Reflections

Today marks 2 years that we have lived in Australia! Reflecting back, it really has been an amazing experience so far. We got to move to another country on the other side of the world, and set up a life from scratch. We had nowhere to live, no jobs, no bank accounts, no phones, and didn’t know anybody – but with a lot of support from each other (and our cat Colby), we did it all, and met some really great friends along the way. It’s crazy to think that the life we made here is coming to an end, but we are looking forward to seeing everyone back home soon!
It was a whirlwind of a day because we actually had a deadline to be at Rainbow beach by 2pm for our Fraser Island tour briefing. We did a 30 minute run on the beach at Coolum before heading up the Sunshine Coast to Sunshine beach – where we found what we were looking for – THE SUN!!! We didn’t stay long and just went on a short walk before driving to Noosa Heads. This was a great area! We walked along Hastings Street and grabbed some frozen yogurt – celebratory treat because the sun was back after a full week of being MIA. Noosa National Park is known for being able to see koalas in the wild, so we went on a few walks to try and spot some, but no luck. There was a spotting in the same area we were looking, but the day before. After spending some time in Noosa, we headed for Rainbow beach. After our briefing, we enjoyed some ZZZZ’s on the beach and got packed up for our Fraser Island Tour that starts tomorrow!!!

Cute & Cuddly

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

We drove to the small town of Dunwich on Stradbroke Island to catch the ferry back to Cleveland. Our first stop of the day was at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Jenna was here 12 years ago with her family, so a cuddle with a koala was well overdue. They had over 130 koalas, and they were everywhere! We each had our picture taken holding one and found it to be a very memorable Aussie experience. We were at the Sanctuary a little longer than planned because they had so many animals to see. We still had to make it up to the Sunshine Coast today – maybe the sun is there? On the way there, we had to pull over because it was raining so hard. We did a short walk up Wild Horse Mountain to a lookout overlooking the Glass House Mountains. We headed North past Mooloolaba, Maroochydore and stopped at Coolum Beach. We were planning on heading all the way up to Noosa, but we saw a glimpse of blue sky, and decided to stop, take a walk along the beach and set up camp for the night.

Adder Rock

We woke up in our little cabin in Adder Rock camping area which is located at the beginning of Point Lookout. To warm up for the day, we went for a 30 minute run before a delicious pancake breakfast. This gave us lots of energy for the multiple walks we did through Blue Lake National Park.  We did two 6km walks – one had a coastal lookout, and the other led down to Blue Lake.  After, we headed back to explore Point Lookout. We ended up walking along the coastline exploring multiple gorges and jagged rock cliffs. We capped off our night with bbq steak, corn on the cob, couscous with feta, tomato & cucumber, and fried bananas with brown sugar for dessert. We have not seen the sun in 6 days!

Uh-Oh

After much debate over the weather situation (aka. still raining), we made a last minute decision to jump on the ferry and book a cabin at Stradbroke Island for the weekend. We were so excited to have somewhere dry to be for the weekend, that Jenna’s mind got a bit distracted and she broke the #2 road trip rule – don’t lock the keys in the car!!! This should actually be rule #1, because we can’t break rule #1 without the keys! Sheer panic sets in, as we realized we are on an island, Friday afternoon, with the keys, phones, food, everything locked in the car. It’s truly amazing what the mind can come up with in these situations. Luckily we didn’t go with plan A – smash out the back window. Although the hatch was latched, it wasn’t completely shut tight. We managed to slip a wire hanger through the side and hook the lanyard. We pulled the keys to the side of the hatch door, but they were still stuck. We bent the key ring so we could release one of the keys to slip it out the side – success! We are always up for a challenge! Disaster averted.

Australia Day

Happy Australia Day! Last year at this time, we were jumping off a floating dock just behind the Sydney Opera House to kick off the day with a 2.5km Harbour Swim. This year we started off the day by swimming to our car from the hostel...just kidding! It was actually a really nice morning, so we went for a 40 minute run from Main beach to Surfer’s Paradise beach and back. Then it was off to Dreamworld Amusement Park. It had stopped raining and there weren’t as many people as expected with it being a public holiday. Even though we were mainly there for the rides, we walked around for about 45 minutes before we got in line for the first ride called the Buzz Saw. We made it to the front of the line, with our feet on the footprints for the next spot on the ride, but then from behind, we heard the supervisor ask “Is that broken?” Unfortunately, Willy was not allowed on any of the six major rides with his cast. Well, at least we tried, it’s probably for the best! We got back in our car and headed to the city of Brisbane for the Australia Day celebrations...that were cancelled because of the weather. Talk about bad luck! There were still a lot of people around the South Bank Park along the Brisbane River, so we hung out there for a few hours, went for a walk through the Botanical Gardens and called it a day.

Still Soggy

In spite of the wet weather, we were determined to venture out to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. We broke our #1 road trip rule, as we had to backtrack on a road already travelled. When we got there, about 75% of the park was underwater and Willy’s first question was “what do you do with the animals?” and the reply was “they all get rescued” but it wasn’t very reassuring. We saw some soaking wet koalas and felt bad for the little guys, so we left and headed for shelter in Pacific Fair Mall, however, it was actually an outdoor mall so we didn’t spend too much time their either. We headed back and tried this gourmet pizza joint called Tempt right outside the hostel, it was delicious! We saw a small glimpse of blue sky, so we headed out for an evening walk along the beach.

Wet and Soggy

View from our hostel

We both woke up at about 6am to rain pouring down on our tent. We had a slow morning by making pancakes in the camp kitchen and by doing some laundry. We watched the rain come down for hours, but we could not wait it out, as it just wouldn’t stop. We reluctantly packed up our tent in the rain, and moved up the coast to Surfer’s Paradise where we checked into a hostel for a couple of days. We’ve checked the forecast and it doesn’t look good. Several areas of Southeast Queensland are already flooding as well as areas of Brisbane (where we are headed next). We won’t be camping near any rivers or creeks anytime soon. They’re predicting rain for the next week (so much for the sunshine state). It’s a bit scary because almost exactly a year ago, this same area experienced flash floods and cyclones. The Waterfall Way road we took to the rainforest just the other day is currently closed due to a landslide. We will have a good look at the warnings as we try to make our way north over the next couple days.

Summit

                   NFL playoffs are a priority this morning, so Willy woke up at 7am to watch the AFC championship game. Meanwhile, Jenna went for a 2km swim at the pool right beside the beach. We read about this really challenging walk at Mount Warning in Wollumbin National Park. It’s described as a steep 4.4km (one way) climb, with a challenging final rock scramble. We drove 60km to get there, and started the walk at 1:40pm. After our last rainforest experience, we decided to take this one on well prepared – we wore shoes and packed warm clothes, raincoats, water, snacks and a phone in a waterproof bag. The walk started off fairly well groomed with gradual easy steps. However, this changed over time as the path became very muddy from the all the rain and made the rocks very slick. Our goal was to get to the top in 1.5 hours, and at the halfway point we had been walking about 40 minutes – under pace! Then, things got interesting. We passed several emergency helicopter points with emergency numbers to call for help. It also got a lot colder the higher we got. With 400 metres to go, we came upon “the chain” that was for the anticipated final rock scramble. The path was straight up rock climbing without being attached to anything, but you had a chain to hold onto. It was recommended from passing walkers to use both hands, and that a cast was going to present some difficulties. But there’s no way Willy was going to come this far and not go to the top. Success, we did it in 1 hour, 45 minutes to the top! We thought we we’re alone at the top of the mountain, however, there was a big ass snake keeping us company. We decided to head back down, which was a lot harder than going up. It took us 25 minutes to get back down the 400 metre rock face, and the rest of the walk seemed a lot easier after that. We finished the walk at 5:30pm, almost 4 hours after we started! What a great feeling (minus the legs shaking part). We drove to TweedHeads to spend our first night in the Gold Coast area. 

Beach Bums

mmmmm...chocolate

Over the past 2 days, Jenna has managed to change several shades of brown. We spent our Saturday with a well deserved beach day. It was about +30 and the water was perfect! We went for a walk down the main road and came across a large area with a market just starting up for the evening. It had some real talent, and we tried some really good homemade chocolate with ginger, orange, pistachios and cranberries in it. We walked into the backpacker’s world travel office and booked our 4WD Fraser Island and Sailing the Whitsundays tours in February – it was very exciting! We ended up at Cheeky Monkey’s for the evening – it was ladies night so Jenna got herself a free glass of pink champagne.

Cheeky Monkeys

Sunday morning we did a long walk to the Lighthouse with some great views along the way. We made it to the most easterly point of the Australian mainland.

Byron Bay Lighthouse

After the walk it was time for some boogie boarding on the beach. The lady who gave us the board saw Willy’s arm and didn’t think it was such a good idea. By late afternoon, it started to rain, so we had a quiet evening and planned the next week of our trip – the Gold Coast, Brisbane, Stradbroke Island and the Sunshine Coast!

BB

Lennox Head Seven Mile Beach

Byron Bay!!!

We wanted to get up to Byron Bay on good time today, so we woke up early, had breakfast by the water and hit the road. Along the way we drove upon a town called Lennox Head. He had no intentions to visit, but we ended up staying a few hours. We grabbed a coffee and checked out the local shops and walked along Seven Mile beach. We headed into Byron Bay around noon and the town way absolutely buzzing with people. Backpacker central! It’s so much busier than any other place we’ve been so far – and for good reason. We we’re a little overwhelmed when we first arrived, we didn’t know where to start, so we went to the beach. Blue sky, blue water and lots of surfers! On the beach, people will come up to you and ask you if you have plans for the night, and try and get you into their bar by giving you a wristband to make you feel special. Currently we are banded up for Cheeky Monkeys tonight. We made an early decision and have planned to stay here for 3 days and booked ourselves into a YHA for the weekend. We walked the main street local shops and booking offices to figure out what’s available to sign up for with a full arm cast. We’re spending tonight camping in an old footy field for cheap.

Bananas

Little Happy Feet

We’re in Coff’s Harbour today! Our first stop was at the Pet Porpoise Pool. We’ve been looking forward to this for a few days (this is one of the first things we’ve planned in advance). When we got there we were greeted with seal and dolphin kisses. It was a really interactive park, we even got in line with all the little kids to feed seal lions, reef sharks and little blue penguins. Willy managed to annoy the dolphins by beeping his watch underwater and caused two turtles to fight. We also watched a show where the dolphins and seals performed numerous tricks and acts. Next, we made our way to Park beach and ended up spending most the afternoon melting in the sun, it was great. Later, we headed to the town jetty. Jenna jumped off the side of the jetty after seeing many others doing it because it looked like fun.

Big Jump

There were also dolphins swimming around. We made our way to the much anticipated Coff’s Harbour Big Banana and got a great picture (after a few tries and injuries).
We drove about 2 hours north to Bundjani National Park and set up our campsite on the last available spot at Woody Head Campground. On our way to the toilets, we found a rather large snake up in one of the trees, we’ll be sure to watch where we step at this site.

Bananas

Waterfall Way

Just woke up only 12 steps away from the ocean

Waves crashing

Nambucca Lookout

Today we woke up early because we had a lot of things we wanted to do. We started off with a short 1km walk along the coastline. We stopped at the end of the path and admired the intensity of the waves crashing below.
Next, we went to the Trial Bay prison for a tour and learned about some of the history behind the area...can’t believe a prison could be somewhere so beautiful.
Then we started driving up the coast and passed through Nambucca and stopped at the Captain Cook lookout that had a staggering view – it was of 3 rivers that fed into the ocean causing areas of really shallow, blue water.
Then we drove inland along Waterfall Way to Dorrigo National Park because we heard from many sources it was a must see detour, so we forced Ted up the mountain once again to the Gondwana Rainforest. When we got there it was beautiful and sunny, so we wore flip flops and sunglasses into the rainforest for the 7km Wonga Walk. About 15 minutes into our walk, torrential downpours ensued and we were left standing under a fallen tree trunk for shelter. We decided to keep trekking along in the rain, and came across so many tiny leeches that kept attaching themselves to us throughout the walk. The waterfalls we saw made everything we encountered worth it. We walked across a suspension bridge and behind Crystal Shower falls and then back to the start.
We went back down the mountain to a small coastal town called Sawtell (just south of Coff’s Harbour) for the night.

Crystal Shower Falls

Lesson Learned: bring a rain jacket when entering a rain forest.

Ocean Side

Little Buddy

Today is our 6 year anniversary. We woke up to beautiful weather and started our day with a 30 minute run on the beach (along with kangaroos). We went on a few coastal walks after breakfast (2km and 5km called Hedlands walk). Every few minutes of the walk, the trees cleared up to some amazing views. You could see miles of coastline and endless beaches. We drove to Port MacQuarrie to check out some of their beaches. We also visited the Koala Hospital. Most of the koalas have been hit by cars and are in rehab to see if they are able to return to the wild. We read each of their stories and they were very cute. We would be amazed to actually see on in the wild. We kept driving up the coast to South West Rocks. We stayed at a popular campsite in Arakoon National Park called Trial Bay – our tent is literally 12 steps from the ocean – amazing. This place is also the site of a prison built in the 1870’s that we’ll probably check out tomorrow. We decided to open a bottle of red wine we had bought in the Hunter Valley for our special occasion.

Komodo Dragon

Diamond Head at Crowdy Bay

Goanna!

We figured out why nobody else was at our campground, not only did we wake up to rain (again), but it was so cold. Our clock read 10 degrees...so we were borderline unprepared for these conditions. We headed back towards the coast in search of the sun. We found it in Crowdy Bay National Park. We found a great campground called Diamond Head, with the beach just a few minutes walk from our tent. The split rock formation near the beach was apparently formed when blasting for diamonds – hence the name Diamond Head.
Surrounding the campgrounds were lounging kangaroos and joeys, and these Komodo dragon looking creatures (aka. Goannas) that were creeping around the campsites. Right now, we’re sitting by our campfire under the stars, thinking about how our day went from cold rain at the top of a mountain, to laying on a beach and enjoying the waves. It is also great to fall asleep to the sound of waves and not traffic.
Willy’s lesson learned today: chopping wood with your left hand is not easy.

Lounging Kangaroos

Mountain Top

Dingo tracks

Be road safe!

So cold I can see my breath!

This morning we woke up to rain, rain and more rain. We went for a short walk down to the beach anyways and found many dingo tracks. When we returned to our car, we saw a dingo, but he ran off. Our intentions were to drive to a place called Seal Rocks, but we found the road no longer existed and had to take a ferry with our car to get to the existing road. With the weather being so dreary, we decided to head further inland to Barrington Tops National Park. This park is listed as a World Heritage Area and rises to 1600 metres. The roads were so steep at some points (or Ted was so heavily loaded) that we were going 33km/hr with it floored - “come on Ted!” This park was supposed to have the most amazing lookouts, but due to the low hanging clouds, all we saw was fog. It was a lot colder than expected up here (average temperature 9-19 degrees in the summer and snow in the winter months), so we found a shelter at one of the campsites that had a fireplace and made a fire and our home for the night. 

There’s nobody else here at this campsite – guess nobody’s as crazy as we are. It should be a lot quicker getting back down the mountain tomorrow.