They Own Mountains!

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Farms in Australia = much bigger than farms in Canada. At least the Country Homestead we stayed on was. For 6000 cattle, they have approx. 30 000 acres (if I did my math right - 12000 hectares to acres?). On our tour, the woman who owns the land was all casually "Oh yeah, that mountain over there is on our property." They own mountains! And because the farm is so big they have an air strip and 2, maybe 3 planes so they can check on all the cattle.
They served us beef for dinner, obviously, and it was delicious. They also served trifle for dessert but it was the strangest thing. Stale cake (ok) with a custard-ish sauce (...ok...) and jello squares (wth?). Not delicious at all. I've been told that jelly in trifle is not unheard of down here, but that doesn't make it ok. The whip cracking after dinner almost made up for it though. It is so scary! And very difficult. Only a few people actually got the whip to crack properly.
After the Homestead we drove back to the coast to catch the ferry to Fraiser Island, the largest sand island in the world. It was very sandy, the little bit that I saw. We were down at the bar when it started to pour. Like, proper rainforest pouring. It was insane. There were supposed to be buses taking people around the resort every half hour, but everyone ended up waiting in the rain at the same time. It took forever, but eventually we made it back to our cabins where more drinking games commenced. It was muggy and drizzling when we got up the next morning, which made me glad I had opted out of the Fraiser Island tour. It meant I didn't get to see much of the island at all, but at $160, driving around in a bus full of people in the rain didn't seem like much fun. 10 of use decided not to go, and we had a really awesome day on the bus with Jara, our tour manager. Lots of sleeping and relaxing.
We got to Noosa, our next stop, before all the people on the day tour so I was able to sleep and do all my laundry before the girls I was rooming with got in. For most of the tour the 3 girls I became close with and I were split up when it came to rooming. Thankfully we were usually with one other girl, but it still kind of sucked. In Noosa, we finally were able to get a room for the 3 of us that were left all to ourselves. It was actually an apartment, a very nice one at that. That night we had dinner at the (Surf Club?), and unsurprisingly it was full of teenagers using their parents membership to show off. It was really fun, except for the torential rain. My shoes got very wet and dyed my feet black! A lot of people left early because of the rain, and we decided to go with them. I was exhausted as well, and fell asleep in the middle of a really good gossip session 😞
The next morning was a shopping break in the centre of the city, but I resisted a big spree. I found some good deals on a few sweaters and I'm glad I got them. I've put them to use quite often recently. We stopped at a winery on our way down to Surfer's Paradise, but it was rather dissapointing. Almost no vines and very...lame wine. I'm not sure how else to describe it. We stopped in Brisbane, where I fell in love. I seriously love that city! I may have only been there 3 hours, but I want to go back. I planned on moving there for a few months later this year, but I'm watching the news right now and they're expecting a huge flood in the next 2 days. If it gets a bad as they expect there's no way I'll get to Brisbane. That good old Nichols luck stands true. If you go on vacation, it will rain.

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