Noosa

Left: Noosa Beach


The beaches at Noosa were gorgeous. It's a classic, high-end resort community, like La Jolla or Malibu, with crashing waves on headland rocks, long stretches of beach where beautiful people lay in the sun, and hiking trails in the adjacent national parks. In addition, there's a downtown area where one can shop for fashionable clothes, buy real estate at insane prices from ReMax or Century 21, or eat in a sidewalk cafe. And there's a Sheraton, if one wants to stay.

Left: The walk along the coast, Noosa Headlands


We walked along the coast throught the teatree trees, and through the coastal wallum. At park headquarters, there were reports of koalas in the trees along this trail, but I was too distracted by the bizarre plant community, including a deciduous tree of some sort sporting cones, to look upwards that much. The forest on the east side of the Noosa Headlands was really novel: low-growing, unfamiliar shrubs, but dry, sandy soil, and bird-poor. On the west side of the headlands, the forest was much more familiar, even featuring a few of the fig trees seen on Mt. Glorious, and there were many more birds. Apparently the east coast of Australia features many diverse natural communities, and the number of species are great, but because the coastal strip is so narrow, and crowded with people, so many of the communities are under stress, and endangered.

Temperatures were about 29 deg C, which was quite comfortable with the sea breeze. It was humid, but only because the ocean was right there. It's been so dry lately everywhere, despite the supposed start of the rainy season, that there were no mosquitoes. In general, it's been much, much more pleasant than I expected a semi-tropical location like this could be at this time of year.

Left: Alexandria Beach


We hiked to beautiful Alexandria Beach, and I reluctantly stopped taking pictures when Andrew said he would disown me if I continued. Alexandria Beach is clothing-optional, and indeed, several couples frolicked in the surf sans clothing. One woman posed for cheesecake photos with nothing on but a thong, as her boyfriend snapped away, but mostly, it was hairy guys walking to-and-fro. I stood out because I was the only one wearing sweatpants (I should go shopping). We ate lunch and gazed east, seeing a boat in the distance, but otherwise, nothing else, all the way to the eastern horizon.

We walked back over the headlands, cruised downtown, drove along the beachfront road to Coolum Beach, then headed back for Mt. Glorious.