Thursday April 15, 2010 – Noosa Everglades Tour

It was nice and bright this morning. How long this will last we are not sure. At least the morning looks great for the cruise up the Noosa River. We left shortly after 9. This was a very relaxing trip up the river. Our skipper took time to show us birds and stop to hear some of their calls. There have been changes in the river since Mom and I went only a few years ago. The river entrance at the far end of Lake Cootharaba became silted up after a number of big rain storms in April 09. A number of people tried to dig it out by hand while the government departments tried to get together and make a decision on dredging. Finally, it was decided to dredge the channel again.

The visitor's centre we once stopped at to use the washrooms has been abandoned by the forestry department. We stopped at fig point for morning tea. We took a walk there that showed how close the fire a few months ago came this picnic area. Up the river we could see signs of the fire along the river. There were places where the fire jumped the river. Our skipper said that it seems like a fire gets started about every 5 years. It is surprising how fast the forest is recovering. New tree growth has started. Trees that were burnt have new growth on them. Unfortunately this new fire was from careless campers.

As we went further up the river a channel has been closed by debris. Another channel that was hard to pass through before was dredged out by the river flow. Now the tour takes this channel. We arrived at Harry's Hut in time to go for a swim in the river before lunch. I was the only woman that went in. Charles and two others came in. It was a beautiful swim. Very refreshing.

A wonderful BBQ lunch was prepared for us by our skipper. During our lunch a wild turkey entered the bus we would be taking after lunch. Charles had put our two plastic bags on the bus after our swim. My bag was already ripping. However, Charles bag was pecked to death. Very little of it was left. A guana came to visit us as well. Not sure if it had just caught something big and had eaten it or it had eggs inside of it. Either way it was fat. Its belly dragged on the ground.

After lunch we got on the bus to head for the 40 mile beach. Of the 7 people on the bus 5 of us were from Canada. The other 2 were from NZ. It was a long and sometimes bumpy trip to get to the beach. It took about 1 ¾ hours to get to the beach. Mostly we saw trees during this trip. The trip had to be changed because of cyclone a few weeks ago. There in a rocky place just north of where we entered the beach. The bad weather exposed them and now it is not safe to travel over them. They will gradually fill in again so vehicles can make it through. We stopped at the Red Canyon which is along the dunes. The red sand is from the iron in the sand that is rusting. All along the way there were different coloured sands. Many people were camping up above the high tide line, some in tents and some in trailers. You really have to know the tides to camp along this beach. There were a number of people out fishing.

We took the cable ferry back to the south side of the Noosa River. Our tour was over. It had been a good day. Like all our days this week the rain came in the afternoon. We were lucky that it wasn`t raining when we wanted to stop.

We had already decided to have pizza for supper so stopped to order it from the restaurant just outside the resort gate. It was delicious pizza. Sadly our week here is just about up.