Noosa!

We have just returned from our first Australian holiday.  We took a 4 day mini-break in Noosa, which is at the north end of the Sunshine Coast.  The area has long stretches of white sand beaches bordering a beautiful national park.  The main town is called "Noosaville" and it is where most of the hotels, shops and restaurants are located.  We stayed on Sunshine Beach, about a 45 minute walk from Noosaville, in a hotel looking out over the beach.  It was beautiful!
The first of December here is considered the first day of summer, which is also start of storm season.  This is the time of year when we start to get big thunderstorms, hail storms and lots of rain followed by lots of heat, giving high humidity and leading to more thunderstorms, hail storms and rain.  The picture above shows a cloudy sky, but the temperature was well into the mid 20s, with water temps in the low 20s.  We went on a 5km hike through the national park and we were so glad it was cloudy.  Everytime the clouds cleared a bit the temperature shot up by about 5 degrees and the humidity felt like it was about 10% higher.  It was a fantastic walk with lots of flowers and trees.  We saw different types of lizards and got scared out of our skin by a kookaburra that flew low over our heads and shrieked.  Those things are LOUD!  We were hoping for koalas, but weren't lucky enough to see any.  It is a good reason to go back.
We had such a good time on this trip that we can't wait to plan our next Australian vacation!