Next stop was noosa a place that I really wanted to go previous to coming to oz we arrived in the morning with the intention of staying for a day or two at max we ended up staying here for 8days! Wow what a place heaving with back packers an amazing beach an great town due to rain we decided to take a ferry to up the river noosa to the various districts (noosa noosaville noosa junction and tewantin) had a good day walking about and discovering the place we parked in a car park for the night that had about 12 other vans all similar to our we walked round an introduced ourselves to each group of travellers and got chatting away for hours so many interesting people doing the same journey either Sydney to cairns or visa versa. I met one English lad called Andy who I got on very well with. We all got together and went to a bar were there was cheap beer and games plenty of women and music we all got drunk together and went to a club till early hours.The next day the rain actually stopped and guess what we saw the sun for the first time I went for a swim in the sea and spent the day (get this) reading my book I love reading now by the way. I met up with andy and went exploring upper noosa in his van and had a bit of walk about then back to the car park for drinks with the others . The next day was a laundry shopping and catching up on Internet day there's free wifi in some places but very rare we booked a trip for the following day for 2 night 3 day canoeing /hiking trip in the famous noosa Everglades it should have cost$135 per person but cos of the resent weather we haggled him down to $75 each got an early night ready for next day. So we woke up so exited we took enough clothes and food for our trip and headed for the bus to take us to the drop off place we where met by another 14 people ready for the trip we introduced ourselves to the group and jumped on the boat that would take us deep into the Everglades. We arrived close to the destination when all of a sudden the boat got stuck it was too shallow and we were beached about half a kilometre. From the canoes and entrance to the rainforest we struggled to push the boat and in the end we had to form a chain line to a nearby sand island and hand all the camping gear and personal luggage along the line and we all gathered on this tiny patch of sand the guide waved us goodbye as he freed himself from the sand pointed us in the direction of the canoes and left us to it! From now on for the next 3 days we were on our own. We formed a group of four that swam across the river and collected the canoes one by one and brought them back to the sand island eventually we loaded up our boats and paddled into the enchanting rainforest surrounded by nothing but nature and wildlife this was truelly the experience I was looking for. We paddled hard for about 3 hours until we all made to the campsite where we set up our tents and camps and cooked dinner we all ate together in a circle then the goon and weed came out as the sun went down we had a great party around a fire drinking and smoking playing music and telling stories went to sleep very easily at about 8pm woke up freezing during the night with a broken back the campervan seemed like a luxury compared to a tent. The next day we had breakfast and set off upstream at about 8am (Jesus I sound like nan with all these accurate timings!) this was a big day we rowed hard for about 4kilometers until we reached our destination we moored up got out hiking gear on and bush walked about 6k up a huge mountain of sand/rainforest when we reached the top I witnessed one of the most beautiful sights of my life stunning 360 degree views from the worlds biggest sand dune we spent some time to somersaults of sand cliffs and messing around then the others headed back but me and Mikael continued and we walked the whole perimeter another 8k I don't have the pictures at the moment I'm waiting for a friend to email them to me but when I do I'll put them up omg it was stunning the sand changed from whit to black to red to yellow.we walked back down the mountain for a couple of hours then at the bottom bumped into an Australian couple who just got back to their camp from their kayaks must have been about 50 or so they invited us to there camp for a cup of tea so we joined them and ended up talking for hours they were so nice we had a bit of food with them and then the bloke Carl after I said I like fishing offered me his rod (not penis) to have a go fishing so went down to river for of fishing (this stretch of water actually contained fish not like the bloody caravan site in ok buck) after they wanted us to stay for dinner but it was getting dark and we had a big journey still to do we said goodbye and got back on the river. With the sun setting faster then we could paddle we found ourselves 30 minutes from camp in complete darkness as we got closer we saw a group of flashing lights from our camp we pulled into our jetty to find the whole group waiting for us with torches they where about half an hour off calling a search and rescue helicopter
We got a bit of b******ing of the group but in the end was fine I was do tired I passed out in the tent straight away not forgetting that I'd covered not far off 30k. Oh yea I cooked a bit of pasta and got a visit from a huge wild boar eyeing my dinner the next day I went for a piss in the morning and saw a meter long lizard just crossing my path got back then Sergio (a Spanish bloke in the next tent ) screamed out loud I walked over and there was a spider the size of my hand in his tent! We packed up all the gear and loaded up the canoes and did a final push back to the collection zone we arrived first and had an hour n half to kill do we went for extreme off road walk with a couple of others just I was walking I felt some on my foot looked down only to see a bloody snake slide across my foot! We got back to find out that surprise surprise the boat got stuck again so paddled over loaded up the gear and left the canoes for the next group we took the boat back to town said goodbye to the group and headed back to the van. In the evening we decided to go for a drink in one bar in noosa and ended up seeing a couple of people from the trip we moved to another bar and met a few others by midnight we went to a club and pretty much the group was there! partied hard with my new family until 4am then stumbled back to the van. Next day was spent sitting on the beach and swimming weather was nice now around 25 degrees still no need to use any sun lotion or mozzy spray. So the next day we headed for Australia zoo home of Steve Irwin and his family great zoo much better then in England we chilled out with the Roos saw a croc show and so many animals all in all nice day (so it should be for £50). And the day after we decided it was time to leave noosa a fantastic town so we got back on the highway and headed north