Rainbow beach

We arrived at Rainbow Beach which is a tiny seaside town with not much happening unless you want to chill on a beach, surf - although we didn't see anyone doing this - or need a gateway to Fraser Island. We had just got back from Fraser and can't surf so our options here were limited.

Our hostel for the first night was Pippies which was friendly and clean enough but was sadly lacking on the bathroom front, as we found out when getting ready to go out. We had to wait an hour for the bathroom as a couple next door to us hogged it. We swear they washed off a few layers of skin as the shower was on the whole time. We wouldn't have been surprised to have gone to the beach the next day to find the ocean had gone with their excessive water usage.

When we finally got showered and arrived into town it was 8:30pm. Not particularly late but in true Australian stylie all the eateries were shut. All 3 restaurants had already closed their kitchens for the night. Before you ask, there was not a typo in the text above; it was only 8:30pm!!!!! This was becoming a common, and dare we say, annoying theme. What made things more irritating was the fact that the couple that had cost us vital time with their marathon bathroom session didn't even go out!!!!

Just when we had given up all hope, Mark spotted a sign saying there was a Chinese takeaway a few hundred metres away that closed at 9pm; by now it was just after 8:50pm. Within seconds Mark was running into the distance. He returned successful. Ordered placed. We ended up sitting outside the takeaway by the car park with our dinner. As per usual, Mark had, surprise, surprise, over ordered so we had the second half of the takeaway the following day.

After our dinner, we got back to the hostel and started chatting to a couple of lads from the Netherlands and a girl from Germany. Lisa went to bed at 11pm with Mark saying he would follow, in his words, in "about 10 minutes". He slopped in at 12:45am having shared a beer or two with our new friends.

The next morning, we moved to a guest house called Debbie's Place. Before doing so we had a dolphin feeding excursion booked. We jumped on the minivan at 7am and were on the boat a few minutes later. A 15 minute journey brought us to the harbour side at Tin Can Bay where a couple of dolphins were being patted and fed by some tourists. We bought two Aud$5 buckets of fish which each had just one fish in.......hardly worth bothering with the bucket!!!! We doubt whether Captain Birds Eye would have got more than a couple of fish fingers from the two fish. Anyway, Lisa fed a fish to each of the dolphins while Mark was papping away with the cameras. We then grabbed a quick brekkie and were soon on the boat and back at Pippies ready for our checkout and move to Debbie's.

We picked up our stuff and began to walk......all of about ten yards until we came across an abandoned shopping trolley. We stopped, looked at each other, looked at the trolley and then both smiled. Next minute it was loaded up with our luggage. We arrived at the guest house with a slightly bemused Debbie wondering what she had let herself in for as we looked like a couple of rough sleepers.

Debbie's Place turned out to be a real gem. A boutique guest house at a budget price. It was lovely. We had originally wanted to stay 2 nights here instead of Pippies but due to a wedding party they only had the one night available hence the first night at the other accommodation. Nevertheless, we tagged another night on to our stay anyway.

Once we had dropped the bags at our new home we hit the beach. The next day, which happened to be Mark's birthday, turned out to be overcast so we spent almost the whole day messing around with photos we had taken and writing and uploading blogs.

We were leaving the next morning on the Greyhound bus but not before Debbie dropped us off at the top of town at the Carlo sandblow. This sand-drift was pretty impressive so out came the cameras again.

We then rushed back, grabbed our luggage and trudged across to the bus stop. We needn't have rushed as the Greyhound bus arrived almost an hour late. No apology from the driver who could well have been late due to a personality bypass operation.

We got on the bus and were soon heading to Noosa Heads; an upmarket holiday destination further down the Sunshine Coast. More to come on this place in our next blog.