Noosa and Fraser Island

We left Melbourne at 8AM on our skybus shuttle, arrived at Brisbane Airport at 12:15PM, and after 2 very hungry and slightly grouchy hours, we made it to our cute little hostel, the Halse Lodge, in Noosa. A far cry from our city hostel, our new room featured high ceilings, twin beds, a ceiling fan, and french doors opening onto a spacious lanai-complete with rattan furniture. We quickly changed from our winter gear into tank tops and flip flops, and set out to explore the adorable seaside town of Noosa. First stop:food. We happened upong the Noosa Surf Club overlooking the beach. As we dined on chicken burgers and ice cold beer, we took in the spectacular views of the beach, and inhaled the sweet smell of salt air. What a treat to just sit and relax in the sunshine! It's times like this we really love our jobs. We meandered through the quaint beach town, took even more jump shots, and enjoyed some ice cream on the main drag, Hastings Street. Back at the hostel, we quickly checked our email and blog (thanks for the comments!) and were lured into a first night meet & greet with the promise of free wine. With this wine came a consequence..ice breaking introductions, involving sharing your name, age, and hometown. As you know, a lady never reveals her age, so when our turn came we quickly changed the format to name, occupation, and hometown. Age is just a number right? We didn't feel it was the time to let our fellow backpackers know they were in the company of the golden girls-well there is a lanai! Free wine led to more drinks at the hostel bar, a cheesecake, and another early bedtime in true golden girl style.

Our Fraser Island tour picked us up outside our hostel at 9:30 on Friday morning. We drove to Rainbow Beach, grabbed lunch, and drove onto a barge that took us over to the island. Fraser is the world's largest sand island, and it is especially amazing because of the rainforest-which grows from the sand, and its many crystal clear freshwater lakes. At the start of the tour, our guide Brian offered up the 2 front seats of the 14 seat 4 wheel drive vehicle. Although it did not involve free wine, we jumped at the opportunity, and ended up with the best seats in the house for the remainder of the weekend. As we started out, and Brian blasted "We Will Rock You" and "We Are the Champions", we thought to ourselves, "yes Fraser Island, we WILL rock you". The island can only be seen by 4WD, so we spent our days barrelling through sand dunes in our bright blue badass 4X4 to get to the many amazing sights.
We arrived at our resort/hostel, dropped our belongings, and headed out on a drive down the famous 75 Mile Beach (not even close to 75 miles ps). The beach is gorgeous-white sand, crashing waves, and the occasional dingo sauntering along. First on the agenda was a a 40 minute bushwalk up to Lake Wabby through some of Fraser's famous inland sand dunes. When we reached the dunes our guide helpfully instructed us to "take your thongs of girls, you'll be much more comfortable". We exchanged bemused glances before whipping off our thongs (flip-flops for those of you who are confused/horrified). We had a swim in the chilly green waters of Lake Wabby before making our way back to the 4x4. Upon returning to our accomodation, we stopped at the small store for our second box of Shapes of the day-cheese and bacon flavored. BIG MISTAKE. We should have listened to Jaclyn when she told us pizza flavored was the best. Live and learn, live and learn. We couldn't bring ourselves to eat the disgusting shapes, but fortunately we were soon on our way to meet our group for Mexican night in the dining hall-it was decent. After dinner, our guide led us down to the beach for a quick lesson on stars in the southern hemisphere. We saw the Southern Cross-thrilling, and headed to the bar for a schooner of Tooheys New. We socialized for abit, but 10:00 (bedtime) was rapidly approaching, so we said goodnight to our new friends and headed back to our room. We golden girls need our beauty sleep!


Up bright and early for Day 2 of our tour, we had breakfast at 7 and climbed onto the 4X4 at 7:30. Another fun-filled day of incredible sights (our pictures once again won't do it justice) began with a hike into Rainbow Gorge. Halfway through the hike, our guide stopped us to show some fascinating Aboriginal uses of the colorful sand. As he created a concoction in his hand, he asked for a volunteer. Though again there was no free wine offered, Marie bravely stepped forward. Little did she know what she was getting into.... He painted a goopy mixture all over her face, then pronounce them man and wife! Marie was a little disappointed- she was hoping for a much younger and cuter Australian to take home to her parents. The honeymoon quickly ended as we hiked deeper into the gorge. We saw a variety of colored sands and began an exhausting hike up a gigantically steep sand dune-what a view! The day continued with stops at Eli Creek, the Maheno shipwreck, and the Pinnacles(a sacred female Aboriginal site). From the Pinnacles we moved on to the beautiful Indian Head-where we stopped for a picnic lunch provided by our guide. After lunch, we climbed to the summit of Indian Head and spotted a few dolphins and whales just off the coast. After a long day of touring the island, we returned home, and had a little time to lay by the pool before the sun went down. As the sun was setting, Maura went for a run along the beach, but returned rather quickly in fear of wandering dingos and speeding 4X4s. Once we got cleaned up, we once again met our group for dinner-this time the theme was Aussie night-we'll let you guess what that consisted of! We ended the night with a few glasses of boxed wine, compliments of some of our fellow travelers. Our last day on the island began bright and early once again, and we had time to take a hike through the rainforest and stop at a few more lakes before heading back on the barge to Rainbow Beach. Our awesome guide Brian was kind enough to drop us directly in Mooloolaba on his way back to Brisbane. We are currently in Mooloolaba, and it is quite the awkward situation...sharing a house with our surfing instructor and his girlfriend (including their bathroom and kitchen), as well as a creepy German woman. Not quite what we expected, more on that later.

---

Part of trip: Australia

---