Day 80 - Hervey Bay to Noosa

  Noosa, Australia
Wednesday, November 21, 2007

We were woken rather earlier than we would have liked by a combination of a very noisy parrot and a lawn strimmer, which was surely a bit naughty at 7:30am?!

We packed up all our stuff again (it gets very monotonous after 80 days of packing every day), grabbed some quick brekkie and headed off to the jeep rental place to face the music after the damage we'd experienced on Frazer Island.

The tyre cost marginally less than they suggested last night, but they then added on a charge for "balancing" the wheels (riiiight...) plus a charge for straightening the wheel rim. The total came to about A$300, which was a real kick in the guts, but it was just stone cold bad luck, there was nothing we could do about it.

The thing that kept us smiling was our next destination, the jewel of the Sunshine Coast and one of my favourite towns in Australia... Noosa! 

Last time I was here, on my Oz/NZ trip 6 years ago, I was able to hook up with my friend Andrew "H" who lives in Brisbane. He drove us up to Noosa, hired a boat and we walked up some cliffs and just sat there taking in the amazing views. I'll never forget that wonderful day trip and I couldn't wait to show Katie.

The drive south was just under 2 hours and we'd reserved our room earlier this morning, so all we had to do was find the hostel.

We came into a neighbouring town called Noosaville, right on the esplanade and it was gorgeous. We were blessed with another cracking day and I didn't remember this part of town (where we hired the boat last time) being this nice, it was a knockout.





Noosaville is a lovely town and cheaper than Noosa Heads, which is a premium destination and therefore much more expensive.

We found the hostel easily, parked up, shoved all our gear in the room, applied some sun cream and set off for a walk down the esplanade, which was mostly full of pelicans!



The first place that took our eye was a boat rental office, so we reserved a little 2 man motor boat for 2pm and went off to find the "excellent" fish & chip shop recommended by our guidebook...

As usual the map in the guidebook was a load of rubbish but we were finally able to track it down.
 
It was called "Holy Mackerel" and if you thought that was a bad pun, check out the name of the Thai place next door!



One thing we have noticed about Australia is how many puns are used to name companies over here, it's like Les Dennis is the Minister for New Business Names or something...

We placed (plaiced?!) our usual Aussie order of barramundi & chips, battered in beer with tartare sauce and stood there salivating. Over here you can generally choose between 'breaded' or 'battered fish', and this place even offered 'grilled'.

Fair play to the guidebook, the fish & chips were absolutely first class. I'll spare you the details, but a picture speaks a thousand words!



After that we went back to the room, got ready for our boat trip and off we set.

Our boat was a bit of a midget, but it was quite cute I guess. The guy assured me that it was lighter than their other boats but used the same engine, so it was actually quicker. I think this was probably the same guy that convinced George W and his mate Tony about the Iraqi stockpile of weapons of mass destruction! ;)

Whatever, it wasn't the most powerful boat in the world, but it was fine for us, so Captain Al set sail for a 2 hour cruise around Noosaville, avast me hearties!



We started off with a self-guided tour of the luxury beach front properties, as requested by my dear wife, who was hard at work sunning herself at the front of our executive yacht. Tough life!

 

Most of the waterfront properties were amazing, I hate to think how much they must cost...



After thoroughly depressing ourselves we changed course and set off to the main beach, via a few precarious sandbanks and parked-up in one of the stunning little bays, which we had all to ourselves.



We secured the boat, walked the 100m or so to the beach and then swanned around basking in the sun, it was gorgeous and so peaceful.





Somehow over 2 hours flew by, so in no time at all we had to point our little boat back towards the rental office.

 

It was a shame because we were really enjoying ourselves!



As we got within 100 metres, a bunch of jetskiers zoomed past, which looked like great fun...

 

When we got back on dry land and after regaling the boat owner with fascinating tales of our epic journey, we walked back to the hostel, jumped in the car and headed for the Noosa National Park.

This is the place where my friend H & I walked up to the cliffs last time. It's located right on the headland and contains miles and miles of walking trails, complete with loads of sleepy koalas up in the trees!

I convinced Katie to do the coast walk (she wasn't convinced because no koalas had been seen on it today according to the info office) because I knew it was really spectacular.

I felt thoroughly vindicated when after a few minutes we saw a very lazy and very cute koala right above us! How cute?



The track itself was pretty easy and very scenic.

 

This was the view back from whence we came...

 

And the view ahead of us...

 

And the view back again. Following all this?!



As you can see the sun was coming down, giving us some great views of the various coves & bays as we made our way out to the wonderfully named "Devil's Horns".

These are two slithers of rock which shoot out at the most northernly point of the park, giving a great view back towards the main beach which is called Alexandria Beach.
 
We carefully made our way out to the rocks at the end (not the very end, don't panic parents!) and sat there for 20 minutes or so, taking in the view and admiring its romantic properties.

 

This was the view of Alexendria beach from the Devil's Horns; there didn't seem to be anyone on it!

 

And here's Katie enjoying the view...



We could have sat there all day to be honest, but we eventually started the walk back, after deciding to try and hike to the beach tomorrow morning. There's no road access through the park, so it's a hike there or nothing!

On our way back the sun was now very low on the horizon, giving us some very bright views.

 

As we passed the biggest bay we could clearly make out the local surfers strutting their stuff, and they indeed appeared most bogus and radical, dude. Woh!





After getting into the car, we made a quick stop at the main beach in Noosa itself, but sadly the sun had just dipped behind the trees. It didn't take much imagination to think what it looked like with the sun blazing down though...



By the time we got back to Noosaville the sun was setting, resulting in one of those beautiful Aussie sunsets.



Not that I expect much/any sympathy, but unfortunately we've not really been able to relax much since we arrived in Australia, because we've been moving on nearly every day.

I think Katie would like to just relax somewhere after doing so much driving, so we'll find a way to do that as we get south.

We have a few days in Sydney, a couple in Melbourne and then we'll be spending some time with my friend Marie in the Barossa valley (wine area) near Adelaide before we fly on to New Zealand.

Australia is stunning when the sun shines, but it's SOOOO much more expensive than Asia and as a result we're getting through a shedload of money, it's a bit of a worry...

We don't have much choice really, we're hardly travelling luxuriously and we'll only get one shot at this, plus I guess we have a lifetime to pay back any resulting debts!

I'm really conscious that we're so lucky to be over here visiting all these amazing places, we just need to really remind ourselves of that every day and we can sort the money out later.

Money really can't buy what we're experiencing on this trip and we mustn't lose sight of that even when the costs get us down.

Despite our increasing money issues we'll go somewhere nice for dinner, I think Katie is sick to death of making sandwiches, having fish & chips or pizza because they're cheap and making our own dinners in shitty little kitchens!

Hopefully some nice food will put a smile back on her face ;)

It's a short drive to Brisbane tomorrow, I can't wait to introduce Katie to my good friends H & Simone, although I must say that I'm sure 'Brissie' won't be quite the same without my old Welsh friend Blakey (Kieren) who is now living in Melbourne. That's probably a good thing for Brisbane! ;)


Lots of love to you all,


Al & Katie xx