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And then there was Noosa. Lonely Planet described the town Noosa as a place that people ‘fall hard for’, and it’s not difficult to see why. The scenery is incredible, it's home to one of the best national parks in the country and the beaches are great. However, there isn’t a whole lot to do (especially for young people), and after 5pm, you’re on your own, because everything but the local pizza joints and the petrol stations close. Well, the bottle o’s also remain open, but to be honest, I don’t think they ever really close.
We spent a good couple of days in Noosa, exploring the town and beaches, and walking (A LOT) in Noosa National Park. On the day we set out to explore the park, we examined a list of the possible trails, and decided on the longest and toughest route (according to the parks’ standards), because we really wanted to see Sunshine Beach, which straddles part of the park’s exterior. The walk in total was 12KM and contained sections named Devil’s Kitchen and Hell’s Gates. No biggie. Before we started though, we checked out the park info centre, which had wall charts of the MANY different species
of reptiles, spiders, and other equally friendly creatures. I inspected and educated that spider chart, engraining the most dangerous ones in my memory. There was also a billboard of koala sightings, where people were encouraged to note any sites where they had seen a koala on that particularly day. It was my goal of the day to see a koala. Adam’s was to see a snake. We started the coastal walk, which straddles the side of the ocean for about 80% of the way, the rest going through bush. I was only slightly terrified of the large snake holes we kept seeing along the way. Australia IS home to every one of the most poisonous snakes in the world, after all. The walk, besides very tiring, was beautiful, and every opening exposed breathtaking views of the ocean and distant mountains. At one point, we had stopped to examine the view and calm sea, when Adam pointed out a bunch of black tips in the water. It turned out to be a pod of dolphins and we watched them play in the water for a while before moving on. That was pretty amazing. I was still determined to see my wild
koalas though, so between watching for snakes sunning themselves in the pathways, we were also keeping an eye out for furry grey bums in the trees. Finally, we saw one! (A koala, not a snake). The little guy or gal was sleeping, not surprisingly, as koalas spend about 15-18 hours a day sleeping, 4 foraging for food, and the other few just relaxing (kind of reminds me of Elmo). It’s a tough life for a koala. We stood hoping he or she would wake up and do something cute, but alas, the slumber continued. After walking for another hour or so, we came upon Alexandria Bay, which we had to walk across as part of the walk. On the beach, we encountered a blowfish struggling to breathe and get back into the water. I wanted to help it, but they’re really poisonous, so we were attempting to shove it back into the water with a sandal, when a kind old (and naked, I have to add) man approached to warn us not to touch him with our bare hands. I looked around and noticed that every single person was naked but us. I had forgotten to warn Adam ahead of
Koala!
Up really high in the tree, and our camera is not the greatest, so the photo is a bit fuzzy. time that Alexandria Bay was an unofficial nudist beach. Oops. Feeling only slightly awkward at being the only clothed people, and not really knowing where to look (or not to look), we slightly hastened our pace across the beach. On a side note, I’m happy to note that the blowfish finally made it back into the ocean. Another half an hour of walking, and we finally made it to Sunshine Beach, where we chilled out for a bit and watched the local surfers go up against the ocean. I can’t lie, we debated bussing it back, but we sucked it up and walked the other 6 KM back. On the way back, we saw what Adam had been hoping for, as a snake literally threw itself off the side of the hill as we passed by. It turned out to be one of the smaller (and thankfully non-poisonous) varieties. We also saw the same koala, still sleeping (surprise, surprise).
We spent our last night in Noosa, sleeping as well as the koalas after the long walk, minus the occasional wake-up from our neighbourly bush turkey, who, apparently nocturnal, rummaged all night, every night, right outside the window of our
hostel room. We’d wake up thinking some heavy-footed person was right outside the window, only to see the turkey hightailing it by. He was really loud for such a small guy.
After Noosa, we headed to Hervey Bay, another small town and the jumping off point for Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world. We hoped to possibly find some work in Hervey, as well as visit Fraser. We had no luck with work - the town was very s-l-o-o-o-w - but we did visit beautiful Fraser before heading on, where we saw a plethora of cool things. Next blog: Fraser Island!
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