Noosa is this UH-mazing little beach town two hours north of Brisbane on The Sunshine Coast. It is hugely popular with families, surfers and everyone in between. There is a large wildlife preserve that ends at a point, which protects the Noosa beach from wind and big waves. Surfers take on the point, but the calmer waters of main beach are perfect for boogie boarding and little kiddos who don't care for the rougher water. We were thrilled that we'd get to experience such a great place for 5 days with the help of grandparents in tow, and were hoping that they would fall in love with the paradise that is Australia's East Coast.
Remember what I said in my last post about the first two weeks? Well, this 5-day period was no better. In fact, it was worse. This was pretty much our view:
We got in to Noosa on Friday, late afternoon and it started raining that evening; right about the time that we walked down to see the beach. It did NOT stop raining almost the entire time we were there! As a matter of fact, it got to be so bad that the weather made the news with gale force winds, small land slides and over 260ml of rain in less than 24 hours (that's over 10 inches!). I should tell you that the entire time we were there ended up only being two days because of the weather. The real estate company who leased us the house, Richardson & Wrench, were great and let us take a rain check on our last 3 days.
heading out for our beach walk on our first evening
To back up a little, at first we were just bummed that the weather turned out to be so bad. But the first night we tried to make the best of it, playing a game of scrabble and enjoying our time together. The next morning, Bunny and I woke up early and headed out, bad weather and all to go check out the Eumundi Markets. These markets are famous as being Queensland's largest open air market, which attracts thousands of vendors and visitors each Saturday. They also host a smaller version on Wednesdays. And even though the crowd was small this weekend, we had a great time shopping and looking at all the unique artisans.
mom at the markets
playing the didgeridoo
the incredible bonsai guy, so much fun to talk to.
heading into one of the art galleries
By Saturday night we were getting antsy that the weather was not letting up at all and the house seemed to be shaking with the strong wind. A friend sent me a message checking on us, and that's when we found out that Noosa's weather was making national headlines. We got on the phone first thing the next morning and ended up checking out and heading home. It was somewhat of a relief when we got back to Brisbane and the weather was still rotten. We were beginning to think that we had been singled out!
It was such a disappointment to have our big vacation rained out, but somewhat of a condolence to know that it was a 50 year weather event! We're just sorry that B&P didn't get the relaxing and fun week that we had planned. One of the highlights of our short trip was finding a giant carpet python up in a tree near the house. I'm not a snake lover, not at all, but it was still cool to see one in the wild (especially since it was so far away). Not sure you can pick it out in the photo below, but I thought I'd include it anyway.
caden goofing around, ready to snorkel I reckon
trying to make the best of a sad situation...a few family photos before we head out.
So long for now Noosa! We'll be back in December with some friends to finish out the rest of our stay...fingers crossed that we don't see a single drop of rain. I think somehow we deserve a cloud-free weekend!
:( on being rained out - great that you were able to go home and still go back at a later date might have to get the details of this spot - Tim is wanting to do the Noosa Tri next year and thought that we would go and stay up there for the week.
ReplyDeleteLook at Caden's haircut! So glad your folks got to visit. Bummer about the rain! Still can;t believe you are in a place where snakes are just freely roaming in trees. Love that you are so laidback now - who could have imagined this?
ReplyDelete