After such an amazing experience on Fraser Island it was time for our next adventure - the Gagaju Noosa Canoe trip - yippee!! The Gagaju minibus picked us up in Noosa Town Centre to head straight to the supermarket for our next few days food and drinks. We met the rest of the group who we were to spend the next few days with and we were glad that they seemed a real good bunch!! The Gagaju Eco-camp (where the canoe trip ran from) was alot different to what we had expected! A far cry away from the hustle and bustle of Noosa, offering a completely different and unique experience. A series of rustic lodges sat on the banks of Lake Coroibah - utterly basic, situated amongst forestry with our basic comforts a world away!!!

We had a briefing, well - it was a mix between a briefin and a cooking lesson! The guy had his own traveller/student eat cheap type of website that he went on about - but his recipes did sound amazing, and totally different... one was cola chicken - I say no more!! The first night we stayed in the dorm (wooden shack) with 4 others who were to be on our tour the following day. The hut was really cool, and our beds were like hammocks, unbelievably comfy to sleep in!!! We sat in the communal area until late at night getting to know eachother, drinking and listening to lots of chilled out music. The camp almost seemed therapeutic - with hammocks dotted around, extremely quiet, and set in such a beautiful location surrounded by gum trees. The only thing that I can say wrong was the fact that it was BREEDING SEASON for Mosquito's!! And the little b*****s didn't leave you alone. But I suppose it comes with the natural package! Chris had to dance whilst cleaning his teeth- otherwise ten would land on him within seconds (he must have smelt or something, haha!).

The next morning we were up ready for the day trip, waiting for another group to come back so we can use their canoes. Once back we were on our way, and luckily for us the current of the stream was with us.. so we could literally sit back and relax - easy peasy. We were lucky to have got a real good day for it too, which made us appreciate the trip a little more. Whilst floating down the river we all linked boats with our awes, and had a little music playing in one of the guys canoes - a good way to spoil the peace!!haha. After a couple of hours in the canoe's we anchored up and headed in land to one of the many untouched beaches along this coastline. On the way we were greeted by several huge Kangeroo's - they we so tame, and really content just to sit while you got close to them. Chris ended up almost cuddling one, but then it bounced away! Unfortunately the weather started to cloud up abit toward mid day, just in time for us to get to the beach :( Nonetheless it didnt stop us getting in the sea to catch some waves and for a swim. The beach seemed alot like frazer, huge, very quiet (almost deralict) and with a couple of surfers catching the breaks far out to see and it had a strong rip.. which Chris found out - he learnt the hard way! This was our first actual time in the sea in Australia, where we were told it was safe to swm, as it has been stinger season further up the coast. However it still seemed like if something was to happen, nobody would have a clue! and since being in Australia, sharks were also on our mind!! After a swim, (and finding out there were some freaky blue jellyfish!!) we sat on the beach for our picnics while the lads played with Nicks Rugby ball. After an hour or so we headed back to our boats stopping of for a beer and a game of pool at a bar nearby then headed back against the current to the camp. This was alot harder, you actually had to paddle really hard to get anywhere, my arms were killing after about 1o minutes and we had about 2 more hours to go. Thank god that Chris was doing 2 strokes to my every one!! haha!!

We arrived back at the camp sour and in serious need of some dinner. We were sleeping in tents this night so we launched our stuff into the tents, cracked open the beers and again took it easy listening to one of the locals guys music. He had set up a computer here and he would take everyones music of their ipod that did this trip promising he would give some of his to them but never got around to it. He was a complete idiot and he said a few things that Chris had to hold his tongue to! But at least he had a large selection of music for us to listen to. Anyway we played darts, drank and got to know some of the new lot that had come in that afternoon, drank some more and then hit the tent for an early start the next day. The next day we were travelling along the river the other way. We were canoeing to the opening of the river mouth into a huge lake, giving us a much better idea of what the Everglades is like, bush, bush, busH! Before entering the lake we headed down an estuary of the river to the rope swing we had been told about, it sounded awesome so we went to check it out. The water along this estuary was like a dark brown/black due to all the tree dye from the roots so it was really reflective but didn't look to inviting but we were assured it was fine to swim in. After meandering along the river for a while we came across the rope swing tied to the top of a huge tree hanging over the whole river. It was so high! someone had nailed plank into it all the way up the tree to climb and it was up to the individual person how high they wanted to go!! Everyone was a little weiry about it as they weren't sure how deep it was, however we had been told that it was seriously deep but not to jump to the left of the tree as there is a tree under the water there! Chris being Chris decided he would go first, climbed up to the very last branch he could get to and after a slight hesitation jumped from the top, it was like a whale landing in the water!! Everyone paused for him to come up and after a couple of seconds he reappeared, phewww!! After that everyone was straight up there jumping, swinging off the ropes having a great time!! by the time it was my time to jump of i thought it would be easy, so up I went up the planks andby the first branch my knees were shaking - everyone was egging me on telling me to jump but i was hanging onto the tree like a Koala, no joke. My arse was up in the air for all to view but I couldn't move and was just wrapped around the tree hugging it, Chris was in stitches! About three quarters the way up I couldnt get around a big tree branch to get further so I built up the courage and jumped - it was great fun, but the water was discusting and I was a little freaked out by what was in there with me so I did one of those panicky breast stroke swims back to the bank where you stick your neck out the water like a giraffe! Anyway we had our lunch here, the lads carried on playing on the rope swing and then we headed across thee lake to a small beach where our camp site was for the night. Once we had set up camp we took a walk to a reserve to check out the Kangaroo's there. We managed to spot about 3 or 4 and they were alot bigger than others we had seen, they looked alot more serious and hardcore. It was here that we had been told the red Kangaroos were, which are the bigger ones, some apparently reaching up to 6ft but we didn't see any. As it was getting dark we headed back to the local village pub for some well deserved grub and beer. Afterwards we played some drinking games by the tents and then headed down to the lakeside beach to check out the Fossflourescent (not sure if thats how you spell it) which is like organisms in the water that when you move around in it in the dark glow! The more you splash the more you see it which was really cool to see. The lads walked through it on the shoreline causing a glowing trail. By this time it had started to rain quite hard and it was pretty late so we called it a night. We had to be back by 10am the next day and it was a long paddle back so we had to be up by 6.30am which completely sucked haha! When we got back the next day I was ready to curl up and die, I was so exhausted and refused to paddle the last 15 minutes until Chris kicked me into shape!haha! I was just so pleased that the rest of the day was going to be spent on Noosa beach relaxing in the sun with Nick, Erika, Eve and Andy and it would have been rude not to go out for a few drinks and a dirty kebab that night with our new friends!. We eneded up doing exactly the same the next day recovering from achey muscles and limbs, drinking smoothies and attempting to surf! Erika was also travelling down south and as we got on so well with her she hooked up with us to head down to Brisbane our next stop, some city living!