So going back to the story, our past weekend was spent at the Noosa Everglades
which is about a 2.5 hour train ride north of Brisbane. Before hopping on the train, I had a fairly relaxed day. Went to the office in the morning, came back did our grocery shopping, and then we were off to the train station. After hopping on our 3:50pm train, I felt a bit tired, but no worries, I napped a bit on the train ride up, and we made it to Noosa (after an hour delay in some random town) around 8:00pm. Our hostel was at a YHA right next to the bus stop (we had to take the bus from the train station, that took about an hour), but since it was dark, and it was Australia and nothing is ever open, it took us to actually locate it's whereabouts. After that, it was then around 8:30pm. Trying to find a meal after 8:30pm in Australia is about as easy as trying to find a person bank teller that is open until midnight. It doesn't happen here. Unless you're a super-expensive-trendy-resort town restaurant. Such like the one we ended up going to and paying quite a bit for an undercooked pizza. But it was a filling meal. No complaints, Australia has been good to me so far, so I should help propel their dominate tourism economy a little bit.
After dinner, we decided to call it an early night, and turn in around 11pm. The rooms we were staying in were true "queenslanders", if I haven't explained this idea to you yet, just imagine sleeping in a screened in porch with no wind. Well when the temperatures drop to 40 at night, it's not the warmest of places, but luckily I had my sleeping bag, so as long as I didnt' have to stand outside, i'd be alright. Well at 4:50am or so, my chance to go stand outside came when the fire alarm went off.
When I was living at Woodruff Dorm when I was at at Georgia Tech, I actually used to like fire alarms, because it was the only chance to see my other dorm mates, I hardly got to see them otherwise... funny
About an hour and a half later, we started getting up so we could be downstairs and ready to go by 7:45am. We were picked up by a nice fella, probably in his early 40s driving a little mini-bus type of thing with a trailer, we threw our stuff in and met the other 9 people who would be at our trip. We stopped at a second hostel and met them all there. Quite a varied group, 2 girls from Ireland, a guy from Scotland, guy and gal from Germany, two from France, and a couple from Canada. All really nice and it made for a good group to travel.
For the trip itself, I'm going to shorten the story into a experience part and sickness part, because the longer I write definitely doesn't make the quality any better.
So from day one, we set off across a large lake, which the name escapes me. But the waters are crystal clear and very still, which makes it mirror almost everything around it. We took a ferry over this body of water to a floating station where we would mount up and load our canoes. From here, we would set off on our approximately 36km over 3 days canoe trip. The canoes were standard, reminding of my midwestern canoe days, but the scenery was pretty remarkable. The Noosa everglades are supposed to be similar to the Australian rainforest, the plant like definately resembles that, we saw some pretty wild looking plants. In terms of animals, I can't say that I saw that many, but I did see a few pelicans, which were enormous. When I say these things are enormous, I mean when I saw a few of them on land, I mistaken them for people. We made camp our first night and then made rest for our second portion of our journey the next day.
Day two pretty much encompassed another 13 km roundtrip, but with a 15km-round trip hike in the middle uphill to the "sand patch" which is a huge sand patch, probably the size of 20 football fields on top of this forested hill in the rainforest. We got up there for some spectacular views of the Noosa valley on one side, and the Pacific Ocean on the other.
I should make note that during all of our canoe time, the views on the river are pretty magnificant, the water is really still, so it is almost eerie passing over it on a canoe, because you can't tell it's distance because it's mirroring so much. I'm not sure if that makes sense. It basically looked like other canoes were floating because the water was so still.
Day three was our trip back. we had to leave the campsite rather early because we needed to make it back to the station by 10am. During our 1.5 hr canoe trip back, it started raining a bit, and continued for about 30 minutes, luckily not a downpour though. At the ranger station, we dried off our stuff, and hopped back in the Ferry where our van and a hot box of chips (fries) awaited us.
So from the sickness point of view. Before I tell this side, I just want to preface, I understand there are plenty of things worse that could have happened, and I should already be thankful of my health, but I thought this would still be an amusing thing to write. On Friday morning, I was feeling a bit rough almost like on the verge of some kind of illness. So, the 4am fire drill and standing outside wasn't the best of help. Then on the way to the floating station, we needed to wade through the lake to reach our ferry boat, and also bring all of the supplies from land to the boat. This was all happening with the notion in my head, if i'm getting sick, this is probably not the best option of ways to spend my weekend. wading in rivers, canoeing, and camping. So day one, I made it ok, after the first 2.5 hours of canoeing, we stopped for lunch and I had a quick pass-out nap (not power nap, because I literally passed out), then we canoed for another hour up to our campsite, where I also turned in for an early night. Day two, I felt a little bit worse, but not deathly, but I was convinced, "I am already up here, might as well make the most of it", plus, there honestly isn't that much to do at a campsite for 12 hours. So I decided against sleeping in the tent all day, and instead making the 12km canoe trip and 12 km hike to the sand patch, where again, I had a pass-out nap on the sand dunes.
So that night, I had every piece of clothing I owned on my body, and was getting up every hour to cough unmentionables. But, during that portion of the night, most of the stress that had come over me, was just that I'd have to wake up the next morning, canoe some more, and then spend another 6 hours in transit before making it to bed.
Well the next morning came, and I wasn't woken by sunlight, but instead my raindrops hitting the tent. Fantastic. By this point, I had acquired the suck it up attitude, which of course while camping is already after the "no bathing", "sand is on everything", and "you smell horrible" attitudes are already in effect.
But we broke camp, and steadily made it into the canoe. At this point, my illness (which I believed to be strep throat) had probably reached near its peak. So I was thinking to myself, what the hell am i doing with this sickness, canoeing on a river, in wet clothes, in the rain. But in due time, I knew I would at least be in the safety and warmth of a warm bus or train to take me to a bed to rest it off.
Well we eventually made it back to Noosa, grabbed a quick lunch and boarded the bus. The ride went pretty smoothly, and then getting on the train went smoothly as well. At this point in the day, my throat was giving me all kinds of problems, so I was trying not to talk too much, which on public transportation is typically pretty easy right?? Well, of course the one person that would like to sit down by me was a well-intoxicated Kiwi. (to her credit, she was very nice), but she didn't comprehend the words "sick", "ill", or "not feeling well" no matter what order I put them in. She continued to ask me questions, sometimes repeating questions if there were any silent moments where I was trying to regain my energy from the previous question. I just thought, the irony of it all. Luckily, that only lasted about 25 minutes, but probably the most draining portion of the travel home.
Finally made it back to Indooroopilly around 6pm on Sunday night and then slept for approximately the next 24 hours. Today, I ventured to the grocery store and am a bit more on my feet, but still not 100%. Hopefully by the end of the week things will be back to normal. But I am much better so thanks for those who had asked about me!, I spoke with my parents and girlfriend back at home and they gave me encouraging words, and Cat even sent me some get well flowers today, so that was fantastic, nothing like people who care about ya to make you feel better.
By the way, if you're ever traveling abroad, you should get an HostellingInternational card, their medical insurance people are awesome!
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