Week 19+20 East Coast Australia

DISCLAIMER
I'm finishing this blog on a display MacBook in Sydney airport. This is not conducive to optimum enjoyment of writing...

Noosa

Noosa is nicer than your average town! Epitomising all that the Australian East Coast hopes to be; beautiful, spacious, green and sunny. It's also filled with more smug new parents than could be found at your average school nativity play.

I spent my time here largely being a "grommet" (surfing beginner), visiting Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo and walking the enchanting National Park.

Just coasting through life.

She sells sea shells on the sea shore, the shells she sells go for minimum $50, because it's an affluent middle class crowd in the neighbourhood.

I took far too many pictures in the zoo, but here are a few of my favourites. And when I say "I", I mean my Canadian friend with the posh camera...

Crikey, what a beaut!

I asked nicely for him to smile, but Wesley just pulled a face. 

This wombat here bent over laughing when I read her my blog. 

Roo cursing his small arms as he tries to scratch his butt.

My new best friend, Barbecue.

Brisbane

Now I'll be honest, I hadn't heard a single piece of positive feedback regarding Brisbane before my visit. Luckily for me, I was able to stay with a good friend and thoroughly enjoyed the city. I found it almost cute how much the city tried to be an "international metropolis" and yet somehow still felt like a suburban area - more in keeping with Noosa than with say Sydney.

Beautiful Brisbane.

A narrative photo of the area.

This is winter! No wonder Australians are always so smug about their patch of turf.

Surfer's Paradise

You know when they named "Greenland" as such, in order to attract people to the otherwise barren wilderness? Well that's kind of how I felt about Surfer's Paradise. Don't get me wrong, some people absolutely lovely the artificial long golden stretch of sand, endless high rise buildings and clubbing scene. Me, well all I saw was an unfinished construction site, poor weather and nothing to do.

This is because I made the previous comment about winter I'm sure.

Byron Bay

Now we're talking! All the locals rave about Byron and it's easy to see why. The likes of Jack Johnson and, well actually that's the only celebrity I know but there are more, live here.

Waves here are huge! Trying to surf them is akin to trying to date Chris Brown.

Time to wave goodbye to Byron (what! I've not done a good pun in weeks).

I think they should rename it Tyrone Bay personally. (Yes that is the moon).

The most easterly point of Australia under the most beautiful moon I've ever seen.

This should be in an art gallery somewhere me thinks. The juxtaposition of natural and artificial light (or something like that).

Coff's Harbour

I have definitely slowed down the pace of my travels in Australia. In this most idyllic of towns, I allowed myself a few days of 'rest'; taking in the tranquility of this often over-looked place.

Viewpoint of the town.

A four wheel drive trip up to the national park.

Inside a creeper vine

Sydney

I allowed myself four days in this most iconic of cities. Sadly I couldn't use them all due to the appalling weather. I found Sydney to be very similar to London, except it has a stunning stretch of Coast, known as "Bondi Beach" which is as lovely as it is famous. 

Sydney Opera House - but you knew that!

Circular Quay.

And then it started raining (Darling Harbour). 

I like this. The real thing and the architectural recreation. 

The walk over Sydney Harbour Bridge.

Darling Harbour again. Darling please won't you stop for just a bit!

One of my favourite walks ever - Bondi to Bronte

The Sydney Skyline

The famous Bondi Beach

Despite the weather, I enjoyed Sydney. Its pretty ports, imposing skyline and luscious parks. It was the perfect end to an incredible 5 weeks down under. 

Australia is perhaps not as  adventurous as my previous locations and it's certainly a lot more expensive. However I feel these downfalls are more than made up for by its awe-inspiring natural displays, friendly people and hassle free lifestyle. 

Trip Stats

Places Visited : (15) Cairns, Tully, Atherton Tablelands, Magnetic Island, Airlie Beach, Whitsunday Island, Agnes Water, Rainbow Beach, Fraser Island, Noosa, Brisbane, Surfer's Paradise, Byron Bay, Coffs Harbour, Sydney

Distance travelled: 2500km

Kangaroos cuddled: 6

Week 16, 17 + 18 East Coast Australia

G'day mate! Yes so I have arrived in "sunny" Australia (quite a while ago actually). Once again, I gave up on the idea of maintaining a blog and then I thought, in keeping with the Australian culture, I'll just do a half hearted one. "She'll be 'right mate" as they say. 

To be honest, it's just more of the same. Beautiful beaches, raucous fun and the usual assortment of once in a lifetime experiences. Only difference is everything is upside down, they speak kinda funny and I paid the equivalent of three freaking quid for a loaf of bread. 

Cairns

Cairns is a lovely, spacious town with a port, an artificial lagoon and not a whole lot else to be honest. But, it is also an amazing center for a whole lot of other amazing activities and trips. 

Cairns you feel the warm sunshine? (artificial lagoon)

The usual trick of putting something colourful in the foreground to make an otherwise quite boring picture cool (#pro-photographer)

 So where is this amazing Ozzy weather everyone goes on about?

Milla Milla falls - it is apparently the waterfall from Peter Andre's "Mysterious Girl" AND the Herbal Essences advert. Incidentally, it is also freezing!

 Atherton Tabelands - stunning, but really difficult to get a good picture of.

Blog appreciation is proportional to the number of cute turtle pictures.

A volcanic lake

One of the things I wanted to do most in Australia is snorkel the Great Barrier Reef. I have done quite a bit of snorkelling on my travels already, but by gosh, this was at a whole new level. It's like someone has turned up the intensity of the experience; the colours, the quantity of marine life and unfortunately also the waves. I saw one fish, a Maori Humpback, or something like that, which was bigger than me!

This is where we snorkeled - literally in the middle of nowhere...

As you can see - lots of fish!

Angelina Jolie?

Another amazing experience accessible from Cairns is white water rafting on the River Tully. This trip involved adrenaline pumping activities such as back somersaulting off tree branches into grade 2 rapids. 

Contrary to my face, I am having fun (River Tully)

Magnetic Island

Next up is a peaceful little island known as "Magnetic Island". Don't ask why it's called that, I have no idea. It's accessible from Townsville, which in and of itself also seems like a quiet, but pretty, little town. 

The perfect spot for some reading - Horseshoe Beach, Magnetic Island

As usual I got bored of the beach and went for a hike

Me appreciating the stunning views from the top

This is what I am looking at in the above picture

I've got to admit that the signs for "extremely poisonous snakes" along the trail were somewhat distressing to me. I was making as much noise as possible so that I didn't accidentally surprise any snakes. That's what you're meant to do right? 

Airlie Beach

Another quiet, beautiful little coastal spot. Are you sensing a pattern here?

Airlie Beach

Rich people...

The only reason anyone really goes to Airlie Beach is to disembark on a sailing cruise around the Whitsunday Islands. 

Whitsunday Islands

I love, love, love this place. Basically you get on a sailing boat with a couple of dozen other people for a few days and they take you all around these picture postcard islands. Occasionally you get off to swim or snorkel or take photos. It would be a very relaxing, rejuvenating experience, but for the fact that the boat I was on was a mega party boat. Hello only three hours of sleep. 

Another reason, this was one of the highlights of my entire travelling experience so far was because of the stars. Away from the light pollution of the mainland you can really appreciate the plethora of constellations. Even more so because the boat rocks wildly in the ocean sea and the breeze catches your hair and breath away.

Ahoy there captain!

Sunset on our sailing boat

The weather wasn't great, but it didn't matter - still awesome on Whitsunday Island

Agnes Water (aka 1770)

So named because it is where James Cook landed in 1770 apparently. It's also the cheapest place in Australia to learn to surf and yet for some reason I didn't sign on.

Agnes Water Beach

And again, just in case you didn't know what sand and sea looked like

Fraser Island

I scarcely had time to recover from my Whitsunday tour before I was off on a four wheel drive tour of Fraser Island. This place was unbelievable! A 75 mile long golden sands beach with roaring waves crashing in on the shore. It's the largest sand island in the world and also the only place that rain-forest grows on sand apparently. We got to drive the vehicles on the beach ourselves which was not only great fun, but also a plentiful source of banter. Queue sexist remarks about women drivers etc etc (not from me obviously :P).

Swimming in the lake - why are they always so dam cold though!

My turn to drive!

Slamming on the breaks at the sight of the police...

The dreaded dingo - I think they're quite cute actually

Eli Creek - You lie in the stream and let it gently take you down to the sea, drinking the refreshing water as you go.

The view from Indian Head of the beach

Yep, one of the girls rolled the vehicle...sigh

A sand blow forming a lake with rain-forest in the background - cool huh?!

The tour we were on was a camping experience, which was great fun. It meant cooking our own food, marshmallows by the camp fire at night and strolling under the stars before bed. Once again the stars were incredible. Unfortunately our star gazing session was interrupted by a lone dingo. The girls in our group promptly freaked out and started running for the camp. This left just me and my French friend to shout after them "stop running" while we raised sticks at the almighty beast. 

Rainbow Beach

Went for a run here this morning - lovely jubbly!

And that's all so far folks. I'm told I'm now heading into arctic weather, so wish me luck! :D