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Noosa
Arrived in Noosa around lunchtime after a short 3hr journey from Rainbow Beach. We had cleverly booked into a hostel, Halse Lodge, that was opposite the bus stop despite it costing us a small fortune - mind you, all the hostels here cost a bomb thanks to Noosa being a v.posh upmarket holiday destination for the rich and famous (plus Dan and I and quite a few "backpackers"!) and we were expecting an expensive few days. Checked in, dumped our stuff in what would have been a nice 4 bed dorm, except we were sharing with what appeared to be a very messy, disgusting bloke who had spread his dirty clothes out everywhere and left a ton of used cups/beer bottles/food wrappers everywhere. Thought I was going to have a minor breakdown so promptly left and explored the place! The building was awesome, all timber and old and loads of different rooms, lounges, verandahs and other places to sit and chill. Ventured out to Hastings St, a short 5 min walk and window shopped - unfortunately all the shops were seriously designer and expensive. Managed to stretch to some lunch in a small deli in the food court and then got caught in torrential rain so ran back to the hostel and played cards/napped for most of the afternoon! At 6ish there was a welcome meeting in the main common room, sounded a bit crap but you got a free glass of wine and free ice cream vouchers so we put our reservations aside ;o) Got chatting to various other people, including some girls from Brighton and a couple from Bath so one glass of wine turned into 4 and the need for some food! Wasn't great but cheap(ish) and convenient so ended up sitting on the same sofa for the best part of 5 hours! Noosa is really not a very happening place in the evening, loads of lovely places to eat if you have a spare few hundred dollars but the bars are pretty non existent so a recurrent theme of the next few nights was drinking in the hostel bar, chatting to randoms and having mini parties on the verandah with a pack of cards and the iPod travel speakers!
The weather had cheered up a lot the following day so we decided to be pro active (for us) and go on a walk to the National Park.... followed the boardwalk from Hastings Street along the main beach, past Little Cove and up to the car park for the National Park. The views were beautiful thanks to the steep uphill climb (!) and we spied loads of surfers sitting waiting for the waves. Once we got to the National Park we managed the shortest walk of about 2km through the rainforest (thanks to the slope, mud, my stinky cold and the fact I was well prepared in flip flops!) and didnt spy much other than weird looking trees, some very rowdy kookaburras and what I mistakenly thought was a koala (actually a bird, don't ask!) Came back via the shops again and Subway lunch before retiring back to the verandah for napping, cards and internet! Headed back out about 6ish looking for somewhere to have a pre dinner drink and maybe some food, found a really nice cafe bar on Hastings Street that we could actually afford! In the meantime, got a call on the mobile (very exciting since no one ever calls us!) and found out that my Dad and Dagmar's new baby, Elise, had been born so decided that if we needed an excuse to eat out then we were celebrating ;o) Had beers, margeritas and vino with delicious bread humous and dipping oil then risotto and posh chicken, actually can't remember the last time we had eaten so well! On the way back we utilised the free ice cream vouchers and got HUGE delicious ice creams, seriously sickly with flavours like maple macademia and white choc caramel fudge...mmmmmm! Chatted to some of the others for a while and chilled out writing the journal etc before getting an earlyish night for a day of fun tomorrow!!
Thurs 28th, we were up at 7 to get ready for the zoo! Had booked the free bus from Noosa to Beerwah, about a 2 hour journey which flew by thanks to "Steve Irwin's home videos"!!! Pure entertainment for the number of "crikey"'s, dangerous and grumpy animal provocation and general cheesiness!! Arrived around 10 and made our way round alot of the main area before lunch - lots of koalas, snakes/lizards, massive tortoises, cassowaries, crocs, tasmanian devils, all sorts! The cool thing about Australia Zoo is that it is really quite hands on and there are loads of the keepers out walking around with the animals to be held, patted, prodded etc and that the areas they are kept in are really realistic to how they would be in the wild and really spacious. The kangaroos for example have acres of land in the middle of the zoo to hop about and you can walk through on a path with a bag of roo food and have them all come over to hassle you!! Ended up at a show in the "Crocoseum"... big reptile show, really pretty birds flying around and then a live crocodile feeding by wannabe Steve Irwin's! ("and now I am really going to piss it off....."!!) Got the shuttle over to the Tiger Temple as well which was amazing, so close up. Got the bus back about 4 and arrived back in Noosa around half 5. Sat in the bar reading magazines, drinking and playing cards on the patio. 4 drinks later and thought dinner might be a good idea.....stayed at the hostel again thanks to bankrupting ourselves the previous night! Met up with Marie again (who we met in Rainbow Beach) and chatted for a while, joined by some others before going out for more free ice cream with Marie and her friend and walking along the beach. We all came back for cards and iPod party - s***head never gets boring!!
Noosa was wicked, really nice place to stay for a few nights and chill out, less of a party atmosphere which is cool, although we are looking forward to hitting Brisbane and enjoying the atmosphere of a main city again. Hasn't really changed much either which is nice - was pretty much how I remembered from when I was here 4 years ago, although then there wasn't the worry of money what with it being a family holiday and my Dad's credit card getting a battering not mine!! Dan even thought it lived up to my hype! ;o)
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