Camping on the Sunshine Coast

So this weekend myself and 5 friends of mine decided to go camping on the Sunshine Coast, an stretch of beaches between Brisbane and the Great Barrier Reef. We ended up camping on Coolum Beach, and then hiking and swimming in Noosa National Park. This was my first camping experience in Australia, and it was wonderful. Not only was the entire weekend extremely cheap, it was also a great way to experience this area. We took public transportation up from Brisbane. This was an interesting way to travel, it cost us $10 each way so was really cost effective, but took about 4 hours each way. And we had a bunch of bus and train transfers. We made our way without incident, and we chatted the time away and we stocked up on Tim Tams to snack on. The time passed quickly. Our campsite was in a camp group that was basically 50m from the beach. We set up our tents and then bummed around the beach for our first afternoon (see below). It was a bit windy but really great. We ended our evening by cooking a camp food dinner of beans, sweet potatoes, and sausages/veggie burgers. And decided to get up in order to see the sunrise.

This ended up being the best idea of the trip, not only was the sunrise absolutely beautiful (see top photo), but we also were fortunate enough to see a baby sea turtle (see below)!!! He was going pretty slowly, but determined to make it to the water. Unfortunately, he was pretty weak and we didn't think he is going to make it :(, but that's life and it was still really cool to see him try for the water. We spent an hour rooting him on, before heading out to Noosa.

Noosa is a surf town on the edge of a national park. We went for a great hike along the coast, through the national park. We kept a lookout for koalas, which are known to live in this area, Unfortunately, we didn't see any. We did get to enjoy the natural beauty of the coastal eucalypts though (see below). After our hike we went for a swim on one of the surf beaches. The waves were huge! And it was really great to get to go in the water. After Noosa, we headed back to Coolum to pack up camp and make the long journey back to Brisbane. It was only overnight, but it was a great trip, taken in great company. I was so glad we were able to fit this in because I will not really be traveling outside of Brisbane until June.