Northern NSW up to Sunshine coast

New friends, old friends, family and friends of friends, so many people have shown us hospitality. It is great to catch up with, and get to know people. And it is great to have a place to do laundry and get away from the tent sometimes...

After Sydney, northern NSW

We met an older australian couple, Lyn and Kevin, when we were in Cambodia. We spent a day with them on a boat trip to a little island. They invited us to come and spend some time in their hometown Swansea when we came by on our trip. About 4 months later we arrived in Swansea and gave them a call. We stayed with them for 2 nights and had a really nice time! They took us out to the pub for dinner and we played Trivial pursuit and drank wine at their house. The game was from 1983 and it was given to us when we left. Swansea was a nice little town with the ocean on one side and the river on the other, full of black swans and pelicans.
We drove through New Castle and stopped to have a look around, nothing special really.
Just north of New castle we stayed at Seal Rocks. It was a beautiful little town with cliffs surrounding a surf beach. Didn't se any seals there though.
Probably one of the best places we found in New South Wales was Hat Head national park. It lies just north of Port Macquarie along the coast. We camped in two different places of the park. The first was Diamond heads. It is named after a rock formation along the beach. At the camp ground heaps of red kangaroos were feeding on the lawn not minding us campers, little joeys sticking out from the poach. The next campground was just at the outskirts of enormous sand dunes leading down to the ocean, to a beautiful beach. We went down to swim, but the sand in the water sank under our feet like quicksand and we didn't take the risk of getting stuck! We did a hike along the coast there and saw dolphins surfing, that was cool.

Coffs harbour was next place of visit. The campground we stayed at was just near the beach and had all facilities. A great pool and campkitchen and a tv room with widescreen. We stayed there and enjoyed the comforts after spending days in the national park which didn't even have showers. Sometimes you have to live a litle bit comfortable. Coffs Harbour was a nice place, it's marina is impressive and it has a little peninsula that goes out on a hill where the muttonbirds nest. Out there we saw a big shark in the water below us, the nearest yet we had come to these animals.

Up the coast were a few small surftowns that we planned to visit but the weather was not on our side. It was poring down rain when we went through Yamba, we spent a night in Ballina, but ended up sleeping in the car as it rained too heavily for our tent.

We went inland in the hilly landscape to have alook at the little town of Nim Bin before we went to Byron Bay. Nim Bin is famous for being a hippie town, where people go to buy drugs. We thought we'd have a look at the place, fun to see some tye dye shops and see people walkinga round ala flower power with no shoes on. When we arrived it was just one street the whole town was based on. It was very hippie, but in a sad way, not a happy hippie town. People walked arpund in tye dye clothes, dreads and all that, but they were all desperate to sell you dope or dope muffins. We arrived at about 8 in the morning and there was marijuana smoke coming out from windows. It was a dirty little town. The thought of maybe camping there one night was changed pretty quickly and we headed out to look at a waterfall instead.
The waterfall was really nice, lots of water because of a lot of rainfall. We went to do the walk to the base of the waterfall, we came the whole way down and the track continued over the river. You were supposed to skip from rock to rock over the water. Because of the wet season the rocks were now covered in water, and I slipped as I tried to cross... Fell straight in the wild water and called for help! Aaran pulled me up from the water, I was not hurt but very shocked. The camera I had in my pocket was now at the bottom of the river...

Byron Bay was next place to visit. It is the biggest bay in Australia, I think, anyway it is a plce that is famous for back packers. It is a real surf town where loads of tourists go for holidays. It was really nice. We had nice weather and the beach there was great. The town itself was crowded with restaurants and hostels, all with a bit of the "surf bum" feeling to them. We didn't spend weeks there though as some backpackers do, after a couple of days we left.

Southern Queensland
Queensland is a big state and it is divided in two, the densely populated southern part with Brisbane as it's big city and the northern part with the farm town of Townsville as their capital and a population of cows exceeding the human population.

Gold coast
We went through the border town and surf town of Tweedheads. From there you have a view over the Gold coast and all the skyscrapers. Surfers paradise is probably the most famous part of the gold coast, but many small towns link together along the coast creating one long stretch of town. The area is full of high buildings, hotels and restaurants. It is maybe the Florida of Australia. Here you can find all the amusement parks, Sea world, wet n' wild etc. I had heard mixed reviews about this place. Aaran has told me that it is popular with schoolies, kids that graduate, and for trips with the footie teams. Which means it's is a place where people go to party for a week.
Aaran and I had a contact, Chris, who lives just next to surfers on Main beach. Chris used to live in Malmo and play footie there, we got his number from Seth and Karin that we stayed with in Perth. We stayed with him and his estonian girlfriend for 3 nights. It was great to stay with them, had never met them before but their hospitality was great and we got along really well. It was also nice to stay with some people that call the gold coast their home. Main beach was a nice area, a little bit away from the most hotels and bars.
We took long walks along the beach from Main beach to the spit and to surfers which were really good. Gold coast was nicer than I had anticipated but still there are so many places that are nicer to visit in Australia.

Brisbane
From Chris's house we went to visit some of Aaran's old friends from Melbourne that had moved up to Queensland. We went to stay with Chad and Jackie and their son Jack for 4 days, in a place called Springfield west of Brisbane. It was really good for Aaran to catch up with his old friends and for me to get to know them! We had nice bbq evenings, talking and listening to music. When Jackie had a day off we went on aroad trip with her and jack to the town of Towoomba, a little jewel in the countryside.
We went in to Brisbane a couple of days also. It was a nice city, not great, but it had some great things. This was the first place in Australia that we saw a man made beach in the city, a lagoon. Brisbane is on a river that you can't swim in so it was nice to be able to take a dip when sightseeing. The modern art gallery had an exhibition with the work of young artists from asia. It was one of the highlights during our visit there, some really cool stuff. Also a bit outside the city is tambourine mountain with an incredible view over the city and the coast that was nice to see.

Sunshine coast
North of Brisbane is the sunshine coast. It is made up of charming little towns, also touristy but nothing like the Gold coast. We stayed one night with Aarans cousin Adrien and her family in Buderim near the coast and Maroochydore. We had dinner there, Aaran and her hadn't seen eachother for 12 years and she had two little boys running around, so there was a bit of catching up to do. The cost there was beautiful. We discovered the best beach for bodysurfing in Malooloba, where the waves just rolled perfectly and there were no strong currents.
Inland a bit from there are the Glasshouse mountains and Australia zoo, the croc hunter's zoo. We saw the mountains, beautiful!, and camped one night up there. We visited the zoo the next day. I am normally not a zoo visitor, and neither is Aaran. I think that animals are not to be kept like that and it can be sad to see. But I had seen Steve Irwing on tv and heard of his work to keep wildlife in Australia and thought that I could check out his place. It was a bit too much. Too childish really and they played too much on Steve Irwing's fame. But what I did like was that I got to see the Cassowary, a big bird that is family with the Ostrich, is blue in the face and has a big brown lump on the head.


*What we did after is to be continued in the next blog entry, only so much one can write in one go*