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17th October 2008.
We hopped on the Greyhound bus from Brisbane to Noosa Heads. The greyhound bus is great, aircon, toilet, film to watch we arrived in a couple of hours to our hostel Noosa Backpackers. We got the free shuttle into town and had a look around. Quaint little town, beautiful beach. Again the wheather was a bit rainy, windy etc but still really hot and humid. We decided to walk back to the hostel for some excersice and took us over an hour! We bought our dinner from the Coles Supermarket and cooked it back at the hostel. We had a double room and did our washing, still not plucked up the courage to do the dorm thing yet eek! Should do really as it will save us soooo much money! The next day we get picked up to go to the Noosa Everglades trip. The guy took us to the supermarket to get 3 days worth of food and drink and then to the liquer store for alcohol. They dont sell alcohol here in any supermarkets you always have to go to a seperate store, same in NZ how odd? We arrived at the camp in the National Park and it was a complete weired dump (first reactions) A weired camp where people actually lived in tents as permanent residents, deep in the forest. I could see spiders webs EVERYWHERE, lizards, mozzy's it was awful. But as I started to look round and feel comfortable there it was quite cosy and weirdly nice! We stayed in a dorm tent thing sharing with 4 others, I was on the top bunk with spiders webs surrounding me. I was about 1 foot off the roof with leaves and things dropping above my head through the night! The beds were made from bamboo and shook when you climbed down but I am told they are very sturdy. The camp kitchen was all hand made from wood etc, with hammocks and storage boxes for everyones food. They had a cute little living area aswell with couches and strangely a flatscreen T.V! Also a big book of DVD's to watch. They had a camp fire aswell with hand made benches round it from trees. We made our dinner and got to know the group who we would be going on the trip with the next day. We also got to know the people that had just come back from there first day, we all drank our beers round the campfire and got drunk. We had a guy called Roy who is the manager of Travel Bugs travel company here which we got along with pretty well. We decided to all share our canoe together the next day. We got up and packed our lunch, towls sunscreen etc in the barrels (which arent waterproof) and put them in the canoe. We canoed all with one oar each for about an hour, until we reached our destination up the Everglades River. There were 3 other canoes with us. We treated it as a race as us English do and proudly won. The last crocodile in the river was there 8 years ago but aparently there are sting rays in there aswell! Luckily we didnt fall in or get beached like the last group as the water can become quite shallow. Its quite hard to remember what direction your going in and where your destination is, as the team talk was the night before when everyone was drunk! No-one could really remember the instructions for the next few days and we were on our own self guided tour! We found the beach, pulled in and headed for the pub. We had a couple of cider bottles and headed to the main beach. Baramood or summat it was called, ill find out and edit this later! At the beach there were lots of signs saying people had died and drowned there as the water and rips were very rough, they werent wrong! The waves were huge and so strong they pulled you right under and knocked you off your feet! It was really fun but I bit scary for me getting dragged under the water and knocked over, wear a tight bikini aswell which luckily a girl had told me from the night before! As the waves just rip it off you! I did wear a tight one but it was still torn from me on several occassions! We all sunbathed on the beach and had a dip in a pool on the way back. We set back off at 3pm and canooed back to the camp. The way back was twice as hard for some reason! That night we were out of our purpose build dorm tent rooms and we had to all pitch our own tents that we were given at the camp. Luckily me and Mike got one to ourselves I really cant imagine sleeping next to someone I dont know in the close proximity of a tent! I'm really not a very good traveller am I? We made some dinner, had a few vodka's and risided to our cosy tent (not) Rock hard concrete we were sleeping on! Still I enjoyed the experience and slept better than the night before. The next day we went canoeing for twice the distance. 7kms I think it was, prob took us about an hour and a half I think. We were going the opposite way this time up the everglades. We were all given tents and cooking equipment, sleeping bags and barrels to put them in. We were supposed to stop off at some rope swings but we couldnt find them. We headed to our destination, again very hard to remember where, but we found it. I will input the name again of where this weired town is and what it is called. We set up camp and then it came, thunder, lightening, gail force winds! Luckily we took time pegging our tent down properly, unlike Roy whose tent nearly blew away. I was hanging on for dear life to this poor girls tent which was nearly in the everglads. I was so strong that we were just standing there holding the tent saying to each other " I dont know what to do!" Luckily the big blast only lasted 10 mins so we helped her move her tent and sort it out. I went to get dry in the camp toilets and put mikes clothes on as I hadnt brought a change of clothes. We went to the pub for lunch and then just drank all night. We all sat around candles and played pictionary in the sand. Well Roy drew things (very well I must say) in the sand and we all had to guess what it was, all backpacker related, like the greyhound bus etc! We could see lightening in the distance gradually comeing towards us and we were all wondering weather to just sleep in the camp toilets tonight! As it came to us at about 9.00pm we all got in our tents and tried to go to sleep. Luckily no-ones tent got wet and it was just torrential rain not too windy. The next day we all woke up had our breakfast and headed back. The sky was black, it was torrential rain and we were canooing down the everglades with the current going in the opposite direction that we were. Plus today there was only 2 to a canoe. Me and Mike were drenched, cold, it was so windy there were big waves coming it was quite scary. We gave it our all, but was getting no-where fast. There was alot of water coming in the canoe so I held onto a branch at the side of the river and mike started bailing the water out with our cereal bowls. The rain was so hard I couldnt see anything and I was scared if I opened my eyes my contact lenses would fly out! I felt like hailstones it was that hard! The wind aswell was blowing the canoe in all directions! Luckily we made it back to camp, but we were shattered, Over 2 hours of really hard strong fast canoeing against current and our arms, legs and stomach were aching. We looked like drowned rats! We were so thankful to get back to camp. We dried ourselves off and all in all I'm glad I did the trip. There are alot of mixes reviews of it here. Groups have left early, called to be collected, got lost and just couldnt do it. The guy told us that they had to come and rescue some girls in weather much less severe that what were were in as they said they just couldnt do it. They stormed off and left the camp. It was hard work but not too hard work. It wasnt easy but definately do-able for all abilitys weather your fit or not. Ooooh also there was a huntsman spider on the german couples tent I had a look and wasnt as scared as I though I'd be! The toilets in the camp were disgusting long drops but I'm to expect that in Thailand, it smelt so so so bad, it was horrible going to the toilet. Plus when I had a shower there was a big spider in the corner and it was so scary having to shower near it but I did it! Okay thats Noosa over with, i've just checked into Dingo's resort now, off to Fraser tomorrow, we are with a bunch of Irish Girls and a austrian couple should be fun! Ooooh also I met up with Jo from work just as I had finished the Noosa trip! Did not look my best after the last days events and had not showered for 2 days! We sat and chatted for and hour at the bus stop, they got a taxi to meet us as we had all our backpacks so couldnt really move anywhere! I met Pete her partner who was lovely and we just chatted about work / what we'd been up to and what they had planned for their rest of the holiday. Meanwhile it was raining! Typical! Laters peeps x
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