Noosaville 11/03/14
We arrived in Noosavile which is one of three areas under the Noosa name, Noosaville, Noosa Junction and Noosa Heads. It's been a very popular recommendation, everyone we tell gets very excited by the prospect of visiting Noosa. On first appearance it looks like a nice, clean, slow paced town. We are based right on the river (well, other side of the road) and it laps up against lovely sandy shores with a nice park alongside. We are on Gympie Terrace which runs along the river for about 1 km and has shops and restaurants along. We have checked into Noosavillage River resort which is lovely. Like Michael the manager says, it's not 5* but you wouldn't get the service that him and his wife Rosa give at a 5*, we literally feel like nothing is too much and they are even happier if you give them something to do for you. They pay particular attention to the pool temperature and Michael has just adjusted the jacuzzi temperature down by 2 degrees as I said it was like a bath! It's clean and well looked after, we're looking forward to our week here. The first couple of days are spent relaxing a house, we've been to the park by the river, Joey is getting very good at the slide! Also, we watched some crabs in the mangroves, there were a load of tiny ones and then we spotted a large fella with a body about 10 cm in diameter watching, being a boy, Jim poked him with a stick and he got super defensive, quite impressive. This is one of these tiny moments which add to Ellie's learning experience here, she knows about mangroves and has been asking to look for more crabs (better than ceebeebies, although, to be fair, they have imparted a fair amount of information on her!) late afternoon we've been playing in the pool and sitting in the jacuzzi with the bubbles on and Joey in his rubber ring floating around in the middle! I had a minor drama when I was getting changed, stretched my hand up to the ceiling and caught my finger in the rather low ceiling fan! Nothing too dramatic but it's pretty achy and I have a small cut (nothing on the scale of John Ball's Australian hand injury!) we did manage one trip out to main beach which was so so lovely, white "squeaky" sand, quiet and some lovely trees to hide in the shade. If I'm ever castaway, I'd like it to be there! My favourite beach here I think.
On Friday 14th we headed to Australia zoo, we have been very much looking forward to this day the whole trip having watched Steve Irwin a lot on TV, the guy was brilliant, and his zoo / legacy does not let him down. As soon as we got to the zoo the people in the car park had huge smiles. Just what I'd hoped for! We were told the times of the shows as we went in ($160!) and organised ourselves so we'd be at the crocosseum at 12 for the main show. On the way there were staff walking around with various lizards, alligators, birds etc for you to pet or have a photo taken next to, little lizards and water dragons were scuttling around on the pathways. We went and stroked he kangaroos which Ellie and Joey loved, they are incredibly soft, like a kitten soft, then we stroked a Koala, they are very thick and wooly and headed to the Crocosseum for the show, it was great, full of entertainment and the big saltwater croc didn't disappoint, you could imagine Steve Irwin being there. Conservation is a huge thing there, I didn't realise, but in the 1970s, saltwater crocs were hunted to near extinction! This means that today, there are very few, if any, massive giants left and it's going to take 50 years to recover as whatever is left out there needs to grow to be giants, we have a picture of Ellie sat on the nose of a full size crocodile statue which they say may or may not exist anymore. We continued through the zoo which was started by Steve's parents as a reptile park, Steve and his wife took over in 1992 and bought land and grew it into what it is today, he even bought a road full of houses, the road is used for the safari bus to take you around on and the houses are various departments, conference areas etc, incredible. We also watched the tiger show where they highlighted the plight of tigers being hunted for traditional medicines and remedies was raised. It's very good how they use their popularity to raise understanding. We headed on to the Africa exhibit where it was Steve Irwin's dream to be able to look over several acres and see African animals acting exactly as they would in the wild and on the prairie. An excellent day was had by all, followed by a quick dip in the pool and a crap curry out of a jar! Great beers though.
We visited Eumundi markets Saturday. Except for the food which was great and different flavours from all corners of the globe (we had Thai satay, Spanish churros and Chinese dumplings, in that order) there was little we could buy. Loads of fantastic items for the home but we are busy trying to use up sun cream and mouthwash so we don't have to carry it, let alone a lovely new picture, the clothes were a bit, loose and comfortable looking, on the edge of hippy, I'm definitely doing beach casual as a preference currently, can't lean towards hippy, I think mainly because I'm to tall?? I'd look stupid. The weather was in the low 30s so an afternoon in the pool, drinking beer and watching quali was just perfect, especially as Lewis got on pole, maybe this is his season. To finish a really lovely day we went for a late afternoon walk along the river about an hour before the sun went down as recommended by Michael and rosa who run the resort (which while I think to mention it, is pretty much our resort, I have only ever seen one other person in the pool!) The birds were going nuts, 1000s of lorikeets (small colourful birds similar to parrots) and a variety of amazing birds, then a bit later, bats. It was so loud and so spectacular. There are lots of bar b qs available for the public to use which have a gas bottle locked underneath and a flat silver hot plate on top, these are everywhere we've been in Aus, with cabanas with tables and chair in, or picnic benches not under cover and they were packed with people making the most of early Saturday evening, all having their dinner, bottles of wine, I even saw a cocktail shaker! As we were picking whether to eat Italian or Thai our evening went wrong, I won't bang on but the kids kicked off, didn't give up, it was BYO booze so we couldn't even drink ourselves happy, a meal best forgotten, as far as Jim's concerned, our last meal out at night... We went home and I looked forward to starting a fresh the next day! (Little shits! I do love them)
Sunday 16/03/14 the kids woke up, still cute... I couldn't be angry for long! We went looking at beaches, we went to sunshine beach and Peregian beach. We walked onto Peregian beach and the tide had obviously been very high (full moon last night) and it had brought loads of pumice up to the top of the beach, there was very little soft sand (fine by me, less mess) it was beautiful, the waves we so strong that you couldn't see either end of the beach due to sea spray. It was so hot and we had no shade so we literally just played around for 20 minutes, Ellie had got all of her clothes soaked through falling over running through the waves and Joey had fallen in his clothes in the very wet sand area so the car is now a fair mess. We grabbed our picnic food I'd put together first thing and headed to Boreen Point on lake cootharaba and had our picnic in a cabana there. It was lovely, the best bit maybe the caramel filled shortbread biscuits Jim bought at Woolworths the day before to bring! Heaven in a little shortbread bite. The weather is very hot, it's supposed to top 34 degrees today and very humid, Joey's whole little head was red, we had started to head out for a walk around the lake but changed our minds and headed back opting for a swim in our pool we don't have to share! Then watched Lewis retire from the Grand Prix, then Sebastian all quite a shocking race really.
Our last full day in Noosa, Monday 17th and we went to the beach first ish thing, Michael at the resort had recommended Little Cove, it was a very cute little tiny cove but unfortunately it didn't look like we could park too near and the lovely shaded walkway had lots of steps so we couldn't take the pram so we opted for tea tree bay which was a further walk (approx 15 mins we'd been advised) but no steps. We walked but it was flippin hot,today is 35 degrees, a heat wave in Autumn. We get to this lovely bay where the water is fairly calm, it's totally idyllic but it has no shade which isn't ideal for the kiddies, because we move around so much and have so much to carry as it is, plus two kids, we've not bought any kind of beach brolly so we don't have that to move too. Unfortunately we had to walk back to the car, but all was not wasted as it was a beautiful coastal walk through national park, the trees were fantastic to walk through, they seemed all tangled up in each other. We ended up going to main beach to hide under the tree we sat under the other day, it's a lovely beach and a great tree to shade under. Unfortunately, we were all a bit grumpy due to the heat so it wasn't the most successful beach trip! We hung out in the pool in the afternoon and did some packing for our flight tomorrow, I'm a bit stressed as we're allowed 3x20kg bags, we have two bags (one of which ways 20kg on it's own) and hopefully they'll let us put Ellie's booster seat through as the third bag. I'm trying to get the small bag loaded with heavy things and the big one with air basically. We headed to the park late afternoon with the intention of having a bottle of wine and some food like everyone else. As we were leaving we decided we would never get away with enjoying a bottle of wine (saved it for when they went to bed) Jim went to get the pizza place and it was closed so we managed to find a chippy and we ate fish and chips in the dark by the river with an amazing view of the river and full moon rising in the distance.
We've loved Noosa, a great area to come to, potentially so much to see and do and absolutely stunning. Tomorrow we fly back to Sydney!
Pictures...
1 kangaroo cuddles
2 saltwater croc at the show
3 lunch by the lake
4 walking through the national park to tea tree bay
5 trees in the national park
6 tea tree bay
7 the long walk back
8 night time over noosa river
9 the lorikeets at dusk
10 Ellie and Joey on main beach
11 playing in the spa
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