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Published: October 27th 2006
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Saturday 14th October Paul - Left Hervey Bay and the whales behind. I was quite sad to leave the whales as they had been so fantastic. But we had to head on so off we went in our little campervan. We were heading to Noosa to visit the national park when Laura shrieked beside me. Apparently P.L Travers, the author of Mary Poppins was born in the town we were about to go through, Maryborough, and there was a statue of Mary. Well, we couldn't miss something like this so off we went. The (rude and unhelpful) bitch in the tourist information reluctantly directed us towards the statue and we pulled up and took some photos of Cherry Tree Lane and Mary. It was practically perfect in every way.
Pulled into Noosa Heads National Park and spotted a wild koala in the tree above. Laura thought it was the most fabulous thing she'd seen in days (next on her list would probably be a shower). It climbed about for a bit, generally being cute before retiring for 20 hours necessary sleep. Awh. Went for a nice coastal walk around Noosa with great views of the coast line. Noosa seems
to be a lovely upmarket holiday resort, slightly out of our price range however.
Physical exertions completed for the day (We'd walked round dirt tracks for 7km, more demanding than Katie and Mark's 10km run) we pulled up for the night in another sexy roadside rest stop complete with other freaks and weirdos. I'm not suggesting that we'd also turned into freaks and weirdos but without a shower for 2 days now we were getting friendly nods from our crazy 'mates'. The toilets smelt like they hadn't seen soap for 10 years never mind bleach. Laura loved every minute.
Sunday 15th October Paul - Today we would be driving through Blackall Range National Park, a beautiful collection of mountains just north of Brisbane. Left bright and early hoping to avoid some freak telling us that they'd be happy for us to stay at their campsite/house/bedroom for the night and started the long climb up to our first stop for the day, a stunning lookout back towards the coast. After soaking in the rolling green fields and clear blue waters of the coast we drove on to Mapleton and the falls there.
Before all this,
however, we stopped off at one of Australia's greatest tourist attractions, The Big Pineapple! I'll let the photos do the talking.
Back to the falls and unfortunately we couldn't actually view the falls so we had a pleasant walk through the 'bush', nearly stepping on a snake on the way before having coffee and mudcake in a fantastic cafe with fabulous views that stretched for miles around. It was perfect.
Laura - Actually it was Paul who nearly stepped on the snake. Having done a trek in the jungle, he now thinks he's a hard man and wildlife expert who doesn't need to check the floor of the bush for snakes. It was me who noticed the snake and screamed, pulling him back and saving him from certain death!
Anyway, after our civilised stop for coffee and cake we drove on to Kondalila falls, en route to another little picturesque town called Montville. Unfortunately the track to the falls was closed off as it was apparently too treacherous. We did see a large Goana lizard crawling around though and that amused us for a while.
We stopped in Montville for an hour or so, poking around
it's many gift and craft shops. It was a lovely little town (as they all seem to be), with spectacular views of the mountains, and it was a nice way to while away the time. Next we drove through Maleny and actually managed to find a supermarket that was open. A short drive later and we arrived at Gardner's falls. We were actually able to view these falls, but they were nothing to write home about. The main attraction there was a large natural swimming pool at the bottom of the falls, which lots of people were jumping in to. We were about to change into our swimming stuff and join them and then we realised that we had left our towels behind on the washing line in Hervey Bay! How annoying.
The final stop for the day was at another national park, which had an amazing viewpoint overlooking the Glasshouse mountains to the South. We took a few photos before driving off into the sunset to find another 5 star roadside rest stop for the night.
Monday 16th October Paul - Crikey Mate! It's Australia Zoo! Being the keen/sad people that we are, we
pulled into the zoo carpark 20 minutes before opening, past the Steve Irwin memorial on the right and also swerving out of the way of a sucidal kangaroo. Luckily for us we weren't the only saddos of the day and some people were already queuing to get in. After succesfully negotiating a 10%!d(MISSING)iscount AND student prices for us both we set off into this DisneyWorld of zoo's.
It really was a superb zoo capped off with the 'Crocoseum', a 5000 seater stadium where the shows take place. You couldn't walk 10 minutes without hearing a 'Crikey' (mainly from myself) or seeing a kangaroo bound across the path. Had fun petting the koalas and watching the tigers playing with their handlers, I even bought a wrist band. A parrot landed on my shoulder in the tropical aviary, birds seem to be FASCINATED with me, whether pooing on my shoulder or landing there.
A lovely day over we drove on to another BP rest stop which was fabulous as usual. Had our first shower in 3 days and Laura's exact words were "ooooooooooohhhhhhhh yeah".
Tuesday 17th October Paul - Drove into Brisbane this morning to
get our van checked up. We drove around the outskirts at first and saw Brisbane from afar, a small built up city, nothing terribly interesting or exciting about it.
Van was fine at the check up and the kind souls even gave us a free bottle of wine. They obviously know poor travellers when they see it! (Laura - Either that or they were grateful that the van was still in one piece. The van in front of us was a write off). Drove on to 'Surfers Paradise', a place, to put it bluntly, that is utter shit. I saw a sign on a bar saying "Get your tits out, get a free drink". No thanks. After sandwiches on the beach front we quickly departed this Benidorm of Australia.
Laura managed her usual task of snoozing as we pulled into Byron Bay. After a couple of hours looking around we decided it was another "party" place with an ok beach. Drove up to the lighthouse and had a poke around there for a bit before leaving Byron and it's dullness behind.
Pulled into our rest town for the night, 20km off the highway, and it's name was Alstonville. What a fantastic place. Not only did it contain 10 estate agents for a place the size of Healing it also packed in a huge supermarket and hosted bingo every Monday night (unfortunately it was Tuesday so no luck there). Slept next to the lovely tennis courts watching the next Leyton Hewitt smash balls at his approving Dad.
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Catherine
non-member comment
Supercalafragalistic.... whatever
The clocks are about to go back here at the weekend, extra hour in bed yipee. I'm a celebrity starts soon, if you're going anywhere near (now that you are extreme bush walkers!) look out for Malandra Burrows, I've heard she's going. Photos are great, loved the koala. Take care x