I arrived in Noosa Thursday morning after riding Brisbane's local transport for 3 hours and 200km (it's quite a large city). The town is largely geared towards wealthy beachgoers but does have its share of hiking and surf breaks. I spent a few hours milling through the bush of Noosa Heads National Park in search of the elusive koala which adorned every sign and brochure for the area, but according to the locals, these tree-hugging marsupials are impossible to spot unless somebody's already hit one with his car. Wildlife was limited to the usual spread of birds and a number of old men who were taking full advantage of the park's unofficial nude beach.
In the morning, I was taken to the start of the paddle along with seven others; we were a small group since the vast majority of backpackers had been celebrating St. Patty's Day at Irish Murphy's til the wee hours in the morning and weren't about to make it out for an 8am trip. We were supplied with waterproof bins, cooking supplies, tents, water jugs, and canoes and were given a rough idea of where we needed to go to find our campsite; with a few reassuring words about the infrequency of bull shark and croc attacks in the area, they sent us unguided up the river into the jungle.
I have never been particularly successful at canoeing, tending to follow a serpentine or circular pattern and crashing into every piece of foliage within a 100 meters of the intended course, but with a bit of instruction, it wasn't too tricky to figure out an effective strategy - as near as I can tell, it's the responsibility of the person in the back to steer, and the job of the person in the front to complain about the other's steering.
The river was much like any of a hundred rivers in the southern States; it was stained black by the tannin trees that lined the sides and the skies and bush were reflected perfectly in the still waters. Following a few dozen water fights, we arrived at our campsite only 3 hours behind schedule; we had been told that pitching our tents on flat ground would increase the chances of flooding, but since it never rains in Oz, we set up on the most featureless spot available.
As is often the case when you camp during the later months of the year, the evening passed remarkably slowly; we ate dinner around 4PM and then sat around for the next five hours, eagerly awaiting a time where we would feel justified in going to bed without looking like we were 90 years old. I passed out around 9:30PM, but awoke at midnight to find that our tent was partially flooded and a rat had somehow made its way in and was now scuttling around and eating all the food we had neglected to throw in the bin; my tentmate (Finnish girl named Laura) was still sleeping peacefully, so I opted not to bother her with the details just then and drifted back to sleep in my shallow, chilly pool. At 2AM, Laura performed this neat trick where she went from sleeping soundly to leaping a meter into the air within a fraction of a second; the rat had apparently found comfortable bedding in her hair; the horrific screams that followed got the whole camp up and moving (as well as several adjacent camps) - the half-sleeping members of our party grappled for whatever weapons they could find to deal with the axe murder who had apparently ventured onto our site. We soon discovered that the adjacent tent had animal issues of its own; somehow, a rat had been trapped between the mosquito netting and main flap of the door and had been running around in circles for the last 4 hours; this had kept the two girls inside awake and in mortal terror; one of the others groggily walked over, unzipped the outer cover to the door and solved this crisis.
We emptied the water out of our tent and moved it to higher ground; also at this time, we inspected our food supplies which were now ridden with holes and droppings (naturally, we did this only after I had eaten two pieces of unusually holy bread); then I was charged with scouring every corner in search of our unwelcome guest, and once we were satisfied that he had left, we returned to sleep. At 4AM, I was awoken by an equally piercing, blood-curdling scream; apparently this time, the little rodent had made it into her sleeping bag; at this point, I gave up on the whole sleep thing and just read til dawn. Surprisingly, everyone got up early; the two girls with the rodent problem were infuriated that “wilderness camping" did not imply a four-star resort and also seemed perturbed that they were expected to paddle their own canoe, so they set off for the ranger station at first light to try to get their money back. Those who had properly secured their food cooked up an elaborate English breakfast, while I broke into the one bag of dates that had apparently survived the attack. We paddled 6km up the river and hiked another six to the “sandpatch;" this was in fact, a huge patch of sand, and offered amazing views of massive stretches of… sand. Returning along the same route, we had another evening in the same senior citizen style. When I tried to sleep that night, I found myself jumping at the slightest sound that might suggest another visitor; never having the slightest adversity to rats before, I was now utterly terrified by the prospect of one climbing into the tent. Fortunately, the only damage done that night was by a goanna that ate the cigarette pack that someone left on the picnic table (it was a little strange when a giant lizard asked me for a light).
The next morning, a lady from a neighboring camp brought by a 13kg box of bananas, explaining that her group was leaving and she would throw them away unless we wanted some; they appeared to be very moldy and not the least bit appetizing, so I just picked out two of the less revolting bunches; just then, one of the Englishmen popped his head out of his tent to say that we would take the whole lot. This pungent box of rotting fruit succeeded in attracting all the wildlife in the area; at one time we had 5 huge goannas converge on our site from all directions, and a venomous, red-bellied black snake was not far behind. Two kangaroos and half a dozen turkeys were also close at hand.
We buried the bananas in shallow holes beneath spots where the next set of campers were likely to pitch their tents and we set off back down the river and were shortly back in civilization.
