River Esplanade Motel Mooloolaba

... might end up staying in 1770 for a bit, I don't have to be in Townsville for my bus to Alice Springs until Aug 25th so I have plenty of time to kill! I'll update you all along the way whenever I can. After 6 months in one place I'm SO excited to be on the move again! And it's only 9 weeks until I fly back to London now, 13 months goes by pretty quick hey!

... day and meet new people when you're bored. There's a few people that have stayed here for months like us, most of which have got jobs doing various things for the hostel so it's nice that we have a little semi-permanent family of people as well as the ones just passing through.Just after we got to Mooloolaba hurricane Hamish hit the coast just north of here and the resulting ocean swell destroyed our beach for quite a while. The weather here's been the ...

... a curious flapping noise. Our back tire was rubbing on the car and was now worn right down to the threads. A bit problematic, we thought. So we limped Charlie into the next small town, which thankfully wasn't too far away. A couple hours and a couple hundred dollars later, we had some new tires. We were, however, lacking enough time to get the most out of our zoo visit. We would have to find a place for the night and "do the zoo" the following day. After much ...

... with damp smelling sofas and full access to the mossies, bugs and toads....again! On the third day we canoed further downstream to another campsite. Crossing the lake was an absolute mission and we all had to dig hard to make it through the wind and the waves.....you can imagine our faces when we reached the shore to be told the the water was in fact shallow enough to stand up in for the last few hundred metres and that we could have walked the canoes in! We managed to ...

... all the winnings ( meat tray) that we had won the night before. Getting mixed up on what eveing we did what. Perhaps it was that afternoon we watched the Indy race on TV that was beign held down the coast on the Gold coast. Great scenery on TV and fun to watch the race. We also watched some rugby on TV - Aussie vs New Zealand in a world cup match. I learned alot about rugby and quite enjoyed it learning the rules from Mal & Don. Another day we went shopping at the Sands ...

... Heads. Over the next decade little development occurred in the coastal areas. By the year 1919, Mooloolah Heads industry had grown to include fishing and fruit growing. Thomas O'Connor bought Pettigrew's land from Sylvester Murphy and surveyed the first allotments of what to become Mooloolaba. On January 1 1921 the first sale of allotments was held. These extended along the river frontage from the surf beach to Tucker Creek. It was then that the name ...

... crash into the rocky sided breakwater and shower any poor unfortuneates walking past (or the kids that were stood there waiting for it!) One sad sight was a prawn trawler stranded and rolling around on the opposite beach, being battered by the waves. She had been out fishing midweek when the storms hit. As she was returning to the harbour during the night, presumably on auto steering, two hands were asleep below and one on deck. Somehow in the storm he had been washed ...

... with all the camping gear and most importantly 2 eskies (ice boxes). We had a long paddle ahead of us since Iain had booked campsite 8 on the Noosa river, which was over 21km away! The first bit of the journey was across a shallow lake, however after an hour or so we were on the Noosa river and the Everglades. We had to paddle upstream, but fortunately the river was slow moving so it wasn't too difficult. We had a few breaks along ...

... wining and dining, reminiscing and putting the world right. An insiders trip round the Island which has many bird reserves. We then were taken on a day out in an area north of Brisbane at the Glass House Mountain area and ancient forest. All rounded off in Barrie and Josses swimming pool. Had a really great time. Can't post any photos at the moment as no one seems to have a card reader.

... filled with more crocs than you could eat err, or rather that could quite easily eat you. At this point the specter of a larger than life Steve Irwin materialized on a video of a past TV show, hosted eloquently and rather precociously by little Bindi. Once the live show began there was a lot to see: from the imposing Elephants, to the swooshing birds, to the silent, deadly and always hungry crocodiles. We spent the ...