Through 31-Mar: NSW and QLD roadtrip

My good friend from high school, Mackenzie, along with two of her friends, Jo and Brooke, arrived on St. Patty’s day for a two week trip. After showing them the sights in Sydney for a few days (including the beach walk from Coogee to Bondi, the Taronga Zoo and a few Irish pubs in the Rocks) we set off on a bit of a road trip up the coast from Sydney.

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To the 4 girls I was roadtripping with I became known as “Driver!!” barked in a commanding tone followed by some order like “get me my brekky!” We went through the Hunter Valley for a bit of wine tasting and then out to the coast through Coffs Harbour and up to Byron Bay.

Byron is one of those spots that everyone seems to love so expectations were high and I have to say that Byron lived up to, and probably surpassed, those expectations. It was such an eclectic beach town with all sorts of people: hippies, surfers, families, you name it. We spent a couple days on the beach, hiking around Cape Byron and having some good meals/drinks in the restaurants/bars. It’s the kind of spot I could pretty easily spend more time.

From Byron, Michelle had to return to Sydney to continue in her academic pursuits so the 4 of us continued on through the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise, through Brisbane and up to Noosa where we stayed for a few days. (Surfers Paradise has a great name, but is a god-awful eyesore of a spot. Developers have completely ruined what would otherwise be a beautiful location by developing huge condo towers all along the Gold Coast and completely reshaping the atmosphere of what was once a sleepy beach town. To steal a description from Mackenzie: “if you like booze cruises, foam parties and amusement parks, you would like this town.”) Noosa, on the other hand, was great. The first day from Noosa we took a full day tour of Fraser Island. Fraser Island is a special habitat…it’s the largest sand island in the world and the only sand island on top of which is a tropical rainforest. We spent the day being driven in a 4x4 along the beaches and through the rainforest in the middle of the island. Fraser is known for its fabulous fresh water lakes, one of which we got to have a little swim in. We saw a couple of dingoes, a freshwater eel and plenty of ancient foliage that kind of makes you feel like a velociraptor might appear over the hill at any moment. It was cool.

The following day we spent some time hiking in Noosa National Park looking for koalas (unsuccessfully) but it was gorgeous nonetheless. The towns in the Noosa area I found extremely appealing and I had the feeling they’re the kind of places where everyone who lives there is just very happy and content with life.

From Noosa we drove back down south through Brisbane where we dropped Brooke at the airport (and then there were three) and continued on to Mt. Warning National Park just back across the Queensland border into New South Wales. The next day we set out early to hike to the top of Mt. Warning which gave us gorgeous 360 degree views including out to the ocean, Byron Bay and inland to the rainforests. Mt. Warning is usually the first spot on the Australian continent to get sunlight in the morning (we didn’t quite make it up there for sunrise though).

After descending back down to the car we drove north once again back to Brisbane where we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening seeing a bit of the city. We had to get up at 3:30 the next morning for our insanely early flight back to Sydney so pretty much laid low for the whole day back in the apartment in Sydney. We did make it out for a rugby league match at the Sydney Football Stadium between Sydney and some other part of Sydney (which I couldn’t quite make sense of). One of the Sydney teams won, and the other one lost. (I still don’t get most of the finer points of the game but it was fun to hear the crowd get so animated over things that completely escaped me). The next few days we had great weather and spent time at a few Sydney beaches including Coogee, Manly and Bondi. We spent an evening in the “cross” which always leads to some good stories, most of which aren’t suitable for sharing here! Jo left on Monday and Mackenzie left on Tuesday and after having nearly two weeks of perfect weather for this group of visitors, Tuesday was a rainy, windy, stormy day so they timed things just about perfectly. Now that they’ve all left it’s quieter in the apartment and the estrogen levels have subsided significantly! Mackenzie wrote a blog of her trip which I think she has now updated, so check it out for more details.