"Let's heat up some water for Tim-Tams"

Wow. Australia!
Flying into Brisbane was so nice, being able to see the beach and the city, with the blue water below. Getting through customs was such a hassle, as both New Zealand customs and Australian customs are tedious and difficult to navigate and clear. Adam and I found ourselves checked in for our plane, but not through security, both carrying our groceries, which incuded two bottles of our favorite beer, so we had to drink up. That's the first time I've ever had a beer at the airport!
We went straight off the plane, and got on a bus to Noosa, which we read about in Lonely Planet and is north of Brisbane by about two hours. Nooa is a small town, with lots of shops and businesses that close early and backpackers that are constantly full, so finding a place to sleep was difficult and we ended up sleeping on the beach. I couldn't think of any other way I would have wanted to start my trip to australia, except that by 2 am it was raining on us, I lost a contact, and a bush turkey was trying to steal out food. Fabulous! We survived though, finding shelter and waking up with the sun, spending the day on the beach until we found ourselves a caravan park close to town that had sites where we could put up the tent and sleep cheap. My favorite! We spent about four nights in Noosa all together, and in the middle we went on a three day two night canoeing trip up into the everglades, through Lake Cootharaba. I didn't think I'd like the canoeing trip very much, as I prefer to kayak, but we had a great time. The water in the river was a dark amber color, because of the pH balance, and the reflections in the water were sometimes better than what we could see in the sky. It was so quiet there, with the sounds of the bird calls (which are so incredible, by the way. I'll try and post a video) the paddles, and the clouds. The trees are called Paperbark, in the same family as the Birch tree, with the bark literally shredding off as a deterant (we think) from termites (a huge pest here). The first night we discovered our new fuel in our stove didn't work, so we had cereal for dinner, then breakfast in the morning, all of our granola bars for lunch, and were desperate by dinner time. We did a hike in the middle of the day up to a sandpatch which went for miles. I didn't think I'd be very impressed only because of my times spent at the dunes near Michigan, but it was wonderful despite the rain. We couldn't even see all of it's vastness, but the fact that every day the footprints left by the visitors there are completely wiped away by morning is so unreal. I think it would be such an experience to be the first person to walk on that sand in the morning! We headed back to camp though, after our lunch of granola bars, playing the game "If you could eat anything now, what would it be?" and trying to decide between matzo ball soup (what a bunch of jews!) with noodles and vegetables, nachos or a gigantic boat full of sushi. It all still sounds so good!
At camp by 3.30, we decided we might as well try and create a fire, but with the fire ban (a reasonable one, as the forest there is so dry and there isn't a big enough source of water to collect safely (there are sharks in the river) to be able to put out an unruly fire), so, we tryed cutting off the tops of our soda cans, poking a few air holes, and filling the bottom with fuel (it would lite when it was a liquid, but one it turned to gas, it stopped staying lit in our stove) and then using the lighter to create the flame. A few sticks kept the flame high enough, and after a few attempts, we were able to boil water! This realization was so exciting that we quickly threw together some soup, then making more cans so we had a three can tripod on which we tried to fry up some vegetables, alhtough we later realized they had gone bad and couldn't even stand the smell of them cooking. Oy, what an adventure! We met a few Argentinians and Venezualans later on, who offered their stove to us so we were able to have pancakes for Adam's birthday breakfast. Yeah!
We paddled back to town (well, I did mostly; Adam's family called to wish him Happy Birthday, so I kpet paddling!) and even though we had hoped for a tail wind to blow us back to town (remember this? does it sound like Deja Vu from our trip in Piton?) but instead had a head wind, although this wind was nothing compared to our kayaking trip, the waves on the lake were still quite big.
We made tacos for birthday dinner, had a few drinks and hung out on the beach. Adam is teaching me to spin Poi, which originates from New Zealand Maori warriors, but has caught on overseas and Adam learned when we lived in Israel. Hopefully before we leave I will be able to spin fire (don't worry, I'll get pictures) as confidently as Adam does now, but we'll see. We've spent a few days on the beaches here, bumming around, soaking up the sun and getting tossed by the ocean waves. The UV rays here are extremely dangerous, considering there isn't any ozone layer overhead and the burn time for our skin can sometimes be 6 minutes!

We've traveled slightly south now, on the Gold Coast in a place called Kirra Beach. We stayed in the popular Surfer's Paradise for a night, but it was very expensive and filled with "schoolies", who are recently graduated high school students spending 3 weeks and their parents money binge drinking and not wearing enough clothing. I would love to say that it's entertaining, but the level of whining and skin I've been seeing has increased ten fold and my retina's have started to cry. Litereally. I'm mostly kidding, my retina's aren't crying.

Well, once again my time is being cut short by an internet timer where I've already spent $5 just trying to write this and not become too distracted. Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving!