Surfing the Noosa waves
So far on our travels we haven't spent that much time at the beach, which is part of the reason we visited Noosa, a seaside town a few hours north of Brisbane. It was a long journey on the Greyhound Bus from Airlie beach, taking 16 hours. Following our experiences in Asia, I think we were better able to cope with such a journey than many others on the bus.
The beaches in Noosa did not disappoint and we visited the main beach every day. The most memorable occasion was when we had a two-hour surfing lesson. The lesson was such fun and the twenty-something surfing instructors/dudes were surprisingly helpful. I learnt a lot of the things that I'd been doing wrong when I started surfing last summer. Much more impressive though was Emily who, having never surfed before, was standing up on the board within the first hour. Judging from the permanent grin on her face I think she enjoyed it.
Another great thing about Noosa is the beautiful national park that covers the town's headland. It is a common place to spot the Koalas, so we spent an afternoon strolling through the forests looking up into the trees in search of fuzzy-grey-bums. Unfortunately the only wildlife we encountered was a peahen. Even so, the coastal views were enough to make the walk worthwhile, and we did not have to wait much longer to meet our first Koala, as the following day we visited Australia Zoo.
Our day at the Zoo was quite a mixed experience. On the one hand, the animals, enclosures and shows were all top-notch. Our very predictable favourites included the wombats (I now want one) and the kangaroos which you were able to feed, stroke and lie down next to, if you so wanted to. We had no trouble finding koala's which were scattered all about the park, and we also had our picture taken with one called Mash. I'm not sure she was as happy to have the photo taken as we were.
However, visiting the zoo was quite a sad experience given the recent death of Steve Irwin. It certainly did not help that we'd got there by taking the Australia Zoo bus, on which they showed us a documentary about Steve's life. The documentary was made before his death and told us about how much he loved his parents, his wife and kids, his crocodiles, the zoo, the planet, and life in general. At one point he even cried as he recalled his dog being shot. His image was all over the zoo too, and it was even possible to have a digitally enhanced postcard made of you standing next to him. It was all a bit much.
The zoo was still very enjoyable though, as was the rest of Noosa. We left a little more tanned and very content with our beach time and our first Aussie surf.
Chris
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