1995/11 Australia trip - Noosa Head |
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Thursday was to be a driving day, which was just as well as Sandie’s legs were sore, partly because of the leech bites, but mainly as a result of 10 miles of up and down hiking. We had rain all day so it was a good time to travel. The camper barely started, as it seems to have a really weak battery, and it objected to being left for a whole day without being used, so we may yet have trouble with it. We were headed north, of course, with Brisbane the main obstacle. Luckily, we found a bypass around to the east of the city, but still got stuck for half an hour behind a bad accident. We also saw our first road sign for Cairns, 1717 Km, just over a 1000 miles to go on this leg.
We spent a few hours at the Big Pineapple at Nambour, a plantation turned into a theme park. They run little rides around the plantation showing you the fields of pineapple, sugar, bananas, macadamia nuts, etc. Interesting stuff, lots of weird plants and beautiful flowers, and easy on the legs and mostly under cover. It was still raining.
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Big Pineapple (11.51) |  |
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Then, we moved on to Noosa Head to find a campsite. The one we are in is advertised as a wilderness camp. I think that’s stretching it a bit, but it’s certainly hard to find. You take a ferry from civilization across the Noosa River and then drive to the end of a sand road. They use a road roller to keep the sand compacted and drivable. The campground sprawls over an area of bush, and all they’ve done is make trails through it to the sites, which are all surrounded by head-high undergrowth. This is all along the ocean front, so the main noise is of breakers crashing just beyond the dunes.
We went for a walk along the sands, just miles and miles of it with the occasional fisherman and walker. It was blowing and raining, but warm, so it was nice to let the sea wash our leech wounds clean. We also tried eating some of our tropical fruit. I haven’t yet worked out how to eat a mango without getting juice up to the armpits. You probably need to take it into the bath with you.
I went running on Friday morning, but it was really too hot, even at 5.30. So I just did a few slow miles along the sand, in the tidal zone, punctuated by dips into the sea. No other runners but a few jeeps driving up to Cooloola national park. You can drive on the sand as long as you stay in that zone. Further up the beach it’s soft and dry and you sink. There was one old beater that had tried to make it from the end of the road to the tidal zone, but sunk in up to the doors. At the furthest point of my run, I climbed one of the dunes to look at the view: nothing but bush and scrubby trees for tens of miles. So, as there was no road to the north, we had to go back across the river on the ferry. (This is not like those you use to get to Calais: just a flat boat that’ll take about four cars at a time.).