Journey Up the Coast

The last six days have flown by! I keep wanting to post, but I haven't had a lot of down time and when I do I'm completely exhausted. The last time I posted I was leaving the Katatoomba, which is near Sydney. Now I am 10 hours North of Sydney in Brisbane, Australia. I'll back up a little bit though and go through our amazing drive up the coast!

We saw some cool corridors for wildlife to pass over the road!

My favorite Aussie road sign! I like how they add the GO BACK, just it case you didn't know what to do if you were going the wrong way! :)

Newcastle

We decided that our first stop on our journey from Sydney (or technically Katatoomba) would be Newcastle, Australia. We had no idea what to expect and we didn’t have any real plans for this destination. It was about a three hour drive, which seemed like a perfect length of time, so we decided to give it a go!

Before we left Katatoomba we stopped at our favorite little bakery. We got breakfast and grabbed a sandwich to eat for lunch. It was actually very inexpensive food, which is hard to find here. It was also delicious… I had the best blueberry muffin! Then we hit the road and arrived in Newcastle a few hours later. We stopped at a mall because there was a McDonalds inside. Where there is McDonalds there is free wifi! We found out that the whole mall had free wifi though…. Even better! I got to call my family using FaceTime audio, which was amazing. Then Tanner got to FaceTime his dad for the first time since we had been in Australia, so that was super exciting! After that we went to find a hostel. The nice hostel was all booked already and the other one was icky looking, so we decided that our car seemed like a good hostel (and it was free)! We headed to the beach and ended up staying there most of the day! Before I said Manly Beach in Sydney had the biggest waves I’d ever seen… well I take that back! Newcastle Beach had the biggest waves I have ever seen. We spent hours in the waves and had a blast! They were awesome! Later at night we explored the rocky parts of the beach and watched the waves crash against the large rocks. We found some crabs and snails, as well. We found a place along the beach with a good view and sat there until it started to get dark.

After we got cleaned up we got some ice cream, which is also more expensive than the US. Tanner ordered a milkshake and learned a good lesson. There were two options milkshake and a thickshake (which was more expensive). It the US our milkshake are thick, so he figured a milkshake was all he need. Well it’s different in Australia/New Zealand. Tanner took one sip and realized that a milkshake was the consistency of a glass of milk. It was milk with melted ice cream in it!!! I know Tanner really wanted a regular milkshake, but this one gave us an awesome story and lots of laughs! Then we went to sleep in our “hostel” or car… it was hot and a little noisy for a while. Eventually we both fell asleep… it wasn’t the best night of sleep especially for Tanner, but it definitely worked and was cheap!  

Port Macquarie

We got up early and watched the sunrise on the beach before we said goodbye to Newcastle. It was perfect! Then we headed out… this time we decided we would go about two and half hours to Port Macquarie (I still have trouble saying it!). On the way we stopped at Hunter’s National Park! It had been converted back into a wetland and had awesome mangroves. It also had tons of huge spider webs. These were definitely not the little webs from back home… we didn’t actually see any spider there, but I can assume they were quite large! There were also tons and tons of mosquitoes! Once we made it to Port Macquarie we checked into a hostel. We decided no car sleeping at least for that night! It ended up being my favorite hostel we stayed at… it was actually really nice and the people working there were super friendly. We rented some boogie boards from the hostel for free and spent a while boogie boarding at the beach! It was one of my favorite beaches and we had so much fun in the waves! The only issue we ran into there was that it was hard to find food, but we managed. We got some fish and chips and then walked along a sidewalk that had a bunch of painted rocks. It was really cool and we spent a while reading what people had painted. I guess it started as a painting competition, but now people are free to paint on the rocks. Most are tributes to love ones that have passed away, quotes, or names of family members. However, some were just fun pictures.

Before we left Port Macquarie in the morning we went to a Koala Hospital! All I have to say is Koala are absolutely adorable! I had never really seen a koala, so this little trip was exciting. While we were looking at the koalas an awesome aussie man that worked there came over and started talking to us. Tanner described him as Steve Irwin’s uncle. He was so excited about wildlife and told us the story behind most of their permanent residents. It was AMAZING!  

Our painted rock walk

A rock was painted like an alligator head!

A cool little web I saw at Hunter's National Park.

Coffs Harbour

The drive to Coffs Harbour was probably the prettiest part of the drive in my opinion. We passed lots of National and State Parks. Once we got there we checked into our hostel. It was also a good hostel. We signed up for a free kayak in the river at 6:30 pm. Since we had a bunch of time before we needed to get back we went to see the area. We stopped at the Big Banana, which was legit just a big fake banana! Then we went to a lookout at a National Park, which was beautiful. You could see the town and the surrounding area. Then we went to Emerald Beach to try and see wild kangaroos. Instead of seeing kangaroos, Tanner got stung by a wasp twice. His mind instantly imagined being attacked by a swarm, so he dropped his camera and ran. Poor Tanner! He walked away with a burning/swollen thumb and a numb/burning cheek. I mean I personally would have rather seen a kangaroo...

The rest of the beach was better though. There were a bunch of tiny sand crabs that made holes and balls of sand all over the beach. It completely amazed me! We also found a bunch of cool rocks and some blue jellyfish that washed up on the beach. Then we headed back to the hostel and got ready to go kayaking with other people from our hostel. We were the only Americans on the kayak trip. Most people were from European countries... it was interesting to hear all of their accents, languages, and stories. We talked to a really friendly girl from Finland a bunch! Half way through kayaking we stopped on a beach and played a team building type of game. The person leading the trip put our paddles on the beach in two piles and then we divided into two teams. Then we had to dig a tunnel underneath the paddles and get our team through the tunnel twice. It was actually a lot of fun even though it seemed bizarre at first. We had good technique, but we feel short of winning by a few seconds... bummer! That night we saw the biggest cockroach and spider ever. Australian animals are crazy!

Right before the stings! 

Sand crab holes/balls of sand.... impressive!

Byron Bay and the Gold Coast

Before we left for our last adventure before Brisbane we saw three kookaburras! Amazing! Then we headed off to Byron Bay for lunch. Our GPS from the car rental place wasn’t really the greatest. It wasn’t updated and apparently there are a lot of new road additions in Australia. Most of the time it was just small changes to roads, but it always confused the heck out of our GPS. However, there was one time she took us on a super narrow road that was not kept up anymore. The sides were eroding away. BUT it turned out awesome because we saw two wild kangaroos and a wallaby!!! Our GPS must  have known something after all!

When we made it to Byron we found a bathroom. The only reason I bring this up is b/c it was the craziest bathroom I have ever been in! It was all controlled by buttons or was automatic… the doors, the lock, the toilet paper dispenser, the soap, the water, the dryer, the toilet, and the unlock. The toilet flushed when you turned the water on. That’s one way to get people to wash their hands I guess! Then we grabbed lunch. We got Australian meat pies for the first time! I also tried Tim Tams for the first time. They are hard to describe... I'll have to try one again! They were really good though. 

After lunch we went an hour north to the Gold Coast! I got to see and stay in Alex's home (Bond Uni)!!! I even found her school. It felt crazy to be in the same place she was last year and seeing the same things see saw for a semester. I only wished that she was there this year so I could see her too. We went to David Fleay's Wildlife Park, which was absolutely fantastic! I got to see a PLATYPUS!!! They super cute and a lot smaller than I thought they would be. We also saw dingos, crocodiles, kangaroos, wallabies, koalas, emus, cassowaries, a tawny frogmouth, a tree kangaroo, etc. The enclosures were spacious and very natural. All zoos/parks should learn from this place. :) I was completely impressed! After that we walked in some mangroves outside of the park and later walked on the beach (Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise to be exact). 

These lizards were naturally just running around all over the park. They are pretty big lizards!

David Fleay's Wildlife Park

Good idea!

Tawny Frogmouth 

Now I am in Brisbane... my final destination! Tanner and I had an amazing time traveling up the coast. I can't believe it is almost time to go to Tasmania. I am kind of sad to leave the main part of Australia, but I can't wait to see what Hobart has in store for us. I'm excited to see what my new home away from home for the next 4.5 months looks like! I already love Australia so much! With that being said I do miss my family and friends tons. I can't wait to see everyone when I get back! 

Also one last thing... just wanted to give a quick shout out to my 5P readers. Hope Mrs. P is being nice today and that you are learning lots. Make sure you are being nice to my mommy too and listening to her! Miss you guys!

Love Always, 

Bobbi