North to the Ginger Factory

Some years ago, we were presented with a jar of ground ginger from Australia.  Our supply was running low, so one of the stops we wanted to make on this trip was at the Ginger Factory, Buderim Ginger Factory in Yandina.  Yandina  is located about an hour and a half north of Brisbane.  The four of us drove up late morning on Tuesday and spent the afternoon at the factory and along the Sunshine coast area.  The only problem was the factory no longer makes ground ginger so that part of the trip was a bust.  We will have to replace our supply with ground ginger made somewhere else after we get home.  But it was a fun day anyway.

We drove past the Glass House Mountains.  These are a series of carsts and are plainly visible from ships at sea.  When the sun shines on them at certain angles they apparently glitter and look kind of like glass.  This is an example.

We have spent time in this area on past trip to Australia (see October 9, 2013 past entry on this blog).

At the Buderim Ginger Factory there are many things to do in addition to shopping for their products.

We had a nice meal at the Ginger Cafe

Since they didn’t have any ground ginger the only thing we bought was some Ginger Chocolate sauce for Ice Cream.  Yummy!

Of course we took pictures with the Ginger Bread Men.

We thought of Dan the Engineer while we were there.

The engine at one time was operated by steam but now is driven by a gas engine located in the tender.

Here is the Ginger equivalent of Dan the Vala’s Engineer.  The real difference is this train is a one man show.  The engineer is also the ticket taker and conductor.

We enjoyed the various flowers in the gardens.  These are flowers that we don’t see in gardens in Nebraska.  Here they grow readily

On the way home we drove a little ways down the coast and enjoyed the views of the Coral Sea from Mooloolaba and Caloundra (Sunshine coast area).

Here are a couple more flowers growing in gardens.  These are in my sister’s garden around her house.

Poinsettia

Amaryllis

I leave you this evening with a rainbow from this evening.  A rain storm moved through late this afternoon and as the skies cleared we had this partial rainbow visible over Morton Bay.