Blog : noosa

We were all so excited getting on the bus to Noosa, to go visit Jack M and his family, it was going to be another Australian LOCOG marketing team reunion! And nice to see my desk neighbour again :) First though was the lunch stop, which some greyhounds have and others not, its a bit hit and miss. This one though was at a huge Matilda service station which randomly had a giant kangaroo built in the car park which looked quite Wallace and gromit-esque and it made us all jump when suddenly it blinked!! We sat at the plastic tables and got out our cold veggie pizza tupperwares and started munching... The bikini diet and needed detoxing from Fraser were forgotten instantly! There were lot of people on the bus from our tour and you could spot all of them by the pizza boxes in the overhead luggage storage as other people had had the same idea to saved some and they were also guzzling away in the service station! I had a really nice fresh juice as well, banana, blueberry and watermelon or something, which was delish and helped me feel a little less sluggish and full of cheese! Back on the bus and i enjoyed my double seat to myself again... The only one on the whole bus! It is the biggest treat to have a double seat to yourself so that you can spread out and not have to put your bag in the overheads and all the rest of it, no fattys, people with smelly food etc.

When we arrived in Noosa my first impression was that it didnt look anything like Chelsea, in London, which is what lots of people had told us. The high street wed arrived on looked smarter and tidier than the rest of the east coast towns wed been to but still not desperately posh! When Jack picked us up he said that we were in Noosa Junction and actually a little closer to the beach was Hastings street, which he drove us around and then we saw 'real noosa' with all of the gorgeous designer shops and bikini boutiques and lovely looking alfresco restaurants! He took us of a tour of the main noosa centre and the beach and then we headed back to the house his dad was renting for their holiday. It was located in a private estate of very exclusive houses and villas built on man made rivers in Noosa Waters. The house was absolutely gorgeous, with high ceilings, big open patio doors, lots of white everywhere and a whole bedroom just for us!! We all walked in with our jaws on the floor! We met Jacks dad and one of his brothers Jim, who were both delightfully sweet and we were settled almost immediately! The house reminded me of one that id stayed in, in sydney when i did a home stay hockey tour a few years ago, very minimal and breezy! It must be the fancier Australian style!

After we'd all had a cup of tea and a good natter about Jacks travelling and where else wed been in Oz, we all piled into his dads boat and he and his dad took us on a tour of Noosa waters. It was incredible! The houses were all absolutely massive and probably worth a few million each! It very much reminded me of Florida, when we cruised around some of the more residential areas in a speedboat and saw Mr Lacostes house with the crocodile outside. We all agreed that Chelsea would look like that on water! KV and i were snapping away taking pics of all the massive mansions and deciding which ones we liked best and who had the best boat moored outside on their private jetties!

Later Jack made us a really nice dinner of stirfry which went down very well, as wed not seen vegetables for a few days so it was nice to get some of our five a day! And we sat around all chatting, mainly about worky things and drinking lots of lovely red wine - no goon for us the next nights! We had brought the family a bottle of nice red as well as a thank you, which was cracked open and demolished pretty quickly! And we did have a little giggle at poor KVs expense... After dinner wed had sll moved to sit outside in the warm evening breeze, on the patios overlooking the water, which was very nice, but we were on an assortment of chairs and kate had just lent on the arm of hers and a big crack later, she had snapped the plastic arm rest clean in two! And bless her, she went really red and was apologising left right and centre but it was an old chair and could have happened to anyone but al and i got the giggles because she was so embarrassed and it was one of those could have been awkward moments! Jacks dad was fine about it though, telling her not to worry and in the end swapped chairs with her so that she wouldn't feel bad! The next morning when we were eating our way through a huge breakfast spread, we noticed the Sellotape repair job on the arm, which set us off again laughing! As we were all piling out of the house and into the speedboat to head to the beach Kate managed to drop a tampon in the middle of the living room that none of us had noticed... Jacks dad had though and he made a little polite cough and pointed down to it rolling around the floor and she went a bright red colour for the second time!! It was funny!

Jacks dad dropped us off in the speedboat at the main beach (you know, as you do) and we went for a swim in the really choppy sea as we were quite hot and sweaty in the humid weather. There were quite bad bush fires around and the smoke was hanging over the town and keeping all of the moisture in the air apparently, making it even more humid and sweaty than usual! The sea temperature was nice though, refreshingly cold, but warm at the same time! There were big waves and i kept getting smacked in the face with them, that jack found amusing! I also had my bikini round my neck and ankles almost instantly! I had accidentally put on the old saggy purple one that needs throwing out but ive been too attached to it - that was the last straw though! We did some body boarding- great fun in the saggy bikini, naaat! And boogie boarding which i loved and made me think of when we used to do it every year in Cornwall! No wetsuits or goosebumps here though! And no one was in stinger suits either as apparently noosa doesn't get hit by jellyfish at all, Al proved this theory wrong though when she took her red leg to the lifeguard tent and she was tokd shed been stung by a bluebottle! Not deadly, but painful for her :(

We had a little walk through town, up and down Hastings street, window shopping and wishing that for a couple of hours we weren't backpackers and could afford to eat at the swanky sidewalk cafes and restaurants! We bumped into some of the peeps from our Fraser island trip again so had a little wander with them too which was nice and we even saw two more people from LOCOG that we recognised!! Noosa wasn't quite the right budget shops for us to look for our NYE dresses though!

Back at Noosa Water villa, Jack put on a big spread for lunch and we all tried the infamous Vegemite, which wasn't too bad!! Since arriving in Noosa I've been trying to avoid bread, to get rid of my traveller belly and so at lunch i had loads of salad and rice cakes instead! I probably ate more than i would have done with bread but at least i didn't get the post lunch food coma!

In the afternoon we drove over to Sunshine beach and went on a really nice walk up the beach, which is dog friendly so it was lovely to see everyone playing in the water with their pups-it reminded me of Huntingdon beach in LA, when i travelled there with the boy :) We climbed up the big cliff at one end of the beach and got the most amazi g views of the sea and all if the houses nestled into the hill side - they must have all been at least £1+ million! We walked around the edge if the cliff a little way and we came to be overlooking a really secluded cute little bay which looked so romantic as the sun was going down and the sky pink! Appatently a couple had also thought the same thing and thanks to KVs camera's 20x optical zoom we could see them getting down and jiggy in plain view, it was hilarious!

On the way home from the beach walk we stopped off at the supermarket to pick up some bits for dinner - we had offered to make pudding and i thought making individual summer puddings would be easy and a nice recipe for the girls to learn! At jacks we stewed the fruit and using tea cups cut out one circle from each slice of bread... We used a whole loaf just making enough pudding for six people! The girls buttered the wasted edges though and had them as a snack! I also helped jack to make mince and zucchini burgers, which when cooked tasted absolutely amazeballs! (Just mince, grated onion and courgette, garlic, ginger, a bit of sit sauce and egg yolk!) Dinner was a proper Australian style barbie, with burgers and sausages and salad and halluomi cheese (Jack spoilt us farrr to much!!) It was delish and our pudding went down a treat too, it had even set and the little stewed fruit towers had stayed upright and the serving plates clean!!

On our last morning we got up early and packed our backpacks up before going out in Jacks dads boat to learn how to Wakeboard! One of Jacks brothers is an instructor and he was excellent, showing us the correct positions to stand in and the techniques and he was very patient with us three girls!! Jack went first, he said hed show us "how not to do it" but he stood straight up and was brilliant at it and looked the part in his rash vest and windswept hair! We all had a go, kate managed to stand up a couple of times and actually board a bit, Al and i weren't so good though! I found that my fingertips kept getting trapped and punched between the rope handle and the front of the wake board and bliney i didnt realise how strong the pull of the boat was...it took me for suprise the first couple of times, nearly wrenching my arms out of their sockets! I sort of got the hang if it and managed to standup once but promptly face planted straight afterwards because id forgotten what to do next!! I couldn't manage to even get close to standing up after the first time do decided to call it quits before anyone realised it was probably a fluke!!

On the boat they also had a giant rubber ring which they said was hilarious to get towed around in behind the boat, a bit like banana boating! So we all had a go doing that as well and there were very many hilarious photos taken of my screwed up face, looking terrified and holding on for dear life!!

Before we said our final goodbyes to Jack we took him for a quick thank you lunch in one of the nice looking side walk cafes wed seen the day before! I had delish fish and chips and they had Paninnis and burgers galore... Just what we needed to fill up on before the afternoon bus ride to Brisbane! It was very sad saying goodbye to Jacks dad and brother and even harder to express our love to Jack for letting us cone and stay and treating us like absolute princesses :) we had such a lovely time and just didn't want to leave!!