Brisbane/Noosa – Absolute Beginners
Back in Sydney, Andy and I had arranged to meet up in Brisbane once I’d left Melbourne, and had decided to explore the east coast of Queensland. Initially, we were planning to do this by bus, until we struck on the idea of hiring a campervan. It seemed such an indeal way to do this – we’d have more independence, we’d have all our transport and accommodation in one package – everyone’s a winner! I did some research and found a company called Wicked Campers that were by far the cheapest option. not only that, but the coolest. Each one of their vans is individually spray-painted with quirky pictures and slogans – you can really see them coming. I pitched the idea to Andy, who was instantly on board. In his words, “they’re unique and strange-looking, like us”. Sold.
So Andy collected me from the airport (believe me, I needed a minder that day with the purse-loss fiasco and the alcohol-blood ratio), treated me to a hefty lunch, no doubt trying to sober me up, and we mosied on down through Brisbane to the Wicked Campers depot. WE signed up with no problems, and were given our van. Genius. The David Bowie van. It had “BOWIE” sprayed in huge letters down each side, his face on each side, and Bowie lyrics on the back: My burning desire started on Sunday, give me your heart and I’ll love you till Tuesday. Mars Bar for the first person to name the song. Unsurprisingly, this drew a lot of attention on the roads of Queensland; best of all was when we saw other Wicked Campers. It was like being in a little club.
Andy was on first shift driving (to let me loose behind the wheel would have been both illegal and insane after my night out), so I was on navigating duty. I assured him this was my speciality, having got my map-readers badge in Guides, and promptly managed to get us lost within the first 15 minutes. Andy was very sweet though, and reassured me he WANTED to see the airport again from a different angle.
Our destination that day was Noosa, a couple of hundred kilometres north of Brisbane. It sounded lovely – a real mix of posh and boho, just like us! On the way, we saw signs for Steve Irwin’s zoo, and actually turned off the road to go up there, until I noticed it was 4pm and it closed at 4.30pm, so not really worth it. We resolved to try and go on the way back down to Brisbane, which as you’ll realise, turned out to be quite a momentous decision.
We were both fairly apprehensive about driving, as neither of us had been behind a wheel since we’d been away (me, six months, Andy eight), but it turns out, it’s just like riding a bike. Well, not EXACTLY, in that you don’t have to pedal, but metaphorically. You know what I mean. Without further incident, we arrived in Noosa, headed straight for the supermarket (all camp sites in Australia have barbeques, in fact loads of places do – down at the beach, in parks. It’s wonderful), and stocked up on chops and kebabs. I also insisted that, for breakfast, we pick up a pack of Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. Y’see, when we were growing up, Mum was (thankfully) really strict with what we were allowed to eat. Michael and I both thank her now, as we are fortunate enough to have good teeth (no fillings at the age of 30, just to blow my own trumpet). We had certain treats, though, one of them being whenever we went to our caravan, we were allowed Crunchy Nut Cornflakes. So to me, it’s the cereal associated with camping. Hence it going in our trolley now.
We left the supermarket, marvelling at how quickly it goes dark here in the southern hemisphere – when we’d gone in it was daylight, and when we came out it was completely dark – and managed to get to the campsite, and fortunately, baggsied the last spot. We set up, barbequed up a storm, and settled in for the night, both of us commenting that it REALLY felt like we were on holiday. I know what you’re thinking – the last six months have been one long holiday, which is true, but this felt like the holidays I’d known as a child (as had Andy, as well, going camping on the Gower peninsula), and it felt wonderfully nostalgic.
We settled into the camping life as if to the manor born – again, I guess we’d had good training when we were younger. It was very amusing to be in the midst of a very middle-class, middle-aged culture and to roll up in a David Bowie van, and you should have seen some of the looks we got. It’s a lovely community, though, and we were soon “Good Morning”ing away with the best of them. We lived in the vain hope that some would take pity on us and feed us, but, alas, this never happened. Mum and Aunty Rosemary would have been proud of me, though, the way I was gossiping with the neighbours and getting their life stories out of them. The first two were Brits who’d been in Australia for nearly 30 years, they thought what we were doing was marvellous. They had me spitting my toast out with supressed laughter, though, when they found out Andy was Welsh. The wife spoke a couple of words of Welsh to him, Bore Da or something like that, when the husband turned to us and exclaimed, in all seriousness, “It’s like another language, isn’t it?”. Quite.
We went for a wander round Noosa, which was charming and pretty and had a delightful beach, before heading off in our van to Hervey Bay. And so we set the pattern. Day-in, day-out, we’d find lovely places up the coast, settle, and then head off. Happiness is…
By the way, for my own amusement more than anything, I’m going to be getting as many Bowie song titles into my blogs as possible. An as-yet undetermined prize to the person who spots the most.
Tags: Australia, Travel
Suzanne
Suze, I’m not going through the rigmarole of naming all the David Bowie songs over again. Just send me the Mars bar now.
Love you lots
Mum
Suzie from Noosa or Wrexham? I liked both.