East Coast Stop Five - Noosa Heads and Fraser Island

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We left Surfer’s Paradise on 2^ndJuly and had a drive of around 2 and a half hours to reach our next stop up the coast – Noosa Heads. It was another easy and scenic drive, and on the way Emma noticed that we were passing a place called Underwater World in Mooloolaba which is one of the attractions included on our Merlin Annual passes that we bought back in Sydney when we first arrived. As we had left early and hadn’t planned much else for the day, we decided that we would pop in being as it wouldn’t cost us anything!

We pulled up on the car park, went through the entrance and showed our passes before being directed through the turnstiles. The place was essentially an attraction dedicated to marine life – essentially an aquarium with lots of different types of fish but with a few extra animals such as sea lions, otters and turtles. We browsed around the tanks and saw lots of different fish from various parts of the world. As we walked past the sea lion area, we noticed that the seating area was starting to fill up and there was actually a show about to start. We took a seat and watched the show, which mainly involved the sea lions ‘misbehaving themselves’, (although they had obviously been trained to do this), including a stooge ‘audience member’ getting pushed into the pool by one of the sea lions, then having their shorts stolen whilst they were frantically trying to keep afloat. Pretty funny and a little different to the usual formats that we have seen before.

Once the show was finished, we went to see the otters that all seemed to be having a group snooze in the sun. There were also some small crocodiles, sea turtles, sharks and manta rays (not all in the same tank of course!) which we watched for a while. After a couple of hours at Underwater World, we went to get some lunch from the nearby Hogs Breath Café before continuing our journey to Noosa.

We arrived at Noosa Flashpackers at around 3pm and were able to check in straight away. As we were now staying in a hostel, our room here was quite basic (particularly compared to our last apartment in Surfers!), with just the bedroom and an ensuite, but was nice and clean and had everything that we needed. We brought our stuff in from the car and had a quick look around the kitchen to figure out what we had to cook with. We took a drive to Coles to pick up some food for the next few days then chilled out for the evening, going to bed relatively early as we had a very early start for our trip the following day to Fraser Island!

The alarm went off the following morning at 5am (aarrgghhh!), which gave us just over an hour to get showered and ready for our pick up outside at 6.10am. Right on time, our driver showed up outside in a 4x4 bus and we were the first on there for the morning. We had a chat to Peter - our driver and guide for the day, and picked up a few other people around Noosa, ending up with 13 people altogether in our group. We were then driven up to Rainbow Beach, where we would get on the barge to Fraser Island, however we had to go the long way around as the usual route along the beach was closed off due to the high tides that they have recently been having over here. This meant that it took a couple of hours to get there, but it gave us chance to see a bit more of the inland scenery, and spotted a couple of groups of kangaroos along the way – two of which were actually having a boxing match as we drove past! We were also all encouraged to introduce ourselves one by one to the rest of the group on the way, which was a little bit cringe-worthy but I suppose it broke the ice, and everyone was really friendly and nice!

We reached Rainbow Beach just after 8am, and we drove down onto the beach so that we could see the coloured sand – hence the name! We drove along and then as we went to turn around we actually got stuck – good start being as we were going to be spending the day on the world’s largest sand island! We all got off and Craig and the two other guys on the bus were asked to help push the bus. It didn’t take long and the bus was soon unstuck and we could continue our day – yay! We pulled up a bit further along the beach (where we wouldn’t get stuck!) and were joined by another bus of people that would be tagging along in front or behind for the rest of the day. Peter and Ken (the driver of the other bus) then unloaded some tea, coffee, juice and biscuits for everyone to enjoy, and then we all piled back on so that we could drive the short distance to the barge.

Now Fraser Island is quite famous for the wild dingoes that live on there, however to our surprise we came across a small group of dingoes just before we got to the barge – it turned out that these were the only ones that we would see all day, so we were quite lucky really! We stopped for a little while to take some pictures of them as they walked in front of and around the bus, seemingly oblivious to us all staring at them through the windows! We then carried on up the track and eventually reached the barge, where a small queue of 4x4’s had formed, ready to drive onto the boat and be ferried across to the island. Luckily for us, our drivers knew the barge owner well and had been radioing to inform them that we were close by, so to the annoyance of all of the drivers in the queue, we smugly drove past them all as they glared and got our spots at the front of the barge!

It only took about 10 minutes to reach the island, and once we were there, we drove past the barge and onto the ‘Seventy Five Mile Beach’, which runs all up the east side of the island. As I said before, the whole island is completely made of sand, so there are no natural rocks or soil that have formed there, however there is still a pretty dense rainforest throughout most of the island, with various tracks around for 4x4’s to drive around – normal cars are not allowed on the island as quite frankly, they wouldn’t make it off the barge! We drove up the beach which had the same road rules as a highway, except we had to indicate to oncoming traffic as to which side we would be passing them on. The drive up the beach was really fun, and it was quite surreal driving so far with the ocean so close next to us.

We eventually reached a track on the left which we drove up, and the road started to get a little bumpier! We passed one of the two resorts on the island, although our driver was not keen on this one as some of the buildings were particularly ugly and kind of ruined the scenery in the area. We spent the next hour or so driving around the tracks in the middle of the island, surrounded by wildlife and listening to Peter’s stories about the island. We did notice by the end of the day that Peter’s stories would often end in someone or something dying, so some were a little morbid, but it was all very interesting nonetheless, and the guy definitely knew his stuff – he had been doing the tours for several decades and was very knowledgeable about the history of the area and the different types of trees that grew around there. We were quite amazed at how tall some of the trees were (literally hundreds of meters tall), considering the roots were in sand and would be, at the very most, 40cm deep!

We eventually reached Lake Mackenzie – a huge freshwater lake in the middle of the island, formed only by rainfall. As there had been quite a lot of rainfall over the last few weeks, the lake was quite high and there was very little beach around it for us to sit on. The weather was not particularly great, and whilst some people braved it and went for a swim, we decided that it was a little too cold and we would be freezing once we got out and the wind would be on us. Judging by some of the reactions of some of the people that got in, we made the right decision - one poor woman promised her son on the bus that they would go in, and begrudgingly followed him in!

We had a little walk around the area and then made our way back to the picnic area on a path just up from the lake, where the drivers had started the barbecue for lunch. The whole area was fenced off to prevent dingoes from getting in and stealing food, although as I said earlier we didn’t actually see any on the island – they are very timid animals and tend to avoid people in general when they can. Lunch consisted of a delicious prime rib steak cooked on the barbie (the most popular option over here, contrary to popular belief – they don’t even say ‘shrimp’!!) with sausage, onions and a buffet of various salads, pastas and noodles. The steaks were lovely and tender and cooked to perfection (medium rare for us!) and everything else was also very tasty. Even though we were both very full, there turned out to be a couple of steaks left over which they would be throwing away if no one wanted them, so not being one to waste a good steak, Craig went for another one! We ended up not eating anything for the rest of the day as we were so full up! We did get a small shock during the meal as a cheeky kookaburra swooped down and stole steak that someone had had left on their plate – who knew that they loved a bit of prime rib?!

Once we were all full from lunch, we all made our way back to the buses, where we then drove around for another hour or so, watching the rainforest as we drove past, and listening to some more of Peter’s stories. We eventually came to a clearing where we parked up and were taken on a short bush walk along with the other group, again being shown some of the different trees and plants in the area. One of the trees looked particularly strange as a fig had actually taken over it (the photo with what look like vines all around the tree), and the tree underneath was slowly being strangled by this invading fig. We walked down to a stream, which was very odd as although it was flowing fairly quickly, it was almost silent due to there not being any rocks that the water would hit. The water was also extremely clear, so much that you can barely tell that you are looking at a stream in some of the photos. The path eventually took us back around to the buses, where we once again boarded and continued our tour of the island.

It was now mid-afternoon and we had to start making our way back along the beach towards the barge before the tide came in too much. By the time we reached the beach the tide was already much further in than this morning, and we had quite an exciting drive as we raced against the incoming tide. Eventually we could go no further for fear of being washed away and we had to take a track inland that would take us further up and eventually emerge onto the area of beach where the barge was waiting for us. Once back on the mainland, we drove up to a small picnic area where we all got off to stretch our legs and the drivers again brought out some drinks, biscuits and lovely home-made Lamingtons (small squares of cake dipped in chocolate and covered in coconut). Feeling absolutely shattered after a long day, we then all snoozed on the drive back to Noosa, and we were the last to get dropped off just after 6pm. We thanked Peter for an amazing day and then made our way to our room, where we had a very relaxed night watching TV and eventually falling to sleep pretty early!

The following day the plan was to go and explore Noosa, so once we were ready and had made use of the free breakfast offered by the hostel (we had missed it the previous day as we left so early), we set out towards Hastings Street – a popular street with lots of shops and cafes, right next to the beach. It was a lovely sunny day and as it was still the school holidays, the beach was quite busy. We had a walk around the shops and grabbed a sandwich from Subway for lunch, then found a tourist information centre to have a look at what else there was to do in the area. We saw a few people outside the building looking up at a tree, and as we had just saw a sign nearby asking us not to disturb the resident koala who apparently lives there and refuses to leave, we assumed that maybe it was him sitting up in the tree. To our surprise (and possibly to the horror of some of the people around us), it turned out to be a huge snake wrapped around a tree branch, right above the pavement below! First time we see a wild snake over here and it’s just hanging out next to the visitor centre – figures! We took a couple of pictures as others around us discussed whether they should tell someone before someone got savaged by this huge snake, and then made our way into the visitor centre. We looked at a few leaflets and then quickly decided that as it was a nice warm day, we would go and visit Noosa National Park and take a walk along one of the trails around there.

We drove up to the edge of the national park and took a little while to find a car parking space as it was quite busy, but eventually got one after someone else left. We picked up a map of the trails from the small information centre, and noticed a sign saying that there had been a koala spotted in a tree just opposite, next to the beach. We walked over to the tree and finally saw our first wild koala! It looked quite small and we watched for a little while as it ate some eucalyptus leaves, before settling down to hug one of the branches and having a little snooze, as koalas usually do!

After a look at the map, we decided to follow one of the longer trails that would take us through the middle of the park right to the other side and then taking the coastal trail back, a walk altogether of around 7km. We set off along the track into the bush, and took a leisurely pace as we were constantly looking up in the trees to try to spot some more koalas. Unfortunately we didn’t see any more, however we did hear a couple of them at a few different points on our journey! Emma decided to do her best koala impression in response to one of them and then went on to have a small conversation with this unseen koala, with a few friendly (we hope!) exchanges back and forth before carrying on. We passed a few people along the way, although not that many considering how busy the car park had been – for the most of it we were the only people around, which meant that it was nice and peaceful and we could just listen to the wildlife and just take it all in. Eventually we started to hear the sound of waves crashing against rocks and the signs showed that we were getting close to an area called ‘Hells Gates’, where we would then take the coastal track.

We reached the cliffs and had a little rest, taking in the views of the coast and the beaches on either side of the peninsula. We then walked along the coastal trail, occasionally stopping to see if we could spot any whales or dolphins, or watching the surfers on the various beaches that we passed. We eventually made it back to the car and spent the evening resting our tired feet!

Our final day in Noosa was fairly relaxed. We were up early for breakfast but had a pretty lazy morning spent reading and browsing the internet on the netbook. We didn’t want to waste our last day so we spent the afternoon at the nearby Marina, where we sat on a bench for a while watching the fishermen on the pier, and watching the pelicans eyeing up their catch! A stroll along the water brought us out onto a park, where some birds seemed to be making a lot of noise! As we got closer, it turned out that there were about 80 cockatoos on the grass, and they seemed to be just rolling all over the place – we assume in some sort of mating ritual! It was quite funny to watch as they literally gambolled all over the place, some of them flying up to some power lines and doing somersaults around them – it was quite bizarre and if they were mating they didn’t seem to be doing a very good job!

All in all we have had a great few days in Noosa – the area around there is truly stunning and there is so much wildlife and natural beauty to take in, it’s a shame that we were only there for 4 days. Fraser Island was definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far and a definite must-do for someone visiting the area. Next stop – Hervey Bay!

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