Noosa Everglades

 What is an everglade? According to dictionary.com, it’s a tract of low, swampy land, especially in Southern Florida. Noosa Everglades claims to be “one of only two everglades systems in the world”. (Guess where the other one is!)

We’d booked a day trip to go cruising and canoeing in the Noosa Everglades. We were picked up outside our hotel at eight o’clock, and then toured the accommodations of Noosa to pick up all the other passengers, before setting off for Boreen Point on Lake Cootharaba, about 20 km north of Noosa. After stopping for a short while there, we then boarded our boat. Fortunately we were all in shorts, as the boarding process involves wading out to the boat! Even so, I had to roll mine up a bit. The water is distinctly brown, due to the tannins leached into the water from the tea tree plants which surround the lake.

We set out on the lake, passing some pelicans on the way, as our guide gave us some historical and nature notes along the way. We saw a water dragon, and a goanna when we stopped for morning tea (he hangs around the site expecting scraps – an unfortunate example of behaviour modification which is now discouraged), but not much in the way of exotic bird life.

Goanna, or lace monitor

Sleepy pelicans

Mirror lake

More mirror-y water

Water dragon

At this point, half of our party boarded canoes to paddle up the river (there’s no real current as such, so going upriver is about as energetic as going downriver), whilst we set off up river to Harry’s Hut – built by a chap called Harry, whose family had lived on the land before it was a National Park. He took the Queensland government to court when it first designated the area a park, won, and used the money from the settlement to ensure public access to the river and park remained.

The canoers eventually caught up with us, and we switched over to canoe downstream. Nicola and I hadn’t originally been put down for canoeing due to some oversight, but we wanted to go, so we were split up and put with other boats. I had the pleasure of the company of Eva and Peter from Munster in Germany, who were doing the whole Australia and New Zealand tour. We canoed very efficiently downstream, and saw two raptors flying overhead – but on the advice of our guide, hadn’t brought our cameras, as a boating accident wouldn’t do them much good.

After returning to shore, we then sailed back to Boreen Point the way we’d come, and again waded ashore. Lunch was served at the camp ground here – roast pork and veggies, an odd choice in the warm sunshine. There is a microbrewery on site, which boasts that it is the only brewery in a national park. Still, they made beer competently enough, so I had a pint to wash down my lunch with. We then had a short period to try and capture some wildlife shots around the place, where we saw more bird life than we had on the boat trip! We also looked out for kangaroos but failed to spot any – apparently we wandered off in the wrong direction.

We were delivered back to our hotel, and had a quick spa and swim to wash away the river water. In the evening we headed into Noosaville for dinner at the Boathouse on Gympie Terrace.