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Day 85- Just before we went to bed we noticed our pencil case was missing from our bag and I remembered when we picked the bag up from the storage locker after our Fraser island tour it was open slightly. It is only a pencil case but it did have our USB stick in with our backed up photos and the pencil case is a hand made one i got while in Bolivia so I didn't want to lose it. We were up early and changed our 8am bus to a later one and waited for the Cool Dingo Fraser Island tour bus to come do his pick up. I explained my situation to him and told him I was leaving at 10am and he offered to have a look at the base and drive back if it was found. We had breakfast, checked out and waited for him to ring, at 5 minutes to 10 just as we were leaving he came running in with the pencil case, we were over the moon and so thankful. We arrived to the greyhound bus station and were pleased to see Roz and Adam were on our bus so we could have a good natter. Just as we drove off we realised we had left our water flask in the fridge, Lloyd had put it in to keep cold and in the excitement of getting the pencil case back we forgot it. Some days things don't go to plan and remind us how hard traveling can be and how your mind has to be constantly thinking, today was going to get harder! We were meant to be Couchsurfing with a guy called Edward and his family, we had sent him a request a few days earlier and he replied saying yeah he would love to have us but gave us no address or direction to his home. We sent him our number and decided if we hadn't heard from him by the time we got to Noosa we would check in to a hostel. So a few hours later we were in Noosa and no reply from Edward, all the hostels in Noosa pick people up from the bus station so we started at the first mini bus and we asked all 5 (there is only 5 hostels in Noosa) if they had space for walk-ins....all of them said no, then one person told us the whole of Noosa was booked out as there was a massive Volley ball tournament on, NIGHTMARE! With nothing else to do we decided to walk along to the PeterPan travel agents to use their Wi-Fi to try and contact Edward and also to see if they could find us anywhere to stay. The guy wasn't very helpful and told us the only place was a $120 a night motel which we weren't willing to pay, at this point we decided that sleeping on the beach would be a better option. We had read a few days earlier about a bush camp a few miles out of Noosa so gave them a ring and they said they had a shuttle bus leaving from the station in 5mins. As we grabbed our bags to run round the guy behind the counter shouted 'do you's want a room in the YHA hostel' we were like 'ermmm yeah that's why we are here'!! Apparently there was a last minute cancellation so guess we got lucky. We had to pay $33 a night each which is the most we have paid in the whole of Australia but was better than a motel or the beach. We went to the supermarket then walked to the hostel. On the way we bumped in to Amy and Ian, we told them out nightmare story to find they had been in the exact same situation the night before and had paid the $120 for the motel and when looking for a room the next night were not willing to pay the $33 after forking out so much the night before, they were actually on there way to the bus station where they were planning to spend the night. Our situation was nowhere near as bad as theirs so we wished them luck and said our goodbyes. We checked in, showered and had some tea, then the phone rang -at 8pm Edward finally got in touch, we told him we had paid, checked in and were settled but arranged to come the next night. We headed down to the hostel meet and greet intro where they were also offering free wine, Adam and Roz were also staying in the YHA so after a long day we decided to have a few drinks and we stayed up till closing time.
Day 86- We stayed in bed as long as we could before checking out. Thiago, a Brazilian guy we were talking to the night before was heading to the beach so we walked along with him. We basically spent the day sunbathing and swimming in the sea. We had made some tuna sandwiches that we ate for lunch. We wandered to the supermarket to get some food then went to collect our bags. We went in to the kitchen to get out the food we had in the fridge, we searched and search but it was gone. We saw Adam and Roz who said they saw a member of staff earlier pulling things out of the fridge and binning it. We were really annoyed because the notices said the fridge gets cleared on a Friday and the day was Saturday so nobody should have been clearing out the fridge, our food did have a name on but not a checkout date as at the time we didn't know when we'd be checking out! we managed to find our butter, mayonnaise and stir-fry sauce in the free food section but our eggs, lettuce, tomato and bar of dairy milk chocolate(the most important thing) were gone. We reported it to the manager but he refused to take any responsibility saying his staff would never do that it must have been another backpacker (as if a backpacker would take the time to pull out other peoples food and put it in to the free food section). They couldn't really care less and we were getting nowhere so jumped on the bus to sunshine beach were Edward lived and he came to meet us at the bus stop. His home was magnificent, he was 19 and still lived at home, he was the third of five children but the oldest two didn't live there and at the time their mother and two youngest were away. There was also three other German couchsurfers staying and Edward cooked us the most amazing meal of fish (that he had caught himself) and all the trimmings with wine and cheese - spoilt! He took us up to his roof where he had a small bonfire and we all had a few drinks, he announced he would be leaving for work at 5am and would be staying the night so we wouldn't see him again, this was a shock and we all felt a bit awkward staying in the house without him!
Day 87- We woke up early, we were staying in his sisters room and it had no curtains so the light came flooding in. At 7:30am a older dark haired woman walked in the room and seemed very confused to see us. We got up and thought we should introduce ourselves, she didn't seem happy but once we explained who we were and how long we were staying she was very nice. It turned out she was the families PA, the family were originally from Devon and seemed extremely well off, they sold the two amusement parks they owned in the UK and set up a business in Australia. We had breakfast and spoke to the Germans, they said they were taking Edward's surfboard down the beach if we wanted to come. We had a few things to do first like booking hostels and sorting a few things out. We wandered down about 11am and the waves were crazy high, Louis one of the German boys who had surfed a few times said they were too big for him he wouldn't even try it so we passed on the idea too and just did some sunbathing. We lay for a few hours until everyone else had left then we walked back up the house to make some noodles for lunch. After we decided to go for a walk, Muriel one of the girls came with us. We got ice-creams and walked along the esplanade, Muriel went back and Lloyd and I read our books on the grass. We chilled out back at the house and made some tea and Skyped home. Edwards dad came and we talked for about an hour then at about 11pm Lazlow one of the German guys came to tell us there was a big bonfire at the beach so we decided to go with him. There was about 40 backpackers around the bonfire, guitars playing and marshmallows on the go. We stayed for about 2 hours, had a few glasses of goon then wandered back.
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ann purdy so pleased you have been so lucky, the little things that go wrong are just that ... little xxx