Noosa, AUS

Day 1. Today is Mom E’s birthday and we woke up again to a blue and sunny skies in Brisbane. Since it was still only April 9th in Calgary, I decided to wait until later to fire out an email to mom. We had gone the economic route last night and as I’m sure our folks will be thrilled to hear, we bought milk and cornflakes so that we could have it for dinner and for the next morning. Good thing we packed those multi-vitamins. 😉 So, this morning, on the rooftop patio of Chill Backpackers, we finished off the other half of the cornflakes cereal and 1L bottle of milk. We then checked out and walked the two blocks to the Brisbane Transit center to wait for our Greyhound bus.

The bus ride took close to 3 hours in total, but I couldn’t really recount the scenary, since I fell asleep straight away. I have an uncanny knack for passing out while in anything moving (planes, cars, buses, trains), I assume it was from my infant experiences of Dad driving me around in the car to calm me down during my collicky days. At any rate, the ride felt more like 30-45 minutes to me.

We were let off in a very busy carpark near Hastings St. and our new ‘home’ the YHA Halse Lodge was right across the street and situated further up a hill, just off of the main road. Apparently this place is a historical building and the only accomodation made of timber in the area. It’s equipped with its own restaurant and bar who claim to have the biggest (and reasonably priced) breakfasts and dinners. Although, admittedly, we have not yet been formal patrons yet. Our room opens up to the a main verandah on the second floor, which is well-furnished with lounge chairs and couches.  It was here, that we decided to use up our free 1 hour internet voucher provided by the reception and where I decided to write Mom E an email and Facebook message. It was also during this time that we saw the best sunset since the start of our travels.

Our first impressions of Noosa have been positive, although Dan is more frequently reminding me that he can’t wait to get to the Philippines. This seems to happen every time we check out a restaurant and he’ll stand there, aghast at the menu. We had lunch at one of the cafes along Hastings St., where the prices weren’t as offensive. Dan ordered the steak sandwich, and I with the Tapas special (vegetable spring rolls, calamari, bread & hummus with a small caesar salad). We didn’t drink any alcohol, Dan ordered a Coke and I felt sufficient with my water. The total cost: $35.20.

In order to save on money, we went grocery shopping and bought our dinner ingredients (spaghetti & bolgonese) & breakfast (the infamous cornflakes and milk). I’ve been really wanting something super-healthy, like Fruit Loops or Frosted Flakes, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend the extra $6 over and above the $2.50 box of cornflakes. Our dinner was quick and tasty, and we have some left-overs which will be good enough for a lunch or afternoon snack. Total cost of our groceries (Dinner, Lunch and 2 breakfast meals): $20.80. We’ve decided that we’ll be trying to make better use of our hostel kitchens, since no one comes to Australia for the food anyways. We’ll try and save our ‘eat outs’ for places like Italy and France. Instead, we’ll focus on the beaches as best as we can. The beach here is really nice, with clean, easy waves for surfing – none of this white wash mess that Surfers Paradise had. 🙂

Day 2. We woke up fairly early, due to the fact that our room took in the morning sun and that the local birds were sing-songing starting around 6am. We managed to drag ourselves out of bed to skype Mom & Dad E, which was nice, since it was Mom’s birthday in Calgary. We also got to show them a bit of the lodge that we were staying in and the surrounding rainforest.

After our call, Dan and I got ready for the beach, stopped by at the kitchen to eat some breakfast and we then made our way to the main beach with a borrowed surfboard from the YHA in tow. The waves were really clean and I saw Dan get up several times successfully. While it looked fun, today I was perfectly happy to lay on the beach and even out the farmer’s tan that I had developed (with great success, I might add). I was kidding around with Dan that Tito Lito might not be able to recognize us when he meets us in the Manila airport. By noon, we were feeling peckish, so we headed back to the hostel and ate the leftover spaghetti. We also made another trip to IGA to buy our provisions for this evening’s meal, which was steak & mushroom caesar wraps – which was actually really good! And for the low, low price of $14! Because we did so well with our budget today, we treated ourselves to some ice cream in the early afternoon and went for a stroll over to First Point to take some photos.

One thing I should note is that although Noosa is a great little town, its “locals” are less to be desired. By that, I mean the wild bush turkeys that roam the streets and scavenge for food. I managed to grab this really great shot of a little girl chasing a bush turkey away, clearly annoyed with its attempts at snagging her snack. In the evening, we tried out the restaurant located in our hostel and had a raspberry coconut cheesecake. The cheesecake It tasted like it was homemade. It was creamy, filled with raspberries and wonderfully seasoned with coconut shavings and fresh pineapple. Today, we also decided to stay in Noosa another day, so we will not be checking out tomorrow as originally planned. In fact, we’ve been toying with several options on how to spend our last 10 days in Australia, so we’ll need to get that sorted out.

Day 3. Tuesday was a fairly uneventful day for us. We had hiked up to the IGA to grab some more provisions for our meals and then spent most of the afternoon sorting our last few days. It turns out that it would cost us an additional $400AUD if we wanted to change our departure city from Sydney to Cairnes (or Brisbane). And if we wanted to go up to Cairns, that would likely cost us a coach ticket ($50) back to Brisbane and flight out to Cairns ($270). In the end, we decidedd that it wouldn’t be worth the extra cost. So, back to Sydney it is. We’ve extended our stay in Noosa yet again (we’re now checking out on Friday) and will be catching a flight out of Brisbane back to Sydney on the 19th.

Day 4.  First thing in the morning, we did our daily grocery run and I think I’m finally getting used to the 20 minute uphill walk, which is more exercise than I can say I did back home in a day. We bought ourselves some breakfast, lunch and dinner fixins’.

Afterwards, we walked over to Noosa National Park to take on a 3 hour hike (round trip). It was a roundabout route that took us up on the Coast Trail, with lovely little coves every 500 metres or so, and up to what I considered the climax of the hike – Hell’s Gate. This lookout point showed great vistas of the water and Alexandria Bay. There was also a huge cliff drop-off that fell into crashing waves and housed sea turtles.

But what made Hell’s Gate so memorable was spotting a pod of dolphins, not only swimming, but hunting. From the shore we saw the pod (about 12-20 dolphins big) create tight circles aroudn some bait fish so that they can easily snag the prey. The rest of the hike took us through dense forest via the Tanglewood Trail. I was hoping to see a koala in the wild (as there have been reported spottings), but aside from a salamander, no wildlife was to be had. The walk was quite peaceful and there were intresting flora and fauna about. One tree in particular was the strangler tree, from which I had recalled Zak identifying during one of our walks around the Thomas property to the waterfalls. It’s quite neat to see, since a strangler tree wraps itself around an existing tree.

Once we completed the hike, we walked back to the hostel to eat a spaghetti lunch and then go for a short jaunt around the surf shops, so that I can finally see them when they were not closed. We then laid down for an afternoon nap. Once we woke, Dan prepped up to go surfing, but unfortunately he couldn’t borrow a board so late in the day. Slightly chargrined, we decided to clean up and head out for a ‘night out on the town’, despite our previous dinner purchases for eating in. We rationalized the expenditure as a counterpoint to our excellent budgeting over the last few days. And we also figured that we still can use the food to cook dinner the next night. After much deliberation, since it took me a few menu checks to finally get used to the idea that we’d be spending 10 times more than if we were to eat in, I chose a restaurant called Rococo’s. It was expensive, but the Moreton bug (I know, sounds gross, but absolutely delicious, it’s like a lobster tail),  grilled tuna, Tasmanian riesling and live entertainment (almost) made it worth the extra bucks. The musician went back and forth between singing, playing the guitar, flute and piano – sometimes all within the same song.

Dan and I have now found ourselves back at the hostel bar, listening to Katchafire and eating an apple & walnut tart, made resh today. Admittedly, we preer the cheesecake, but it was good to change it up a bit. We’re attempting to stay up as late as possible, because Dan had a really hard time sleeping last night, due to us going to bed too early. We had fallen asleep 9:15, but woke up just after 11pm to two guys watching a show on their laptop in the verandah just outside our door. A sleep-deprived Dan lost his patience and went out in his boxers to tell them to take it downstairs to the common area. As most kids are, they rebelled and decided to watch until the end of their show, which was only another 10-15 minutes, but to Dan, a lifetime. He nearly stepped out again, but I managed to calm him down enough before it became a situation. Anyways, it may be because of the lack of sleep, or the weather, but it looks like Dan might be coming down with a cold. All throughout the day he’s been sneezing and sniffling. I hope that he can fight it off before it gets worse. To our friends and family back home – please pray for our patience and health while we learn to cope with communal living. 🙂

Day 5.  We woke up this morning, had our breakfast toast and decided to tackle the hike up to the Laguna Lookout.  We took the shorter, but MUCH steeper route up.  So, I’m sure I’ve already burned all the calories off that I had consumed in the morning.

We then decided to climb back down and walk along the main beach area to the end where the river meets the ocean.  I’ve never seen a river flow out to the ocean and it was a neat sight to see two conflicting bodies of water crashing into each other.  You could almost see the difference in color between river and the ocean.  We made our way back in time for lunch and fixed ourselves some pretty tasty sandwiches and are now enjoying a siesta on our hostel veranda, trying to set up our transport and stay in Brisbane, which coincidentally has us extended our stay a 3rd time until Sunday.  We also received a positive message from Sandeep indicating that he, Rach and Maya will be flying into Brisbane on Sunday the 17th, so it would be pretty sweet if we can meet up with them before we leave Brisbane (to head towards Sydney) on the 19th.

Dan attempted a sunset surf later on in the evening.  He was successful in borrowing a board from the hostel, but unfortunately the waves weren’t as good (as in not even there).  It was pretty flat water as the sun dipped closer to the horizon.  I was able, however, to get a pretty awesome shot of him to commemorate the attempt.

Days 6 & 7. Tonight is our last night here at Halse Lodge and we’re biding our time until we retire for the night.  I currently type from under the protective covering of the verandah as monsoonal rain hammers the corrugated tin roof.  It’s beautiful (only because I’m dry), and it’s lucky timing that we will be leaving tomorrow for Brisbane.  We’ve seen all that we needed to see and enjoy here at Noosa, including a market in the nearby town of Eumundi.  These past two days have been filled with days of rest as Dan is now on his way to recovering and I am on my decline as he has been so generous to share it with me.  I had been so careful to avoid his kisses, but so careless when sharing the water bottle. 😉

We ‘celebrated’ our last day here eating at the Surf Club.  I had ordered the ginger shrimp with coconut rice and vegetables, Dan had the Beach Burger and fries as we took in our last views of the main beach.  We will now be officially marking our next days here in Australia as the ‘closing ceremonies’.  Starting tomorrow we are now making our way back down to Sydney via Brisbane to head out to the Philippines.