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Noosa Heads
We had a pleasant journey into Noosa Heads town passing multi-million dollar properties built on a island in the middle of the river. Apparently these properties are worth approx aud$7million! They also have their own jetty with a speed boat attached! Alright for some.
Noosa is known to be like Cannes, a heady blend of beauty, sophistication and wealth. It was certainly oozing money.
So, after passing the opulent surroundings, our Greyhound bus arrived at the transit centre by Greyhound coach. The coach was an hour late so we were a bit surprised to find the Chillout hostel owner, Nik, had been sitting in his car all that time. Just about every other hostel checks if the Greyhound is delayed. That said, he was pretty chilled about it. We booked online to stay here for 3 nights.
Nik showed us around the property and said we have the whole place to ourselves for a few nights. It was a little strange as we were use to having the noise around us. He also told us that Noosa Backpackers, 3 streets away, has a courtesy bus into town and any tours we wish to book can be done through them. The only real annoyance was that our hostel (basically a five bedroom house) didn't have an Internet connection which we had become so reliant on.
Nik left us alone and we made ourselves at home. We unpacked our bags and then took a walk to Noosa Backpackers to get the free shuttle bus to town.
When we got to town we took a walk down the main road called Hastings Street lined with glitzy restaurants and boutiques. Mark particularly liked a gallery of photos taken by Peter Lik; they were awesome. He said he would love to have one in the house until we found out that one of his photos just sold for US$1million.......probably not asking the price of those in the shop!!! The beach runs alongside the main street and is busy with surfers.
As it was Mark's birthday today we booked a table for dinner on the terrace of a nice Italian restaurant for 6:45pm. We were looking forward to this meal as the food on the menu sounded particularly good.
On the way back up the street we stopped off at a cafe and sat outside people watching. A couple sitting next to us from Melbourne started chatting to us. We sat there talking for about an hour and then jumped on the shuttle bus back to our hostel as we needed time to get showered and be back into town for dinner.
The food and the service in the restaurant (Lindonis) was outstanding. Mark even made a comment to the owner. This restaurant was the busiest one in town and we are glad we made the reservation for Mark's birthday.
We left the restaurant about 9pm and went for a cocktail in a trendy bar across the road. Unfortunately this bar was quiet, only 2 other people were in their drinking but soon left.The town seemed particularly quiet so we got a taxi back to our hostel.
The following day we used the internet for a few hours and spent the afternoon on the beach with our factor 30 suncream making sure we didn't burn. It is near impossible to find a lower factor as a hole in the Ozone layer above Australia necessitates the stronger protection.
The water current and rip curl waves were taking swimmers out of the flagged zone areas making it dangerous to swim. The lifeguards were regularly on their radio asking swimmers to move into the designated flagged areas. At one point a lifeguard in his red budgie smugglers (basically red Speedos) ran across the beach with his surf board about to rescue a lady in the water who was waving frantically. It was a bit of a David Hasselhoff Baywatch moment. It was all a bit of an anti-climax as she was actually waving to a friend of hers on the beach!
After a few hours on the beach it was time to go back and get showered. When we arrived back to our hostel we saw a cockroach the size of an index finger in the laundry room. We soon shut the door and noticed a gap under the door. We both looked at each other and laughed, but we soon saw a shower mat and filled the gap hoping it wouldn't escape!
We took our showers and left for a Thai meal which was within walking distance. The food tasted nice but their service was a little poor and the owner had no dress sense whatsoever. She wore a stripey short crop top with spotty shorts and cream tights going right up under her top! Have a word! Definitely in need of a Gok Wan makeover.
The next day it was raining so we sat in the hostel until 11am typing up some blog material. The rain eased off which was good as we wanted to hire a small motorised boat and a fishing rod. Eventually we chose not to which turned out to be the right decision as it rained again so we sat under cover in a cafe eating lunch. We took the shuttle into town for a few drinks in a bar and then we ventured off to the National Forest. We walked through woodland on the edge of the ocean taking many photos of the experienced surfers. They were so incredible to watch that we spent 1 hour sitting on the rocks beside the ocean watching them. Mark waded through the rocks and was knee deep in water taking photos of the surfer dudes.
We wandered back to town through the forest before it got dark passing many bush turkeys, lizards and some unusual noises. We couldn't wait to get the hell out!
We soon arrived back in town where Mark tucked into a large juicy steak and Lisa some wedges (she wasn't hungry) and a few drinks.
The following morning Nik arrived to take us and our luggage to the bus stop ready for our coach at 08:10 going to Steve Irwin's Zoo.
We arrived at the zoo and paid Aud$58 each, a little steep for a zoo but well worth it. We learnt that Steve's parents started the zoo many years ago as a reptile park on 4 acres of land. The zoo has now grown to >70 acres with plans to expand to 350 acres by 2012. The family actually owns more than 1,000 acres......I wonder where all the entrance fee money goes!!!
We stored our luggage into lockers so we were free to walk around the zoo. We had booked the 4:30pm Greyhound coach from the zoo to Brisbane so had plenty of time.
We arrived in time for the feeding of Otters, funny little creatures full of energy. We also saw two shows; one consisting of lizards, crocodiles and snakes, the other was basically a birds of prey show.
Lisa enjoyed the kangaroos and kaoloas and Mark enjoyed watching the otters and tigers. A really fun day out.
We grabbed our luggage at 4pm and walked to the coach stop waiting for the bus. Believe it or not, it was on time.
Off to sunny Brisbane we were.....
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