Noosa Nutters

Hello All,

Well my last update was from Byron and that already feels like a long time ago, but I will think back and update you on my final days there and what I have been up to since.

Well I last updated up to Wednesday. On the Thursday I got up early and went in to pick Sophie up at her motel (of course I managed to get lost and therefore be late, nothing like driving round in circles with a platinum blonde up your arse in her poncey car so you can't do a naughty U-turn to make you really late). But I eventually found her and we headed in to Byron so that she could pay for our trip up North. Of course this took longer than expected (well we do have a very full and complicated itinerary) but the lovely people at Peter Pan's sorted everything out for us. After that we went for a spot of brunch and did some last minute shopping for Sophie's preparations for the wedding (which was at 2.30pm that afternoon).

Suffice it to say things got very tight timing wise in the end but I managed to get Sophie to the wedding on time (following hair curling frenzy and me popping back in to town to pick up the final paperwork for our trip) and she had a great time. Having wrecked a lot of my clothing and trainers on my travels I headed to Ballina (larger town South of Byron) where I managed to get some bargains and now have trainers again (so may go horse riding soon) and some summer trousers so that I am no longer relying on only 2 pairs.

That evening was a mellow one with Jo, Craig and I enjoying a lovely supper (Jo is a fab cook) and a bit of TV.

On Friday I had another mellow day with lots of reading, talking to Poppy (the cat) and popping to a place called Clunes (which has one cafe but a beautiful village park) for a spot of lunch. That evening Jo and I were dropped off in Bangalow by Craig and went to the pub that Jo had worked at for many years while she was a student round here. It was great fun. A proper Aussie pub and most of the people in there knew Jo, so lots of hellos all round. Only had about 4 beers, but both Jo and I felt a little bit grubby the next morning, so that seemed to be enough to see us on our way. Obviously I am turning to a light weight.

The next morning Jo & Craig when to a Christening, while I had to pop back to Ballina to drop off my car (sad farewell to my little manual Hyundai Getz, very cute car, not it's fault that I wanted an automatic) before getting a bus back to Byron Bay to catch up on e-mails. Good thing that I did, as had an e-mail from Janina (Galloway ex Eurosport for those of you that know her) saying that she was in Byron and leaving her mobile number. I texted her and found out she was on Main Beach so grab a fruit smoothie and headed there to join her. We had a lovely chat and Emma (Sanders ex Nat Geo for those that know her, what can I say it was media tastic in Byron that day) joined us after recovering from a bad reaction to a jab that she had that morning in preparation for her trip to China (she fainted and hit her head quite hard on her way down poor love).

Unfortunately I didn't have that long to spend with them as Jo & Craig were coming to pick me and Sophie up from her motel, as Sophie was spending her last night with us, so that we could get dropped off together in the morning at the coach stop - plus also meant that we could all have drinks and not worry about driving. But while it may have only been for about 2 hours, it was great to catch up with Janine, who looks fab for her travels and is definitely having a great time.

So that evening Jo, Craig, Sophie and I headed out to Lennox Head for dinner (after Sophie, Jo and I had had a good wonder round the land around their house, through macadamia tree orchards, palms, fruit trees etc.. it really is gorgeous round there). We had a fantastic Thai meal and some nice wine, before heading back to the house for wine and great conversation (squeezing in a lovely ice cream from In the Pink - who do the loveliest ice creams before heading back). It was such a top night. I even got to brush up on my tarot reading skills which was fun, although we didn't have a full deck but we didn't let that stop us!

So the next morning we said a sad farewell to Craig and Jo drove me and Sophie downn to Byron in time to have a spot of breakfast before we caught our coach. It was really sad to say good bye to her! It was so lovely to see her and Craig, hope that it isn't too long before I see them both again! Good to see them so happily settled back at home though.

Well once on the coach Sophie and I were starting our big adventure, heading Northwards via a quick stop in Brisbane to a place called Noosa. We were met at the coach station by John, who works at Dolphins, the hostel that we were staying at in Noosa. As he had to wait for another coach to come in before heading back, we had time to look round the shops and check our e-mails. Sophie & I loved the hostel when we finally got there. Really near to Sunshine Beach, outside of the main city of Noosa it had a great vibe. Really relaxed and friendly. We re-packed our stuff so that all the things that we would need for our trip the next morning would be in a small backpack (no small feat as we were going camping for 2 nights and had already been warned there would be no showers and very primitive facilities available).

That night we went to eat in a restaurant called Stella near the beach. The food was fantastic and we really had a great time, as we knew that we wouldn't be having a nice meal like this for a while. After that we headed back for a relatively early night as we were being picked up at 7.45am to head out to Sandy National Park near Noosa where were going to be camping and canoeing in the everglades.

It turns out that this is a self guided trip (shows how much I was paying attention) and there were 9 of us going out (although Nina was only booked on for 1 night not 2 like the rest of us, so was coming back the next day with people returning from their 2 night stay). First step was to be taken to pick up all the equipment that we would need (tents, cooking sets, drinking water, a group lamp, washing up stuff etc) and the whole group met each other for the first time. After that we were taken to get a water taxi out in to the National Park where we were picking up our canoes and being told what to do. Being told what to do involved being warned not to dive head first in to the water, being reassured that while there were bull sharks in the water they had never been known to attack anyone in the everglades and that we would be lucky to even see one, and to be given a very topline map of where to go, plus this is how you paddle a canoe 2 minute overview. After that we were on our own.

Well the group was composed of me & Sophie, plus Jamie & Daljit from England, Noelette & Sharon from Ireland, Larissa (Spanish, Swiss, England educated), Karen from Israel and Nina from Denmark. It is fair to say that none of us had extensive canoeing experience, so it was funny from moment one. Particularly when me and Sophie were floating off in the wrong direction failing miserably to turn the damn thing around (before you laugh at how stupid we were being, bear in mind these are big old fashioned canoes not kayaks, not the most manoeuvreable thing on the planet, espectially when fully ladden with camping gear). But we all soon got the hang of it and were canoeing through the everglades, admittedly zig zagging a fair bit but beyond that you would think we were pros.

All was fine as we took a detour up a side river since we had a lot of time before we needed to set up camp at Harry's Hut. That was cool, and we wer laughing a lot, After that we headed in the direction of the Hut but missed the main turning, so decided to go an alternative but longer route. However, after going most of the way, we discovered that there was a tree down blocking the route we had taken so that we had to go all the way back again and find the original turning. We made the camp for around 5pm, having started out at around 10am so that is a lot of canoeing. We were aching and knackered, but tents had to go up and food needed to be cooked before it got too dark. It gets very dark out there by around 6pm, so we didn't have much time! But that is where team work comes in and we really did have the loveliest group of people. We helped each other out and despite being tired and being a bit worried that we would never find our camp site, we were still laughing.

A very basic meal and after that we had Jamie desparately persuading us all that it was morally wrong to go to bed at 7pm. So we kept chatting and laughing until around 8.30pm when we just all had to sleep. The next morning we woke up, staggered out of our tents feeling bruised as the sleeping mats didn't really do anything to soften the hard floor, especially given how much our shoulders were aching from the canoeing the day before. It was a beautiful morning, with the sun shining already at 6am. We managed to even have some tea (sponsored by our Irish friends, the great bringers of tea bags) with our cereal bars before hitting the road to go up to camp site 3 (6km canoe up river) and trek up to an area called Sandy Patch (12 km return trip from Sandy Patch).

This is when we really realised why we were doing this trip, despite some stress the day before. The water was still (the river is all tea tree water so lovely warm colour of tea) and mirror like, so everything that we saw around us was clearly reflected in the river. All we could hear other than the sound of our paddles going through the water, was the chatter and singing of all the native birds. I don't know what they were talking about but it sounded quite exciting. It was pure heaven. I didn't care about my burning arm and shoulder muscles, this was just amazing. It only took us about 1hr 40 mins to canoe to camp 3 before we set off on our trek up to Sandy Patch.

That was a very hot trek, as by this point it was around 9.45 so the sun was starting to really warm us! Plus a lot of the hike is up hill so I hope you won't mind my admitting that I was sweating like a pig for most of the trip. By this point we had not seen anyone else at all, we were alone up there.

Having seen the sandy patch from the distance (it looks like a huge blob of sand on the side of the hill) I was not prepared for the reality. It was like walking out of forest straight in to a desert of fine white sandy. There were dunes of this white sand stretching out around us. It was amazing! How this had ended up up there, I do not know but it was stunning and we loved it! Walking around sand is hard work but we ploughed through it stopping to take the silliest photos, laughing as Jamie decided to roll down a sand dune and ended up covered in sand (he was still finding it in his ears later that evening) and generally being really silly. It was also an opportunity to stop for lunch, although my sandwich did end up living up to its name, each time there was the slightest breeze, but hey it adds to the crunch factor. We could even see 40 mile beach from up on the dunes, but didn't head down as we were worried about not getting back to the camp before dark. So after a really good explore of the sand patch we headed back to the river.

First step was not to get in our canoes though, it was swimming time. I was too hot to care about these sharks that wouldn't hurt me "honest". I would have tackled a great white, just to cool down and the water felt fantastic. There is something just great about swimming in tea tree water at the best of times, but when the water is so clean and cool, and you are so hot and sweaty and miles form the nearest shower.... well it was heaven. All I can say is that I definitely cavorted. That is the only word for it, plus it was fun hanging off the end of the canoes and just splashing around. Even Daljit, who was worried as he can't swim, ended up giving in to temptation and was hanging off the end of the dock in the cool water. Only Noelette & Sharon didn't jump in, they don't know what they were missing!

So refreshed we canoed back to camp and made our dinner. Once it was dark we started sharing scary stories (well as much as we could before going off on a comic tangent), made Jamie show us his audition dance to get in to study dance at uni (well our view was he was already covered with sand anyway...) and generally joked around. At some points I was laughing so hard I was crying.. We really didn't have the best group and we didn't want to think about the fact that it was our last night out there, but instead joked about going AWOL in the wilderness (I say joked as without much food or drinking water left we won't have been AWOL for long).

The next morning we got up early and took down our camps, packed up our canoes and set off with plenty of time to meet the boat by 10am at the pick up point. We had time for a stop and a paddle en route. Again the water was clear as a mirror, the birds were sinking and you could hear scattered laughing from the canoes. It was another heavenly moment. I don't think my photos can ever do it justice. We made it back in plenty of time and the boat picked us all up. Once back in Noosa we unpacked all our kit, refilled the water cans, spread out the tents for cleaning and realised that there was nothing left to do but say good bye. Fortunately e-mails have been exchanged, so the Noosa Nutters will keep in touch, but it is amazing how sad I could feel to say good bye to people that I hadn't even meet 50 hours before.

So that was the Noosa Everglades trip. As Sophie kept saying, life doesn't get any better than this. The funny thing is we were bruised, scratched, our muscles were burning, the bugs were biting and we were all dirty without access to a shower, but I don't think any of us have ever been happier.

That afternoon Sophie and I had a lovely lunch in Noosa, to celebrate access to real food, with two refreshing glasses of Sauvignon Blanc. We hit the beach and sure enough fell asleep (Sauv Blanc effect methinks) before having to go and get our coach at 4.20pm to Rainbow Beach. So that is where I am now, the sun is shining, it is early, I was up at 7am for the free pancakes and now desperately need a shower to fully wake up before doing a clothes wash and hitting the beach. Tomorrow morning we head to Fraser Island for another 2 nights camping, this time with 4 wheel drive cars not canoes (guess who will be driving, hehehehe) and hopefully another set of every cool people.