North to Noosa

Time to pack up after our five day stay on the Gold Coast. We were on the road about 8:30 and managed to find our way back through Brisbane to the "Sunshine Coast". Its a whole lot different driving here than NZ. Like driving through any major Canadian or US city except on the left side of the road.

Our destination today was the town of Noosa, about 150 km north of Brisbane.

We exited the M1 Motorway a bit early and cruised up the beachfront highway past Coolum Beach, Perigean Beach, Castaways Beach, Sunrise Beach and Sunshine Beach. These look like quality low-rise beach communities as opposed to the high-rise Surfer's Paradise. A beautiful drive.

We arrived at Noosa at around noon and found the visitor information centre. It is in the middle of a high-end shopping and restaurant area on Hastings St.

We managed to finally get some good road maps of Queensland and some information on Noosa National Park, just down the road.

It was hot and humid (32 C) but we decided to go ahead with a loop hike of about 8 km that took us along the coast to the headland then a loop back through a densely shaded rainforest. The coastal views were great with several surfing spots.

The wind at the headland was very strong providing some relief from the heat.

The walk back via the bush trail was a bit tiring due to the heat and the first half was in semi-soft sand. Apparently people have seen Koalas in the trees but we did not see any. We did encounter this fellow however. A monitor about a metre long. Stopped Chris in her tracks!

A little bit of interesting flora...

After our walk, we made our way to our motel in Noosaville. A nice little place, exceptionally clean and fresh with a great pool that was just what we needed before heading out for supper.

Noosaville is along the river with a terrific waterfront walkway and park. Lots of people having a picnic or take away supper with drinks and wine in the public area. Seems to be OK here. The parks here also have lots of coin operated gas Aussie style barbies.

We also saw hundreds of parrots congregating in the trees, just like starlings at home. Really noisy.

We strolled the waterfront at dusk and ended up at a good Thai restaurant with very generous portions.

We will do a bit more exploring here before we leave to head north tomorrow.