Noosa Heads and the Meat Pie Incident

S and I ended up going to a beer and wine tasting on Friday evening featuring New Zealand wines and beers. We each got a cup and 10 tickets to try different wines or beers. We opted for the beer tasting. All in all the beers were pretty good and a bit more complex and flavorful than XXXX Gold, which is my go-to beer when I am out. Towards the middle of the evening I wasn't even paying attention to what I was drinking but I did learn that two tickets would get me a full cup rather than the 1/4 cup you usually get with one ticket. It also helps to be a girl when guys are pouring you beers that are ostensibly free, funny how that works out :) They were also serving snacks with the beer/wine tasting. I thought I would be bold and try a meat pie. The first bite was pretty good, but I quickly realized while the outside of the pie was warm to the touch the inside was like napalm. I proceeded to burn my hand (the filling dripped all over my hand and there were no napkins), S's hand and had to drop it in my beer cup to avoid further burns. I learned later I wasn't the only one this happened to, many other people suffered the same fate. And then bat fell on a woman's head. That was pretty exciting, as the bats here are pretty big; think half the size of Junebug with wings. I kind of felt bad for the bat. It realized its error immediately and was able to to fly to the nearby tree. I blame the bar because there was high pitched feedback coming out of the speakers over the music they were playing and I think that is what confused the bat.

On Saturday drove up to the Sunshine Coast to Noosa Heads. Noosa is supposed to be like the Hamptons of Queensland. People also say that Queensland is the Alabama of Australia, so I don't know how those comparisons mesh. Noosa didn't remind me of the Hamptons that much; it reminded me of Miami a little bit even though I've never been, but so beautiful, lush and tropical. We were able to get a private room at one of the hostels in town. The Halse Lodge is one of the nicest hostels I have ever stayed in. We booked a paddle boarding lesson and had so much fun. Noosa is both on a river and the coast, so it is full of canals with houses on them. We got to paddle all around and learned some of the finer points of paddle boarding techniques. It is such a nice, peaceful way to be out on the water and a good workout.

After our lesson we went to dinner at the Noosa Lifesaver's Club for dinner. Australia is full of clubs centered around activities or sports and they always have a restaurant, bar, and gambling. Gambling is huge here, more on that later. The club was right on the main beach and had a great view of the waves. The best way to describe clubs is like a family-friendly bar. And there was a seafood raffle. This seemed more intriguing than the meat raffle S encountered on the Gold Coast. We almost bought tickets, but had no place to put the seafood other than the car, which didn't seem like a good idea. The next day we went for a hike along the coast and encountered lots of surfers heading to the more difficult to reach surf spots. We didn't notice any Cyclone-related weather, though the waves might have been bigger; it was hard to tell.

We slowly made our way back to Brisbane by taking the scenic routes. We passed Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo, but didn't have time to stop before it closed. All in all it was a great weekend.

On the exercise front, I have still be working out every week day, but now my knees are killing me when I run. I think some new shoes may be in order. I am really bummed because running was starting to be fun. I think I may have to rest my knees for a few days before I can run even with new shoes because they ache all the time. Any suggestions from more experienced runners out there?

P.S. I'll post pictures later when I get them from S's computer.