The drive to
Tewantin took ~6 hours in total, longer than we had planned, after taking a detour to
find Jai a new bicycle helmet (he'd left his behind at Bonny Hills) and
dropping by Jane and Greg's house for a quick hello and goodbye.
We arrived at the
Noosa Caravan Park just before darkness set in, making setting up a little more
challenging. Whilst I set up the
caravan, Jackie took the kids to explore the park and pick up a couple of
pizzas from the wood fired oven, which is a feature at the park every
Saturday. For $10 a pizza, I wasn't
expecting too much, and I was not surprised when we ate them; shop bought pizza
bases, way too much topping and mostly canned ingredients makes for a sloppy
and tasteless pizza.
As per the reviews
on TripAdvisor, the park is cramped with many sites just big enough for the
caravans and tow vehicle parking.
Manoeuvring the caravan into the location took many turns and other cars
had to be moved, luckily the employees of the park were on hand to co-ordinate
the parking and movement of other cars.
The toilets were
new, with Grohe fittings no-less, however the communal kitchen was basic at
best. The BBQ is worse than what you'd
expect from a council park, with no oven and a single toaster atop a microwave. The swimming pool is outdated, but a nice
wide and deep one; akin to the size of small pools used for swimming
lessons. The location of the caravan
park is about 3klms outside Noosaville, and a couple more to the upmarket
Hastings Street shops. We'd tried to
book into the Noosa River Caravan Park, which is a lot closer to the action and
would have been perfect for fishing with the family, however that was booked
out for the nights we wanted.
With two full days
to spend in Noosa, I was keen to chance my luck on the Noosa river. Taking off early on day 1, flicking soft
plastics proved fruitless once again.
There was a lot of fish activity on the surface, with some rather large
bust ups at the junction of Noosa River and Weyba Creek. A local fisherman next to me was using
livebait, and upon speaking to him he revealed he had caught his live bait with
a cast net, and was targeting Trevally and Mackeral. He'd had a few bites and caught a bream,
which was more action than I had seen during the time I was there. I've made up my mind that unless the
conditions and surrounds are ripe for soft plastics, I'll use bait - be it live
or dead. Also, given I will be in states
where a cast net is legal for the best part of 5 months, I thought I'd invest
in a net.
Back at the caravan, the mention of a
fishing outing and catching the bait excited the kids, with Emma insisting
she be allowed to partake in all activities, and not just "watch"
everyone fishing. After visiting the
local fishing shop and checking out how to throw a cast net on Youtube, we head
down to the nearby ferry ramp to try our luck at catching some bait.
First cast we came up short, but subsequent
casts saw us net sufficient herring and garfish for bait. The kids were really into the casting and
retrieving of bait, as we'd reviewed the instructions on Youtube together and
they love handling bait/fish. We'd
thrown back some of the dead herring, as they are fragile fish with care needed
when taken from the net. The kids then
noted that an eagle was hovering by, and right before our eyes, it had swooped
down and picked up the discarded fish.
We spent a few minutes longer feeding our feathered friend, before we
headed off to use our live bait.
Unfortunately the
location I chose to fish had a raging current, and the kid's lines ended up
either tangled with one another or were only metres from shore after being
pushed downstream. This shore fishing is
much different to boat fishing, something I'm going to have to come to grips
with quickly. Jai did eventually catch
an undersized Flathead, which officially counts as the first fish on the trip,
and try as she may, Grace could not hook a fish. The live/fresh bait certainly received a lot
of attention from the local school of fish, however I think they are too well
educated from the mass of tourists throwing bait at them or they were just too
small. Although the outing did not
produce any keepers, the kids had a ball catching the bait and trying to land
that big one. We'll have to be patient,
our time will come.
Our last full day at
Noosa was spent in the pool in the morning, followed by a suggestion by dad to
walk the Noosa National Park to see if we can spot a Koala in the wild, of
which none of us had previously done. It
was not clear which walking tracks to trek, so we drove up to the Laguna
lookout and tried to find a few tracks.
Unfortunately for the kids, daddy found a track that would take them
back down to Hastings Street, along the beautiful Noosa beaches and round the
back way to where we began. We navigated
the first part and beaches with much complaining feet dragging from Grace and
Jai, with Emma leading the charge up front.
After a few "motivational" words, Jai
perked up and started running up the steep climbs.
We'd been walking an
hour or so after we re-entered the national park, when Jai and I thought we'd
reached our destination. Alas, we'd
climbed to the wrong peak. Back
tracking, we passed a forlorn Grace, and hiked for another hour before
realising we were headed for another peak that was not next to our car. At this stage we'd been hiking for many
hours, and no-one had had lunch; we'd only packed some snacks.
Urgency set in, and upon looking at Google
Maps, I was able to locate the lookout where we believed the car was
located. We managed to hail down a local
jogger, who'd informed us that there was no direct track to where we wanted to
go, from our current location. We'd need
to back track a further 3klms and go the long way around. By this time the complaining had stopped and
the fear of being left in the national park at night time drove the kids to
walk back to the car. By the time we
eventually got back to the car, the Fitbit had indicated that we'd walked
~9.5klms. I'm hoping the kids are not
put off by this experience, and they embrace the many hikes we will need to
take in the coming months.
BTW - we did
manage to spot 1 wild Koala, our Koala spotting game ceased after the second
hour of walking and the fatigue and complaining took over.
The weather has been
great since we have been here, with a couple of drizzles here and there, but it
has certainly been shorts and t-shirt weather throughout our time here. I have a soft spot for Noosa, with the river,
beaches and the surrounding towns all set up so well to accommodate the fitness
enthusiasts with exercise equipment, running/walking tracks and dedicated
cycling lanes throughout the towns. We
didn't really spend much time in Noosa or Noosaville in the shops and cafes,
hence we did not get stung by the highly inflated prices.
We all like Noosa, and this won't be the last
time we visit.
Mrs mundy would be proud of how far your story-writing skils have progressed oppy..great that you and the fam pursuing experiences outside the standard, parents of the year to date haha
ReplyDeleteHaha Roachmeister, funny man. We're only at the beginning of our journey, it's been great so far !!
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