Noosa

this next stop had come highly recommended by a couple of people, so we made it a week long stop just to get the most out of it, definatly a worth while decision! We left Caloundra in the rain and arrived in Noosa two hours north in the rain!! we found a camp site close to the town which was right on the river, it was an ideal setting to realx and spend some time meeting people and having fun. We caught some amazing sunsets just outside our tent over the river which the wild life helpped make allt he more spectacular, we had stingrays, crabs, fish and huge pelicans all about 5paces from our tent! We met a couple from Ireland who would you believe were waiting for post in Noosa and when we left still were, we really should check if it arrived! we spent the first couple of days as usual relaxing and taking in the town, Noosa was in two parts, running along the beach was a row of very modern apartments with new bars and designer shops, a real pleasure to walk around with a nice friendly atmosphere! these apartments and bars ended at the headland with Noosa National Park. the second part of the town was inland 5mins and hand lots more little shops and bars and was all nice and modern and friendly. After a few days in the town and getting to Know the Irish couple Di and Hugh one day we decided to check out the national park. We took a walk along the beach and followed the path up to the headland which as it rose gave us great views back along Noosa Beach. The path swept round the headland and the state of the land changed dramatically, all of a sudden we had huge rocks with crashing waves and deserted bays scattered with huge rocks, it was really spectaular. we stopped for our lunch in a place called Dolphin Cove, unfortunatly we didnt spot any but the views out to sea were unforgetable! from here we walked through more rainforest and past more stunning bays to our end point called Hells Gates. These were two steep black rocks which dropped down into the sea and opened up as if like gates where the sea crashed and foamed in, the noise and view was awesome. After a while admiring the view we headed back to town past a path guarding lizard and a sleeping Koala, what a great day! As well as a bit of time on the Beach in Noosa we caught up with sam and sam, the couple we met in Surfers paradise and arranged a trip to Fraser Island with them. So now there were 3 couples and we were joined by a Kiwi couple which made 8 of us! So on our last day we all thought we should do something fun, so we hired a small river boat with a barabeque and we all spent the day fishing and swimming at various points on the beautiful river, it wound through rainforest and past posh houses with marinas and we cooked up a feast on our barbeque. As well as that we managed to catch a fish unfortuantly it snapped off the line before we could get it onto the boat! it was a great way to spend our last day in such a lovely town and with some great people we had met, if it wasnt for the excitement of our trip to Fraser Island we probably wouldnt have left the next day!

Caloundra

another short stop here! main reason being our trip to Steve Irwins Zoo!!! On the way in on our two hour coach journey we passed some spectacular views of the Glass house Mountains, apparently when the sun shimmers on the top of them making them look like glass! We settled just north of the town in a great campsite right on Dicky Beach which had a great shipwreck in the middle and is the only beach in the world to be named afer its shipwreck. We spent the first couple of days just relaxing on the beach and seeing the local area, the beach was a lovely little beach which again had awesome surf, we really should be used to the great surf by now but it still amazes us! and the town was a little town which is centred around a little bay where the waters were still and the sand banks rose out of the water to form mini islands which made it all very picturesque. After the weekend of relaxing we took the day trip on monday to Steve Irwins Zoo. We got picked up by the coutesy coach at 10am and were at the zoo by half past. Even before you get in the entrance you were met by aniumals of all kinds which hinted to us we were in for an amazing day. We were greeted at the door by a camel and a Koala and just inside the door a talking parrot! we grabbed our map and set about seeing all the attractions. We passed over a small bridge which was surrounded either side by some pretty giant Alligators and just the other side of the bridge were 3 elephants just wandering around! It was their feeding time and instead of being done in their enclosure they walked them across the zoo for the visitors to feed them! After we had sen the end of this we went and took our seats in the Crocoseum for Steves Show. Brilliant it was, really entertaining and informative on how to lok after the wildlife and not get eaten by a croc or snake! It lasted an hour in total and started with a couple of keepers bringing out a basket of snakes which the held, fed and even swam with! Next was the birds of prey, normally not huge bird fans these managed to impress us swooping just above our heads and finding their food around the stadium. Best of all was of course saved for last, the huge angry crocodiles they swam out and straight out of the water towards the keepers who practically hand fed the anaimals before they were back in the water waiting to jump out at a platform where food was being dangled, it was pure magic! once the show was over we had a quick lunch stop (unfortunatly no Kangeroo burgers!) and carried on around the zoo, it was completely hands on, we got to walk the wombats, feed the Kangeroos, hold the koalas and snakes! other animals we bumped into along the way were otters playing tag, camels, tigers who were lying around with their keepers and alot of snakes! by 4pm when we had to get our coach back we had , had the best time, loads of fun and loads to look back on! we had dinner that night and contemplated packing our stuff up for our departure the next day!