Fush 'n' Chups on the Beach

Sunshine Beach
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We were all excited about going to Noosa.  The four of us packed our bags and piled into the car for the 2 hour journey with hopes of sun, sand and surf.  We took Steve Irwin Drive (yes, it is called that) so that we could get a view of the Glass House Mountains, which were very cool, and also went past Australia Zoo - Crikey!

After sweltering for a couple of hours, we made it to Sunshine Beach and our backpackers, the aptly named Dolphin Backpackers.  We dumped our gear in the rooms and made a beeline for the beach.  The waves were crashing on the sand, the sky was blue and the water warm.  For those male Kiwis out there - it turns out that your voice doesn't have to get high pitched after swimming... amazing.  Fortunately there were other beaches around because the waves were pretty rough, which made it hard on Julie and Adrienne.  We headed off to Noosa Main Beach for some more civilised aquatic fun.  The water was so clear that you could see fish swimming in the waves as they crested and your own shadow on the sea floor, even though the water was up to your chin!

"Crazy when you think that this would have bought enough for a family of four and their cousins back home."

Sean and Adrienne enjoying the sun
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Being good Kiwis not only were we wearing our pounamu but we also remembered Waitangi Day.  Since we were in Australia, we thought that we'd get shot for singing another national anthem and opted for the time honoured tradition of fish 'n' chips on the beach, albeit without the Watties tomato sauce.  You'd think that Australia would be similar to NZ with the price of fish 'n' chips but no.  It ended up costing $16!  Crazy when you think that this would have bought enough for a family of four and their cousins back home.  It did taste really good though and we guessed that it was because we were in a tourist town.

Julie and Craig at Sunshine Beach
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Once the shock wore off we cracked open a bottle of duty free (Absolut Peach - yum!) to have a few drinks.  We shifted from the beach to the backpackers once the breeze picked up and ended up meeting two Canadian guys. Brandon and Jason had been travelling for nearly 5 months through NZ and Australia.  They were a pack of laughs, with tonnes of stories about crappy backpackers that they'd been to.  Jason did some awesome impersonations of Stewie from Family Guy.  That wiled away a few hours until the stroke of midnight, whereupon Adrienne made sure Sean was heading to bed.

Noosa Main Beach
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Checkout time was 9:30 am, which meant we were up by 8:30 to get breakfast eaten and everything packed.  We headed into Noosa Heads to go for a wee walk through the National Park, well it looked small on the map and back home we would've done it in under an hour but being Australia we were in sweltering heat and it took us 2 hours to saunter our way to and from Hell's Gate.  Adrienne was suffering a bit from the heat but the thought of a cool dip at the beach (and some water) kept her spirits up.

Fish 'n' chips on the beach
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By that stage we were hot, hungry and keen to hit the road.  Julie and Craig had the awesome idea of cooked chook sandwiches.  We went to Peregian Beach to eat and marvel at the number of tiny blue bottles strewn across the sand.  We managed to get a couple of photos of Kev the Kea in flight with some of his Lorikeet friends.

Fed and watered, we headed back to Brisbane and stopped by the Ettamogah Pub.  Sean bought a refreshing bottle of beer but chickened out trying to order the equivalent of a pint because of the weird lingo the Aussies have for glasses of beer.  To help those as challenged as Sean:

Tea Tree Beach in the Noosa National Park
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Jug            1125ml

Pot            285ml

Beer          200ml

Schooner    425ml

Kev flying with his lorikeet friend
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Middy         285ml

Not much else happened after that:  we got back to Brisbane, unpacked and made chilli con carne.  Stunning.