Day 3
Summary: Met up with the tour group, took a train from Brisbane to Noosa, visited the beach
Saturday, January 4th
We got up at 7:30 to pack up and check out of our room. As far as jet lag, we felt pretty settled into the time zone already! We waited downstairs outside the lobby to meet our Wild Kiwi tour guide at 9am. There was one other girl who we met along with the guide and for a moment we thought, is it just going to be us and one other person on the tour together all week? But then the guide explained that there were 8 other girls who had started the tour in Sydney a week ago and we were joining up with them on the way from Brisbane to Cairns. All of the girls were really nice and we could tell it was going to be a good group.
We walked to the train station and rode about two hours to Cooroy. We grabbed something for lunch at a little grocery store and then took a shuttle bus to Flashpackers in Noosa, our hostel for the next two nights. Greg and I stayed in a room that had two sets of bunk beds. We weren’t sure if any other guests would be staying with us, but no one did.
We got our bathing suits on and walked fifteen minutes to Sunshine Beach!
It was warm and beautiful. There were people surfing, young lifeguards training, and people swimming. We didn’t go swimming because we could see jellyfish floating around in the water. I think I got stung on my ankle by one of the tiny blue bottles, little jellyfish-like animals that wash up on shore with a clear sac for a body and long blue hair-like tentacles. I noticed my ankle was itchy and I thought I was just having a reaction to the salt water and sand because my skin is sensitive. But then one of the girls on the tour who knew about blue bottles said that’s probably what it was because there was a clear red line around my ankle. They aren’t really harmful, but to make it feel better she told me not to itch it, which I had been doing absent-mindedly for about 15 minutes! Whoops! But it went away in about an hour or two. While we were standing there chatting, she got stung too! A blue bottle was wrapped right around her ankle, caught in her ankle bracelets. At least we could then share in the itchiness.
Around 5:30, we headed back to the hostel to shower and get ready for dinner. The shower had a waterfall head and a small window at eye level that looked out to lush trees, making it feel real beachy! We ate at Montezuma’s Mexican Restaurant. My meal was fine, but I think the consensus of the group was that we were a little far away from Mexico. But they had a whole stack of fun sombreros for a great photo opportunity!
We headed back to the hostel to get some sleep for an early morning the next day!
Thanks for reading!
-Rebecca
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