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Published: August 5th 2007
Caloundra is the bottom stretch of coastline that makes up the Sunshine Coast and is an exceptionally beautiful area, I am staying about 5 minutes drive south of Caloundra centre in a place called Golden Beach. This beach which is only 5 minutes from the house is really beautiful and the sea is really calm here as the top tip of Bribie Island ends here and shelters our beach from the high waves and surf, making it ideal for swimming and fishing.
As my blogs since leaving Sydney have been about a month behind, I have now been at Lewis and Rias for about a month. I have been having a really great time, it has given me a chance to settle down and chill out a little, watch TV and sleep in a bed in a room by myself (this is a real novelty)
I have met some really great people and have taken up my days with fishing, playing poker and eating BBQ’s (I have now made up for all the BBQ’s didn’t have in Sydney), I even got around to playing a few games of tennis for the first time in years, which turned out to
be great fun.
We did go for a quick drive around that first evening but as it was dark I didn’t get to see that much, for the rest of the evening we sat around and all caught up with what each other has been up too etc. It was really great to actually sleep in a bed again and to also have a TV to watch in the evenings and front room to sit in and away from those chilly nights. Along with Lewis and Ria lives there Aussie house mate Mark who moved to Caloundra a year ago from Sydney he also has wicked dog Blizzard who is an Alaskan Malamute who is so friendly and playful as he is only two and a half years old.
The day after I arrived, Ria and Mark had to work so Lewis took me around the area to show me some of the sites and beaches. After a cheap but very good 4 dollar breakfast at a lovely little beach town called Currimundi Lewis and I headed of to the Glass House Mountains which is a half hour drive inland from the coast. We drove up to a
look out that gave us a great view over this lovely area, the landscape was incredibly flat with a few hills and mountain rising up from nowhere, it was a strange but beautiful view and totally different from the Blue Mountains and Mt warning.
We headed to another place where we had to walk up this incredibly steep walk way up to the top of this mountain which also gave us another view out over this amazing landscape but this time from a different angle. The whole way up Lewis was filling me in with information on snakes and spiders, I was really impressed with his knowledge on the subject thinking he must have been really into dangerous creatures of Australia. It later turned out however that the reason he knows so much is that he’s scared to death of spiders and has used his new found knowledge to stay well clear of them or at least the other end of a large poking stick!
Ria and I nearly died laughing one day when we were over a friends house having a bbq when our friend decided to show Lewis a dead huntsman spider, well Lewis ran off so quickly
Radioactive Mark
maybe one to many jaegar bombs!it would have put Linford Christie to shame. Lewis’s arms and legs were flying in every direction and his face was a picture a face of shear terror not given a dame that it was dead, he ran under an area of newly water hanging plants and slipped up so heavily that he smashed his knee on the concrete and couldn’t walk properly for 2 days.
He isn’t that scared to snakes though as a couple of weeks ago Lewis and I were once again of on a walk around these bush gardens where he stumbled upon a rather sleepy snake basking in the sun only a few feet away from him. I was just a step behind and didn’t see it unfortunately but did feel Lewis jump back as he explained it ‘did that ‘zigzag’ thing with its neck’ before shooting into the undergrowth. So being 2 stupid ‘pommes’ keen for an adventure we armed ourselves with a half rotten tree branch each and went back in pursuit on this snake to get a better look at it. We searched around for about 20 mins before getting bored and heading home. Once home we looked on the internet
for to see if we could find what snake it was and if it was dangerous or not, well it did turn out to be very dangerous indeed. It happened to be an eastern brown snake and the 2nd most deadly snake in the WORLD!! With enough venom to kill 100 people and there we were not having a clue about snakes tracking in down with a half rotten stick each and me in only a set of flip flops!!! Next time we will just stay well clear of it!
On one of the next few days Lewis and I headed an hour north up the coast to a place called Noosa heads which is a very popular tourist spot due to it amazingly beautiful natural harbor, beaches and crystal clear waters. I know I keep saying these places are so beautiful but this place really was that beautiful and had some of the clearest turquoise water I have seen since leaving Asia. As Lewis and I walked along one of the coastal walks we noticed a few people looking up at a tree, as we walked closer to them we seen they were looking up at a koala
An echidna
Spikey little fellow! sleeping in the V of the tree. It was a real surprise as Koala’s sleep for most of the day and are really hard to spot (Ria was not happy that she was at work and missed it!)
We couldn’t stay at Noosa that long as we had to head back home to pick up Ria and then carry on to Brisbane as we had tickets to go and see Guns and Roses that evening. Anybody who has known me for a long time will know I have loved Guns and Roses for years, so I was really excited to finally get a chance to see them live and to hear all the songs from my childhood played live in front of me. It was a shame that Axel Rose was the only original remaining member of the band left but was still awesome and they played nearly every one of my favorite tracks. Ria and I loved it as we were really close although Lewis didn’t think much of it as it really wasn’t his type of music (maybe he was still thinking about that spider the other day to much to get into it!)
Mark the only
Aussie in our house does feel a bit out numbered by us ‘pommies’, at first he kept picking up on our accents but now living with all of us he’s starting to say things the English way which is well funny! Mark is well into his bikes and had a real nice Kawasaki ninja he had just rebuilt, he offered to take me out on it which I nearly bit his arm of to do! It was wicked I had been craving speed for so long and that was the first time in ages that I have felt true acceleration and it was great. At one point he did stop and ask weather he thought he scared me and I said ‘hell no, I love it’. I got a great buzz from driving the scooters in Vietnam and Thailand but now I really wanted a bike like that, it was awesome and such an adrenalin rush.
Since being here Mark has got be into playing poker, as it is a really big thing over here. Lewis and Mark went over the rules with me quickly and then before I know it a was thrown onto a table with Mark
and 6 other people and had to play, for the first half of the game I had know idea what I was doing I just kept saying check, fold or bet at random times! However I managed it and I wasn’t the first out and did somehow win a few rounds before being the 3rd knocked out.
Mark is also a fine cook and superb with a BBQ, so it has now turned in to a custom that when we head of out for a night we have a BBQ’d fry up in the morning followed by some sea fishing! I have never really been into fishing but have lately found it a really great way to get over a hangover, although I do seem to be pretty bad at it, I only mange to catch really small fish if anything at all (even Ria catches more fish than me!).
Another couple of Marks qualities are being able to handle a ridiculous amount of alcohol and to able to chat up anything in skirt! Both of which I have seen on many a night out with him. On one of these nights we both went through around 12 Jaeger bombs
Lewis chilling out on the beach
I didn't know about the cute girls in the background-honest!! and a couple of shots of Sambuca all in about 1.5 hours and neither of us then remembered how we got home surprisingly enough although Lewis and Ria said they heard us come in giggling like a couple of school girls!! The next day I felt so rough even the BBQ’d fry up the following morning didn’t do a thing apart from making me want to run to the toilet every few minutes!!
Lewis and Mark both work 8-5, Mon-Fri but Ria works really strange hours so a lot of the days over the past few weeks I have been at home with her and we have found that we can seem to waste hours and hours talking and not realizing it. Now most people who know me know I love to chat and with Ria this is a bad combination as she is as bad as me for talking for hours on end (I know anyone that has worked with me will find this hard to believe!!!!! Ha ha). This has lead to me missing many turnings and junctions when she is in the car and even the other day I was sat at a set of traffic
lights with people hooting there horns behind us as neither of us had realized it had turned to green ages ago. We are also a bad combination shopping as we talk so much we keep having to walk back and forth down the isles as we kept forgetting things and then when we do finally get out of the shop we are so engaged in conversation we walk straight past the car (this has happened more than once)!
She is a great laugh and great person to chat too, its that were just a bit too similar in some of our characteristics and keep forgetting what we are meant to be doing.
I also started a job but only last two and a half hours as I was cold calling old people and was supposed to pressure them into buying holidays they didn’t want. It was so boring and repetitive and I had enough of getting told to ‘shove off’ from irritated people. So I decided to walk out as it was totally against my morals to hound people like this. Mark, Lewis and Ria all found this extremely funny when I said that I had only lasted 2.5
hours, although I did get a free piece of pizza for it!
I have also managed to meet up with my two mates Lee and Ashley who traveled with me through Vietnam and Cambodia. The where staying with Ashley’s parents about half an hour up the coast from me. So one day last week I met up with them for a BBQ next to the beach where I got my first real experience for kangaroo meat (Lee’s idea) I was surprised at how good it tasted not nearly as tough as I was expecting. After stuffing our selves full with our BBQ we headed to the beach at Mooloolaba (yeah they have loads of these weird names) to relax, catch some rays and let our food digest, well that was the idea but Lee soon got bored and kept hassling me until I went into the water. The water was bloody freezing but that wasn’t the main concern as there was huge swell and we had been watching other people in the sea getting smashed into the beach by 3 meter high waves (yes that is not a typo!)!! So Lee and I headed out which is easier said
than done when you take 5 steps forward then get smashed back my a wall of water nearly twice my height. We did finally get out and Lee explained how you bodysurf properly. The first few times I just got picked up in the swell thrown head over heals a couple of times and then pounded into the sand. Eventually I got it and when it when right it was awesome you get sucked up onto the top of the wave and from here you can look down on everyone else as you surge forward on the crest of this huge wave and if you get it right you can fall of the back of the wave without get smashed into the beach. After a few minutes of this I was laughing my ass of have a great time and had totally forgotten about the temp of the sea although after about 20 minutes both Lee and I had so much sea water up our noses we had to get out for a drink of water.
I had a great day with them and I was real good to catch up again, I will be meeting up with them again
soon as they are heading up towards Cairns about the same time as me so it will not be the last of our adventures together.
I have felt too relaxed here and it had been the first place I have been in since leaving England that I haven’t thought about the next place I am traveling too and having the feeling of itchy feet. All three of them made me feel at home and really welcome here, the house is really comfortably and situated in a really nice and it has been the first place that I have really felt that I could live, it is so beautiful, laid back, safe and close by everything you could need and I have made a lot of really great friends including my new mad mate Mark. I hope to be back here soon for another short stay.
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Eva
non-member comment
WHY WOULD U BE HOLDING A KILLER SPIDER!??
Are those Huntsman spiders not the one's that when they bite you, your skin starts falling off?? Why, why would you do that??