The time has come, I MUST finish my road trip blog, it is weighing heavy on me (😉), My last post went to mid December and here we are in early Feb, very slack on my part!
So I am sat here on an island in the South Pacific, Raiatea to be exact, beautiful scenery, gorgeous blue seas, full of biting insects and beeelloooodddyy expensive 💰, and I have sat down to finish the road trip.
So the last post ended at the place of beautiful people – Byron Bay and my next was the Gold Coast, but I did not want to be in the middle of it all so chose to stay out a little bit in a little town called Coolangatta and the YHA there. The town is just out of NSW and into Queensland where they do not change the clocks for summer so has an hours difference from the rest of the east coast – very confusing! Because of the long, sandy beaches and the great surf, it soon became the place to go for the holidays. High-rises started appearing in 1960 and it soon became the hot spot for developers, with skyscrapers, theme parks and nightlife. Apparently Margot Robbie is a local!
I took a drive around ‘Surfers’ and I can see why it became so popular as it is very picturesque, little valleys and inlets with waterside property, but it was like being in a scene of Miami Vice and I was so glad I didn’t stay there. The YHA was really good fun, it was very basic but the staff were great and I think that really affected the atmosphere. I was sat in the lounge one evening and I heard some stuff going on and the young lady on reception had to throw out a resident as there had been a lot of complaints about him trying to sell drugs! She was fierce with him and she physically pushed him out the door and locked it behind him – did not want to get on the wrong side of her!
A couple of video’s and a picture of a lunch in Tweed Heads, not too much to report really.
I bypassed Brisbane, I had been there before with Simon 35 years ago and I had no desire to go to yet another city, and went to Noosa. I was looking forward to Noosa as I had heard a lot about it and the Sunshine Coast.
Noosa Shire, to call it by its formal name, is a region, not a town. It has no high rise buildings due to their greener approach to development. It has a flourishing arts scene and holds food and music festivals, it has a lovely beach and I found it to have a really nice vibe. I really liked the Sunshine Coast, the area was lovely, nice neighbourhoods with little pockets of activity. I stayed at a hostel called Noosa Flashpackers, and I did enjoy it there and they had a couple of social events like a sausage sizzle 🌭.
The town is really nice, just ask the England cricket team who went there on a down weekend and the press went mad about it. What was the harm, they were letting their hair down, yes their performance was crap but the press was really down on them.
Noosa is also access to an Everglades, apparently the only other everglade is in Florida, as the guide was very keen to tell me! It is internationally protected area of 85,000 hectares. The water was brown but clear, which I learnt was because of the Tea Tree that made up the majority of the bush.
Have to admit that the guide was a bit of an arse, he had obviously grown up on the shores of the lake and lived and breathed it so was very knowledgable, which I can not dispute, but I asked him if climate change had affected the ecosystem. He basically laughed at me and said he could not tell me his real thoughts as they had got him in to trouble before, that no, nothing had changed. It was apparent he did not believe in climate change yet, his next sentence was about how he had been in a helicopter and looked down and as they were in the middle of an 8 year drought, he saw that the Everglades area was green and lush, the surrounding area was dry and dead. I mean really, what a ridiculous thing to say. 😠. It was very pretty and the tour was 4 hours, but there was not really a lot of stuff to see, I really was tempted to say to the guide that I had seem more nature in the Teignmouth estuary!! Don’t get me wrong, it was calm I did some cool pictures though and it was my first sight of kangaroos close up.
I forgot to mention that on the way to Noosa, I went to Pineapple World! I know it sounds naff but they had a loo and cafe so worth the stop! I was hoping to taste all kinds of pineapple treats but that was not to be! It is a heritage attraction, known as Sunshine Plantation. It has a 52ft high pineapple (yes, really), originally built in 1971 and it became a very successful plantation. In 1983 Prince Charles and Diana visited in 1983 and but the plantation went into receivership in 2009 and the land was used for leisure purposes.
From what I understand the current owners are trying to get back to planting pineapple plants, refurbish the train and bring things back to how they were with some changes to fit in with a different economic environment. I have written a lot about the whole pineapple thing, but I found the history interesting, plus I do love pineapples!
I also wandered around the shops to see the Christmas preparations, the shops were packed, I don’t know what I was surprised at the loaded trolley’s and the lines for a photo with Santa really! There were also tables where you could get your presents wrapped for a donation to Rotary Club or the Salvation Army etc which I thought was a nice thing thing. Seafood is obviously a favourite Christmas food in Australia, and not just another shrimp on the BBQ, the range was vast! Of course I took pictures……
I enjoyed Noosa Flashpackers hostel but I could not tell you who were my room mates, I tried to make conversation but they all seemed to be quite private and liked to hide behind their bed curtain. It is such a shame, I think, obviously not all the places I stayed at were like that, but I found that at the majority of the places. Another thing I won’t miss is the noise of zips…Room mates packing their stuff before they leave, sometimes at 4 or 5 in the morning, zzzppp, zzzzppp – I mean why? Why not pack the evening before and not disturb the room mates! Slamming doors, turning on the lights at 5am….. the perils of hostels and so I invested in eye mask and ear plugs!
After Noosa came Hervey Bay, it is widely known as a site for observing humpback whales, whale watching capital of Australia apparently, but I had missed the whale migration season, it also gives access to K’gari – Fraser Island – a heritage listed site.
It was a really strange place, I think that I have said that about a couple of towns and it is difficult to pin down why I thought that. I was quite old fashioned, I expected a horse and cart to come down the street to the local saloon!
I have also been thinking about my thoughts on other towns, how I found them empty and quiet, eerie in a way. Is it possibly because the land to population ratio is so different to ours? Maybe there just aren’t that many people in the towns bustling about like I am used to? Plus also it is also very hot and people don’t walk places? That was something that I found in Cambodia, when I told someone that I was walking to the shops, they were like ‘ walking, outside, in the sun?’
Anyhooooo, I decided to do a boat trip around the area to watch for dolphins and sail up to K’gari. The captain Pete, is apparently a local celebrity when it comes to whale watching and is consulted widely by the industry. There was the usual caveat that most of the time they spot dolphins but you never know. It was a lovely day, Pete and his wife were really knowledgable, we saw bottle nose dolphins and the local ones, that I can’t remember the name of, but they are blue finned. We saw a few pods, so serene and beautiful, Pete was very cautious around them and tried to keep the engines down and kept things calm. There was a local couple on board that were a bit sceptical, their daughter had bought them a voucher years ago and they were just using them up! There were 2 other young British couples and we had a really good time. The local couple were very entertaining and admitted that they had a good time! The highlight was spotting a Dugong, no, it had never heard of it either, but it is related to a manatee, but with a dolphin like tail. The story is that sailors mistook them for mermaids. With the Dugong and the dolphins that we saw, I felt very privileged and lucky to be out there on the ocean, seeing things that many may not have the opportunity to. I don’t have any pictures of the wildlife, just of me – sorry – I was too busy watching!
I stayed a cool hostel, the Eco Woolshed, based on a Woolshed but in an urban area. The accommodation was wooden lodges, based within a large garden area. The kitchen and communal area was done really nicely with wooden beams etc. but full of bugs that bit but that will be a reoccurring issue 😳.
So, I did want to finish the road trip in this blog, but I want to make sure that I do it justice and do my research properly and that takes time – mainly because I start looking an item up and that just leads to other interesting stuff that takes me a while to read through!
I will end this one here, and then write the pre Christmas and Christmas/New Year blog soon.
For those of you who are reading this, I thank you 🙏🏼.
Adventures of Nisha 