"The Sunshine Coast"

Friday 22nd October - Tuesday 2nd November 2010

Hi guys!

We have eventually reached the Sunshine coast! We got the Greyhound from Hervey Bay on Friday. The weather has been amazing and it hasn't worsened yet! We saw wild horses when we were on the Greyhound. A mare and a foal ran in front of the bus! Luckily the driver braked in time but it was lush to see wild horses! We arrived in Noosa in the afternoon and put our big bags in lockers as Sam and Hayley weren't picking us up for a few hours. We explored Noosa. It is a really pretty town with lots of young girls spending Daddy's money! (all the boys were sporting good quiffs and short shorts! all the girls were realy bad looking. J) Quite affluent with nice shops and posh houses but also a great beach for surfing. This is the first 'surfy' place we have seen, the coast north of here is flat and all of the excusions advertised are for diving and sailing. Eventually we have arrived at a place where the waves are big enough to body board and surf! (or at least attempt to!). We had a beer at the surf club and S&H picked us up in their new car! We were very impressed by their puchase of a 1994 Toyota Camry and we were all very excited to see each other! We drove along the beautiful Sunshine Coast to Mooloolaba via Mount Coolam, Maroochydore, Cotton Tree and an amazing sunset. We arrive at the 1.2 mllion dollar house on Kawana beach that S&H are house sitting and have a well deserved bbq! As we aren't paying for acomodation we feel it necessary to eat well! So we went to the liquor store (bought a crate of Tooheys dry and a crate of Bow, I didnt think they would have full crates chilled UNTIL I FOUND THE COLD ROOM which was a massive walk in fridge with a ridic amount of beer. my favourite part of Australia yet. J) (you can't buy alcohol in supermarkets!) and visited the ice machine (you pay $3 and it gives you 8kg of ice cubes!) and had ourselves a lovely little bbq!We woke up early (as usual) with a hangover (as usual) and Sam and Joe went for an early morning swim in the sea! We had a bbq breakfast then went to the market in Eumundi. The marked was huge! I could have spent a fortune! But all I bought were some hippy pants and a tub of Queensland Yogurt, it's beautiful! If you ever come to Oz you have to try yogurt by the Queensland yogurt company! Joe wanted to buy an 8ft Indianna Jones whip but I managed to explain to him that we didn't really need one! We then went for a drink in "Joe's Waterhole". A very backward pub with very old men but also very friendly and interested in our story! On our way back we decided to name the car 'Conan' (after the barbarian), god knows why but we found ourselves very funny! In the afernoon, me and H sunbathed on Kawana beach and S&J went to 'A MART' to buy a 'Steeden' rugby ball. We were chilling out, reading on the beach when S&J turned up wearing tiny rugby shorts, Queensland "Sate of Origin" bucket hats, holding a 'Steeden' each! What a bloody sight! They then continued to run around the beach at full speed shouting "Rugby" as loud as they could and faking runs and moves, passing the balll to each other. It was very funny! They then decided to take on the ocean and played Butcher and Wellar Vs the Coral Sea pretending that the waves were huge Tongan defenders. (We absoloutly burnt it up. J) Joe has been so sensible up until now and he's been with Wellar 5mins and already it's gone horribly wrong! That evening we got drunk at the Kawana hotel. It had live music on after the rugby and as soon as the singer broke into the Oasis classic "Maybe" Joe got exctied again. He ran over to a group of lads (complete randoms) and joined in their drunked huddle of bear hugs and loud singing/shouting. We then went to Red Rooster for a take away roast - strange but true! The lady who served us had to leave the counter cos she was laughing so much at Joe screaming "Maybe" then harmonising himself with "I said maybe..." whilst mimicing a microphone action and wierd stoopy dance. (It was beautiful) A very funny night.We woke up the next day early and hungover (as usual) and went to Marcoola beach. We sunbathed, read, body boarded and drank a few Strongys and Tooheys! (it's Sunday!) Obviously J&S continued their capaign against the ocean but it didn't go so well fo Joe who took a nasty pass in the balls! Ouch! What did you do last Sunday afternoon?! He hee. It's amazing to see the way of life over here. On a Sunday afternoon in October, families are at the beach with deck chairs, cool boxes and bbqs. Adults are drinking and chilling out while kids play in the sea and utilisng the mini basketball courts and play equipment for what it is meant for. We have just realsied that there are no chavs here! Or at least we haven't seen any yet! There is also exercise equipment everywhere (morso than in Townsville), they have entire sets of gym machines i.e. lat pull down, chest press, low row, bikes etc. along the beach front, right next to the communal bbqs! It's so easy to stay fit here, not to mention, free! (however we are yet to utilise any of these things! J)Sunday night we had another bbq but S&J's slabs of steak were so big they had to eat them off serving plates! It's so nice eating well!Conan took us to The Sunshine Coast Hinterlands on Monday. It's beautiful when you can see rainforest and obscure shaped mountains on one side and the ocean on the other. The Glass Mountains were really pretty, the scenery was like 'the shire' in lord of the rings! You could see the ocean even though we were miles away, the bulding of the coastline cities looked like tiny pieces of bright white lego! We went onto a really hippy town called 'Malany' which was up 'Bald k*** Road', Ha! It reminds me of the deep south of America, as do many of the towns you pass through in Queensland. They all seem a little backward, desolate, rural and behind the times until you get to the towns and cities on the coast. Anything that isn't on the coast appears to be farmland. We found a lake. We went exploring in Conan and stumbled upon a lake caled 'Lake Baroon'. It was very pretty, a huge lake as still as a millpond with all the amenities for people to spen time there like, toilets, bbqs, seating areas etc but noone was there so it was very eerie! We ate our packed lunch (avoiding the spiders under the benches!) and were just about to leave whena wild kookaburra landed near us. I tried to get as close as I could to it without scaring it and it let me stroke it! Wierd cos birds never do that! Sam told me afterwards that it is a bird of prey and is a carnivore (not a normal veggie bird!). We also visited the 'Ettamogah' pub and place which sold Uggs but looked more like a abitoire!The rest of the week was pretty chilled out. I read my book on the beach, Joe attempted surfing. I ready my book on the back decking in the sun and on the front decking in the shade and sea breeze. It's so nice being able to get up and go for a walk on a really beautiful beach and read your book on a balcony where you can still hear the waves. We had dinner with Sam's family on Wednesday night. Phil (Sam's uncle) has really looked after us. He has got us tickets to Australia Zoo and sorted S&J out with a round of golf on Sunday at 'Twin Waters' golf club. It's $140 per round but Phil has got them a 4 ball for free! He even managed to get Joe some lefty clubs and his size golf shoes to borrow! We went to the zoo on Thursday and it was class! I fed an elephant, we saw all the anmlas and Steve Irwin memorabelia. Joe got quite excited by the big tortoises and did his best impression of one eating grass. The best thing was the python, it must have been the thickess of my head and about 10m long!H watches Ali McBeal every morning and Joe had got into it! He wakes up every morning by saying "I can hear Ali, I'm getting up!". I went to view a potential rental with H on Friday. It was like being in 'The Hills' the views of Caloundra and the sea from the steep hillside were amazing. Then we went to the'Sunsine Plaza' for a coffee. It's like the metro centre but with canals of water running through it and intermittent parts of it were in the outdoors! On Saturday we went down to the beach again. The surf was huge and the rip was so strong! Very exciting to watch but a little scary when it rips you off your feet and tumbles you around! So we played rugby instead! I was number 9, Joe 10, Sam 12 and H 13. We ran some plays! Joe fumbled a couple of catches so I swept up and passed a perfect pass to Hayley and she finished it off very well!(this is a complete lie, Elle was dire, and proved you dont have to be good at sport to be a P.E. Teacher!!) I tried number 10 but aparently I wasn't very good! It was fun but people were looking at us very strangely. I think they thought we were serious! We had aother bbq on Saturday night and Skyped Mam and Alex! It was fun! Joe had already put away best part of a box of red goon so he got more and more drunk as the conversation went on and ended up shouting into the camera everytime he spoke! Hilarious! Him and Alex also had a dance off so at one point Alex was grinding into the camera and Joe was doing a gun show (thank god Sam was in bed!) Add us as a contact - joe.butcher2. On Sunday S&J had to get up at 5am as they were Teeing off at quarter to 7! They were both fresh as daisies though as they were so excited! They had even bought team polo shirts in purple for the Aussies Vs Poms match! We met them at the club for a drink then had lunch at Twin Waters Novotel. Unfortunately it was bad news for the Poms (Joe even did 2 air shots! Lie's.) (again some more exagerating from Eleanor, it was a close fought battle which unfortunatly lost. Probably because we were unacustomed to the dry greens and the heat! was a great round though, amazing course, and we got it all for free! Me and Sam took golf buggy driving to unheard of speeds.) .We have had a lush time here with the Weller's and their family and will definately come back to this area. We are going to Brisbane on Tuesday on the Greyhound. We have 2 nights booked but might stay longer. We wll let you kow more when we do!Hope everyone is well, don't forget to email us if there is any exciting news or if you just want a catch up!

Lots of Love,

Elle and Joe x x x

p.s. Photos to come!!!...