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Published: March 29th 2007
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playing card in the pub
Katie, Louisa, Christina, and myself Funny how you keep running into the same people that are traveling in the same direction as you are! I got into Noosa and ran into three guys that i'd roomed with in Mission Beach, and then the three people that i'd been with on the Whitsunday trip. It was a reunion! I stayed at the YHA Halse Lodge, which is a pretty cool hostel, very roomy and spacious. My roomies are three hilarious girls - two from Ireland, and one from England. We spent a lot of time playing cards and making fun of each other 😊
It's very expensive and posh here in Noosa. There's a strip of shops down the street from the hostel - little boutiques with overpriced clothing - although i did find the best ice cream shop ever! I think that this is one of those places where i could stay a few more days than i'd planned - i was tempted but i am on a schedule (mostly because of Byron Bay, but i'll explain more about that story once i get there!). There's great surfing, a national park, kayaking, bike riding...lots of outdoorsy things to do.
Katie, Christina, Louisa (my
roomies) and I took a ferry ride around Noosa - you can buy a pass where you can hop on and off the ferry at certain places, and even BYO at sunset and watch the sun go down while you're on the ferry (we definitely brought out the goon at that time!) There are a lot of house boats along the river (it would be very different to live in a place like that!) and there were lots of people kayaking and sailing along the river as well. I had a pretty relaxing time in Noosa 😊
So after Noosa it was onto Brisbane! I had a terrible time getting to Brisbane - everything that could absolutely have gone wrong, did go wrong. It wasn't too upsetting or anything (how can you be upset when you're travelling Australia??) but i was just totally amazed how how inept i was! First off i was schedule to be on a bus that left Noosa at 9am - i was there at the bus stop nice and early (8:30) and somehow....SOMEHOW i missed the bus. Now, the bus station in Noosa isn't even as big as, say, the transit center at West
Ed, but somehow i missed the bus. At 9:25am i was pretty sure that i wasn't getting on that one. So i found a payphone, called Greyhound, and they booked me on the next bus at 10am. Now, I knew very well that my name wasn't going to be on the driver's manifest (and it wasn't) but thankfully it wasn't too hard to sweet talk my way onto the bus. So finally i'm on my way to Brisbane, i get there, call for a pick up from my hostel....and somehow ended up on the other side of town, at the wrong hostel. Wrong shuttle....wrong place! Ack! So they were very nice and dropped me back off at the bus station, i called the hostel back and apologized for not being there when they had arrived - they were very nice as well and came back to pick me up. AND two seconds later i was at the right hostel (it's about 400 meters...i totally could have walked!) Oh well...i made it 😊
Brisbane is nice, but i much prefer the smaller places to the big cities. I walked around a bit...saw Brisbane Square, some of the other sites the
first day...the next day i went to the Australian Zoo. This zoo was Steve Erwin's baby, and there are memorials around the zoo everywhere for him - on the bus on the way up there we watched some of the Crocodile Hunter stuff, and also parts of his memorial service after he passed away...it was sooo sad! But the zoo itself was fantastic, and they're planning on expanding it a lot, and even building a new hospital for the sick animals (the one the have right now is really, really tiny - whenever they have to do xrays, they all have to run out of the building to not get radiation, and they practically do surgeries right on top of the manager's desk). There were tons of animals - snakes, crocodiles, kangaroos, koalas, other reptiles, cassowaries, emus, camels, elephants, tigers, dozens of birds, cheetas (i saw the cheetas when i visited the animal hospital - they're not ready for public viewing yet). I really enjoyed the shows they put on - they were quite well done.
I'll be quite glad to get out of the big city! Tomorrow i head over to Byron Bay...three days...have heard plenty of good
things about it - so here we go!
Cheers
Linds 😊
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Auntie Sheila
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Beautiful!
Lindsay, your tan is so dark and beautiful. You are almost as dark as Mariah! Wish I could be with you, but I'll have to settle for your wonderful blogs! Keep safe and God bless you!