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Published: April 19th 2016
As we approached the last 60 kilometres into Noosa the scenery became more interesting - with green rolling hills reminiscent of Devon, albeit with different vegetation. When planning our trip, we looked forward to the Greyhound bus ride down the east coast, and looking at the map you would think that you would get to see a lot of the coast. Wrong! for most of our trip from Cairns there were not many towns, it was mainly endless sugar cane plantations followed by miles of savannah, with the odd kangaroo to break the monotony. The Greyhound buses services was great with many bus drivers advising the location of the individual hostels.
Noosa is a lovely town and you can tell there is a good standard of living here, some of the waterfront properties go for 4000000 Australian Dollars (£2,200000), and are very sought after. It’s difficult to describe but it is built around the mouth of the Noosa river. Many houses are built at the edge the of river and inlets, that go through the town, giving a touch of Venice to this town. We stayed at a nice motel situated just near a ferry that takes us
along the Noosa river. We had only 2 nights, so we used the ferry to drop us near the start of the Noosa National Park’s coastal walk, that was to take us around the headland. Noosa’s main beach is beautiful, but we continued on passing some other bays that were popular with surfers. We had seen notices saying Koalas had been seen, but all we saw was a fast moving tree snake, which stopped us in our tracks. The path went upwards, past now regular warning notices re strong currents, etc., onto dolphin point, until we reached Hells Gate. We unfortunately didn’t see much ocean life, like Dolphins, but as we came around the exposed headland we had a great view of the white capped, blue-green ocean swell. We had just time to finish the walk through to Sunshine Beach and catch the bus home, before the sun came down. Noosa is known for its fine eateries so we indulged ourselves, during which we had some mid-meal entertainment of a possum descending from the trees.
Next day it was the shortest of our bus journeys in Australia, a quick 2 hour ride to Brisbane, capital of Queensland.
We only had one full day in Brisbane, I (Kim) was having problems walking, either through buying cheapo flip flops or standing on something while snorkelling. So we jumped on a couple ferries that regularly travelled the Brisbane River. We first aimed for the ‘Powerstation’ an arts complex, that includes a theatre and jazz bar, before jumping on another ferry to explore the river, passing a stop called Brett’s Wharf. You may gather from this part of our journey that we were at a bit of a loss as what to do. Possibly because there wasn’t much in Brisbane we fancied doing and partly because we have travelling fatigue - not surprisingly.
The guilty pleasure? As people who know me/us?? we do like a bit of the Sound of Music, and in the Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC) was a touring version of the London Palladium’s show. It was great cast and production and a good way to chill out at the end our manic Australian adventure.
Before we left Alison’s colleagues gave her a sending off present of a first aid/travel kit. Just wanted to mention we’ve found it invaluable.
It’s easy to like Australia. The Aussie’s have wonderful laid back, open air lifestyle. Barbeques are provided by the council in a lot of public areas, so you regularly see families and friends eating out enjoying the sunshine and warm evenings (although sundown is quite abrupt and early). The sunshine brings the best out of people, and our experience has been a friendly one.
We can certainly understand anyone with a young family, wanting a good standard of living, and the best for them, to make the decision to come here. As we have found it’s a BIG country, and if you like travelling and visiting different countries, like us, there are many long plane rides ahead.
In all honesty we probably kept our visit to Oz short because of the price of things. Most of the activities we took part in cost in excess of £100 per person per day!This country has beautiful wildlife, sea and coastline, which we love, it’s just a shame there is so much here that wants to bite or eat you!
Hypothetically, living here we would miss the seasons, the drink in front of a
roaring log fire, a vague hope of a white Christmas. (A prawn on the barbie on Christmas day? -doesn’t do it!). Contrarily, most Australians we spoke to, couldn’t stand the thought of being cold.
Maybe after a lot of deliberation it comes down to a choice - do you prefer air-conditioning or central heating?...
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