Hooray! Woke up to more blue sky than clouds this morning! A nice send off for our journey north. Sorry to leave Broadbeach. It’s been an amazing base for us and the apartment was super comfortable.
We packed the car up easily enough, checked out and were away for about 945. We have now got the packing organised so that all the clothes and stuff we need between here and Sydney on the 24th is in one big suitcase, plus the two small “cabin” sized bags. That means that we only have to unpack one big suitcase for each stop along our touring route up till then.
It was a pretty straight shot north up the M1 and the Pacific Coast Highway towards Noosa. We went through Brisbane, avoiding the toll roads. Our hire car has a “pass” thing on the windscreen that registers all the tolls but the hire company charge us $8 for each toll we pass through, most of which is their admin in subsequently paying the tolls. So, we try and avoid them. Brisbane was a handsome, modern city along the huge river. Looked quite a lot like Melbourne.
As we got north of Brisbane the pine forests alongside the road became a bit more tropical with ferns and palms in the undergrowth. We stopped at a service area for a bit of lunch. I had a plate of roast pork which was lovely. Bob had an Aussie Meat Pie to which he has become a great devotee. They are nice. Much nicer than a British meat pie, or at least a British commercial meat pie. They have much nicer pastry and a much deeper, meatier filling. His best pie of all time was in South Africa but we didn’t realise it at the time, otherwise we might have bought a few extra for the trip. Probably just as well……
Got to Noosa at about 130. What a lovely place. Quite hilly with deep creeks and inlets. Very upmarket with lots of boutiques and cafes. Our apartment is in a complex called Ocean Breeze, right on Hastings Street which is directly behind the main beach. Literally 50m from our front door. Quite a nice 1 bedroomed apartment and much nicer than I had begun to fear, looking at some of the Tripadvisor reviews. We have a good sized bedroom, large bathroom with dual sinks, a big lounge with a full kitchen, an outside dining patio. It’s very well equipped, there are two swimming pools (not sure why), a gym etc etc. We are paying $188 per night which is roughly £106. That’s cheap for around here, miles less than many. Noosa is not cheap! When we were looking, I wanted to be right down on Hastings Street so that we were in the centre of things and able to walk right out to all the restaurants, shops and the beach. Noosa is very spread out and hilly, and there are some great places to rent up in the hills but then you have to keep getting the car out.
We had a quick unpack and then headed across the road to the beach. Main beach is very long, drifting away north, and by English standards it is a surf beach, but not by Australian. That is to say, its like some of the Cornish beaches. You can stand up in the water and body surf but you really can’t swim, there are too many breakers. We had a good bob and jump anyway. The water temperature is quite nice – about 26C – so cool enough to be refreshing but not at all cold. Then we stretched out on the sand and people watched for the rest of the afternoon. There are quite a lot of young people here, definitely more so than at Broadbeach.
We have some groceries with us but no main protein for dinner and there is no supermarket down in town where we are, just little convenience stores/delis. So we decided to eat out tonight.
We ended up going across the road (literally) to the Surf Lifesaving Club restaurant. It was massive and absolutely rammed – such good value and of course right overlooking the sand and sea. We had 2 large seafood sharing plates. All really good. With a white wine and a beer, it came to about $60.
When we came out it was raining again – so strange to be in such warm temperatures and it be raining. We were not deterred and walked around a bit but the shops were all shut. That is so unusual to European eyes. To find a town as busy and buzzy as Noosa and all the shops shut right on the dot of 5pm!!!! It’s obviously a lifestyle choice so that people who work in retail have a life outside of work. It was like this in the UK when I was growing up, all changed in the 80s from memory. I do remember it being massively inconvenient for people who were working(not in retail) and therefore had to shop at the weekend, making shops very busy then.
We had to have a gelato – there are a lot of shops. There was a place called Massimo across the road from us (Ben and Jerry’s are next door) so we went there and had some. Delicious. I had coffee and chocolate. Bob had coffee and macadamia nut. Came back and watched more Shetland.
Very positive impressions of Noosa so far.