Loyal readers, it is time again for another installment with Lucy *crowd goes wild* so if you’re sitting comfortably then I shall begin…

Tuesday:

We pick up the story as Alex and I embark on an adventure to Noosa North Shore, a short journey from Sunrise Beach and ultimately reached via a little car ferry. And what, I hear you cry, was the purpose of this trip? … For me to go horseriding on the beach! Yeah! It’s an activity I’ve always wanted to do and considering how beautiful the rest of Noosa is, I figured it was a good place to give it a go. Alex wasn’t going to join me on this trip but he chauffeured me there nonetheless. The ride consisted of 6 people including the guide, my horse on this occasion was an Australian Stock horse called “Briggalo” or “Brigsy” for short. The best bit of the ride by far was cantering along the beach through the sparkling water, Brigsy had needed a little encouragement to get his feet wet but once he was in we were away! The ride lasted an hour and a half and once we were back at the stables I was looking forward to a cooling refreshment… enter Maxibon! Mmm… ice-cream sandwiches ftw. So after Alex and I nommed are way through an ice-cream each we were ready to head back to Sunrise Beach and proceed with the important business of chilling out for the remainder of the day.

Wednesday:
It was time to try our hand at surfing. Both Alex and I were surf newbies so the gentle surf at Noosa main beach seemed perfect, particularly when coupled with a surf school that boasted an ability to get people to stand up in the first lesson. We arrived at the beach in the early afternoon and were introduced to Stephano, our french instructor – his accent still strong despite living in Australia for 19 years. So we donned rashguards, stored our valuables, grabbed a board and headed to the beach. Our lesson started with “Surf Safety”, the do’s and don’ts of being in the water; the main lesson being how to deal with rip tides. So with the safety talk over we started to learn where to position ourselves on the board, what the parts of the board were called and how to push off of the board (the first part of standing up). With the “chicken wings” pose mastered on the beach, we moved to the water. Here we repeated the process and after proving successful at remaining on the board, we moved back to the beach to learn the “1-2-3” technique the school used. Now it’s silly as we did the surfing 8 days ago and although Alex and I both vivdly remember Stephano shouting out steps 1 and 2, neither of us remember the exact words for step 3 but it was something like this: Push up, back foot, spin round (said with french accent of course). Now the last step may sound like a crazy instruction but what you were actually doing at this point was bringing your left leg round and placing it on the board, a semi-circle kind of movement (not that that description probably makes things any clearer). Anyway after practicing this on the beach a bit it was again time to put it into practice in the water – not so easy. However I must admit that it also wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be, I mean don’t take that comment the wrong way, I am not a natural by stretch of the imagination but I did manage to stand up! As did Alex, and although neither of us were particularly graceful about it, we still did it!

Stephano and the team were great at encouraging everyone and certainly added to the experience. One of the lines he drilled into us was that an important part of staying balanced on the board is to look ahead to where you want to go – the beach. Now after saying this numerous times Stephano was helping a guy out and just before letting go of his board reminded him to “look at the beach, imagine a beautiful french lady there”. A few seconds later the guy stacked into the water so Stephano cried out after him, “why were you not looking at the beautiful lady?” To which the guy replied, “she was swimming!”.

After about 2 hours of Surfing we headed back home to Sunrise Beach, rather on the tired side.

Thursday:
We had planned on kayaking this day. However, after doing what essentially involved doing push-ups for the best part of 2 hours the day before, we postponed the kayaking (new date to be confirmed). Instead we took the day at a leisurely pace (I know, unusual for us, right?) and I went out for the morning with Carolyn on the hunt for a dress to wear to Dave and Rose’s wedding. We went to pretty much all the dress shops Noosa has to offer, I’d imagine. We found a cute red dress, which, with a bit of accessorising and thanks to Carolyns help, should suit the day well.

Friday:
Today we were back on the water. No, not surfing, nor kayaking. We went out with Carolyn and Graham to have a go in their rowing boat, now you’ll have to forgive me as I don’t know the proper name for the boat but it was the kind of rowing boat that has sliding seats, and it was currently set for 2 rowers. Carolyn and Graham went out first, followed by Alex and Graham, then myself and Graham. Alex has a natural knack it would appear and was sooning gliding through the water with Graham and getting quite a pace on at times! Although I should be suited to rowing, so I am told, due to my physique I did not have the knack so much. I got there but took some concentration! All good fun though 🙂 The wind was pretty strong the whole time we were out there too which made things a bit more interesting, at one point Carolyn and Graham seemingly vanished as they got caught against the tide and the wind behind a boat that obscured them from our view. Although realistically it was probably only half a minute, it seemed like we were darting our eyes back and forth across the river for ages trying to see where they had gone!

Once everyone was satisfied with the amount of rowing they got in, it was time for lunch: fish and chips down at the Marina. Now seeing as I don’t eat much fish, in the UK fish and chips actually translates most frequently to sausage and chips. However whether its an Australian thing, or just this chippy, I don’t know but there was no sausages on the menu. Lots of fish, burgers, spring rolls and other bits and pieces but no sausages. I settled for a chicken burger in the end and although it was tasty, it just didn’t feel quite right in the traditional sense of what fish and chips is (even though I have sausages).

Saturday:
Eumundi market. A very well known market held every Saturday in… you’ve guessed it… Eumundi. People travel from all over the place to come to the market which is spread over quite a large area and contains a wide variety of shops and stalls. I reckon there was at least one stall to interest everyone: bird whistles, books, japanese garden pieces, and giant wooden dinosaurs to name but a few! Sadly a combination of trying to save money and space-limitations meant that we did not purchase anything from this famous local market.

Sunday:
Peregian market. A much smaller market than Eumundi and only on once a month (or maybe twice a month but the music is only on monthly). For such a small market there was also a good balance of stalls and on certain days (such as this) it also boasts the addition of live music for the afternoon from 1-5pm, entitled “Noosa Originals”. We weren’t the most organised when we left for the market (lost track of time chatting to some of you guys back home!), so we hadn’t taken lunch (we hadn’t even eaten breakfast for that matter) and we didn’t take a blanket or even towels to sit on and chill for the afternoon. The result was after we had said our goodbyes to Len and Elaine (Carolyn and Grahams friends) and Carolyn and Graham at the end of the market section of the day, we walked around Peregian square, ate some tasty ice-cream and chilled out while the bands set up. We listened to the first couple of acts that played but the need for proper lunch was becoming apparent, and not wanting to spend money when there was food in the fridge back home, we headed off. This time however we were not empty-handed, we had purchased a couple of CDs from a guy who plays the “hang” and also a flute, based on one that Native Americans had used. He had been playing the aforementioned whilst we strolled around the market and after commenting each time we had passed how lovely it was, we decided to actually buy a couple of CDs.

Monday:
We would be leaving Noosa on Wednesday morning, and as Carolyn worked on a Tuesday we decided to go out for the day. So off we went to the Ginger Factory and we had a really good day. There are a few little shops, a nice cafe, an unexpected chocolate factory (though less factory and more single room where chocolates are made) with free chocolate and beautiful chocolate creations on display and of course the ginger factory itself! Alex and I went on the tour of the factory where they explained how ginger is harvested, what they look for in good ginger and how it is then prepared for its use based on what kind of ginger it is. The tour ended with a tasting session which can be summarised as YUM. We tried ginger refresher (a kind of cordial version of ginger beer), pineapple chunks marinated in ginger sauce, ginger and chili cream with rice crackers, meatball in a ginger based BBQ sauce and finally a ginger and lime cheesecake. We both thought that everything on the plate was so super tasty that we actually purchased a kit containing all the gingery products needed to make the above creations (recipes included). Additionally we couldn’t leave a ginger factory without trying their gingerbread men – nom nom nom. We left the ginger factory with happy tums and nipped over the road to the macadaemia factory for a quick look. It is basically a shop and cafe so we had a quick browse, tasted a few macadaemias with various coatings – such as wasabi, honey sesame and vanilla butter – and then headed back to base.

Tuesday:
Our last day in Noosa. It was with a sad feeling that we woke up on Tuesday as it was our last proper day in Noosa before heading on further up the coast. Don’t get me wrong, we were looking forward to moving onto the next destination and to actually be travelling again but we had been in Noosa for a month. It was a lovely place and it was lovely to meet Carolyn and Graham (and Piper), and spend time getting to know them. Unfortunately we had no fantastical plan for the last day, we just needed to pack and had a couple of things to get from the junction. The last week had just flown by.

Saying that though, our whole time in Australia is flying by, in just a few more days we will have been here for 3 months and Christmas is fast approaching (16 sleeps to go). It is a bit odd here as the weather is so far from what Christmas is like back home but Santa has given us a couple of presents so we have something to open on Christmas morning and there are decorations appearing here and there. The best of which was a house a couple of roads down from where we’ve been staying in Sunrise Beach. The guy that owns this house does the decorations every year, he really goes to town with them and puts out a comments book and also charity boxes so that if people feel inclined they can leave a donation in return for coming to see the decorations. And when I say he decorates the house every year, he has been doing it every year for a long time; one of the families looking at the decorations the same time as us commented how they have been coming since her eldest (now around 13) was a little boy. The display is brilliant, not only because of the dedication the guy has but because it has such a warm feeling to it – very much in the Christmas spirit!