We had said goodbye to Brisbane and headed to Noosa on the bus.
As part of my Greyhound booking, they offered me a "free" trip to the Noosa Everglades to do canoeing and bushwalking. It turns out every single person on the trip had either "won" the trip or the guy "had to call the manager" to see if he could give it to you for free! Although it's not actually free because you have to pay $50 to stay at the camp!

I arrived at the bus stop and said my goodbyes to Jai. I met a girl called Steph from Cornwall who was also doing my trip. We started talking about our travels and plans for Australia.

After chatting for a while, I was having a conversation with her about being worried about having a gap in my teaching CV and we were saying that most employers see it as a positive if you've been travelling and had some life experiences.
"You won't get a job with a gap in your CV!" Said a grumpy voice. It was our camp bus driver, here to share his joy and lust for life!
"No employer is going to care that you've been bumming around for a year! I know from experience!"
We looked awkwardly at each other. "Okay!"
"I did 5 years in America!"
"Oh right, where did you go?" I attempted to keep the tone light.
"It's not about where, it's why!" We waited for him to elaborate, "it was a waste of time!"
We were silent, not knowing what to say in reply. We hoped that he wouldn't be with us the whole time!

It turns out we are pretty much left to fend for ourselves. In our little group were two girls from Amsterdam called Bibi and Wietske and two Germans called Stephan and Monique.

Driving into the camp sight I wondered if this is where backpackers go to die as we were taken into a homeless camp. On the sides of the road, trailers stood with heaps of junk piled high in their gardens. "Of course it's free!" exclaimed one of the girls in the group. We all gave each other anxious looks as we pulled up to our camp and unloaded our stuff. The camp was actually really nice and set back from it's homeless neighbours. It had a big tent with leather seats and a huge flat screen TV, the kitchen area attracted lots of birds including a turkey that we all threatened to eat, we then changed our minds and targeted the magpie as he was much more irritating! You could also pay an additional $5 a night to stay in a dorm instead of a tent. I say dorm, it was a glorified shed with hammock beds. But! It was off the ground, had a light, a roof and a much smaller chance of having a snake climb into bed with you.

Nothing had been planned for us the day we arrived so we took ourselves off on a bush walk. Along the way we searched each tree for koalas but had no luck! Just past the fence though, we saw a cute wallaby and later a kangaroo jumped into sight too!

The vibe at the camp was relaxed as the other group arrived back from their canoe trip looking exhausted. We cooked dinner, 50 sausages on the BBQ. We decided we could just eat them between the four of us over the three days we were there. I say four, one of the girls was vegetarian so sad times for her, she was stuck with BBQ courgette. Unsurprisingly, the Magpies didn't pester her as much as the rest of us!

In the evening, the fire was lit and we gathered around the kitchen table to play cards and eat our $1 chocolate bars.Once everyone except 3 of us had gone to bed, a possum with her baby on her back climbed down the tree and scavenged around the camp licking the fat from the BBQ and looking for food scraps. I then saw a small snake as I was walking back from the toilets, unfortunately, it was too quick to get a proper look at it, but it was skinny and jet black with white stripes on its back. It took me a while to drift off after seeing the snake just meters from where my bed was and I began to wander if the extra $5 would protect me from getting a bed buddy after all.