Australia- The Gold Coast

Brisbane

We spent the first night at a hostel called Tinbillys- a massive operation complete with loud bar and the obligatory drunken Irish and English. We checked out the city which seemed nice and caught a train to Surfers Paradise the next day.

Surfers Paradise

Surfers is a nice town with a great beach- just a pity it’s winter. When we rounded the corner and had our first view of the beach it was just like the set of ‘Home and Away’!

We’d a lovely walk along it and ended with a picnic in the great beach-side park. We shared our first dorm of the trip with two quiet jet lagged Malaysian girls- so no problems getting a sleep there.

Byron Bay

The next day we took a scenic bus to Byron Bay. We decided to test the tent at a hostel and camp grounds called ‘The Arts Factory’- a pseudo hippy village vibe but with nothing free loving about the prices- $28 to pitch our tent.

Unluckily for us it was the coldest winter they’d had in years and the coldest night to date! Temps dropped to 4 degrees and while our tent was nothing more then a sheet against the wind, thankfully the sleeping bags stood the test.

We stayed two nights and spent our time trekking up through the headland, up to the lighthouse, around the coast; where we spotted some whales and dolphins, and back along the beach.

The town is about as hippy as it gets in Australia, which is not very, with a few shops selling the usual Indian fare and offering massages. We did like Byron, but had to bus it back to Brisbane for our flight to Sydney.

Back to Brisbane

We had more time in Brisbane to really explore the city and managed to get to the modern art gallery and the amazing natural history museum. You really would need a few more days to discover these fully, but unfortunately we were kicked out at 5pm, where all the staff were standing by the door waiting for us with their bags and coats in hand!