In search of all things “Aussie Aussie”; 10 days in Noosa.

Loving the small-town surf lifestyle, we decided to continue our exploration of Australia up the Sunshine Coast, passing through Brisbane and heading for the town of Noosa, about four hours north of Byron Bay. Noosa is unique in that it features a freshwater river meeting the ocean, creating a gorgeous estuary ecosystem and landscape. It is also home to several national parks, with the Noosa National Park and the amazing ecosystems of the Noosa Head abutting town. The UNESCO designated Noosa Biosphere area is home to multiple wetlands, 61 distinct regional ecosystems, 2346 different plant species, 3,023 wildlife species, and 313 bird species, amongst other things… Needless to say, its natural beauty is rather remarkable. It has a similar mellow, beachside, surf and sunshine culture going on but a bit less of the ‘hipster-hippie’ vibe, and a bit more ‘mature/upscale’ than Byron. We found our AirBnB overlooking the ocean on Sunshine Beach, made a trip to the store for more SPF 50 sunscreen and settled in for another 10 days of Aussie exploring. (The sun here is no joke! I thought we were used to intense high-alpine sun of Colorado but it turns out that ozone depletion we learned about in grade school really has an impact 😊.)

The only big failure of Noosa (I guess it’s more a general Queensland issue than a Noosa issue) is the time zone orientation…. first light is at 4:20 am which means the birds start chirping (and chirping is probably too kind of a word - more like screaming at the top of their lungs) and that uninhibited sunshine makes it way past even the most ambitious of curtains, meaning that by 5 you are wide awake. Australia and sleep aren’t necessarily aligned for us thus far... We settled into a nice routine however, taking advantage of the early mornings to sneak into the national park for runs (on TRAILS!) before the heat and humidity got too intense, and then bringing umbrellas, snacks, surfboards and schoolbooks down to the beach for ‘beach school’, with math in the sand, art class drawing and painting the ocean and shells, recess of surfing and boogie boarding, and writing and reading in the shade of the umbrella. We’d then retire to the Sunshine Beach Surf Club for afternoon drinks and snacks before dragging our sandy, sun baked, tired selves home to watch the World Cup. It felt kind of nice to spend 10 days not doing anything too profound or epic, and just settling into a consistent, sweet, stable routine. We celebrated Thanksgiving with calamari and rosé, and the boys spent hours cutting snowflakes out of paper to tape to our windows to make the first days of December feel more ‘Christmas-y’.

Perhaps the very best thing to come from our time in Noosa was in the connection to Koel, Tait and their daughter Matilda, friends of friends from Boulder who are spending 6 months living in Noosa. Koel is an Aussie native who found herself in Boulder years ago where she co-founded Noosa yogurt (the best freaking yogurt in the whole world according to H + h) and is warm, wonderful, hilarious and the absolute best resource for all the most “Aussie Aussie” experiences to be found. Tait, originally from Moab, happens to be an incredible photographer and mountain biker with all the best local surf and play advise, and he and Will went down endless wormholes of future adventure scheming. The boys fell instantly in love with Matilda who, at age 10, is an absolute firecracker, and could fully hold her own romping and raging with two kid-play starved boys. We spent many a night drinking wine, eating delicious food, laughing and relishing the feeling of spending time with friends after months on the road. Koel and Tait introduced us to Barefoot Bowls, a very ‘Aussie Aussie’ game, much like bowling combined with bocce ball (with beer of course), and pointed us up Mt. Coorora, an old volcanic plug (essentially the hardened magma that was inside a volcanic cone after all the outside dirt and soil and rock has eroded away) that felt a little bit like hiking Sanitas, if Sanitas was made up of vertical rock faces that required holding onto chains and scrambling on all fours to summit 🤣. We were also able to join in the crowd of spectators at Matilda’s ‘Little Nippers’ competition, where literally hundreds of kids competed in junior lifeguard competitions ranging from elimination-round beach sprint relays, open water swims, rescue board paddle races and more. Tait had explained how deeply ingrained water safety and education is in here in Australia and seeing both the competition, but also the community element of it, was truly inspiring and so fun see. In the states it’d be cutthroat competitors only, and no-doubt, there were some reeeeaaallly impressively fast kids, but here it was truly anybody and everybody, all out for a day on the beach. It was really sweet to see. Not to go on forever, but the surf rescue programs with their associated beach clubs and restaurants is a social phenomenon that our coastal towns in the states could take a few ideas from!

While we were sad to leave Noosa and our newfound friends, but we had plane tickets to Cairns and a last Australian chunk in FNQ (Far North Queensland) ahead, where we were frequently told that it is “hot and bitey” and filled with box jellyfish and crocodiles. Let the adventure continue!