Sandstorm

You know that feeling you get when you turn up at a swanky party looking all glam and dressed to kill? And then you spot another partygoer with the same frock as you? The shame, the embarrassment, the outrage. Well, imagine the feeling when we turned up at our Noosa campsite only to find someone with the same A$13 tent as us. In the same yellow and red colour scheme too. Outrageous.

Well, we recovered enough dignity to still enjoy ourselves over the last few days.

Started off on Monday saying goodbye to our very good host Emma and heading North. Got to our first stop of the day at Yatala. It was simply to stock up for lunch. Yatala is home to a famous pie shop (plus a big pie - about 3m tall) so we stocked up quickly and headed up to our second stop - The Big Pineapple. It's enormous. You can wander inside and find out the history of pineapples in Queensland and then get your photo taken at the top of the pineapple. And all for the price of nothing. Fantastic.

Next stop on our trip north were the Glass House Mountains - just in time for lunch. They're a series of rock outcroppings sticking out of the forests. Really nice and we had our pie picnic looking out over all the mountains and admiring the views. There is a big aboriginal story about the twelve mountains that I could go on about but I'll leave it for another time.

We rolled back down the mountains and headed in the direction of Noosa. Noosa is a premium style resort at the top end of the sunshine coast. Obviously perfect for us. We pulled into a great campsite overlooking the water and we grabbed our vino and stubbie and headed to watch the sunset. We were in a big crowd of oldies down there watching the sunset - there appeared to be some kind of raging Saga party going on.

We awoke early, keen to get on with exploring Noosa only to hear the tell-tale sign of raindrops falling on our tent. It stopped just long enough for us to get the tent down and head out and about. Just nearing the beach and it started again - we started to think it wasn't going to be a beach day. Whilst it rained we did a little window shopping and once it cleared we headed back out into the cloudyness.

Whilst it wasn't a beautiful day we didn't let it go to waste. We went up a couple of hills to see all the views over the beaches and then we went out for a coastal walk along some of the really nice beaches. Managed about 6km in total watching all the surfers either glide gracefully along the waves or simply crash and burn. Had a nice picnic lunch and then started to head north again. Noosa was really nice and would have been even nicer with a little dash of sunshine.

On our way out of Noosa we dropped into Tewantin as we had heard rumours of a giant stubbie. Couldn't see it anywhere obvious so asked the chap in the tourist information place. Turns out we were 12 months too late as it had been torn down the previous year. Denied. The guy in the information place, George Pearce was actually the guy who had built the giant stubbie and he was still angry it had been taken down. It had been a bottle museum completely built out of small stubbies with champagne bottles for roof tiles and the giant stubbie had stairs inside and a slide to come back down. He even showed us an old photo of it - I guess it wasn't to be.

Next stop up - Rainbow Beach. This place is stunning. There's only a tiny little centre to the town and we rolled ourselves into a little campsite right on the waterfront. We did a little scouting in the evening and sorted out our plans for the next few days before retiring to the camp kitchen to cook a little scran. Chatted to some English birds travelling south and then hit the sack.

First day was busy, busy, busy. We started by heading out to Inskip Point and Bullock Point which is where the ferries to Fraser Island head off from. We then wandered down to the beach for a quick swim and a stroll. The stroll turned out to be a 5km round trip to see all the rainbow coloured cliffs that the town is named after. They're stunning - hopefully my camera work will get close to conveying some of the colours - there's meant to be about 40 different shades. The beach is open to 4WD vehicles so we were ducking out of the way of them quite a lot.

For lunch we headed into the bush. The whole area is built on sand (never a wise move I'm sure) and so we headed into the forests that seem to love this sand in search of a freshwater lake - Poona Lake. We got to the picnic area and had lunch while a 4ft goanna lizard kept a beady eye on us hoping for some scraps (hopefully our salad rather than us). The lake was a good 40 minutes away so we powerwalked off in search of it through the forest. On the way we passed 30 school kids on their way back jabbering about snakes and the like. A minute later and we found him. A 6 foot carpet python curled up in a tree sleeping (maybe). That's our first snake in Oz. We were told it was non-venemous but Mrs Deane wouldn't go quite close enough to check. Shortly after we reached the lake - unbelievably beautiful - only helped by the fact that we were completely alone. It's a smallish lake with a blinding white sandy beach all the way round. We had a quick dip and just chilled in the tropical sunshine. Very pleasing. On the way back, Mrs Deane spotted snake number two - a 6ft carpet python blocking her way to the loo. She managed to dash past though.

Another quiet evening in the camp just chilling with some fajitas as we had an early start out to Fraser Island.

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world - 123km long. It's still moving north although we didn't see any evidence of this. The east coast is an enormous 75 mile long beach which acts as the main road on the island - 4x4's only. Naturally it is called 75 mile beach.

Our 4x4 bus picked us up at 8am and after a quick few stops picking up the other we were off. You know a tour is going to be good when the driver is a burly Aussie with facial hair and a mullet. And it was good - very good. Started off getting stuck in the sand just as we were trying to board the ferry. There followed a comical 10 minutes with the barge towing our bus out of the soft sand while we all stood on the barge chuckling.

Once on the island we set off through the jungle bouncing over the tracks, all good fun. Our first stop was the resort for a very speedy breakfast and then back into the jungle in search of Lake Mackenzie. It's a stunning freshwater lake set 200m up in the dunes with crystal clear water and exfoliating sand (so we were told). It was voted number 7 in a lonely planet poll of the best places to swim. Can't be bad. We hung around for about an hour and watched as a wild dingo came prowling round.

Then set off to central station for a walk in the jungle where we saw the worlds biggest fern called the King Fern (needs a better name I think) and loads of funnel webbed spider lairs. We didn't go too close. Passed by one of the freshwater creeks running through there as well.

Then headed back to the resort where we heard the four magic words - 'can you all eat'. Not in that order though. I tucked in, then had a little more - must get my value for money. Thinking of the pennies (or the stomach in this case). After lunch it was onto the East Coast highway also known as the beach. Cruised all the way up for about 50km with stops for the coloured sand pinnacles and the ship wreck of the Mahona. The wreck was cool. Very surreal seeing it just stranded on the beach, slowly being devoured by the sand. Last stop was Eli Creek, a nice freshwater creek that washes out into the ocean. We waded up stream and then got rolled back down to the beach. It's a lot like the wave machines that you get at waterparks. Very peaceful.

The journey back passed in a blur of more sand, a little bit of sea and some bumpy 4x4 action. Thoroughly enjoyable day. Mrs Deane even managed a quick cat nap on the last bit of the journey home.

Anyway, time to move on and move a little further north. Tomorrow is probably just a driving day. Still have another 1500km till we get to Cairns.

Se'thee later

Deanes

P.S. No beer reviews this week - think I'm running out of beers in Oz...

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