Chapter 41 - Noosa Heads: Day 2

In which our hero sees a koala, some dolphins, heaps of bush turkeys, and a crocodile ... also liquid nitrogen ice cream ... 

OK, friends. I'm back. All of last week I was watching the munchkins all day every day, so I couldn't get around to doing the blah blah blog. Now I'm at uni, to use the internet, because uploading so many pictures will use up my home internet. I've specifically set aside this time specifically to do this. So here I am. Prepare to be amazed. Or indifferent, or whatever.

The view from brekkie.

On Wednesday night we made a plan to get up at like 7:00 a.m. and go for a nice hike in Noosa National Park, which was only like 10 minutes walk from where we were staying. We got up at like 8:30 or 9:00, had our breakfast, and headed out. There was a general sort of tourist information place at which the lady told us that koalas were frequently spotted in the park, and the park staff usually spotted them and wrote their location down on a little blackboard so people could go see them. Here's some of the views we saw between the information place and the National Park.

As soon as we got to the park we headed for the little information stand thingy and there was the sign saying "Koala sighting -- nearest gum tree to the front door." So after asking which ones were gum trees we went and spotted it. It was just chillin'. Taking a nap. As koalas do when the sun is up.

This is the koala. It's the sort of round thing in the middle. I apologise that my phone doesn't have any kind of zoom function to allow for a closer look.

There. Inside the red circle. See?

After marveling at a real live wild koala in a tree for some time, we carried on with our hike. It was really beautiful. Lots of rocks and waves and sun sparkling off the water. Take a look:

People waiting for waves to surf on.

A path down to the beach.

More surfers.

One girl in this group had a waterproofed video camera (or possibly regular camera) to film the others surfing.

This is a view of the water through the trees, except it's to bright, so you can't see the water.

Bush turkey!

Sisters! Lets go explore the rocks!

Look Annie! Rocks!

The view of the land to the right. The left was all rocks and ocean. Just for some variety.

A path down to the edge of the cliff. I love paths with water at the end framed by trees. They're just so inviting.

Hell's Gates

Looking straight down into Hell's Gates.

Alexandria Beach. Not recommended for swimming due to submerged rocks and unpredictable currents.

These are the dolphins we saw. They're quite far, so probably you can't see them. But I promise they're there.

Alexandria Beach again.

This point where the dolphins, Hell's Gates, Alexandria Beach, etc., were, was sort of a mid-way point on the path we were following. It was actually a physical point of land, so there were some nice views, and we probably spent a good 10 minutes there taking pictures. After this the path went inland and we saw a lot a of forest.

Alexandria Beach through the trees.

In case of emergency, there's an emergency radio 200m that way.

Slightly blurry path. Sorry about that.

Trees.

Trees.

Trees.

I just love trees. Does it show?

More path. There's probably something magical beyond that bend. We should go see.

Wen Ying was getting thoroughly fed up with walking by this point, and when we came in view of the visitor's centre again she had me take a picture of her being really happy because it was over. Unfortunately it's on her camera, so I don't have it to show you. I think she was expecting it to be like an hour, and it was like 2.5-3 hours. And she hadn't brought any water. She was happy to be done, especially because the plan for the afternoon was shopping in the shops, and she loves shopping.

I was quite happy to be done too. At a certain point you're too tired to appreciate the beauty of things anyway, and my feet were getting annoyed with my shoes. So we headed back to our hostel for some lunch, and to sign up for surfing lessons the next morning. Yes, that's right. Surfing lessons. They offered a three hour group lesson for $39, and I figured I had to try it at least once while in Australia, and I convinced Wen Ying to come too.

My lunch glowing like Ingrid Bergman. It's not a particularly interesting lunch, and I took the picture just to sort of portray the vibe of the place, but I'm sharing it because it's a neat effect that happened by accident because I smudged the lens with sunscreeny fingers unknowingly.

So now off to the shops. Wen Ying was looking to buy herself a birthday present, as it was her birthday. We basically went into every shop that looked interesting on Hastings Street, which is the little touristy shopping district thing. Also only 5 mins from our hostel. Here are some of the things we saw.

The Billabong Surf Report, outside a Billabong shop.

Just looking down the street.

Bush turkey!

Tee hee hee hooters.

A shop called Lamington that sold all sorts of interesting handcrafted things like tea towels with bush turkeys on them.

Wooden watches.

Look Annie! Fossils in steps!

A decorated surfer hippy's van.

Same van, from the other side.

Bush turkey!

We had various things that we needed to do. Important things, like buy stamps for overseas postcards, and get ice cream. So we did those things. There was a shop that we'd spotted the day before on our night time walk that did liquid nitrogen ice cream, so the plan was to go there after we got our stamps. We got in line, and waited, and picked our flavours, and were just about ready to order when we noticed the sign that said "Minimum $20 for EFTPOS" (Electronic Funds Transfer Point Of Sale). Cards basically. I didn't have any cash left, and nor did I have my debit card with which to withdraw cash. So we went along, and spotted an ANZ ATM (Australia/New Zealand Bank), and Wen Ying went to use it but it said it was temporarily out of service. Then we remembered we'd seen another one up by the shops up the hill where we did our grocery shop the night before, and conveniently there was a bus just arriving, so we went and hopped on it. Then I remembered I didn't have my debit card, so we hopped off again, and went back to the hostel for dinner. After dinner we headed up the hill on the bus and used the ATM. I needed cash for both the ice cream and the surfing lesson. While we were waiting for the bus back down we went into the IGA to get some chips, because there was a plan for some beer later in the evening, and chips and beer go together like hot fudge and sundaes. As we exited the IGA we passed by a bakery that had all its wares packed away except for a crocodile made of bread.

Ah ha ha! Fooled you! I bet at the beginning you thought I'd seen a real crocodile!

So then we headed back down the hill to the ice cream shop. It was great, and there was no lineup this time. Just watching it be made was awesome, but then it tasted great too. Really smooth.

There's the great big tank of liquid nitrogen.

There's the Thermos they use to pour it, and the jar of ice cream mix.

Woohoo! Ice cream and a fog show! You can't get more awesome than that!

Wen Ying with her ice cream. It was super tasty. Mine I mean, not hers. Well, hers probably was too, but I didn't try hers.

So the next part of the plan was to drink some beer as part of the birthday celebration. We both needed to charge our phones, and there's no power points (outlets) in the rooms, so we decided to go down to the bar/restaurant and buy a jug of something and share it while the phones charged. We were sitting there happily with our chips and beer when one of the staff members announced that "Minute to Win It" was starting soon, and gather around if we wanted to play so he could explain it. So I went, and he asked if I was playing, and I said sure, why not, at which point I got a high five from the slightly tipsy French fellow standing beside me.

The basic idea was there were teams of about six people, and six little challenges, and one person from each team had one minute to complete the task. The winner was the one who did it correctly fastest. My team was myself, clearly, Alexis (the slightly tipsy French fellow), another French guy named Cedric, and a Swiss German girl named Julia ("Yulia"), not to be confused with Julia ("Julia"), who was on a different team. Or maybe it was the other way around.

I was up first, and my challenge was to blow a stack of cards off of the top of a beer bottle, but leave one on at the end. I didn't manage it, but neither did anyone else. We won that round because we were the only team with any cards on the bottle when the clock ran out. The other things were to have an Oreo on your forehead and move it to your mouth without using your hands; have a pencil dangling behind you from a string around your waist and try to squat down and get it into a beer bottle; flip a beer mat (coaster) up from the edge of the table and have it stay on top of a glass; bounce a ping pong ball between two people while moving sideways for like two metres until you could drop it in a bucket, no double hits, if you use your hands or it touches the ground you start again; and lastly have a Kleenex box with the top cut out tied to your waist, with six ping pong balls in it, and bounce around like a fool until they all come out, and again no using your hands.

We won the cards one, the beer mat one, the pencil on the string one, the ping pong/bucket one, and did very well on the Kleenex box, so our team won the whole thing. What we won was two pitchers of beer, or two bottles of wine, or one of each, so we got one of each, and went and sat down and shared them. Some friends came and joined too, so it was a happy little party. At like 10:00 the bar closed, but we didn't want to stop the fun, so the rest of the gang convinced me it was a good idea to go for a wander in search of some more beverages. We accumulated more people who were just about to head out themselves, and we all went for a walk. The one chap, Steve, who was from New Jersey but had done uni in Toronto and now was being a teacher here somewhere, seemed to know his way around, so we followed him. There was a girl from Toronto too, and later we encountered a guy from Windsor. And there was an American girl who said she was kind of half Canadian, and mentioned something about Sarnia. We ended up at the Surf Club, which, as I understand it, is a sort of fund raising front for the Surf Lifesavers, which are volunteer beach life guards. Like how you can go to the Legion Hall and get a drink, that sort of thing. I guess. Anyway, there was karaoke going on, so some people participated in that. Not me though. I wasn't that far gone.

That place closed at 11:30, and I knew I should head back and go to bed because my surf lesson was at 9:00 a.m., but I didn't. We went to another place, and I went to use the toilet, and discovered afterward that there was no soap. So I walked back to the hostel to wash my hands and just stayed there, showered, and went to bed. I don't know what time it was. I deliberately didn't check so as to not be all worried about how much sleep I was getting. I'm sure it was after 1:00 a.m. by the time I got into bed.

It was seriously really fun. I enjoyed myself, and felt really relaxed, and it was fun making random friends that I'd never see again, and just having a good time. Now if you're all worried and like "Oh, no! What's happened! That's not her style at all!", just relax. There was no full-on drunkenness, no falling over, no dangerous situations, no drugs. Just good fun. No vomiting afterward either, which is great. Used to be just one beer would make me nauseous. Not anymore. Now I'm one of the natives who drinks beer and eats Vegemite. I think it helped to not drink anything at all for like two years as well.

That's it. Now I'm going to watch The Wolverine.