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Bush Camp and Noosa
So its been rather a while since we've written anything (again) but we have been so busy its been hard to find the time. So here's our update on the rest of our time in Australia
13th January
Happy Birthday to me, wohoo, it's my birthday today, although it didn't feel at all like my birthday. Fran gave me my only card. Phoned home and spoke with all the family, although it wasn't even my birthday in England yet. After checking our of our hostel we headed to the supermarket with Daisy and Becky and got some cakes :) We then walked down the road to where the bus was due to pick us up from. We were opposite a court house and there must have been an important case about to finish as we were sat waiting next to a bunch of journalists and TV cameras. When we finally left Brisbane (our bus was over an hour late) Daisy told the driver is was my birthday so I had to stand up and everybody clapped. Our journey to Noosa was rather boring. We stopped off by the Glasshouse Mountains for lunch and were supposed to be going for a walk up to a view point but as we were running late we couldn't. Heading on to the town of Noosa we passed Australia Zoo and through the town of Mooloolaba, arriving at the Transit Centre at 3pm. Our shuttle bus to bush camp arrived at 4pm and we all piled in. Ended up waiting in there nearly an hour as the driver thought we were missing someone - we weren't!! Headed out to bush camp via the supermarket to buy food and goon. Our camp, Gagadu was on a normal campsite, if people at Forest Edge complain they should have seen this place. Our camp itself was nice but some of the other parts of the campsite looked like a travellers site!! Not exactly the most modern and clean campsite I've ever been to. We were given a tour of the camp and shown to our dorms for the first night - they were more like bit tents with bunk beds that were more like hammocks, which were very uncomfotable to sleep on! We cooked dinner and started playing drinking games with a group of people we had met earlier in the day. This went on for the next for hours. Was a very different environment to where i'd ususally spend my birthday but was good fun. As out dorm was right next to the bar we got very little sleep as the music went on to gone 5 in the morning and then about an hour later they started up with the leaf blower!
14th January
Briefing today was at 7.30am so I dragged myself out of bed at quater past. Our guide told us what we would be doing that day and where we would be going. Turned out this was an unguided trip and we would be finding our own way there as a group. We had time for breakfast and had to pack and put our bags in storage. Grabbed oars and life jackets and got ourselves into groups of 3 down by the canoes. We were given a very brief lesson on how to canoe before we set off down the river. We were paddling against the current which made it hard work and it was a hot day which made it worse. The oars were filthy so we all ended up covered in black stuff. We canoed along the river until we reached the lake and had to keep going until we hit the 4th green marker where we turned left and had to head towards the tiny beach. Apparently the lake was a nursery for the kind of stingray which killed Steve Irwin but we never saw any. Once at the beach we pulled our canoes out of the water and then had a 2km walk to the main beach. On the way we passed a pub and ended up stopping for a drink and to have lunch. We were chatting to a couple of girls - Rhian and Alex who, it turned out, knew some of the same people as us in Sydney. When we finally got to the beach we were all so hot we ran straight for the water. The sea was really rough and we spent our time messing about in the waves before heading back to the canoes. Our journey back to camp took less time even though we were still paddling against the current. We were all knackered by the time we got back and had achy arms so we had dinner and showers and had an early night. We were now sleeping in 2 man tents.
15th January
Got up early even though I didn't have to as the tent had become a sauna by 8am. Fran stayed in bed, apparently is got a lot cooler after I got out, lol. I only moved myself from the tent into the kitchen for breakfast and then on the the sofa in the TV room. I stayed here pretty much all day watching films. Fran spent most of the day in a hammock relaxing too. We could have spent another day canoing, but we were knackered from the night before and we felt too lazy too, especially as it was further than yesterday. Early evening we made dinner and then got the goon out. We were going to play drinking games but ended up moving into the TV room and watching Dark Knight, until the disk screwed up at the the end. We were feeling tired and were planning on having an early night and being in bed by midnight. We went to the bar to buy our last drink (it was less of a bar and more of a random guy who bought loads of alcohol and then sold it on at cheap prices but so he still made a profit) and ended up staying up till gone 3am just chatting and listening to music. The barman also did a little fireshow for us but as he was quite drunk and stoned we made sure we stood well back, lol.
16th January
Got up early again as the tent had gotten hot again. Packed our stuff and left bush camp at midday to go back into Noosa. From here we were taken to our hostel, Dolphins, a little bit out of town on Sunshine beach. We went out for a walk to get some lunch and buy food for dinner at the overpriced tiny supermarket (so ended up with spaghetti on toast). Went for a walk down to the beach to spend a couple of hours relaxing, stopping off on the way to buy some crisps and processed cheese - the most random snack ever - to eat on the beach. That evening after dinner we spent relaxing infront of the TV, we hadn't seen TV (except movies) or the news for ages!
17th January
Today we were off to the Australia Zoo. Managed to sleep through my alarm but luckily woke 10mins later. Got the shuttle bus into Noosa and then picked up by coaches to get taken to the zoo. We decided to go round the zoo following the numbers on the map so we didnt miss anything we wanted to see. The times of all the feedings were listed wrong so we ended up missing the otter and elephant feedings. After walking round for a bit we headed to the crocoseum for the main show. The time of that had changed as well so we ended up watching the end of the Ben 10 show and then had to put up with Bindi Irwin singing and dancing for 1/2 hour. That child gets very annoying. Finally the main show started, which feathured elephants, reptiles and birds before the crocodiles came out, accompanied by Terri Irwin plus Bindi and little Robert Irwin. After the show we continued to walk around the zoo. We headed to roo heaven where for $1 we got a big bag of kangeroo feed, so we went round trying to find kangeroos which were hungry (most of them seemed like they'd had enough kids shove handfuls of food in their face so had gone off to rest). We headed back to the main area so we could hug a koala and get our photo taken with one, they were so soft and cuddly. We didn't have much time left before we had to be back at the coach, so spent the final 1/2 hour looking round the South East Asia zone to see the elephants and tigers. After heading back to Noosa we had another relaxing evening and watched Home Alone 2.
Love Becky........and Fran
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