Places to stay: Noosa

Ah, Noosa Main Beach. This is where you'd like me describe a beautiful, deserted white sandy shore, fringed with palm trees and a gently lapping turquoise sea. Wouldn't ya? Eh?

Well it's nearly all those things, except right this minute.... except right this minute we're experiencing the tail end of Cyclone Helen..so.... Well, during the Christmas holidays anyway, it's more like Benidorm only with better food and less beer bellies. Every possible square centimetre of formerly stunning beach is crammed with semi clad, oiled up Aussies all lying prostrate before the god of skin cancer. When they aren't all squeezed together on the beach like a human tetris game, they're provoking surf rage amongst each other in the sea. Heaven help you if should just want to go swimming. Chances are you'll come out with a fin burn across the top of your head.

There is an alternative to this madness though. If you can be bothered to walk just a bit further along the boardwalk, up towards the national park, it's like stepping into another world. For some reason, the Great Unwashed seem to steer clear of this bit and yet this is the best part; it's what Noosa is all about. This is where the rainforest meets the sea. Here the beaches are less crowded because they require a bit more effort to get to. Well worn tracks will take you through the forest and along the coast where, on any given day, you might spot koalas, dolphins or even migrating whales. The other day I came face to face with a kangaroo on the path. After months of visiting the park, I hadn't known there were any in residence. One thing to remember though, always remember to look where you're going when you're trying to spot koalas up in the trees or else you might end up in the Pacific Ocean.

Behind Main Beach is Hastings Street, apparently one of the highest concentrations of restaurants in the country. Only eat there if you don't mind about quality and price. It's a right royal rip off. Go to Noosaville or Tewantin, or anywhere else that's not right next to the beach. There are some interesting shops down this street but not for nothing is it known as Fleece St by locals.

Another unique thing about Noosa is that there are only two sets of traffic lights in the whole area. Noosa Shire council has adopted the Milton Keynes approach to traffic control and constructed a squibillion roundabouts. Unfortunately, nobody knows how to use them. Aussies are great but, since they don't have to drive around roundabouts as part of their driving test, each of them is an accident waiting to happen.

The Noosa tourism area continues along down the Noosa river into Noosaville. Here restaurants, a bike path, park and public barbecues are all along the water's edge. It's pretty chilled out but can get busy at weekends and is beginning to suffer from 'hooning' late at night.
[From the Urban dictionary:
Hoon. to travel at a high velocity, preferably in a car, eg."Did you see that bloody hoon last night hooning about in his Holden?"]

If you really want to get back to nature then the Noosa Everglades make for a stunning kayak trip. Also Noosa North Shore, accessed via car ferry across the river, is a good excuse for a hoon up to Fraser Island in a 4x4 along the sand. But if you decide to camp there, remember - so has everyone else. And there are no toilets so it can get a bit whiffy. Yuk.

So my advice for visiting Noosa: Come when it's not a major public holiday, if you must go camping, do it where there are some proper dunnies, and for god's sake, beware of the bloody roundabouts.

Places to visit: A Town Called Eumundi

First impressions of Eumundi, especially on a stinking hot day, are that it's maybe just another one horse town along the railway line, on the way to somewhere more interesting in Noosa. But STOP! Take a closer look. Or alternatively, take advantage of the air conditioning inside some of the shops and cafés. It's a little gem.

We have recently moved to the outskirts of Eumundi and, by UK standards, it's more like a village. There's one main street where all the shops and cafés are and residential areas are mainly behind this street on either side. It is most famous for its markets which are held in the town centre every Wednesday and Saturday. You can buy all sorts from here, particularly clothes and jewellery and it's quite good for souvenirs to take back home to Blighty.

These markets have enabled Eumundi to develop a bohemian, arty crafty image up and down the main street. You can choose from exclusively designed art from the glassware shops or gear from The Hemp Shop (man)! And the most exciting shop to open recently is Berkelouw's bookshop which sells a vast array of over 100,000 second hand, rare and out of print books, all classified and displayed accordingly, in addition to brand new ones. It's a family owned small chain of 7 stores in Australia and one in Los Angeles. The Eumundi one has a great café attached to it - guaranteed to help you lose track of time. We recently had breakfast in there and it was yummy. And of course we had to buy a book!

The choice of where to eat is great for such a small village. In our first week here, up to our eyes in cardboard boxes and not wanting to cook or wash up, we grabbed a take away from a Thai place. It was good and we could just as easily have stayed there to eat. In fact it would have saved me from even more washing up.

Last night we went out for dinner properly in our village for the first time. We had a BEAUTIFUL meal at the Balinese looking Modern Primitive, although the food wasn't balinese and, during the day they serve tapas. It was all organic and cooked to order, and we realised after a while that the reason they weren't very busy was because they were staggering the bookings so that you got really personal service. It was great to eat in a restaurant where the staff were keen to suggest what would go well with your meal, and the flavours were awesome!

How cool is that for a village? And that's the first place we've tried. We've got all the rest of the main street to do yet!

I'll be back with any further updates on the quest to eat my way round Australia!

(19.2.08) Non food update: Eumundi now has a lovely, brand new, open air, heated swimming pool. It's not very big (25m) but I racked up half a kilometre easily enough and it's fine for keeping up your fitness. The best thing about it is that (so far) it's not very busy, during the week at least, and the kids pool is a good distance away from the grown up lane swimming one. It's basic but clean and peaceful, and we really like it so there.