Brizzie to Noosa

Last I left off, we were on our way to Brisbane, aka “Brizzie.” Our shuttle van thingie dropped us off at a transit centre, and having been so relaxed and lazy in Byron, I hadn’t even considered where we would be dropped, or where we had to go to our hostel. Very un-kenna…but I am slowly becoming less and less type-A as this trip progresses! We decided we’d try to find a McDonalds, since they give free wifi in Oz. We found one – but it was just in a food court and had no wifi. Not really knowing what to do, we started wandering around…and randomly found a poster advertising our hostel that we had been booked into….and it gave a free call phone number and an offer to pick us up from the transit station! It couldn’t have worked out more perfectly. So we called from a pay phone and they came to pick us up.

We arrived and checked in to “Bunk” – our stay for the night in Brizzie. It was a really nice hostel, and we were even given a free voucher for a really tasty spaghetti dinner! Our luck just kept on going! After that, we just headed out and walked around. We were staying in the nightclub heart of the city, but being a Monday night, nothing was going on. We saw what looked like heaps of interesting clubs, but we opted to just chill at McD’s and play on the internet. Not very exciting. We went to bed decently early in our 8-person dorm, and were rudely awoken in the middle of the night by a very drunk girl who had snuck in two guys and they all sounded to be making out. It was disgusting. Very rude to the rest of us trying to sleep!

We woke up the next morning and checked out of the hostel and set off to go pick up our rental car. It was more reasonable to rent a car from Brisbane to Cairns than public transportation – we are only spending $27/day on a really sweet Toyota Carolla hatchback that we have dubbed “Cromwell” aka “Cromie” for short. Cromie is a manual, left-hand stick action. Scott did a great job manuvering him out of the city, although it was a little rough as my map was pretty awful, leading to terrible directions. We wanted to go see the Lone Pine Koala sanctuary, which was way out in some remote part of the city…and got pretty lost. A very nice lady at a gas station helped us out – we actually weren’t too far off track. After eating some meat pies and cooling ourselves down from the drama (Scott: “just tell me where I need to go! Kenna: “I don’t know, I can’t read this damn map! I think turn left! No wait, that sign says St. Lucia…that sounds familiar…go right!” Scott: “We want to go opposite St. Lucia! AAAH!!”)

We finally made it to the Lone Pine Koala sanctuary unscathed, but about an hour later than we had hoped. We’re really glad we went though – there were koalas everywhere! The sanctuary keeps about 130 koalas as a healthy population, and has them sectioned into their appropriate age categories. First, there are the “mothers” who are all carying babies. Baby koalas only have a gestation of about 30 days, at which point they birth themselves (being the size of a jelly bean) and crawl all the way to their mom’s pouch. There, they spend about 7 months growing and developing, until the mom plucks them out and makes the little “joey” sit on her back.

They hang out like that until the joey is about a year old…then it gets moved to a “kindergarten” area, where is hangs out with other joeys of its own gender. They keep them separated quite young, as they don’t want them mating too early. Once they get a bit older, about 3 years or so, they are put into either the bachelor pad, or the bridal area, where they are in waiting to mate. Once they are old enough to mate, they are put into the adult area for their gender for a few years…and when they are an old senior (about 8-9 years old) they go into the retirement home. Koalas live for about 10-12 years, often longer in captivitiy.

We had a great time learning about the koalas, and got our picture taken holding a really cute little one. Right before it was our turn, though, one of the koalas attacked a sanctuary guy…it was pretty scary. Scott and I held a really sweet young one who was pretty tiny…she was adorable. I forget her name – it was something like Leittie or something like that.

After our koala experience, we went to the kangaroo field, and hung out with the ‘roos. They were so tame and docile…you could pet them! I had a lot of fun trying to communicate and play with them. They actually look really weird up close….like a mix between a dingo and a deer with gibbled front arms.

After our experience at Lone Pine, it was time to hit the road and drive to Noosa. We managed to navigate Cromie out of the city and started heading North. We stopped in a little town called “Burpengary” and ate at a very delicious bakery that gave New Zealand a run for it’s money. We arrived into Noosa in the early evening, and just spent it making dinner, doing laundry, and just hanging out around the hostel.

The next morning, we decided to head to the beach. It’s been killer hot, so we thought some time at the beach was in order. Scott desperately needed some shade though, he’s still really burnt from the surf adventure we had. The backs of his knees look like a burn victim. So we thought we’d rent a beach umbrella….but we discovered that they cost $25 per day! Scott went and bought one for $40, so even if we use it twice, it will pay for itself. We figure we have a car for the next 2 ½ weeks, so we’ll use it quite a bit. The water here has also started to get really warm like bath water….so we’re experiencing 35 degree weather with bath water ocean. It’s amazing.

After some lounging, we decided to take a walk through the Noosa National Park. Noosa is one of the very few undeveloped headlands in Australia, a result of the native Guppi Guppi people who fought hard to keep it natural. We did a 9 km or so walk around the head, which was just gorgeous. It took us to a nudist beach at the end, which we decided to skip – the girl at the hostel told us it was full of seedy old men. On our way back, we stopped at Granite Cove, which was a gorgeous little beach that we had essentially to ourselves, and just spent some time playing in the water and lounging on the rocks.

We made it back to our hostel in time for happy hour – which consisted of a free beer or wine with the purchase of a pizza (which was also really cheap). We basically just hung out and sipped our drinks for the evening.

Right now, we are driving to Rainbow Beach in preparation of our trip to Fraser Island. We’re getting an orientation this afternoon, then will head out tomorrow. We are spending two nights in a 4×4 with a few other people and will be camping on the sand island. We’re super excited!