North to Noosa: Koala Sighting!

The taxi was there at 5AM to take us to the airport for our flight to Brisbane. The airport security here is shockingly more relaxed than in the US. They never asked us for any identification at the airport!!! And going through security you can keep all your liquids and shoes on.

In Brisbane we picked up a rental car. Ellen has years of experience driving here. I am having a hard time with the driving on the opposite side of the road, and I am not even behind the wheel. I am a dangerous pedestrian, because my instinct has me looking the wrong way when I cross the streets. They have roundabouts here at many intersections, and there is no way I could navigate the merging and lane shifting to survive driving through one of those. After nearly grabbing Ellen's arm when I thought an oncoming truck was barreling into our lane, I have reconciled myself to just have faith in her driving and just enjoy the sights.

The area we are staying in is called the Sunshine Coast. It was sunny most of the day. We went on a beautiful ten mile hike in Noosa National Park. Australians are on school holiday right now, so the trail head at Noosa was jam pack and the water was filled with surfers. When we reached the point know as Hell's Gates, the wind was ferocious and the water was wild. Some stretches of our hike were on long sandy beaches where we were walking right into the strong wind, but the inland trails were peaceful and protected.
Ellen has reminded me to bring my binoculars on this hike, as she has often seen koalas here. I was scanning the tree tops all day. In the last half mile of our hike, we finally saw one. We had a great view of him (or her). He was busy eating eucalyptus leaves and climbing aroudn to get a better angle at the leaves. His facial features were pink and his ears were very fuzzy and his claws looked super sharp. He was plump and beautiful. I wanted to take him home.

Some birds today included a pink and grey cockatoo (a gelah?), kookaburra, parrots, brush turkey,

We are staying in an amazing apartment in Coolum Beach. This is where Ellen lived for three years.

Saturday we ran on the beautiful beach for about 8 miles. It was a perfect running surface, flat, packed and smooth. The wind was strong, but at our backs, so we went back on an inland route. The ocean was very rough again, and the beaches here have lifeguard patrols 365 days a year; we did see some brave swimmers.

We drove out to the Eumundi market. It was an exciting assortment of crafts, and clothes, and paintings, and jewelry and food (ginger beer, Tibetan momos, limeade bakes goods, chili sauces...), and didgeridoos and fortune tellers and and and.... It was great fun.

After the market we went to lunch at an amazing place called the Spirit House. It is a Thai restaurant and cooking school surrounded by old bamboo, a pond, sitting gardens, statues. We had tried to get reservations, and couldn't, but showed up to see the place and they had a table for us. The food was amazing, Here's a picture of the whole fried fish, and we had the most delicious mussel and prawn curry.


These big lizards were all over the place at the spirit house.



We were invited to dinner at Ellen's friends' (Mike and Mary Ann)place right downstairs. We had a wonderful dinner. They taught me about Australian wine and slang. Mike read a classic poem, the Bush Bastard, to illustrate the colorful Aussie language. It was interesting to see that both Marianne and Kim knew most of the words to this lengthy verse.