Surfing Koalas!
Well... actually Surfing and Koalas but catchy titles are what it's all about.
After our Fraser Island adventure we got the early bus down to Noosa. We booked in for two nights stay as the plan was to surf the first day and go to the zoo the second. We arrived at 11am and were surfing by 2pm as we booked ourselves onto a Learn to Surf lesson as soon as we arrived! We got to use beginners boards with lovely foam all over them to make them hurt less! :oS It also made them easier to stand on and everyone was standing up within a couple of attempts... Paddy and I were storming and I even managed to stand up all the way into the beach! I did find surfing quite a lot of fun... this was evident by the way I turned into a giggling wreck. The instructor (who was a huge rhino of a guy) was quite amused I think... he turned to me rather randomly... and said "You're a lovely girl" whilst laughing at the same time. I'm not sure what to make of that! \
The hostel we stayed at was a lovely old building which was the YHA in town. We had a lovely roast dinner and drank lots of wine as they started us of on a free glass to welcome the new guests - nice ay? :oP
We tried to book on for our trip to the zoo but... shock horror... the bus was full! I could have cried. Everyone we had met who had gone had been raving about the zoo. Australia Zoo is the one run by Steve Irwin aka Crocodile Hunter! I had been super excited all week and had heard how you could cuddle koalas and stroke kangaroos! Paddy being a lovely sweetheart and seeing my close to tears face said we could hire a car and go instead and cancel our second night at the hostel and drive straight on to my Auntie Lib's (the next destination!).
The zoo was amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
We saw loads of cool animals; koalas, otters, kangaroos, wallabies, dingoes, wombats, tigers, loads more and of course crocodiles! There was a big show with all the animals and as it was the school holidays Steve Irwin’s little 7 year old daughter did a dance routine with "The Croc Men"... all very exciting :oS We did indeed get to stroke kangaroos, wallabies and koalas and I even got to cuddle a koala and have a photo to prove it! We saw Steve Irwin dancing away to his daughter’s routine and also saw him driving on a little buggy with his little son shouting out "beep beep!". Seriously though it was a great day... we spent from 9.30am until 4pm so it really filled up the day!
Afterwards we drove past the Grasstop Mountains to Surfers Paradise where we dropped off the car and my Auntie Lib picked us up and took her back to hers.