On the lookout for some Mapleton accommodation for a short stay, or an extended visit to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland?
Wanting to surprise your significant other, or confuse an acquaintance with an overly intimate gift? Well, have I got the recommendation for you!
In this post, I’ll share with you 5 reasons to hit the road and head to Mapleton, Queensland.
We’ll learn how to become honorary grey nomads, take pride in other people’s interior decorating, shake our fists at disappointing fireplaces, wander “our own” garden estate and treat ourselves to a delicious meal.
Dear reader, perhaps you’re one of the lucky few who have already hung up their shingle and have retired from the 9-5. Already drunk on sunshine and (let’s be honest) pinot gris. Giddy with the joy of a well-cooked Sunday roast, a concession card in your top pocket – high socks and loose shorts … nary a care in the world, living the dream.
Or, maybe you’re like me and superhero Luke Cage (first time comparison) and just want to spend a few days pretending that you’re independently wealthy and own a little cabin in the forest to escape to whenever the feeling takes you. Well it turns out ‘imagining you are a pensioner’ is free, and there are plenty of wonderful accommodation options to help stoke the fires of your delusion!
So let’s say ‘good day, sir!’ to the work week, jump in the Suzuki Swift and pretend we’ve got nowhere else to be. “Full speed ahead to the Sunshine Coast Hinterland!”, we’ll holler – a boot full of overnight bags and the promise of a cosy cottage to while away the hours in. We’ve packed a crossword book that we’ll never open, the window is open to let the crisp breeze in and … hang on … too cool, too cool! Shut it! Shut it! Ok, let’s hit the highway.
Mapleton is 1.5 hours from Brisbane, however we tend to go the long way to maximise our retirement – so go to the toilet, and let’s grab an iced coffee and a road hash-brown (not as gross as it sounds) from everyone’s favourite Scottish Restaurant (McDonalds) before we get too far out of town. Remember to ask them to put the sugar syrup in your coffee or you’ll get hangry quicker. Don’t argue, we know it’s sweet, but you’ll thank me later.
Heading out of the city we drive into the mountains – specifically Mt Glorious – where we can shake our fists at people cycling in the middle of the road, and pull over occasionally to let the motorbike riders zoom past. We used to stop quite regularly at the Elm Haus cafe, but were sad to see that it’s closed for good now. Feel free to try some other cafes up that way and let me know how they are. Not now though, we’re driving and I’m not sure how that works in relation to physics.
On, past Somerset Dam, where we admire the water views and then complain for a few minutes about how we wish there were more places to pull over and take photos of the water that we’ve just admired. If we’re lucky, there might be a caravan or a trailer with a little horse or boat on it, that we can laugh at to pass the time while thinking of other things to wish for. We’ll have a ‘comfort stop’ at the toilet in Kilcoy, so don’t wish for that – it’s a waste.
Onward to Woodford, where we stop at CJ’s Pastries for a tasty sandwich and a tart – custard or blueberry, whatever takes your pleasure. While we’re eating, we realise that we ordered our Woolies groceries for the wrong day and spend most of our sandwich time trying to cancel our order. The stress only makes our tarts taste tartier, and after some helpful service we’re back in the car feeling like we’ve just battled Jessica Jones. We’re not too up on the superheroes, so we an only assume that’s what Luke Cage does when he’s not looking forward.
We stop in at Maleny and – because we’re not monsters, and can’t check in to our cabin until 2pm – we drop some dollars in the wonderful bookshops Rosetta Books and The Maleny Bookshop (stay tuned for dedicated articles about these in future posts).
We pick up some supplies from our favourite Seasons IGA Maleny, agreeing that it’s weirder if you DON’T have a favourite IGA. We know from past experience that we’ll need milk and too many chocolate biscuits, along with something for dinner on account of we don’t like taking the car out at night. We talk about getting a pizza from Montville, but are pretty full from our Woolies-disappointment-sandwich and might leave that for another day.
There are two Clouds Retreats – one in Montville and one in Mapleton. We remind ourselves that we’re going to the Mapleton one today, blow kisses and hoot charmingly at the Montville venue as we pass it – we’ll save that one for another day! Eventually, and happily, we arrive at our destination – Clouds, Mapleton.
Clouds Mapleton is easy to find, and there are plenty of places to park which we appreciate. We choose a park under a sunshade tarp in case of hail (we had a big storm at our last stay in Kingaroy) and because it seems fancy and we have our pick of spots. In fact, we’re the only ones here! We love that, and also immediately begin to imagine that it’s empty here because the zombie apocalypse has begun and we’re late to the party. Oh well, we already have milk and biscuits and there are plenty of sticks on the ground with which to defend ourselves in this brave new world – let’s check in!
The office doesn’t open on a weekend, so we’ve been sent an email with all the info we need to make ourselves at home. Most importantly, the code to our self-check in lockbox. This goes seamlessly – we are very good receptionists, it turns out!
There are a few different accommodation options at Clouds Mapleton – self-contained cabins for couples or fully self-contained Homestead & Farmhouse options for families, couples or groups. We’re checked into the Garden Cabin No.10 and get to dance from the carpark down a boardwalk to get to our new front door. Note that “get to”, doesn’t mean we “do”.
We agree to treat this cabin as our own, and take pride in any decorative features that we’ve implemented in a parallel universe. This is a fun way to redecorate your entire house, without having to think, shop, do, move or even own a house! We hope that we have good taste!
There’s a little table and chairs just outside the front door, that we’ll never sit in – but appreciate nonetheless.
Other cabins are in close quarters, but they don’t seem occupied. We know this, as the lights are on inside and the curtains open and we stare brazenly in on account of we’re fake-retired for the weekend and why not. We note to make sure our own curtains are closed later in case we walk by our own windows. What snoops!
The check-in email we received, notes that the guest compendium is available online. While saving on paper, this is tricky for us as we don’t have any wifi reception at the cabin and can’t access it – so aren’t able to tell if we’re breaking any rules or missing any presents that they may have left for us. This is quite common in the hinterland though, and we resign ourselves to having to talk to each other like ye olden days, instead of watching strangers on YouTube. We congratulate ourselves on buying those books earlier.
We take a deep breath when we enter the cabin, for the inaugural SNIFF TEST. We are pleasantly surprised by what we breathe in – clean and fresh foresty scents, and no sneeze balls. The cabin is an open plan room, with a bathroom behind an actual door – which is far more exciting than you think, considering every hotelier seems to have invested heavily in frosted glass at some point. We play with the bathroom door for a bit. It hangs on a barn-like hinge which makes us feel like youth who are doing ok with their lives. When the bathroom door closes, it opens up a secret cupboard! Its a one-door-two-door situation – get it? We store our bags in there and hope we don’t forget they’re there when we open the bathroom again.
One of the main reasons we booked this cabin, is that the website noted that it had a fireplace. It’s one of the first things that we gasp at when we enter the cabin, and finish sniffing the breeze. We get down to business, looking around to see where they’ve piled the mountain of wood that we plan to burn on our visit – only to discover …gasp … FAKE NEWS! The fireplace is actually a gas fireplace! The worst kind of wood.
We pry off the front grating to make sure there’s not a secret proper fireplace behind it, but only see fake wood inside and switches on the top – along with a plug that goes into the wall. We’re less and less sure that we’re going to be able to set something on fire. Just when we think we can’t be slapped in the face with any more disappointment – SLAP! – we can’t understand how the switches work! On/off/power/switchy – nothing works. We can’t access the compendium, so aren’t sure if there’s any trick to it other than that its bad.
Oh mother nature, why have you forsaken us by not letting us burn you.
After a reasonable amount of fist-shaking and wailing to the Gods, we settle in to enjoy the rest of the room and put all the bed cushions and display blankets into the secret cupboard. Playing with the sliding door cheers us up a bit, so does a biscuit.
We decide to play a quick game of ‘Count the Power Points’, which everyone enjoys. There are 3 – one by the bed, one for the kettle and one for the traitorous fireplace. We eat another biscuit to calm down, and note to plug our phone in the bed power point before anyone else can. We are in the Highlands, and accept that there can be only one.
The kitchen is fully equipped with a microwave and cooking supplies for someone who intends to cook and loves frypan skillets. We like the feel of the mugs and the water doesn’t taste weird. We make good use of the kettle. There are tea and coffee sachets, and two little biscuits which we add to our collection. The collection doesn’t make it through the stay. The bag of french-press coffee is a nice touch, and almost distracts us from the fireplace, that we can see reflected in the microwave.
Everyone loves to wander around landscaped gardens that they don’t have to do any maintenance on, and this is true for us now.
The Clouds grounds have cobblestone paths for us to walk on as we enjoy the forest vistas. Remember the lessons we learned from Bowie in ‘Labyrinth’, and keep an eye out for the brick-keepers as you traverse the cobbles. They’ll remove your lipstick directional marks, and you could get turned around.
We explore the surrounds – wishing near the wishing well, and pressing our noses to the doors of the closed chapel and conference room. We don’t walk as far up as the pool, laundry room and games area – mostly because we forget they’re there. Also, we don’t need to do laundry and have already worn ourselves out with that power point game.
You can hear little birds peeping in the trees. Are they peeping at you? Probably!
We head back to the cottage to explore other delights that we’ve paid for – i.e. the bathroom!
The bathroom is lovely and clean, the shower pressure good and the temperature hot as you care to make it.
Make sure you use the toilet before you have a shower though, as the shower water is likely to bounce off your sculpted pecs and create a pool of water right into the loo zone – where you’ll mostly likely not be wanting a pool.
We make ourselves another cuppa and are pleased we bought milk with us, as the only good thing about the complimentary UHT milks in the fridge, is that they sound like baby raptors when you open them.
We enjoy a good nights sleep – the bed is super comfy with plenty of pillows and a extra mattress bit (a topper??) that means you aren’t sleeping in a hole someone else’s body has made. If you miss this, I suppose you can roll around during the day and try to carve out your own personal dent. Be considerate and smooth it out for the next guest though.
If recommending the sleeping quarters to a friend – and I believe we are doing so right now – we’d suggest bringing some sunglasses for the night, as the security light from outside shines right through the frosted panel of the front door, onto your face as you dream. Some people may like the feeling of sleeping under a search light – or feel like they’re being beamed up by a really slow UFO. Others may just feel slightly annoyed that its not darker, then go back to snoring and dreaming of estuaries and cascading fjords.
Speaking of the toilet, there’s more frosted glass that you might be suspicious of in the bathroom, but we took a walk around the outside of the cabin to check. A snooper would have trouble getting around there to look at you; would have to be pretty tall (we’re talking X-Files tall, and then you’d have different problems), and also they’d need pretty good eyes to see through the misted glass. Toilet in happiness and safety, friend.
Check out the next day, is as easy as check in – we just leave the key in the room and walk off into the sunrise as if this was never our own house to begin with.
When booking, Clouds let us know that you could have a continental breakfast at the Clouds Cafe in Montville. We did email them to book for the Sunday, but didn’t hear a response. When we turn up Sunday morning on the off-chance, there isn’t any staff response when we ring the bell – so instead we head into Maleny for breakfast.
One of our favourite places to stop for a bite in Maleny is Monicas Cafe – every time we’ve eaten here, the food has been on point, the staff friendly and the service quick.
To sum up, we really enjoyed our stay. We’d encourage Clouds to make it clearer on their website that the fireplace is gas, and you can’t set fire to it. We’d also recommend a lower watt bulb in the outside light, or some curtain options for the front door panels to make the room a little darker when sleeping.
All in all, we’d totally recommend Clouds Mapleton and think it would also be a great place for a group of friends or small family gathering. So much to see and enjoy in the area. We’d love to go back and try the Clouds Cafe another time – and try out their breakfast options.
But for now – we’ll bid adieu to the Hinterland, and count our blessings that while we still have a job to go to, we still have a job to go to.
Happy travels, friends – and, as Luke Cage always says “I’ve looked at Clouds from both sides now”.
… Hang on … that could be Joni Mitchell …
