Noosa / Everglades

Left Rainbow Beach with Brad and Jimbo, the bus ride was only 2 hours but its seem to go on for ages actually i think it was abit longer cus I twisted the bus drivers arm to put "The Italian Job' the new movie on, and it just ended as we arrived at Noosa. Decided to come with them as they were gonna go canoeing and it sounded like a luagh, plus I had heard of the River of mirrors and this pic is exactly how most of the waterways are.

First nite we got there, we went to a meet and greet in the bar area....only went for the free glass of wine really :) it was sooo funny, the girl that was giving the talk announced that we were gonna go round the group and introduce ourselves and talk for abit, quite a few people faces dropped and they looked scared as hell!!!! I cudnt wait for my turn, just back from Fraser, cudnt wait to tell them all about it!

That evening we went down the bar for the bbq and beers etc, decided to go down to this bar attached to the kolas backpackers hostel....having a bit of a booogie and then all the lights and everythin went off, of course we all blamed the DJ as you do but he shouted look outside (all the street lights were off aswell) so it wasnt him (later I would find out that Noosa have freqeunt power cuts, somthin to do witha shit connection) the bar still carried on serving and the first torch to come from the bar went staright to the pool table :D after about 30mins of no power I decided to trek bk to the YHA cus the place was so hot and gettin quite borin, was hard walkin back in the pitch black, cus you literally cudnt see your hand infront of ur face. Got back and I sat out on the veranda for abit before going to sleep, had to be up and out for 8am (plus as I hadnt booked on the canoe trip yet, so hopefully I was gonna be able to wing it and get on) When the van turned up I asked the chap and luckily someone hadnt turned up at one of the earlier stops so there was room for me :) got chattin to the guy driving and found out his name is Peter Holiday and he was one of the original founders of PeterPan Travel, a huge travel agents in Australia aimed at providin, backpackers and students cheap adventure deals, anyway he said he just sold off his share of the business and started this canoeing company up. We went to his house to store our gear and pick up some essential gear for the trip, swimmin pool, tennis court, basketball court....the lot!!!!

We went down to the site were we would be boarding a boat that would take us over to the Noosa River. We ordered some beers from Peter and when he came back he came them to us, about 60 cans of Beer and a box of goon...quality!! We set off to the Kinabe Information Centre, this is were we picked up the canoe etc.

Before setting off to Campsite 3 we went for a quick hours canoe up Kin Kan Creek I was sharin a canoe with Jimbo, and we got going before everyone else and headed off towards the bridge, again about an hour or so up the creek, we got there had a beer and chilled out for a good 5mins before Brad and Josie turned up, we headed off passin lots of the group still tryin to fathem out how to canoe, we even passed a group of 3 ("you know who you are girls") that act ually turned around and were headin back, because they kept goin around in circles.

We got back to Kinaba and chatted with some German girls that had walked through the forest and had been bitten tooooo bits, they wernt happy. We had lunch and began packing the canoes, me a jimbo took the esky and some of the other girl who cudnt paddle too well camping gear....lookin back we made a good choice, cus the heavy the canoe the less it rocked, just cut through the water.

We headed off to Fig Tee Point using The Sandpatch as a guide to aim for (This is a massive sand dune in the side of this hill/mountian) this lead us to the Upper Noosa River from here it was about an hour and half paddleing to Campsite 3, brilliant, me and jimbo tucked into the esky and alot of the time we were 2/3 canoes together chattin, drinking beers, catchin some sun and taking in the amazin views!!! ALong the river you copme to the Everglades, this is were lots of trees overhang the river, which is as still as still, the river looks brownyblack, this is becuase of the high amount of tea tree oil in the river. It is drinkable and really good for your skin :)

Got to the campsite and we all set up our tents and and some off us decided to go for a swim, soooo nice, some parts of the river were sooooo warm and then a freezing patch would hit you, really weired, look kinda orangey browny and it tastes like faint apples to me, as we were sittin on the side, these 2 guys went past on their canoe with music blar tryin to cool as they went past us, not looking were they were goin the crashed into the embankment. I dried off and I decided to go and see these other campers who we could just see through the tree's, plus I went o ask if they had a spare roll mat as I didnt have one, as it happens I knew a few of them form other parts of the east coast, so we all had a chat and laugh over stuff we'd done (but no roll mat) Went back to my camp and we all started having dinner, I had brought 2 pot noodles one of which I dropped on my foot, great!! We then started on the beers and went round the group introducing oursleves, pretty much wot I had to do at the meet and great (everyone always says after ive finished "God youve had a busy full life for a 21 year old" is funny to hear but true I think) carried on gettin drunk and payed the other camp another visit with a couple of beers for them, as they had ran out....second load of bad luck, I traded the beers for some fresh chopped pineapple, which I dropped on myself also (was doomed not to eat)

Got up the next day and packed everythin up and headed back to Kinaba....what a long canoe ride it was, sore head, sore body from canoeing the prvious day. Only the way back we saw 3 kingfishers, which we'd never seen before. When we got back to Kinaba after we had unpacked the canoe, was takin a few pics and accidently dropped my camera in the drink....yeah it didnt work after that. (I have brought a new one in Byron Bay now, its mint :)

Once back on mainland, we went back to Peter Holiday house with all the gear, and we all chiiped in and did the washing and cleanin of the tents and repacking them....not sure if it was part of the deal, but no-one minded.

That was abit it for the Canoeing adventure, heading off to Byron Bay next!!

Chat to you from there everyone :)

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>original post<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>upper noosa river, saw the everglades (or the river of mirrors) sooooo amazing, views, really wonderful although my body is absolutley trollied...from beers and paddling.

Just found out this place is open till 8 so I will come back and update with some pics and more info on trips..... need food at the min.

I'll be back :)

Speak soon!

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