Grant and Rae's Oz Trip Feb/Mar 2014

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Hi, folks.

Problems with the internet last night..........left Port Douglas yesterday and drove to the airport at Cairns where we caught our flight to Brisbane. We arrived 3'ish and picked up a car to drive to Noosa on the Sunshine Coast.

All went well until Noosa fell off the road signs........but we duly asked a friendly service station guy who confirmed that we were headed the right way. Got to Noosa, or Noosa Heads as it is more commonly known......and our pre-printed directions really fell apart! I'd assumed that Noosa was only a smallish place - wrong! I'd assumed that our hotel was a small boutique one - wrong! Our directions showed it to be near the Sheraton - wrong! Anyway, we got there in the end and were very pleased with our suite, especially the washer/dryer.

We had a very pleasant meal at Aromas down in the town.

On to today, Friday. Were getting picked up at 06.20 for our Fraser Island Discovery trip; so the hotel had pre-packed breakfast.

The 4 wheel drive truck that we were going in was a giveaway! Fraser Island is a World Heritage site: it is the world's largest sand island and has its own rainforest ( fortunately the rain stayed away today, though). We had a very entertaining (and non-pc) driver/guide, Henning, who German.

We drove to Rainbow Beach and then caught the ferry to the island where we drove along the beach and stopped for a cuppa and some more (nicer!) Lamington sponge. The weather was looking pretty ominous across the bay (pics 1, 2, 3).

We then headed off the beach and up sandy tracks towards Lake Mackenzie for a bbq lunch. The lake was magical..........the water was pure rainwater and very soft with great cleansing qualities. Henning told us that we'd lose 10 years if we stayed in it for 10 mins - but also that his driving would add 10 years to our age!

Lunch was very good.......apart from one poor guy having a sausage pinched by a marauding kookaburra! We also had a biggish lizard turn up for scraps (pics 4, 5, 6).

After lunch we drove to WanggolbaCreek for the rainforest section - amazing how clear the water in the creek was.

Then we started the journey home.........fortunately the tides were favourable and we made good time back to the ferry, only to drive back to Rainbow Beach on the sand as well. We stopped at the Painted Cliffs (name from a local Aboriginal legend).......where last year Henning had got stuck in the sand as the tide came in and had to abandon his vehicle! Pics 7, 8, 9.

We returned to Noosa via the Noosa River ferry (not as much fun as Wednesday's trip, though!).

Highly recommend that excursion if you are over here.

Rae and I went for a walk into town

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