,  Gulf Islands and Sunshine Coast,  Trip Reports,  Trips with Kids

Porpoise Bay: A Rainy Weekend on the Sunshine Coast

At the beginning of June it was time for the annual camping trip to Porpoise Bay from Kai’s outdoor preschool. Although at first there was a lot of enthusiasm around this trip among the families, closer to the weekend many started to drop out. The reason of course – the rain! I am still not sure what’s the reason for the name “The Sunshine Coast” but on that weekend the name definitely didn’t make sense.

Not so sunny on “The Sunshine Coast”

We left on Friday afternoon after school, rushing to the ferry terminal. It was one of those rare times that there was a glitch with our Modo booking, and the car we reserved wasn’t there. After some panic moments and running around, Gili managed to get another car, but a bit smaller than the one we had booked. We met a few other families at the ferry terminal and had a pleasant ferry ride to the other side. 

A short ferry ride

The evening was somewhat dry and it was nice to have a fire. The rain started again during the night, but luckily we were tucked in our tent by then. In the morning Gili made sourdough pancakes for just about everyone. Then a big group headed to the mud flats. Although I didn’t join the hike (the creeks were freezing and I didn’t have proper footwear) I heard from Gili that our kids got the muddiest. I was not surprised.

They came back cold and dirty though but luckily there were warm showers at the campground. The kids were not happy campers at that point. Gili managed to shower them off and we dried them with the hand drying machine… Once dressed, warm and after having something to eat they calmed down and went back to being their usual happy selves.  

Happy Campers again!

In the evening there was a pizza party under the shelter. At that point the rain picked up and it was pretty wet. The kids still didn’t mind playing in the rain and getting wet, luckily it wasn’t very cold. Also, a campfire combined with s’mores helped to improve everyone’s mood. 

On Sunday there wasn’t really any point sticking around the campground and everyone seemed to be ready to head home. We stopped for a quick lunch at Sharky’s and managed to catch an earlier ferry and were home before dinner time for a nice warm bath. Of course the next day was beautiful and sunny but at least it gave us the opportunity to dry out all of our stuff…

Yummy fish & chips!