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.

Chapter 39 - State of Origin

In which our hero receives more education in the sports department ...

So. There's this thing called State of Origin. It's a three game rugby tournament between Queensland (QLD) and New South Wales (NSW). Queensland wears maroon, NSW wears blue. The teams are made up of Rugby League players, and they're not based on their state of birth, but on whichever state they began their career in. Hence "State of Origin".

The first game was on the Wednesday of study week, and I got invited to join some friends that were doing a sort of dessert crawl thingie. Basically we went to one house, had some sweet snacks and beverages. There were coloured cake pops, dyed lemonade (essentially Sprite), brownies, and cupcakes.

Mmmm... blue cake pop ...

I also painted my nails blue rather than studying that afternoon. We then moved to a second house for the first half of the game and a magical ice cream/frozen yoghurt strawberry raspberry cake thing, then to a third house for sticky date pudding with caramel sauce and the second half of the game. It was really fun.

Some of the gang watching the second half. You can see the distribution of blues and maroons. I apologise for the quality of the picture. My phone doesn't have flash.

I had decided to wear mostly blue, with a red t-shirt, so that I wasn't completely choosing sides. But before the game started I decided to commit to supporting The Blues. I wasn't the only one in the group wearing blue, which sort of boosted my confidence. I had other reasons too. The main justification is that the first time I ever landed in this strange and upside-down country it was in Sydney, which is in NSW. The second reason is that blue is the best colour. Everyone knows that. Anyone who says otherwise is simply in denial. The other sub reasons are things like that I don't actually own anything maroon, and it's very easy to wear blue as most of my t-shirt collection is blue. Also, Josh, my lab partner, who originates from NSW, told me I had to wear blue. So there it is. And the blues won.

Anyway. The game looked a bit like this:

Except that the other team was maroon, not yellow. Apparently the Blues haven't won the series for seven years. Some of the maroons supporters in the group were giving the blues a hard time, going on about how the last time the Blues won iPhones weren't a thing, and so-and-so was the prime minister, and what not. It was all in good fun, though, especially because the Blues won that game.

The first game took place in Sydney. The second game was just a week and a half ago in Brisbane, and the Maroons won easily. Like the Canadian Women's Hockey Team vs. just about anyone else. I was super tired and practically falling asleep by the end. I think that was the day I'd been out with Wen Ying to plan our expedition, and I'd stayed up too late the night before and gotten up too early.

The day after the first game I was wearing an orange t-shirt, and #1 and #2 were as well because it was orange t-shirt day at their school, and #3 happened to be wearing something orange-ish as well. Sitting around the dinner table the kids were asking me where I'd been the night before, and why my nails were blue, and I was explaining about State of Origin, and #2 said "State of Oranges?", and then we had some fun jokes about how we were all playing in the State of Oranges, and it's a really confusing game because you can't tell which team is which because everyone's wearing orange. Even the players can't tell each other apart. It was good fun.

Chapter 38 - Paintball!

In which our hero gets a shot in the arm ... and the leg and the head ... 

So this is like six week old news by this point. I went to play paintball for the first time ever. This was back on May 19. It was an event put on by GUYE (Griffith University Young Engineers). It was really fun, and really exhausting. There was lots of running around, and the first time I got hit was extremely painful and shocking. Like, really extremely. I was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt. I got hit in the upper arm. It caused a bruise that lasted for like two weeks.

Oooh ... pretty colours ... I think this is after one week.

I very quickly got hit on the leg, which actually broke the skin a bit:

OK, so I guess that doesn't look too bad. But it really hurt.

What happened was we played three games of fifteen minutes each, with like ten minutes to recuperate in between. We were divided into two teams, pink and yellow, indicated by ribbons on our face masks. In the first game each team had a base, and a flag, and the other team was supposed to go get the flag and bring it back to their base. Nobody succeeded. Then in the second game there was one flag in the centre of the field, and whoever got it first had to protect it for the rest of the game. The other team got it first. In the third game there was a person holding the flag, which was someone on our team. We were supposed to protect them, or if the other team got close enough the guy would have to hand over the flag. They never got close enough. It was really fun, as I think I mentioned, but really painful.

The most painful event happened in the second game, I think, when I was sure I was under cover, until I got shot in the head. There was definitely some uttering of expletives at that point. It caused a lump for a few days. I also got hit on the finger at least once, which I don't recommend.

Here's some group pictures from before the carnage.

That guy in the middle is the one who shot me in the head. He came up to me after the game and apologised.

See the guy beside me? He decided it was a good idea to play in a tank top. He got a few bruises.

I didn't actually know most of the people there. Some were familiar faces from large lectures, but most weren't. There were about four lecturers that joined the fun as well. We played with a few other groups too, so I think there was probably 100 people in total.

When I got home the kids were very excited to see all my bruises and my paint splattered clothes. The paint washes out, luckily, which didn't really matter because I was wearing scrubby clothes anyway.

There is a picture somewhere of my head shot, but I don't know where. I'll pass it on when I find it.

Chapter 37 - Downs and Ups

In which our hero feels a bit down, but rallies herself to go out in the stupid rain anyway because there's people to be and places to see...

So yesterday was a bit of a down day. Physically, mentally, emotionally. I just really didn't want to do things or be around people or deal with screaming children being horribly mean to each other. Probably got out of bed around 10:30 or something. Decided I'd go out to see Man of Steel. Thought I'd be polite and ask if #1 and #2 wanted to join me. Shouldn't have. I knew that before I asked, but I did anyway. Should have gone alone. We got there after the previews had started, and there wasn't three seats together anywhere except for the very front row, which I wasn't about to sit in for a Superman movie. I don't even know why they put seats there. It's way too close.

Anyway. So we pushed up the arm rests and all three of us sat in two seats. One side of us was by the aisle, which was OK, but one side was by a stranger, which neither kid wanted to sit beside. This meant they had to sit beside each other, so naturally there was some elbowing and complaining. They just don't know how to be still. I don't remember that being an issue for us as kids. We just never knew it was an option to be squirmy and fidgety, I don't think. Perhaps the parentals can correct me on that. I wish I knew how to teach a kid to just be still. Also, #1 likes to say what's going to happen just before it does, and one bit she recognised from the trailer, so she thought she needed to tell me what was going to happen in the next two seconds.

Now, those of you who know me know that I absolutely despise movie talkers. Like, that would be my own personal hell -- people talking in movies and electronic alarm beeps. I've told her several times that I find it very annoying, but she persists. Like the other day I asked her to stop, when we were watching Harry Potter 3, which I've seen before but not for a while, and then she did it again within a minute. The thing is that usually it's at home and we're watching something that either I've seen before or I don't care about, so it doesn't matter. But if it's something that she hasn't seen, she can't just watch and wait for answers, she has to ask and ask and ask and ask until she finds out what's going to happen. She did that to me during Doctor Who. It was all I could do not to scream. Needless to say I can't watch anything important with them anymore.

Anyway. As I said, I should have gone alone. Even if everything had gone fabulously swimmingly I still should have gone alone. I was feeling like I needed to get away and be alone, and yet I invited the exact people that I needed to get away from to join me.

Blurg.

Anyway. So today I decided that no matter the weather (it's been raining for three days-ish, which I'm sure doesn't help my mood at all -- it makes me feel like I'm trapped in the house) I'd go down and get a bit of shopping done and return a couple things to the library. So I did, eventually. I woke up in a generally better mood too, which helped, especially once I realised that it was Canada day. I put on my red t-shirt, and felt very good and optimistic about things. Also there was no early morning screaming and name calling to wake up to, as there was yesterday, so that helped my mood considerably. The kids and Sarah all went out to a doctor's appointment, and I walked down to the library, which is probably 30-40 minutes. (I've never timed it.) Then did a bit of shopping. There were some mini packs of Tim Tams for $0.99, so I got one of each. They were white and honeycomb. They're both quite good. Then I found an anniversary card for a friend of mine who shall for the moment remain nameless in case they're reading this and it ruins the surprise, and I got a stamp to mail it, and I withdrew this week's rent from the ATM, and then I was looking for a Disney Princess sippy cup in the shops (at Sarah's request) when I came across this interesting thing:

Apparently 'General Mills' is 'Uncle Toby's' here ... very interesting .. there's also a glasses place called OPSM, and their ads have that same little logo of "we heart eyes" as something at home that I can't remember at the moment. I'll see if I can find an example sometime.

Then, I found this very much exciting thing:

Look Dad! Look! Andy Warhol cans in a shop!

I kid you not! They're real cans filled with real soup! Some sort of Warhol 50th anniversary promotion. I was very tempted to buy one of each.

Anyway, then Sarah and two munchkins collected me from the shopping centre, and we came home and had a disco dance party, and then it was dinner time and then bed time. For them. I watched The Block, which is almost over again.

Another thing about being so down yesterday is that I've been highly conscious in the past few days of the fact that I'm missing the Mueller Family Reunion, which sucks in epic proportions and is massively saddening. Like, I even had a bit of a cry about it yesterday. This is added to the feeling that I've been having for the past month or so of a sort of "it's summer holidays time so it's time for a road trip to SD," and everything reminds me of there like the smell of the pine trees or walking through nearly empty gas station parking lots at 7 a.m. on my way to the bus for school. And it extra sucks because if I had the money I totally could have gone, because right now I'm on my winter break between semesters, so there would have been time. And I would have been able to see everyone that I feel like I haven't seen in forever. In addition to all that the Pick-nic is coming up on the other side, which I'm also going to miss.

So there you have it. It hasn't been the happiest of times recently, but today I got out and did something and got a little too excited about some cans of soup. It can't all be up, anyway, unless you're on speed or something.

Also, here's two ducks and an ibis by a stream of rain run-off that I passed on the way to the library.

Right. You can't really see the birds that well. They're there, though.

Ooh! Ooh! Wait! Here's another exciting thing! Last Wednesday I went out with Wen Ying so we could plan our expedition up to Noosa that's happening this Wednesday. We went to a little cafe thing while we were waiting for her car to be serviced, and I was getting hungry because I'd woken up late and not eaten brekkie. So I ordered the beef burger. (That's as compared to chicken burger. You can't just say burger, I don't think, and assume it's beef.) I know I've mentioned before about having had an Aussie burger, but that was just at the caf at uni. Sort of pre-made and wrapped up and heat lamped. This was freshly made, and it had grated carrot, grated beetroot (beets) (pronounced bee-chroot), cheese, egg... probably something else. It was weird, but delicious. And it dripped purple. Oh, and bacon. Epic, mate. Epic. Didn't really need to eat dinner until like a bowl of soup at 9 p.m. There may have been tomato and lettuce as well.

Then, after, Wen Ying and I went to Broadbeach, where she lives, and walked around a bit, and we saw this:

Tee hee hee ... party bus ..