Noosa & Rainbow Beach. Easter's revenge.

We had to catch the 7:45am bus to Australia Zoo so we were up and out of our hostel nice and early which we were thrilled about. But it did mean we had a full day at the zoo since we got there by about 9:30. We had an awesome time at the zoo - Jen fed an elephant, we watched a show in the “Crocoseum” which had birds and crocodiles and snakes and stuff, we watched some tigers being fed and saw loads of other wicked animals. And it was lovely and sunny all day which made a nice change from grey Brisbane.

Whilst we were waiting for our coach at the end of the day an old Australian man decided to befriend us and told us a number of stories which ranged from how he had once been a close personal friend of Steve Irwin to how him and his English wife had met. They were “internet lovers” he said. Yuk.

Also whilst we were waiting for the bus, we decided to ring our accommodation in Noosa (which is where we were headed) to confirm and check if someone would come to fetch us from the bus station. After a long conversation where the woman sounded very nervous and kept putting Jen on hold it was revealed to us that we did not have a booking with them and apparently they had emailed us to tell us so. This is lies. We don’t like Noosa YHA.

Now ordinarily this would not have been a problem, apart from the fact that it was the day before Good Friday. It seems that Australians take Easter very seriously (despite us hearing on the news that they are one of the least religious countries in the world) and this would prove to be a problem for us. We rang round some other hostels in Noosa, only to be laughed at as they were all full, before someone recommended calling the town information centre as they would have details of all rooms that were still available. The woman there told Jen in a very serious voice that there was one place left in town that had rooms available and that we should call them QUICKLY. It was a motel and their rooms were $90 a night which was a bit more than we were used to paying, but we didn’t really have any other options so we booked a room and got on the coach. Which was packed. It seems Noosa is a popular Easter destination.

The woman at the motel told us they would be completely closed for Good Friday, even the reception desk, so we decided we would stay for two nights just in case. The motel was by no means deluxe, the telly was broken but we found another one in the wardrobe (??) and there was a very slight smell of wee, but we were tired so we didn’t care. Also there was a MacDonald’s nearby so we went and had some inexpensive dinner to compensate for spending more money on the motel…! Also they had free wireless internet - which we couldn’t quite believe - so we stayed in there a good few hours pretending to drink drinks out of cups that were empty.

The following day it was Good Friday. And everything around us was closed. Everything. It was very bizarre. We rang around a few more hostels to see if anyone had any space for the following night but they were all completely full. We considered leaving Noosa and heading to Rainbow Beach a day early but everywhere there was full too. We resigned ourselves to the fact that we would have to stay in the motel for 3 nights - but we agreed that it wasn’t too much more expensive than spending $30 each on dorm beds so we felt ok about it. We had a walk into the centre of the town where we actually saw people, and shops that were open! So we booked a table at a restaurant for dinner - I think we had just resigned ourselves to the fact that Noosa would be expensive. We also went to the information centre and booked a kayaking trip for the next day on the Noosa River. Dinner that night was really nice, even though Chris found a tiny piece of tin foil in his chocolate cake.

The next morning we were supposed to be checking out of the motel at 10am but as we had decided to stay another night Chris got up at 8am to go to reception to tell them we wanted to stay. It was still closed. Some helpful cleaning ladies told us that it would not open until 10am. They also told us that our room had now been booked but that there was one other room available that we would be able to move to. Chris went back round to reception at 9:50 and even though the woman was there opening up she shouted to him through the window that they were not open. Chris had to stand there and watch as the woman answered the phone and said to the person on the other end “oh yes, we’ve got one room available. Yes you can have it.” She then opened the doors to Chris and told him we would have to leave. Bastards. Chris told her that we wanted money off the room as the telly was broken and we had seen 2 cockroaches. Her response was essentially “cockroaches? No. Bye.” Chris came back to the room rather cross and shouted some swear words before we packed up and left. We went back to the MacDonald’s to use their free internet  to try and find somewhere else to stay, and to have some breakfast. Jen had a hot cross bun and a latte. Chris had a Quarter Pounder with chips. Traditional Easter fare.

First we tried lastminute.com - but all the rooms on there were around $350. We’d walked past quite a few hotels the day before that said they had vacancies so we rang them. The cheapest one we found was $210 a night. But by the time we had rang somewhere else and rung them back, the room was gone. We ended up booking a room for $220 for one night - despite knowing full well that this would normally get us about 4 nights in a hostel. We then walked for a couple of kilometres with all of our stuff and by the time we arrived at the hotel we were very sweaty and a bit sad. The woman there was really nice though and showed us to our room - which turned out to be a small house with 2 bedrooms and a patio. Whilst we had been ringing round hotels to try and find a room Chris had concocted a pretty good sob story, which was that we had booked 3 nights in the motel but that they had double-booked and then kicked us out. When we told her this terrible tale (of lies) she felt very sad for us and helped us carry our bags to the room/house. I think the true meaning of Easter may have been lost on us this year.

That afternoon a man from the kayaking company came to pick us up in a minibus. We had gotten so used to telling our sob story that we had almost begun to believe it was true so we told it to him too. The kayaking trip was very pretty but they were two-man kayaks and we discovered that we don’t work very well together as a kayaking team. Chris likes to do fast paddalling and splashing, whereas Jen likes to do shouting and is a bit puny. But we had fun and it was nice to actually do something in Noosa which didn’t involve looking for somewhere to stay.

That night we had fish and chips and watched a film, all in our super-deluxe new house. The following day we didn’t really want to leave the house but we were ready to say goodbye to Noosa and all of it’s Easter-y betrayal. On the coach to Rainbow Beach the coach driver played the movie “Angus, Thongs & Perfect Snogging” and Chris wanted to pluck out his own eyeballs.

That afternoon we arrived in Rainbow Beach, which is essentially a row of shops and a beach. We had booked two nights in a private room and one night in a dorm so it wasn’t too much of a crash back down to earth after our awesome Noosa house. Also, nobody really gave a shit about the fact that it was Easter Sunday which made us pleased. We spent the afternoon doing laundry and other jobs and then cooked Bolognese and watched some telly. Chris felt a bit poorly and went to bed around 8:30.

The next day we went down to the beach and lay around for a few hours which was really nice. One of the reasons we originally decided to go to Rainbow Beach was because we had heard that the scuba diving there was really good but since we had spent a small fortune in Noosa, doing very little, we decided to continue doing very little but try to do it cheaply.

That night we went to a free “party” at the local pub which was organised by our hostel. They advertised free food so we were quite excited but when we got there it was all a little bit uncomfortable. The pub was quite posh and everyone was stood around not really talking to one another. Then this quite old, rough-looking woman, who worked at our hostel did a quiz which was rubbish and essentially a chance for her to be all “woah kids, look how kerrrazy I am!”. But the drinks were cheap and the free food turned out to be little meat pies and sausage rolls. So we were very pleased. Especially Jen. She loves a pie.

After a limbo competition and an awkward game of “suck and blow” (yuk) they ran a talent competition to win a trip to Fraser Island. We had already booked our Fraser Island trip, as had most people, so there wasn’t a great deal of contestants. A group of boys made a human pyramid and then a guy sung “Everything I Do, I Do It For You” in a really serious growly voice with his eyes closed and his face scrunched up. He was feeling it. Hard. It was all a bit painful to watch. But as they were the only contestants, and they obviously didn’t want to fork out for Fraser Island trips for 6 boys - growly voice won it. Bless him. Then we decided it was time for bed.

Yesterday we decided we would do the walk up to Carlo sandblow. Not really knowing what a sandblow was, but having read it was very pretty, we went to the information centre to find out the route. We also asked if we would need to wear proper shoes but the woman said we would be fine in flip-flops. This was lies and we later both got splinters in our toes. But Carlo sandblow turned out to be beautiful and very peaceful. It’s high up on top of some cliffs where sand has been blown up there by the winds from the sea so it’s kind of like a small desert in the middle of the bush. It was bizarre but brilliant and we sat up there and ate our lunch and watched the birds.

That night we continued our quest to spend less cash and had noodles for dinner and went to bed early. This morning we got up early as our hostel was offering free breakfast, although it turned out to just be toast. But it was free. We had to check out of our room by 10 and our bus wasn’t till 3:30 but they let us keep our bags in the shed while we went and lay on the beach for a few hours. The coach to Hervey Bay was only a few hours long and the coach driver played the movie “Australia” which we quite liked.

Tomorrow we have to get up dead early to get on the 6:30am minibus to go for our Fraser Island briefing. We will then leave our big bags in storage and take smaller packs with us for a 3-day 2-night 4-wheel-drive safari on Fraser Island - which is a great big sand island where you do camping trips and generally fart-arse around for a few days. At least that’s what we think.