It always rains on the Sunshine Coast
After our mad dash up the coast this past few weeks we've stopped a few hours north of Brisbane to catch our breath. Yes, we were going to stop in Brisbane but more on that later.
We left Coffs Harbour after our last update but not before getting a photo of the famous Big Banana. It was quite disappointing - it's more of a Quite Big Banana. Unless you compare it to a normal banana, then it is Big.
Anyway, our next stop was Byron Bay. We arrived late in the afternoon and found a Caravan Park just outside of the town, which turned out to be our worst one yet. It was quite deserted, and the facilities were mostly locked up. They didn't issue us a site though so we just drove round and found our own spot in amongst the "long term" caravanners.
After admiring our home for the evening we set off down to the beach just as it was getting dark. There is a fantastic atmosphere in Byron Bay, people were playing music out on the street and the mood was great. We spotted some Dolphins a few hundred metres out and stayed to watch them as the sun went down.
It was too nice to leave it at that so we booked another night (in a different caravan park) and had a nice relaxing day walking round the town and lounging on the beach.
Our new campsite was full of backpackers, and we happened to get a site next to a couple that we had originally met in our first hostel in Sydney, Martin and Nancy (no Phil, not Martin and Linda). We finished off a couple of casks of wine with them and they told us that they'd been working on an organic farm for a couple of months. The work was hard and repetitive but the money was fantastic so that's something we're looking into now.
They had told us they were heading to a weird hippie town called Nimbin and since we'd already had that mentioned to us we thought we'd take that route across the New South Wales/Queensland border, several miles inland. Nimbin was a surreal experience. It's a tiny place but full of character, it's like a hippie's dream. Everyone appears to be selling cookies and cakes but we suspected the ingredients might be a little more colourful than those available from the WI.
The alternative route we took across the border led us through some superb scenery, including a place called Natural Bridge just over the border. It's a waterfall out on a ledge, but the water created a hole a few metres back from the edge, so the water falls through into a cave below. Charlotte got bitten by pretty much every bug in the area that day, but it was a nice place to be mobbed by mossies.
Surfers Paradise is one of those places we'd heard about so had to have a look. We were expecting something like Byron Bay but found a huge resort, with some massive buildings that we first mistook for Brisbane itself. It was raining hard when we arrived and that continued through the night (no leaks in the van though). We found a caravan park up the road at Main Beach, and then tried to drive into Surfers Paradise but it was too difficult to find anywhere to park as the rain was too heavy, so we retired to the van park for the night. The park seemed to be entirely occupied by British, peculiarly. The next day the sun made an attempt to come out so we had a bit of time on the beach, but the conditions weren't right for surfing so our hopes of seeing some professionals doing spectacular tricks were dashed.
Our next stop was intended to be our home for a month or so but we drove in to look for some information, then got annoyed by the rubbish signposts. In Australia they tend not to put the places that the roads off the motorway go to, but the name of that road instead. These are, of course, absolutely useless without a street map, so after attempting to find a suburb on pure guesswork, we finally had to stop and buy one. As we've experience in all the cities we've been to, finding somewhere we can both sleep, see the city and park the van is extremely difficult without paying a fortune. We ended up at a nice little suburb east of Brisbane called Manly, where the tourist information lady helped us out a bit.
We got the train into the city and had a look round. There were some special sights - the subtropical beach in the middle of the city for example - but we're finding that once you've seen the sights of a city, everything else is like any other. We simply did the tourist bit and then left.
A couple of hours up the coast and we arrived at the imaginatively named Scarborough. We arrived in the dark and found a caravan park as yet more rain came down. We considered getting a tour to Moreton Island, a national park which has some massive sand dunes that you can sort of sledge down, and wild dolphin feeding at one of the resorts. It didn't take long to realise that if we did Moreton Island, there wouldn't be enough money left to do Fraser Island, so we abandoned those plans.
Yet again we hit the road but it wasn't long before we saw, just off the highway, a big picture of Steve Irwin and in enormous writing, the word "CRIKEY!". Obviously this was enough advertising for us and we found ourselves at the Australia Zoo, home of the Crocodile Hunter don't you know. Despite yet more rain, we had a good day out there. The zoo's quite unusual in that they really like to put on a show for the punters. We saw the crocodiles being fed, a Cheetah's birthday party (with cake) and Charlotte got to stroke a couple of Koalas - at last!
Moocheydore was our stop for the night, and then we had a short dash up the coast to a lovely little area called Noosa where it was finally sunny! We're stopping here for a bit of a rest and to recharge after some fairly major mileage. We've got some numbers to find a bit of work here, so that's the plan now. Again.
Photo catchup time!
Dolphin cruising in Jervis Bay:
Charlotte on the "whitest sand in the world":
A lookout we can't spell just north of Jervis Bay, over Kangaroo Valley:
Mmm... wine tasting in the Hunter Valley:
Hawks Nest, and as you can see it was one hell of a haircut:
A Kookaburra joins us (and nearly takes Charlotte's head off in the process):
The painted rocks at Nambucca Heads, where we stopped for lunch one day:
Byron Bay - as nice as it looks:
The lighthouse at Byron Bay, which is the most easterly...:
Nimbin - hippy heaven!
Surfers Paradise:
The beach in Brisbane:
Grrrrr (ok, they don't make any noise):
Awww:
We left Coffs Harbour after our last update but not before getting a photo of the famous Big Banana. It was quite disappointing - it's more of a Quite Big Banana. Unless you compare it to a normal banana, then it is Big.
Anyway, our next stop was Byron Bay. We arrived late in the afternoon and found a Caravan Park just outside of the town, which turned out to be our worst one yet. It was quite deserted, and the facilities were mostly locked up. They didn't issue us a site though so we just drove round and found our own spot in amongst the "long term" caravanners.
After admiring our home for the evening we set off down to the beach just as it was getting dark. There is a fantastic atmosphere in Byron Bay, people were playing music out on the street and the mood was great. We spotted some Dolphins a few hundred metres out and stayed to watch them as the sun went down.
It was too nice to leave it at that so we booked another night (in a different caravan park) and had a nice relaxing day walking round the town and lounging on the beach.
Our new campsite was full of backpackers, and we happened to get a site next to a couple that we had originally met in our first hostel in Sydney, Martin and Nancy (no Phil, not Martin and Linda). We finished off a couple of casks of wine with them and they told us that they'd been working on an organic farm for a couple of months. The work was hard and repetitive but the money was fantastic so that's something we're looking into now.
They had told us they were heading to a weird hippie town called Nimbin and since we'd already had that mentioned to us we thought we'd take that route across the New South Wales/Queensland border, several miles inland. Nimbin was a surreal experience. It's a tiny place but full of character, it's like a hippie's dream. Everyone appears to be selling cookies and cakes but we suspected the ingredients might be a little more colourful than those available from the WI.
The alternative route we took across the border led us through some superb scenery, including a place called Natural Bridge just over the border. It's a waterfall out on a ledge, but the water created a hole a few metres back from the edge, so the water falls through into a cave below. Charlotte got bitten by pretty much every bug in the area that day, but it was a nice place to be mobbed by mossies.
Surfers Paradise is one of those places we'd heard about so had to have a look. We were expecting something like Byron Bay but found a huge resort, with some massive buildings that we first mistook for Brisbane itself. It was raining hard when we arrived and that continued through the night (no leaks in the van though). We found a caravan park up the road at Main Beach, and then tried to drive into Surfers Paradise but it was too difficult to find anywhere to park as the rain was too heavy, so we retired to the van park for the night. The park seemed to be entirely occupied by British, peculiarly. The next day the sun made an attempt to come out so we had a bit of time on the beach, but the conditions weren't right for surfing so our hopes of seeing some professionals doing spectacular tricks were dashed.
Our next stop was intended to be our home for a month or so but we drove in to look for some information, then got annoyed by the rubbish signposts. In Australia they tend not to put the places that the roads off the motorway go to, but the name of that road instead. These are, of course, absolutely useless without a street map, so after attempting to find a suburb on pure guesswork, we finally had to stop and buy one. As we've experience in all the cities we've been to, finding somewhere we can both sleep, see the city and park the van is extremely difficult without paying a fortune. We ended up at a nice little suburb east of Brisbane called Manly, where the tourist information lady helped us out a bit.
We got the train into the city and had a look round. There were some special sights - the subtropical beach in the middle of the city for example - but we're finding that once you've seen the sights of a city, everything else is like any other. We simply did the tourist bit and then left.
A couple of hours up the coast and we arrived at the imaginatively named Scarborough. We arrived in the dark and found a caravan park as yet more rain came down. We considered getting a tour to Moreton Island, a national park which has some massive sand dunes that you can sort of sledge down, and wild dolphin feeding at one of the resorts. It didn't take long to realise that if we did Moreton Island, there wouldn't be enough money left to do Fraser Island, so we abandoned those plans.
Yet again we hit the road but it wasn't long before we saw, just off the highway, a big picture of Steve Irwin and in enormous writing, the word "CRIKEY!". Obviously this was enough advertising for us and we found ourselves at the Australia Zoo, home of the Crocodile Hunter don't you know. Despite yet more rain, we had a good day out there. The zoo's quite unusual in that they really like to put on a show for the punters. We saw the crocodiles being fed, a Cheetah's birthday party (with cake) and Charlotte got to stroke a couple of Koalas - at last!
Moocheydore was our stop for the night, and then we had a short dash up the coast to a lovely little area called Noosa where it was finally sunny! We're stopping here for a bit of a rest and to recharge after some fairly major mileage. We've got some numbers to find a bit of work here, so that's the plan now. Again.
Photo catchup time!
Dolphin cruising in Jervis Bay:
Charlotte on the "whitest sand in the world":
A lookout we can't spell just north of Jervis Bay, over Kangaroo Valley:
Mmm... wine tasting in the Hunter Valley:
Hawks Nest, and as you can see it was one hell of a haircut:
A Kookaburra joins us (and nearly takes Charlotte's head off in the process):
The painted rocks at Nambucca Heads, where we stopped for lunch one day:
Byron Bay - as nice as it looks:
The lighthouse at Byron Bay, which is the most easterly...:
Nimbin - hippy heaven!
Surfers Paradise:
The beach in Brisbane:
Grrrrr (ok, they don't make any noise):
Awww:
posted by Kev & Charlotte at
6:26 PM
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