A great week with James

James (John's Cousin) was spending his first, well earned holiday in his new job, with us on the Sunshine Coast. We picked him up from Brisbane Airport and headed straight for a National Park camping ground next to a creek, it was a lovely area but being a Saturday night it was a little lively. It had been a scorching week without rain so John and I slept in our Non waterproof tent, luckily James had managed to borrow a really good weather proof tent. Half way through the night the heavens opened, quietening down the lary drunks but causing John and I to become flooded out. We made a quick dash for the comfort of the van. From then on rain seemed to be the theme of the week. From there we headed north using some Scout Grounds to stay at. The first was Dunethin Rock. The first night there we had the whole ground to ourselves. It had rained most of the day but thankfully it had stopped in time for dinner. Whilst we made dinner James had the job of lighting a fire, as the wood was all wet it wasn't easy but even so he managed to get a roaring fire going with just the help of a 10cm² piece of cardboard and only 1 match, I think even Ray Meres would be impressed. From then on we called him James 'one match' Penn.
The following day we hired some Kayaks from the Scout ground and headed both up and down the river, exploring some of the more narrow creeks. There were loads of jumping fish, one almost landed in my lap, we saw Kingfishers and a few snakes curled up in the trees. After several hours and about 15 KM we were exhausted and ready for a good feed and collapse.
We headed as far north as Noosa where we found yet another Scout Camp to stay at. By this point the rain was really messing up the grass areas and we had to push the van out a few times.
James had hired a surf board for the week and Noosa had some of the better waves of the week. He has a 'No Fear' approach to surfing and whenever the bigger waves came through we just heard 'Av It Penn!' and then saw James on his board flying head first down the wave. He is now called James 'one match, hell boy' Penn.
The picnic area around the beach had some very clever birds (they looked a little bit like young Kookaburras but I'm not sure. I (Ruth) went over first to the picnic tables to save us a spot. I was nibbling on a rice cracker. As I brought the cracker up to my mouth the bird that had been watching me darted straight for the cracker and therefore my face, before it reached me I pulled the cracker down to my side just as a second bird swiped past my side and took the whole cracker clean out of my hand. He then went and shared it with his mate. This manoeuvre was so finely tuned, it all happened in the space of 2 seconds. It was incredible.
We finished the week with a night in Brisbane, James treated us to a hotel. It was real luxury. We went out for a lovely Vietnamese meal. It was a great week!!!