Hervey Bay

This was just a quick 2 hour journey up the coast from Rainbow so probably the shortest journey of our whole trip. We stayed at the Palace hostel, originally we were given a keys to a block that was empty and almost like a small house with kitchen/dinning room and then about 5 dorm rooms off that. However on going to ask for linen they said there was a mistake and we were moved to the block nextdoor where the kitchen was the communal room for everyone in the hostel, it smelt pretty much like a bar after a crazy night before crossed with a student kitchen. The beach and town are nice but compared with other places we had been it all seemed rather plain, the best part of the trip was meeting a Canadian guy (John) in the kitchen and then the next day on the hammocks to find out he was a singer songwriter travelling with his guitar so we chilled out all waiting for our busses listening to him play away.

Rainbow beach & Fraser on rainbow backpackers

The Hostel is good, everywhere so far has been all positive and this is no exception, the room was a 10 bed dorm with 2 fans and no air-con but still it wasn't super hot. Most days they put on a walk at 5 in the evening meandering through the countryside up to large Sandblow where the guide taught us all about the beaches, the history and how to throw a boomerang with the reward of a beer if you could catch it, I was close but unfortunately no free drinks for anyone. Photos taken as the sun was setting and some body board sand boarding done and time to head back for dinner and then bed.

Our room mates seemed cool however many were off to Fraser island in the morning so even though most wake at first light around 5 and snooze there is a lot of hustling and bustling around 7 as they all try to work out what they need for the next 3 days and go off to their 4x4's. Once up a little wander to the supermarket to find breakfast, there is no big Coles or Woolworths in Airlie beach so all the shops a quite expensive. A quick jump in the pool to cool down and a chat to our overly friendly gay french room mate before finally reading the last few pages of book 1 and then going to check out the beach. The weather has been quite up and down with a couple of tropical storms passing by but mostly missing us although they have brought with them lots of wind. The sea is in a bit of a mess so nobody is really our surfing, a few people gave it a go but soon came back to leave their boards on the beach and just swim until a bigger wave day.

The rocks around Rainbow are all sandstone with the cliffs stained by the forests decaying over thousands of years to give the different colours and the beach it's name, occasionally there are super light patches on the beach where the sand is almost pure silica. The sandstone cliffs gave us a place to carve our names with all the others placed there over the years.

Some fish and chips shared before going to hostel for a night of drinks with some one of our room mate Kate and some other Europeans she had befriended, we still had quite a lot of Goon left so this was all consumed before we all headed down to the beach, the whole night left many of the others feeling a little worse for ware today.

Brisbane to Rainbow beach.

Up early and Faye takes us into the city with Sasha who is dropped off at work, we are taken to Queens street where we say our goodbyes and then go for a wander around a couple of the shops as we work our way to the coach station. Bex disappears of for a few minutes, while I move the bags to the right bay, to return with some KFC that she had been craving for days. I had been a little hungry waiting so had eaten another peanut butter roll, it seems to travel well so along with tuna has been one of the main basis of our diets for the last couple of weeks.

The journey was fairly standard, we stopped at one service station that had a massive kangaroo that had been used in the opening ceremony of the 1982 commonwealth games.

Brisbane

Arriving we tried to contact Chris to find that he was working for the next few hours, we went for a little wander to waste some time until he was free. We ended up at the culture centre where he met us although on arrival said that he had just been on his phone checking the directions at the traffic lights when a policeman had seen and fined him $300.

The house was nice, big and air conditioned, it was great to see everyone again, Chris cooked us some Kangaroo that we had picked up on the way, it is super tasty I will definitely have to try some more before we leave.

The next day we went back into the city with Sasha when she went to work, everyone in Australia seems to start their day early and go to bed fairly early too, so we were in the centre about 8.

We checked a few places out and ended up at the pretend beach in the centre, it is next to the river and rather surreal, it looks like a normal beach with lifeguards but on entering the water it's not salty and occasionally you come across a metal grate in the sandy bottom.

At night we all went out to EH a local “tavern” as they call it but to us it would be a club/casino/restaurant/hotel, quite expensive however chris won $80 on the slots so most of the night was on him. He had also heard about an interview he had been to for the job of a spotter catcher and he had been offered the job so he would soon be starting his dangerous animal training.

Day two in Brisbane and we all jumped in the car and drove to Noosa, some surfing beaches up the coast around 1 hour, Sasha feeling a little hungover bought everyone ginger slush puppy type drinks. Noosa is a little surf village and clearly quite a popular area to holiday, the beach is nice with lifeguarded areas although these were not very busy today as the swell was pretty small. We had a go surfing Chris' board however it was a little small for the waves so the rides were quite short however it did mean that I could use Chris as an instructor to help me with my duck dives.

After Thailand for a week and now Oz for almost two weeks one would expect that we would start to have tanned however I have been using so much sun cream I think it looks like I have just come straight off the plane, we have found a Gingers size pot, about 750ml for $10 in Woolworths.

The last full day and we decide it's time for a rest day so spend most of it in the house talking to Faye and catching up on everything such as clothes washing, it's super hot today so going outside anywhere near the middle of the day wouldn't end well.

Surfers Paradise

Unfortunately Base hostels that we are staying with do not have an affiliated hostel in Byron Bay so we only stayed around for a few hours before jumping on the Greyhound bus to Surfers Paradise. Byron seemed like a really nice place and I think If I get to go back to Oz then I will have to go there. Arriving at Surfers and it was clearly a different place to Byron, with its tall buildings, bright lights and confusingly even a different time zone to where we left in the morning.

We stayed at Aquarius Backpackers Hostel just out of the main area in Southport. This was good, free internet (always a bonus) nice room mate, a French guy travelling south, and friendly staff although none of which were Aussie. The room was good although with no air con and the curtains open I continually woke up at about 5.30 as soon as the sun rose, it seems everyone here wakes up much earlier than home and go to bed super early.

The first morning we made plans and went to Dreamworld (http://www.dreamworld.com.au/)

We only arrived at 11.30 so with 5 hours until the buses stopped and a lot of things we wanted to see or go on we ran everywhere, fortunately it was a Thursday so there were no queues!

Becky finally fulfilled her plans for the trip and was able to cuddle a Koala and then found an even bigger one for her to have as a friend.

Koalas seen and stroked it was time to find a nice Kangaroo to belly rub and pull it's tale. After checking and seeing a few sleeping I am now almost 100% sure that patch is related to them, this one seemed like he wanted a new profile picture.

These were some grey kangaroos, we later saw larger red kangaroos, wombats and dingos but you couldn't go in any of their pens.

Animals seen and time to fall 34 stories on the vertical drop ride, go backwards on a roller-coaster, a standard roller-coaster a few water slides in the water park all of which were epic and then a hydro coaster. These area crazy, you are in an inflatable dinghy and which starts like a normal water slide before you then shoot up again on what I assume must be a hidden conveyor belt but I'm really not sure, then round some corners and back down a slide so it really does feel like a standard roller-coaster but you aren't fixed in and get sprayed with water.

Just as we left the rain came but all in all a great day, back at the hostel pasta and sauce for dinner and booking the coaches before heading to bed.

Spot X Surf Camp

Up and a quick but big breakfast and straight into the surf lesson. The standard safetly briefing about rip currents, waves and of course the sun; so after a covering of suncream it was time for a paddle on the land before we are given boards and off into the water. Fortunately they had a couple of smaller boards so I didn't have to use a foamie which was nice although the waves weren't huge, so a big board could have been good.

 We had met a brother and sister on our coach who had surfed before so it was good to have someone that I could paddle out back with however it meant that we were quite away from the others out surfing, but we still all had a great time.





Surfing over and time for lunch, a quick look at the photos of everyone surfing and then back on the coach and off to Byron Bay. Sonic back in charge again and heading north along the coast, we stopped at a few places including Lennox head which had an amazing view over the point break below. It was rocks on the side with a footpath all the way to the point, on big wave days the break is meant to continue all the way from the point to the middle of the beach, about 500m away.

After around 2 hours, quite a lot of which many people slept and the rest of the time sonic gave us a lot more information, we arrived in Byron.

(Surfers at Lennox head on the point break)

Oz Experience - Sonic – Sydney to Spot X

5.30 and not a time I had planned on seeing a lot on the travels but something that was seeming to be not uncommon. We woke and quietly packed away anything which had been missed in the dark the night before and snuck off to the coach station fortunately just across the road. On arrival we found many half awake young backpackers all waiting for the bus to start their endeavour north, a just as happy Ozzie tried to sort everyone out for when the coaches arrived. A small bus with a box trailer in tow then pulled up and our new driver Sonic stepped out, we have now found that all the Oz experience staff have nicknames given to them for some reason or another however this a secret kept within the team and they will not divulge to the public, which makes you ever more curious. All loaded on and a quick introduction where Sonic explains the trip on the call phone style headset, while picking tunes on his Ipod, checking paperwork and occasionally swerving when really not being able to do all that and answer our questions at once; from the start you know it's going to be a fun journey :) 

We are informed about all the stops and the good and bad parts of most places from someone that has clear understanding of what we are looking for, fun times but on the cheap, we are even privy to a short history lesson on most places we pass through before making a stop at a Koala Sanctuary.

(Spot the Koala)

After some stops for lunch then off to Spot X surf camp. Everyone on the coach seemed to be having a wicked time while we saw loads of oz as we continued on, on arrival we were showed our digs and all the areas around the camp. All food was provided although there was a local charge of $50 so that pretty much covers all the costs anyway, fortunately Sonic said about the prices being expensive in camp so we had stopped off at the supermarket on the way to pick up snacks and drinks. A few drinks in the evening and off to bed ready to be up and early for surfing.