Noosa is where I learn to surf. This family of resort villages and towns on Queensland's gorgeous Sunshine Coast offers ideal conditions for the virgin surfer, not to mention some of Australia's very best eating. My surf teacher is Merrick, a V-shaped ex-world champion who, amazingly, gets me on board within an hour. Riding the warm, predictable waves, bathed by Noosa's perfect climate, I throw hopeful surfer shapes. Merrick is too polite to say that I look like a half pint of milk on roller skates.
In Noosa Shire, you eat really well. The weekend market at Eumundi is a patchouli-scented odyssey, where real farmers sell their organic produce. This they also sell to Eats, a local cafe-cum-institution whose chef, Patrice, coaxes these fine ingredients into memorably fresh lunches. Mine comprised a glass of Maroochy Springs bio-dynamic Verdelho wine, a bottle of filtered rainwater, and Patrice's luscious king prawns marinated in local Buderim ginger, sauteed in macadamia oil and served with fresh ginger flowers. These flowers are a revelation - juicy and gingery, hinting at asparagus and a superb foil to the sweetly charred prawns. I am engaged in conversation by John, aka Boots, an ex-cobbler to the Queen who now funds his lifestyle in paradise by making a remarkable old-fashioned ginger beer. "It polishes your tonsils up a treat," he says. And so it does.
In Noosaville, I find Humid, a restaurant surfing food's New Wave. I eat a cuttlefish and avo salad bright with Thai spices, tempura prawns with kaffir lime mayo and pearly barramundi fish over warm kipfler potatoes, with olive salad, baby beans, salsa verde and a soft-yolked egg.
I spend half the next day cantering a well-kept horse on Teewah beach. The beach describes a gentle crescent, 10 miles of broad, litter-free, crowd-free, soft sand. My horse does a good job of mastering me. Given his head, he splashes delightedly through surf.
My last meal is a full-on blow-out at Berardo's in Noosa Heads. This is international metrosexy tucker at its height. I eat Coffin Bay oysters with sweet chilli and pink verjus, then a stellar ceviche of Hervey Bay scallops. A bouillabaisse is Aussie'd up with toasted sourdough bread. The chef pokes his head out of the kitchen - it is none other than Bruno Loubet, once of Bistrot Bruno and L'Odeon in London. Bruno insists I try his Wagyu beef cheek with Vietnamese "aromates". The pampered beef is utterly rich and buttery soft.
As a place for an active break, Noosa is full of vim, great fun, well run. As a place to eat, it fully deserves its reputation. And they even speak English, after a fashion.
· Merrick's Learn To Surf (learntosurf.com.au). Eats (0061 7 5442 8555) and Humid (+7 5449 9755) - both at noosaeguide.com. Berardo's (+7 5447 5660, berardos.com.au).
