Chapter 40 - Noosa Heads: Day 1

In which our hero sets out on an adventure, and sees some mountains and some Lions ...

So I've been rambling on about this planned adventure with Wen Ying. Well, it finally happened. Wednesday morning we left at 9:45-ish. Went down to the shopping centre so I could mail that mystery somebody their anniversary card, and so Wen Ying could get a Go Card, because she'd lent hers to a friend and they'd lost it.

So probably it was after 10:00 by the time we actually got on the highway. We made it up to, through, and past Brisbane with no worries. Fairly quickly too -- probably an hour or less. Then we continued on up the M1 toward the Sunshine Coast and Noosa Heads, our final destination. After a bit we saw a sign saying 'Wild Horse Mountain Scenic Lookout', so I suggested we could stop and see it. It made me feel like the random scenery stops we'd take on our way to SD. Wen Ying said she was a bit hungry, and there happened to be a Hungry Jacks at the same exit as the lookout. So we stopped for lunch. They've got this thing called the 'Stunner' meal, which is a small burger, fries, drink, and sundae for $4.95. We each got one of those. I got mine with a chocolate shake, and when it came I realised it was a bit silly to have a chocolate shake with a chocolate sundae, but whatever. There were no ill effects afterward, and the only other options were Coke or Sprite or orange Fanta, which I didn't especially feel like.

As you can tell by the logo, Hungry Jacks is basically Burger King. They even have Whoppers on the menu.

We then carried on to the scenic lookout. We followed the road, and then there was a parking lot, and I understood the sign to say that the lookout was 700m off this way, along a dirt road, so I assumed the parking lot was just a picnic area or something. So off we drove along the dirt road. It was a bit bumpy, and holey, and muddy in places. We went along, for more than 700m, and the road seemed to be going down, not up, and away from where I thought the mountain top was. Wen Ying was starting to get frustrated with the condition of the road ("This scenic lookout better be beautiful, or there's gonna be a big problem," she said), and there was a spot just ahead that was extra bumpy and muddy, so we decided to turn back. Unfortunately the road was only about a car and a half wide, so there had to be some clever three-point turning done, which turned into about a twenty-point turn because we got a bit stuck in the mud. We were OK in the end, though, and I used my "it's the passenger's responsibility to help push the car out of a sticky situation" skills acquired through many a slushy and snowy Canadian winter to help us get unstuck. This is what the road looked like, once we were unstuck:

What with the pine trees and the dirt road it reminded me even more of random scenery detours on the way to or in SD.

 We got back to the parking lot, and drove in and parked, and lo and behold, the sign says 'Scenic Lookout 700m - Pedestrian Access Only.' Bah. Oh well. It was part of the adventure. So up we headed, along the path. The lookout tower functions as a working cell tower as well as a forestry service fire tower, so the path up was paved for service vehicles to access.

The path up to the lookout.

Half way up -- view through the trees of the Glasshouse Mountains.

The lookout/cell tower/fire tower.

Little blurb about who funds the place (Telstra and the Department of Primary Industries (Forestry)).

The view from the top was amazing. There was forest as far as the eye could see, apart from the highway, the random sticky uppy mountains, and a bit of a town in the distance, possibly Mooloolooba or some other such strangely named location. (Really I just wanted to write 'Mooloolooba'. Wooloomaloo. Wagga Wagga. Tee hee hee. Such silly names. OK, I'm done now.) (There was a place called Burpengary too, which made me smile.) Anyway. Here's the view:

The Glasshouse Mountains. Very random and sticky uppy. Quite pleasing though.

When we got down to the bottom of the hill I went to ask the owners of a caravan (camper thing) if I could take a picture of it, and they said yes. "A bit of Australiana," as the owner described it ...

That's Ned Kelly and the Southern Cross.

I think there's a kookaburra there, and an emu.

Gus the friendly but smelly doggie.

Jesus, and the flag of a very important battle that I can't remember the name of. It's kind of a big deal in Australian history.

Koala, kookaburra, etc.

 Side adventure completed, cheap lunch consumed, so off we toddled. Here's the view from the car. Again, and you're probably going to get tired of hearing this if you haven't already, it reminded me of going to SD. Apart from that the cars are going the wrong way, this could easily be somewhere in Minnesota or something.

We finally arrived at our destination, but were unsure of the parking situation, so we parked in a public parking lot and walked up the hill. As we crossed the road we were greeted by this surf hire shop.

We continued up the hill, just to the right of the surf shop, to our place of residence for the next two nights -- Halse Lodge, the local YHA (Youth Hostels Australia, or something)/HI (Hostelling International) hostel.

When we checked in there was a little sign saying 'Come see the British & Irish Lions training at the Dolphins Rugby Union Club'. So after I explained to Wen Ying what that was all about we decided to go. First we settled into our room, and checked out the bathrooms and kitchen situation.

Our room.

Sign on the bathroom door, warning of bush turkeys.

The kitchen door.

Inside the kitchen. The sign is encouraging us not to cook, but to buy or meals at the restaurant. Pfft.

Inside the kitchen -- food storage area, door to the rest of the place.

Bush turkey!

We went for a grocery shop before the rugby thing and spent around $30, which lasted us for the entire three days. The sign had said the training started at 3:00, but two girls who were there said actually it was 4:30, so we didn't get there till 4:30. It turned out it basically ended at 4:30, which we didn't realise until they made a little corridor and all the players started heading toward the bus.

People just milling about. The ones in red are with the Lions.

There's probably some training going on here, but I didn't realise it because they were running around in blue, not red.

The tour bus.

Roped off corridor for the players to get to their bus.

A couple of camera men from BBC Sport, and a player signing autographs.

Another player. Don't know his name, but I think he had an Irish accent.

And that's all there is. My camera battery died.

So the fun and excitement was over, and we headed back to the hostel for dinner, which was a half a roasted chicken we got at the shop. It was delicious. There were also cheese buns, but I didn't eat mine until today. At 6:00 we headed down to the common room for the welcome meeting, where they just explained about what all there was to do around there, and what the rules of the place were. We then headed out for a walk along Hastings street, which is kind of the main shopping street of that bit of the town. All the shops were closed, but we decided that the following afternoon's activity would be shopping. We also walked along the beach, in the dark, which was nice. I love the sound of the waves, and there was enough light from the nearby buildings and parks to see what was going on, and not fall into the ocean. We also walked a little up the road toward Noosa National Park, then we headed back, had a beverage at the bar in the hostel, showered, I wrote some postcards, and then went to bed.