The not so sunny sunshine coast

We where on the sunshine coast, named because its sunny three hundred days of the year, at the perfect time, right on the edge of a cyclone! We had planned to be in the great barrier reef a lot earlier, but it was really badly flooded, and there was a cyclone hanging around that was unpredictable. So we spent the time in the stormy, but not as bad as if we went north, not so sunny sunshine coast, and waited quite literally till the storm blew over.
We spent three days in Brisbane. Brisbane is my favourite of the bigger cities so far. It reminds me of Minneapolis, its right on a river, and has the big town small city feel. We did a lot of shopping there, visited some museums, walked all over, it was rainy most of the time. Our car wouldn't start the second day we were there, so i held up jumper cables and tried to wave some one down. Finally this crazy but very generous Greek guy named jghsvijdfhgkjashgs stopped to help, and when he couldn't start it after a half hour he let me use his phone to call the camper company (who couldn't help us till the next day), and then gave us a lift in his pickup to the city cat, which is a river ferry. We took the city cat to Jessica's very flamboyant friend Scott's uni apartment, that he shared with five people, were we got a long needed shower, and enjoyed Brisbane's night life. After sleeping on their two very small couches, we bid a very thankful farewell and went back to the car to wait for the wicked people to come jump the van. I really haven't had a more successful car breakdown, they came, they jumped, we followed them back to the station where they fixed the problem and we were off! The rest of that day we spent on the city cat going up and down the river, which is only a couple of dollars, just enjoying the view and the ride.
That night we drove to Mooloolaba and bang, we where in the hurricane. Cyclone Hamish, I think it was called. We watched the waves that night, along with half the town, and ate pad thai. I saw a three story wave, it was incredible, and it scared the crap out of me, as soon as I saw it I wanted to run just out of instinct, but we were a safe distance away. It was so windy it was hard to walk. We were too late to get a campsite so we stayed in a parking lot where there were other vans camped. The van shook violently from the wind all night, it was pretty eerie and I dreamt about killer waves all night. It was a lot calmer the next day. We explored the town, its a cute little surfers town, and got a campsite. Although we really were not planning to spend money on campsites, its really a lot easier, less stressful, and a real treat to have one, plus you meet a lot of travelers. We went to the Australian Zoo the next day, which is the second largest zoo in the world and its the one Steve Irwin started. It was amazing, I feed an elephant, watched a crock show, touched a koala, feed and hung out with a ton of kangaroos and wallabies. There my favorite. I'm getting one. There were reptiles, a million birds, koalas, dingos, Tasmanian devils, camels, wombats... I think i'll just stay here and work there.
That evening we headed to Noosa Heads (which is right next to Gympie, which is right next to Kin Kin.. how did they come up with these names? ill find out) where we stayed for the next four nights. It was completely storming by the time we got there and had to cook in the wind and rain. The next day we RELAXED. There was a TV so we just chilled and watched TV, I haven't watched for over a month so I was probably the most excited person in the world to watch the Ellen show and the biggest loser Au. The day after that was the Saturday before Saint Patrick's day, so of course we went pub hopping all day, what else are you supposed to do? We nursed our Guinness hangovers at the beach the next day, the only sunny morning for a while, and chatted with an older British and Israeli couple for a couple hours. After eating a lot of greasy food, and feeling lazy, we decided to treat ourselves to a movie, hes just not that into you, which I actually really enjoyed. We camped on the road that night next to the campground, deciding to save some money after spending so much the day before. After getting woken up by the lawn mower guy the next morning, warning us the trooper was going to be around soon to hand out tickets, we headed to Hervey Bay.