Life's a Beach

Top to bottom:

They grow things big out here!

Second row left, Noosa Main Beach, right, Noosa River

Bottom row left, Along the river - burn effect, right Along the river - reflections

Noosa Heads

Not much to report today, but figured I'd take advantage of the free Wifi at the hotel - never know when that offer will come around again.

My soujourn at Noosa Heads has been exactly what I wanted - a bit of a pause in the longer trip. There's been a lot of sitting by the pool, walking on the beach (although the appearance of jellyfish the other day meant ocean swimming was limited) and general relaxation. Even my sightseeing, such as it has been, has been relaxed.

On Saturday, I deciphered the local transporatation system in order to go to the inland town of Eumundi. This town is famous for its extensive market, which operates on Wednesdays and Saturdays. It really was quite animpressive set up, with stalls selling all sorts of things from fruit and vegetables to prepared foods to crafts to multiple types of massages. And as the guidebook mentioned, when you get tired of that, everyone adjourns to the numerous cafes on the main street of the town.

For all that Noosa Heads is a pretty fancy resort town, it seems that the local council has been pretty good over the years at limiting development, meaning that the surrounding area isn't nearly as built up as many other areas along the Queensland Coast (the area south of Brisbane, known as the Gold Coast, is often pointed to as an example of the horrors of overdevelopment as large areas are lined with high rise buildings). Indeed, the oceanside bank of the Noosa River, is hardly developed at all, with what is developed accessible only by a ferry, and the land turning into a national park on both sides not very far out of the town. The river apparently has the privilege of being the only river in Queensland to have its entire upper catchment area in a national park, which means it should be safe from any damming or other development. You can travel by boat up the river, but only so far, as at some point, motorised vehicles are prohibited (you can kayak or canoe further up if you're so inclined!). I did a trip up to the so-called Everglades (they seem to think the term is generic rather than referring to the specific area in Southern Florida; I'm not so sure). Whatever you want to call it, it is a very beautiful area. For better or for worse, there had been a very bad bush fire in the area only three weeks ago (you can see the results in one of the pictures), which burned out about half of the 20,000 or so acres that make up the Everglades. Fires are a natural and essential part of the evolution of bush land, but they can, of course, be very dangerous if they get out of control. It's also very bad when they don't occur naturally, as was the case with this one (apparently some idiotic campers set up a fire in a zone where all fires were prohibited, and compounded the problem by not extinguishing it when they left). All that being said, the effect of the fire (which we could still smell) was both positive and negative in terms of what we saw. The colors left behind (the reds and browns) made for an interesting contrast with the green of the surviving flora (and the black of the water in certain parts - not dirty, just its natural color). Even so short a time after the fire, things were coming back to life, especially those plants that need a fire to clear away the canopy and the undergrowth in order to have a chance at the sun. We didn't see as many birds as I'm told are normally around, but we had our fair share (no, not the big pelican, though we did see real pelicans, among other things including a number of eagles). And in some ways, the absence of bird calls made for an interesting experience as well (the guide/captain said that when he'd first been up the river after the fire it had been quite eerie as there was basically no noise at all; we at least had endless cicadas). All in all, a very interesting and informative experience.

Well, that's about it (I did say I haven't been doing very much!). Tomorrow it's off to Sydney, the last stop on the Australian leg of my adventure.