Two Weeks in Bali!!!

Meg in Pool

We flew into Bali from Darwin around nine at night on Saturday (Nov 13th), so we booked a room for the first two nights so we wouldn't have to wander around with our packs. The hotel shuttle picked us up from the airport and took us to Kuta, the main tourist/resort area of Bali. The room they had reserved for us was the most expensive at the resort (they say that's all they have left) which was still only about $26 a night each! This got us a huge air-conditioned room with our own bathroom, sitting area, tv and fridge. The hotel was beautiful, just off the main street and had a courtyard and pool. We settled in quickly then decided to check out the action that we had seen driving in.

Dev on Legian Street

The streets were crazy! The main street (Legian Street) is a narrow, one-way street filled with cars and motorbikes and lined with shops (both souvenir and surf shops) as well as street hawkers selling massages, motorbike rentals and all sorts of crap. We wove our way in and out of traffic until we found a cool open-air bar with a live band. We grabbed a couple of local beers (Bintangs, really good!) and sat down to watch the street action. The beers come in small and large bottles and range from about $1.50 to $2.50, we're in heaven! :) The place is swarming with Aussies on vacation, so we chatted up an Aussie couple next to us, then headed back to the hotel. On the way back, a monsoon type rainfall started and we ducked into a store front to wait out the storm. I had been somewhat mentally prepared for the rats in Asia, but still freaked out a little when waiting on the steps, a small rat ran across my foot

My first of many banana smoothies

The next morning, we woke up in time for the hotel's free breakfast but decided to keep it simple with scrambled eggs and toast. Other options for breakfast included fried noodle and fried rice with eggs of course, seeing as its breakfast! :) We spent the morning exploring the streets by daylight and some of the smaller gangs (alleys). We found Kuta Beach and we walked along the beach (past all the beach vendors and food stalls) all the way to Seminyak, one of the neighbouring villages, a quieter version of Kuta. After exploring, we were pretty hungry, so we tried our first restaurant, one beside our hotel that had been recommended in the book. The food was sooo good and really cheap and the restaurants are really beautiful, in shaded gardens and tiki huts just off the main street. We headed back to the hotel to lounge around the pool then wandered around the smaller streets looking for a cheaper hotel.

We found a great hotel on a nearby smaller street set off in its own compound with a great pool and small cottage rooms. We settled for no air-conditioning and got a room with its own bathroom for $30 a night (which we now know is expensive in Bali terms), we love this place!! After making the reservation, we grabbed beers and waited out the rain at a great hotel bar where we met some more Aussies that were here for a wedding. We tried to find a night market we had heard about but gave up and found a small restaurant for dinner and drinks. I think we'll be drinking a lot of beer on this trip!! The next morning after hanging out by the pool a bit more, we grabbed our packs and headed to the other hotel, it was super hot and as we were crossing the street, I wasn't looking and I stepped on a dead rat!! If this place doesn't cure me of my rat phobia, nothing will!!! Devin had seen the rat, walked around it and chose to watch me step on it instead of alerting me!

Meg in Pool II :)

After checking in, we did some shopping, grabbed lunch and then hit the pool - after being here for two weeks we've found its an outrage to pay more than $3.00 for a meal. It's about 35 degrees here and without air-conditioning, frequent pool dips are a must! Then we decided to try out the Balinese massage!! To make this place even better, spa treatments are crazy cheap! Manicures are about $4 and 1 hour massages about $6! After massages, we headed out for more beers, Pad Thai and teppanyaki. (We found our favourite restaurant and have been there many times since, Gemini Star :)) We went for a midnight dip and booked a day tour to surrounding sites for the next day.

Beach Restaurant - Jimbaran

We hired a driver and a van for $45 for the day to drive us around the Bekit Peninsula (southern Bali). Our first stop was Nusa Dua, an expensive resort destination and home of Club Med, Intercontinental etc. We were kind of surprised because the beach was pretty trashy and just filled with locals selling water sports and crap. We've never seen so much going on on a beach before! Activities offered included snorkeling, para sailing, jet skiing and that flying sting ray thing that is super illegal in Canada. We were only there for an hour so we grabbed beers and watched the action. The next stop was Jimbaran, a really pretty beach filled with colourful fishing boats and tons of touristy seafood restaurants. We got a table at a warung (cheaper cafe) on the beach and got pretty sun burnt. :)

Ulu Watu - Matching Outfits!

We were super hot by this point so we made our way to Padang Padang beach, a small white sand beach surrounded by cliffs where we could take a dip. Finally, our driver took us to Ulu Watu, one of the more famous temples on the island that is located on a huge cliff. We both had to wear sarongs and we unknowingly hired a guide for the walk but the temple was really beautiful. The monkeys there are famous for stealing anything that you have on you, one made at me for my purse but our guide shooed him away with a stick. While we were there we saw a monkey steal a woman's eyeglasses right off her face and one jump onto a woman's stomach to grab her chocolate bar! Evil monkeys!



Dev At Monkey Sanctuary



The next morning our driver picked us up again to take us to Ubud, the second largest tourist destination on the island. We spent the day visiting the monkey temple (more monkeys), swimming in the pool and a little while seeing who could beat the computer solitaire first (Devin - which was the obvious conclusion from the start). We had a great dinner and movie night (we've managed to get movies from other friendly travellers to watch on our computer).



Dev with our Driver at Gutang Batur

The next day, our driver picked us up again (its been great having a personal driver - more fitting to our privileged lifestyles) to take us to Gutang Batur, an active volcano that has amazing views. Along the way he took us to walk along the rice paddies and to the rice terraces (towers of rice paddies) which were crazy nice, then to a beautiful temple in the fields. He also took us to a Bali Kopi (coffee) plantation where we sampled their Bali Kopi, Ginger Coffee (really good), Lemon Tea, Ginger Tea and finally, Luwak Coffee. The latter coffee is made from the coffee beans that the luwak (an animal that looks kind of like a weasel) eats, then poops out. Apparently, a Bali specialty! (The Luwak only picks the best coffee beans to eat - therefore his poop has all the best beans!).

Meg at Rice Terraces

In Front of Gutang Batur

We made it to the volcano and had lunch in a restaurant with a view of the entire crater. Super cool! Then headed back to the hotel for beers and a swim. Our last day in Ubud, we pretty much relaxed until dinner at a restaurant overlooking the rice paddies and then Dev's favourite, a traditional Balinese dance performance. Since then, he's wanted to go back every night! :) Megan was being sarcastic here, as it was actually quite boring. Half an hour of it would have done the trick but it lasted almost 2 hours!

At Restaurant on Rice Paddies

We headed back to Kuta the next day (our favourite) and got pedicures (I think Dev won for how much stuff they scraped off his feet! :)) and went out for more live music and beers. The next day, we got two kids to drive us on the back of their motorbikes (scooters) to Seminyak and walked back, just because we wanted the ride. The locals drive crazy around here and we wanted the full experience without braving the drive ourselves. We lazed around the pool, then met a Canadian who gave us a ton of new movies, so got dinner and had to watch one.

Scooting On the Island

The next morning, we caught a shuttle to Sanur, catching the local boat to Nusa Lembongan (a small island nearby that is much quieter than the rest of Bali). After checking into our beachfront hotel with infinity pool overlooking the ocean!! we found a small cafe behind the hotel for lunch. The old man running the place chatted us up and played a game of jenga with us (which I guess I lost :)). We met a Swedish guy we had met on the boat over at the hotel bar at happy hour then went for dinner on the beach. The next day, we hired a motorbike (from jenga man) and drove all over the island (there are no cars on the island, so much safer although no helmets). We ran into the Swedish guy and his girlfriend so had lunch at a cafe on the ocean with them and checked out a beach on the nearby island reached by the scariest bridge we've ever seen, a suspension bridge with old wooden planks across it, with huge spaces where boards are missing! Made my heart stop a couple of times.

At Dream Beach Resort

Then Dev and I checked out Dream Beach, the nicest beach we've seen so far on the island and caught the sunset for dinner at the Sunset Beach Warung. We had a quiet day the next day, went swimming and watched Salt (Amy, that is not a good movie!) and for our last day on the island, we rented our motorbike again and drove back to Dream Beach. There is a beautiful resort just above the beach that charged only $5 each to use their facilities for the day, so we swam all day in their double decker infinity pool (again overlooking the ocean), had lunch and lazed around in their beach hut beds all day. We both agreed it was the best pool we've ever been in. We returned the bike and explored the rest of Jungut Batu (our beach) and found a cute little restaurant for dinner.

And back to Kuta for two more nights before flying to Thailand on Sunday. Will probably go for dinner and drinks tonight and go for more massages tomorrow. Bali is so far my favourite place I've ever been for vacation! Great hotels and restaurants, cheap and delicious food and beer, beautiful scenery, friendly people, interesting culture and $20 can get you almost anywhere or anything. Hope to be back someday!!

Cairns & Darwin: Last Week In Australia

When we arrived in Cairns (Friday Nov 5th), we had heard great things about Gilligan's Hostel so we decided to check in there. Even though there are over 500 beds and it's the party hostel with a great bar and patio, the rooms were amazing, more like a hotel (aside from the four other people in our room and the bunk beds! :)) But a huge step up from the working hostel! :) It was pretty funny, it turned out that we were sharing our room with someone who had been at the working hostel until right before we arrived, so we had some laughs about that and some of the characters there.

At Gilligan's

The first day, we went to the lagoon (since there is no real beach in Cairns) which was super packed but really nice and then we had some beers in our room and watched a movie on our computer. The next day, we shopped around for reef trips (again, like 100 companies all offering similar trips. Cairns is most known for the Great Barrier Reef because it is the closest city to the reef) and booked our flights to Darwin and Bali (Bali on Nov 13th!!). Too much work! so to relax we started out with some beers at Gilligan's in the beer garden where there was some live music, then we headed to the Blue Sky Brewery, a pretty cool pub we had read about. We had a pitcher of Reef Blonde which I thought was delicious but Dev was on the fence :) and then we checked out a locals pub, The Grand Hotel. It was pretty authentic and also had some live music. :)

Meg On Boat With Snorkel Gear

Our flight to Darwin ended up being on the Wednesday (Nov 10), so we had three more nights in Cairns so we switched to a much cheaper hostel just outside of the city centre. Three nights were the same price as one at Gilligan's! and it had regular shuttles and free wireless internet! :) The main downside was that the air conditioning didn't work in our room, so we were pretty hot! :) I can hold my hand three inches from Dev's chest and can feel the head radiating from him sometimes! :) We hung around the hostel then caught the shuttle in to town do some errands and window shop. We checked out the Night Markets which are kind of like a flea market on the water and bought some souvenirs. Then we went to bed early to get ready for our reef trip the next day.

Dev's Sweet Moves :)

We had to be at the reef terminal at about 7:30am, but were pretty excited as the reef in Cairns is supposed to be the best for snorkeling. We had opted for one of the nicer boats because we had heard that the outer reef locations were better and wanted to see the best the Great Barrier Reef had to offer! :) They served us coffee and muffins, yummy and we arrived at our first snorkel spot in a little over a hour. We had to wear these funny stinger suits that have feet, hands and hoods on them and look like baby pyjamas! :) The reef was amazing, really close and we could see like 15m below us crystal clear. The water was an amazing blue colour and there were all sorts of fish and coral, really crazy! Dev and I spotted a sea turtle and were able to get cool pics with it! :) (We bought a waterproof bag for my camera, seems a little suspect but worked great!)

Meg With Turtle (Lower Right Corner)

We had three snorkel locations throughout the day and the next site was close by and also had amazing coral. Dev swallowed too much saltwater and felt pretty queasy so we went in after half an hour and settled down for a big buffet lunch! :) At the third and final snorkel site, the guide showed us a sea cucumber and we got some cool fish photos. We finished it off with about six squares of carrot cake and brownies! :) After we got back to the mainland, we went out for drinks and food at the Irish pub and headed back to the hostel. On our final day in Cairns, we walked out to the Botanical Gardens and the highlight of the day was definitely cheap Tuesday's at the Pizza Hut we had found near our hostel!

Dev Escaping the Darwin Heat

We jumped on a shuttle the next morning to catch our flight to Darwin, which is the cheapest place to fly out of Australia to Southeast Asia. Our flight had some crazy delays so by the time we got to Darwin we were super tired and starving, nothing a Big Mac meal at McDonald's can't fix. I should note that it sounds crazy how much fast food we've eaten on this trip but it is actually the cheapest thing to eat here, often cheaper than groceries! We took a walk along the water and watched the sunset then had a craving for ice cream so bought drumsticks at the grocery store! :) By the way, it is crazy hot here, it was 37C one of the days and is about 80 percent humidity!!

Meg on the Esplanade

The next day, we ran around the city looking for a place for Dev to get his Hepatitis A shots. I already had mine and we had done our research and decided he should get his too. We have also been taking some sort of B vitamin which apparently detracts mosquitoes and is an alternative to taking malaria pills, but Dev says I always smell like vitamins! :) We finished off the day with beers at our hostel, which has a pretty cool patio bar with a pool and hot tub, then went out for a pizza and beer deal down the street. We ate way too much though and fell right to sleep when we got home! :)

Today (Nov 12th) is our last day in Australia which is kind of sad because we don't know whether we'll get a chance to come back. Today, we've had loads of errands to run getting ready for Bali tomorrow, closing our bank account and getting cash, laundry, etc. but we did get some hanging out by the pool in there too :) It's not ever so bad! :) So we're on to the next part of our adventure, really excited!!

Innisfail: Banana Farming!

Working Hostel (Grey Building)

We were pretty apprehensive on our way to Innisfail where we had potentially found work on banana farms. We had heard tons of horror stories about farm work and working hostels so had no idea what to expect. We had been told that if we came Friday (Oct. 29th) we should be able to start work for Monday so were excited and arrived in late afternoon. We were happy to find that Innisfail was a reasonably big town, only about 8,000 people but had grocery stores, a Kmart, Target and even McDonald's and KFC. Walking up to the hostel was a different story - it resembled more of a homeless shelter than somewhere we should be staying.

Graham, Meg & Fred

The hostel was a two-storey scary grey building on the edge of town with a caged area out front that we found out later was the designated party/hang out area (nicknamed the cage). :) We checked in and found our 10-bed dorm room which was crazy dirty and the beds were more like dirty hammocks but we laughed it off and went to explore the town. After walking around a bit, we went out for Chinese food at a cheap eatery and picked up some beer at the drive-through beer store beside the hostel. We knew we would be at the hostel for at least a week so decided to get to know everyone that night and it turned out to be great fun. A lot of the people had been at the hostel for quite a while, many because they were getting their second year work visas (you have to do like three months farm work to extend a one year visa to two years) and some just because they didn't want to leave! :)

Dev and Glenn

We played drinking games and got to know everyone and found out they were having a Halloween party the next day so we were super excited, I had thought we would be missing dressing up! :) Also, that night we met two more Canadians from Vancouver who had been at the hostel for a month and a half. One of the Canadians, Graham had a three person room and the couple had just moved out of the double bed, so he suggested we become roomies, so we made arrangements to move the next day. Way better, this room had a decent bed, a TV, and a bar fridge. :)

Waterfalls

The next day we got up early to go buy some work clothes and groceries before a couple of the work vans picked up like thirty people to take us all to some really beautiful waterfalls near Innisfail. We spent the day swimming in the rock pools and sliding down a natural rock waterslide and just hanging out, then we headed back to the hostel to make dinner and put our costumes on! Australia is not really big into Halloween and there was a really limited selection so Dev and I, as well as a few others at the party showed up with Christmas gear, I was a tree and Dev was Santa. Pretty lame I know, but the best we could do. The best costume of the night went to the strange little gay guy at the hostel who dressed up as Queen Ratsy, with a rat tail and crown and stuff. Very strange, but hilarious. There was also a Flava Flav, another rapper and two pirates.



Halloween Party!



A lot of people chipped in to make an alcholic punch but we had just bought a case of beer so we opted out and boy were we happy with that decision! :) The punch consisted of approximately six different kinds of booze (arbitrarily picked) and about two boxes of juice. There were so many hands in and out of it and some of the glow sticks they put in it leaked! :) It was a great party though, Glenn (one of the pirates became buds with Dev) made a bunch of us drink the remainder of a bottle of tequila which put him out for the night :) and we took some great group photos! :) The next day we slept in, did laundry and generally dreaded the next day at work (but were happy that we were both on the work list, there were about eight on the waiting list). :)

The boys are generally given physically harder jobs than the girls and because of Dev's size, he was given one of the hardest jobs (they mistakingly judged my chubbiness and girth as muscle and braun - mistake!). He was assigned to a larger banana farm (actually the second largest in Australia) which is more like a factory with an assembly line where everyone has a small, repetiitve task to do all day. He was a Hanger which means he took the banana bunchs off the trailer after they were brought in and lifted them and attached them to the hydralic conveyer to take to the next step. We didn't know this until we arrived, but bananas come in bunches of like 150 bananas that weigh between 50 to 80 kilos!! I think that's probably the hardest he's ever worked in his life!! :)



Meg's Crazy Rash

 I was assigned to a much smaller farm where we generally rotated responsibilities. For the first two and a half days, I walked up and down the banana paddock rows with a tractor which stopped every hundred metres or so. As two guys cut down banana bunches, me and another guy would untie the bags and wash them, then as he cut them into smaller bunches I had to stack them into the trailers. It really wasn't so bad, except that because of the spraying, I was soaking wet and filthy (banana sap is super sticky and only came off after putting diesel fuel on it!). I got some pretty terrible rashes on my legs and bruises where I had to lean over the trailer and it was pretty exhausting but overall was okay. So when I came home the first day and saw what terrible shape Dev was in, I felt pretty bad although it was pretty funny too. :) He could barely move without his back or his legs cramping, his toes kept pointing all different directions! but after a back and foot rub, we had him moving around again and we made sure to get him chocolate milk and a good dinner.

Dev's Hands - Ewww :)

We were super dreading the next day, but by the second day our bodies were already becoming used to the work so it wasn't so bad. Devin's hands had become crazy blistered on the second day (I literally worked them to the bone!) My hands were so blistered that I couldn't finish the third day and went home around noon (although I got paid for the whole day - whoa!) I figured this was for the best as I spent much of my time at work thinking of ways that I could injure myself seriously enough to go home, but not serious enough that it would hurt long term (my best idea was a broken finger in the conveyor belt - glad it didn't come to that). When Meg got home on Wednesday, she was also pretty exhausted and grumpy. After finishing gathering bananas, she had been enlisted to help pull out all the old irrigation and leftover bags out of an old banana paddock they were tearing down. She worked all day in the rain and was so dirty. The worst part was pulling leftover bags off the rotting banana bunches, she had so much rotton banana all over her and in her boots! and twice rats crawled out of the bags!!! So when Dev suggested we finish off the week and then escape to Asia, I agreed :) He stayed home the next day because of his hands and I got an easy job labeling and putting lids on paw paws (or papayas) and then we gave the bad news to our new roomie and caught the bus on Friday morning!

We had had a great time and made almost $1000 in a total of six and a half working days but we worked it out and would only clear about $200 a week after all expenses so decided it wasn't worth it, although we missed it a bit after we left! :) Funny, we decided that week had been one of the highlights of the trip! :)

Townsville and Magnetic Island

After Airlie Beach, we jumped on the Greyhound to Townsville (Oct 24) which is the stepping off point to Magnetic Island. The island hadn't been on our to-do list but we'd heard tons about it so decided to check it out. Townsville was a pretty ordinary town, we stayed at the gitchy Reef Lodge (all the bedspreads were tacky fish patterns and the walls were painted with old school fish murals :) and Dev couldn't stand the guy at reception, older guy with a long ponytail who took his job way too seriously :) We checked out the Reef Museum and Aquarium where we took a tour of the sea turtle hospital and played in the children's area :), made dinner then took our computer to McDonald's (all McDonald's have free wi-fi here!) and got ice cream cones :) We never plan on buying anything from McDee's when we go to use the internet, but it's impossible not too! so they're pretty smart :) The next day we woke up early to take the ferry over to Magnetic Island where we had a reservation at the Koala Lodge!

Heavier than it looks!

The hostel was super cool, the dorms where all in self-contained A-frame cabins which we shared with four other people. The place had a great outdoor bar and pool with tons of hammocks (Dev's #1 criteria for a good hostel :)) We couldn't check in straight away so we threw on our bathing suits and headed to the nearest beach which in this case was Horseshoe Bay. Apparantly the beaches on the island don't have many jellyfish so we could swim as much as we wanted which was awesome :) After chilling then checking into the room, we caught the 2:30pm Koala Santuary tour (located on the hostel grounds). We turned out to be one of our favourite things yet, it was a two-hour tour of all the resident animals by a crazy Australian ranger who managed to incorporate a life lesson into each of the animal talks. :) We learned that our parents teach us to ignore our instincts (somehow related to how all other animals instinctively know how to swim except humans) and that humans should learn to be happy with what they have (somehow related to how animals would stay unrestrained in captivity if provdided with all their essentials) :)

Looking in the Face of Death :)

First we got to hold a black cockatoo which ate seasame seeds out of our lips then some iguanas and other weird lizards. He took us to the white cockatoo (which talks and live 100 years) which only lets girls pet it (actually chased a guy out of the pen) and then to hold a baby crocodile (pure muscle!) :) We also took pictures with a python although the craziest part was the koalas (one apparently has a facebook page although the guide says he doesn't twitter because he has a life :)) because the guide decided during the tour that the female was ready to be mated so put her in the male pen for some you know what!! To finish this crazy tour off, he led us to a spot where there are about 1,000 of these colourful parrot-like birds and put wet bread in all our hands so that they would land all over us!! Dev loved it but I freaked out a little when they started landing on my head!! :) Great pics though! :) Dev kept telling me to lie on the ground and put bread on my stomach, yeah right! :) They would have landed all over my face and I didn't see him doing it! :)



So Cool



No So Cool



That evening we did a two hour hike to the top of the island where the old forts are that the Australians used as sectret lookouts for the Japanese in WWII. Later that night we played drinking games at the hostel and Dev and I were the Kanga Bangers and we won the games by a landslide ($30 at the bar!). Games included me racing to carry cotton balls from one side to another with vaseline on my nose and Dev bowling a strike using a piece of 2x4 swinging between his legs. :) Like we've done it every day of our lives :)

Dev at Picnic Bay Jetty

The next day we had hired a scooter for the day which was so much fun. A lot of the roads are right on the water and are super windy so you feel like you're on a car commercial :) Dev did all the driving, I was on the back taking pictures :) The island only takes about half an hour to cross so we went to loads of beaches and did a few of the walks. We went to Picnic Bay and walked up to the lookout where we could see Rocky Bay and Nelly Bay. Then we went swimming at a great quiet beach called Alma Bay, supposedly the island favourite. Finally, we did an hour hike (practically all uphill!) :) to Balding Bay which was by far our favourite and only partly because of the nudists who like to hang out there! :) jk It was a tiny seculeded beach surrounded by rock cliffs with super shallow and warm water. We spent as much time as possible then had to hike back to return our scooter (we definitely wanted to keep it :))

Dev At Balding Bay

We decided to extend one more night because we were having so much fun so the next day we checked out another beach but went back to our favourite for the rest of the day, definitely the best beach of the trip so far! Later on, hanging in the hammocks by the pool we ran into Kat from Noosa and two of her friends so we grabbed our goon (cheap box of wine) and had a bbq on the beach. They have free bbq areas everywhere and we'd always wanted to use them! :) Back to Townsville the next morning where we were soooo tired from all the hiking and swimming that we rented a DVD player and watched loads of movies back at the Reef Lodge. We had made a few calls to working hostels and finally had something set up work for Monday (Nov 1) so relaxed getting ready for banana farms on Monday!!!

Meg At Nelly Bay Lookout

Chicka Cherry Cola - General Observations from Australia

• First and foremost, much to our pleasure, Australians love Savage Garden! Hard to go a day without hearing them on the radio.
• Things are expensive in Australia
• beer, coffee, pop, shoes, electronics
• The coffee is weird. They drink instant at home and flat whites and long blacks in shops
• Meg loves flat whites, they are a tiny bit of coffee filled with hot milk. Long Blacks are a shot of espresso filled with hot water. Where is my medium regular!?
• With all the dangerous animals here the Magpie bird has emerged as the one Meg is most affraid of.
• Australians are very friendly people. We first noticed with the transit staff who are more than helpful. TTC take note!
• Megan doesn't like to use paragraphs when writing/typing
• Many of the plants look like they're from Jurassic Park
• Each day I see someone that looks identical to Drillbit Taylor.  I've double checked a few times to make sure it wasn't him.
• Backpackers are super friendly people - and generally European.
• Megan is a Pharmacys' dream client.
• Australians use bread for the hot dogs and butter it.
• Devin more than doubled his lifetime number of non-required novels read in two months.
• There are lizards everywhere.

Back to Noosa!

For starters, this post is a little outdated but we didn't put it up properly the first time and wanted to include because Noosa has been one of our favourite places so far!

Starts the day we got back from our Fraser Island adventure, which happened to be our one year anniversary so we got a great room at a tiny hostel and went out for our best meal yet, shrimp rossini and tzaziki pizza (all the restaurants do wood fire pizzas, soooo good!), finished a couple bottles of byo wine then went back and watched the finale of our Law and Order season (again!). :) The next morning we caught a terribly smelling bus back to Noosa because we wanted to hang out somewhere cool while Dev rested his ankle (don't worry, old injury now :)).



Sandcastle made by a busker in Noosa

Our first night we checked into a YHA hostel called the Halse Lodge. It's in a beautiful two-storey timber building built in the 1800's with wrap-around verandahs filled with couches and chairs. The hostel's computer tech gave us a ride to the shopping centre where we had our virus removed off our memory stick then we spent the evening hanging out and playing cards and finally went for an evening walk along the beach where we saw the most amazing sandcastle!

The next day we checked back into Nomad's where we met Kat, a Scot and Ana, another Irish :). We made our first legitimate job attempt and had our first interview in years :) It actually went really well aside from the fact that neither one of us had any cooking experience but the cafe was located in the Eurmundi markets, quite outside the city centre, so we weren't thrilled about it (Beach bums we are :)) After the interview, we finished the day off at the beach (after all our hard work :)) and then met up with our roomies to grab free bbq at Irish Murphy's Tribal Night. The highlight of the evening was meeting a group of Irish who hadn't been able to survive the Gagaju bush camp we had recently been to and had come back early! Loads of funny stories to share! :)



At the main beach in Noosa



On Tuesday, we each handed out one token job application then hit the beach. After dinner it was cheap night at the movies so we saw Dinner for Shmucks (they are so behind in their movies here!). That movie gets funnier a couple of days after you see it. :) And another beach day on Wednesday where I crazy burnt the backs of my legs (reminded me of Liz and Amy after Miami :)) Then we went for free pizza and beers at the pub. (Dev decided that night that he doesn't like egg on his pizza :)) Highlight of Thursday after some errands (the memory stick again) was buying our Southeast Asia Lonely Planet and trying out Red Rooster for the first time. It's similar to the fast food aspect of Swiss Chalet crossed with KFC and pretty gross :)

After booking our sailing trip the next day, we hung out by the pool where we met a cool New Zealander who also ended up sharing our room. By then we had had two noisy Swedish girls, a crazy saxaphone maker (who was like forty and really weird) as well as an Austrian guy so we were pretty happy about that :) Dev and I had beers at the hostel bar then chatted with the roomies until the saxaphone maker got in an arguement with the Austrian about tipping? :)

Haircut in the beach

Just for a change of scenery, the next day we booked a room at the Lonely Planet top pick of hostels in Noosa (Dolphin's Beach House). We hated the place but shared the room with a cool Irish couple. It rained all afternoon so we watched (didn't really hear as they keep putting flat screens against cement walls) Ray and checked out Sunshine Beach again. We saw our first jellyfish (unfortunately is now the season). We bought some wine and the fine ingredients for mushroom soup and rice (Dev did not approve :)) and I gave Dev his first ever haircut on the beach and it wasn't half bad! :)

A future project

Last but not least, the last day in Noosa was our day trip we had booked. We had given our extra ticket we won to Steve, the New Zealander. The weather wasn't great but it was good fun. We wandered around the Eurmundi Markets, a twice weekly hippie market with 500 stalls. Some neat things like never-dull nail files and scrabble piece cuff links and huge wooden tables and benches made out of full tree lengths (Dev's favourite :), he'll be an old man with a woodworking set someday).

The bus then took us to Kondalilla National Park where there was a 80 metre waterfall and a rock pool at the top to swim in, although the three of us were the only ones to brave the water! The water was great and we could swim right up under a smaller part of the falls although I was pretty nervous as the guide said sometimes things like logs come over it! :) We had a "sausage sizzle" lunch (they love to say that here :)), Dev had four!! and then we went to Montville, a small touristy village. We had coffees at a lookout restaurant then went to the Glasshouse Mountains. It was fairly cloudy so could just see them, they are actually old volcanic crags so some pretty cool shapes. Then we did another rainforest walk (Dev says he's done with the rainforest, so spoiled :)) where we saw some mini kangaroos and headed home. :)

View from Montville coffe shop