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Before we met up with Koo on our travels she told us that she has a cousin (Sammy) who lives on the East Coast of Australia in a town called Mooloolaba. Koo wanted to go and visit Sammy on the way down the coast and Sammy had kindly said she would put us up for a few days. Such a nice offer was too good to turn down, so Mooloolaba was our next stop.
Sammy, her husband Barry, Charlie (Sammy & Barry's two year old son) Mollie (the boardercollie) and Dillon (the cat) now had 4 extra house guests for the next six days. We did a mix of day trips here and there and not much in these six days, but one thing we did was eat well, a welcome break from instant noodles and toast.
The four of us cooked up a couple of meals for the family, one a mexican night with nacho's, wraps, dips, the full works. Another was curry night, which we prepared a Indian curry and Thai curry again with all the extra's. Belle and Koo seemed to take control of most of the cooking and sticking to the old saying "too many cooks spoil the broth", me and Joe pretty much focused on the washing up. Barry also treated us to some culinery delights during our stay, he was quite the Jamie Oliver fan and this showed as the food was brilliant.
Our days in Mooloolaba were split between going back to our student days, sitting around watching a mix of TV and DVD's, and heading out in Sammy's car (which she again kindly lent us). We went to the Mooloolaba lighthouse and looked out over the beach and town, sat on the beach and watched the surfers catching some waves and took a day trip up to Noosa (about 30 minutes north of Mooloolaba), to visit Jonas and have a look round. This was a great idea as we had heard that Noosa was a really nice place with beautiful beaches to go and chill out. On the actual day though the weather had other ideas as it chucked it down all day, it started as soon as we got out the car at Noosa. We settled for lunch and then a brisk walk around the town centre, looking at the beach for all of 5 minutes before the rain got the better of us and we headed back to Sammy's.
The backend of our stay landed on a weekend and with Sammy and Barry working during the week we hadn't seen that much of them. So on the Saturday we headed out for lunch, all seven of us. After a nice lunch at the marina we dodged yet more rain and headed back via the off licience in preperation for a night out, which is exactly what happend. Some live music at a bar in the town centre followed and some drink was consumed (nice drink, beer and cider).
If we didnt already know this, we found out that if you stay in the same house as a two year old there is no such thing as a lie in. So bright and early on Sunday morning we headed out to the beach, where Barry and Joe cooked up a fry up using the free BBQ. It was slightly different to being at home in a greasy spoon eating a fry up (not that there is anything wrong with that), we sat there in the sun, looking out across the beach, with the sound of waves in the background. After brekky we headed down to the beach to sunbathe, play a little bit of football and have a swim, avoiding the jelly fish. That evening Barry again cooked up some home made delights, this time pizza was on the menu. We sat around, watched a DVD, ate pizza and chilled out, it was brilliant and a lovely change from being in a common room or hostel kitchen.
After 6 days it was then time to leave and make our way down to Brisbaine, this was our travelling party of four reduced down to three. Koo was heading to the Australian countryside the following day (to work on a farm) so we said our goodbye's and once again boarded the Greyhound bus. It seemed like the time the four of us were together absolutely flew by and looking back we did quite alot in this time. Staying at Sammy and Barry's was a brilliant way to end our trip together and give us a taste of home comforts. It was nice to experience a small bit of Australian family life, even though Barry is originally from Scotland and Sammy from England.
- comments
del glad it rained - some of us get bored with all this sun sand and sea stuff you know