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Published: February 18th 2007
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Noosa is the collective name given to Noosa Heads, Noosaville and Noosa Junction. We stayed in Noosa Heads - which is Australia's answer to the south of France. It is the place to be seen, with lots of well off Aussies having weekend retreats here. Nonetheless, Noosa has the full spectrum: from tourists and backpackers enjoying the sun and beaches with the rich boys and girls - and the surfers.
Noosa is beautiful. It has miles of stunning beaches and hidden coves (particularly in the National Park, which is full of koalas - apparently. I saw 2), hugely expensive waterside houses that occupy the sea, river and sound views. We managed to get a great deal on a 1 bed appartment, all ours for only AU$10 more than we were paying at the youth hostel in Brisbane - how spoilt we were! The apartment was on Noosa Sound, within 10 mins walking distance of both Hastings St and Noosaville. After staying in hostels it was nice to have our very own apartment which was huge. The complex also had a small swimming pool and spa which never seemed to have more than a couple of people in it - bliss.
Hastings Street is lined with all the expensive restaurants and trendy designer shops (too expensive for us). Noosa Junction was where most of the backpacker accommodation was and therefore had all the cheaper shops and bars. However, it is a 10 minute walk down to the beach from here (or about 20 mins back, as you have a steep hill to climb).
Noosaville offered some great restaurants overlooking the sound and without some of the pretentions evident in Noosa Heads/Hastings Street. We tried two restaurants in Noosaville - Ottaman a turkish restaurant and Gusto, both were superb. I especially liked the Turkish.
The whole point of coming to Noosa was to relax after two and half weeks of moving around, so much of our time was spent on the beach, although by 11am it was far too hot so we'd retreat. The beach never got really busy, although at the weekends the Aussies love of watersports, BBQs and the great outdoors in general was there to see. Watching all the surfers at Laguna Bay was very interesting. We took the long walk up to the Laguna lookout to get the birds-eye view of Noosa Heads and saw
Alexandria Bay
Noosa National Park our first wild Koala, high up in a huge Eucalyptus tree (so sorry, but no photo - it wasn't being very co-operative for the budding photographers).
On another ocassion, I left Sally to the pool, whilst I undertook a Bushwalk up into Noosa National Park. Above all, I was going Koala spotting. After a good 25 min walk to get to the National Park, it seemed every other Aussie in Queensland had the same idea. Some were starting up the outdoor Barbies, but many others were racing around with their surf boards in hand trying to find where the best surf was up along the coast. I checked out the walks and noted the warnings of not undertaking a walk alone and making sure you have adequate footwear and water supplies. Oh dear. Nevermind, I wasn't going to let anything life threatening like that stop me, the lone walker in his sandals and only half a small bottle of water left (even in 30+ temperatures!). I took on both the 5.4km Coastal Walk and the 3.8km Tanglewood walk for the return journey (Tanglewood had Koalas in every tree written all over it, surely!?). The views from the Coastal Walk
rivaled any walk I'd ever done - the colours and the sea views were gorgeous. The Tanglewood walk didn't live up to expectation...not a koala to be seen, although I had some serious neck ache and a couple of stubbed toes from walking round looking upwards for them rather than looking where I was walking! A fantastic walk though - Sally really missed out on some stunning scenery.
We also went to the cinema in Noosa Junction (saw Babel), which was a bargain at $8.5 (about 3.75 GBP)
Of course, we could have gone to the Australia Zoo and paid our respects to Steve Irwin (there was even a free bus service operating from Noosa for this). Trouble is, we couldn't be bothered!! We turned into beach bums! Anyway, we'd heard mixed views on it and how commercialised/touristy it has become. Save that for another time.
Of all the places we've been in Australia so far, if I could only go back to one, Noosa would be it. I'm glad we got there in the end. Fabulous, a great recommendation Mark! Sadly our time was up, but as we headed back to Brisbane (blog:
Brisbane) we had
plenty to look forward to...Sydney, here we come!
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