Today we parted ways with the canadians and drove to Brisbane. Great to see another big city with skyscrapers and bridges on the horizon as we drove in. Feels so long since we were in Sydney walking around the urban jungle. We spent a good 45 mins driving round the city centre trying to find a decent car park but at $30 per hour we left and headed for some residential areas outside the city where we found free non restricted street parking near Kangaroo Point, only 15 min walk to city centre! Walked into the shopping district and tried to sort out our wifi modem that we got with the van at the virgin shop, until they told us we needed a tonne of paperwork and passport /visa docs before we could set it up! Not happy. Explored bits of city. Finished back at Kangaroo Point cliffs by the river and watched the climbers on the rockfaces. Cooked dinner and had a walk along the river. No evidence it was Halloween at all here apart from seeing the odd person or so in the city dressed like a zombie or slutty vampire. A few shops had gone to the effort with the decorations. Phoned Dad later that night to wish him happy birthday and was great to hear he was enjoying his holiday. Happy birthday Dad! Stayed overnight at small carpark at Raymond park.
View of Brissie from top of Kangaroo Point Cliffs
Friday 1st November
2nd attempt at sorting our modem out, this time with a shed load of paper work. Honestly, it felt like we were being investigated by immigration or something. Its so annoying that they do a credit check on you just to open a flipping new account with them over here.
Had my first Australian haircut in the afternoon (even though the geezer that did it was clearly of Asian decent). Hair was getting pretty scruffy so had been on the lookout for a while. Found a place in the suburbs that did $10 cuts which is great value and normally unheard of so it had to be done. Despite the cheap price it was actually a really good cut and service and even included a complimentary fresh lemon scented hot towel!
Cooked and slept at same places that night.
Cooking on the stove and bbqs at kangaroo point. What a view!
Saturday 2nd
Left Brisbane and travelled east to the coast. Not much happening apart from the odd large marina. No beaches or shopping plazas. Headed back to M1 en route to Surfers Paradise in Gold Coast City.
When we got there we started exploring parts of the city trying to find our bearings. Had kebabs for lunch (they're back in offer in Woolworths. Yesss!) on the esplanade overlooking the beach and the surfers and volleyballers then sat in the van for a few hours trying to figure out where we could stay the night. There are no free camp sites or grounds within about a 100km radius of where we are and between here and Sydney they are few and far between, which will make the last legs of our journey a little challenging! There are quite a few caravan parks but at $40+ a night and very limited availability we aren't bothering.
We decided it best to go around all of the local parks as it had worked for us in Brisbane. They don't seem to be as tight on security further south as the cities are bigger and harder to patrol. But most of the places we've seen don't have any no camping signs so we should be fine. After all we're not even camping - just sleeping. Nothing wrong with that.
Stayed at a park 5 mins in from Mermaid beach. Cooked tea waited then until 11.30pm. No security, no problem!
Driving into Gold Coast City. There are roadworks and maintenance going on everywhere. As well as fitting a new tram network they must be repairing and doing work on the roads which would have taken a battering from the V8 Supercars in the Gold Coast 600 race. We just missed it (happened 25th October) ! The crash barriers and spectator stands were still up as we drove over the starting grid!
Tower candy. Plenty of interesting architecture in the city
Sunday 3rd
We found another park (via google maps) that looked better than what we were staying in. It had a car park listed on parkopedia which indicated it might have showers (which we desperately needed), so we headed there and after getting a bit lost in the crazy waterway/canal neighbourhoods of the area we eventually found it. Saw some very sleek and modern waterfront properties on the way!
The gold coast is home to 446km of canals. That's 9x more canals than Venice.
Residential canals where first built on the Gold Coast in the 1950's and construction continues, providing waterfront living to 80,000 residents.
View from a plot of land for sale overlooking one of the canals and the city skyline, which includes the Q1 tower (Australia's tallest building).
The car park did after all have toilet and shower facilities! HOT shower facilities! For free! Thank you, Gold Coast City Council! And it was in a great spot which had a manmade lake and beach, with amazing views! It was our first shower in about a week and it was so good! Hot water is a luxury! We must have spent half an hour in there scrubbing the dirt and dead skin off of ourselves. It's probably the longest I've ever been without a shower I think (Tom managed about 2 weeks when in Europe. Crazy.).
So, both clean as a pair of whistles and satisfied with our fresh and fragrant selves, we continued our clean streak by heading into Surfers Paradise to track down a laundrette, did our washing and then I took a trip up to the Q1 building - tallest building in the city - to the Skydeck viewing platform. It cost $25 but the panoramic views were worth every cent. I could have easily stayed up there all afternoon buying cocktails and chatting to everyone. Great experience.
Q1 is the tallest building in Australia and the Southern Hemisphere when measured from the top of its spire (third tallest building behind Eureka Tower and Rialto Towers, both in Melbourne when measured to roof and highest habitable floor) and the second tallest freestanding structure in the Southern Hemisphere, behind the Sky Tower in Auckland, New Zealand. It opened in November 2005.
View from Q1 Skydeck - North
View from Q1 Skydeck - South
The area near the convention centre where we parked and had a swim
Monday 4th
After waking up we went and did a workout in the park by the lake then decided to go for a swim. Very grey and dull this morning with lots of wind and cloud. Better for exercising but cold when standing still. A few lengths of the lake and another nice long hot shower we cooked breakfast on the bbqs and headed into town. Walked round a shopping centre getting bits and bobs then drove to Miami (two suburbs down from Surfers Paradise) to check out some surf shops we'd researched. We are after a couple of surf boards and looking to buy within our budget of $250 each. We later got stuck between getting one board each or clubbing together to get a newer and better board that we could share. After weighing everything up we agreed on buying just one and sharing it. We looked at some boards we liked but didn't buy one. We still have a few more shops we want to check out tomorrow so will keep shopping around and decide when we've seen and compared as many as we can.
We slept at the carpark by the lake again and when we were fast asleep at 11:45pm we were suddenly woken by security who gave us a warning and asked us to move on or face an on the spot fine of $375. Very annoyed about this as there were no signs saying no camping or overnight staying anywhere. Probably would have stated our case a bit better if we were more awake. So we had to get up and drive to the nearest outer city park we could find and stay there. Luckily we found a sports recreation ground with a parking area tucked out of the way near some houses.
Tuesday 5th
We bought a surfboard!!! Spent the morning in and out of surf shops in Burleigh Heads and found one we really liked over all the others with the best specification for both of us. The guy in the shop was really helpful and not pushy at all. Very chatty and friendly too. The board was $400 and we found a bit of other stuff to go with it -a carry case and a wetsuit vest, a leg strap and some wax, which the guy threw in all for $550. What a bargain! The board is second hand but in very good condition and the brand is one of the most sought after board brands on the Gold Coast. It wouldn't have been in the shop long if we didn't buy it today!
So we are chuffed! Been smiling all day, and the unusual sight of a surf board in a shiny Cary bag every time we open the van door makes it feel like Santa has come early! We're like two giddy kids who can't wait to try out our new toy! The surf and swell is supposed to be very good tomorrow, especially at Cooloongatta (where we checked out this afternoon), before it dies down again so need to make the most of it! It's been about 2 months since surf camp. And we are on a lot smaller board so it will be interesting to say the least!
Spent the night at a service station 20 mins south of Cooloongatta.
Actually forgot it was bonfire night for you guys back at home. Fireworks are illegal for the public to buy and let off here and they don't celebrate it! So we didn't see a single one! However something tells me the New Year's Eve displays will make up for that.
Surfers at Burleigh Heads
Burleigh Heads beach - looking north towards Gold Coast City and Surfers Paradise
Wednesday 6th
Spent most of the day at Cooloongatta beach testing out our surf board. We were both nervous at first haha but excited at the same time. Seems to be a good buy. We both like it and managed to get used to it a little but a lot of practice needed still. Its short fibreglass construction is a lot different to the long foam based boards we learnt on. Waves ok. A bit tricker to ride as well; whereas the beach where we learnt was perfect for beginners. Hoping for same conditions or better tomorrow, although weather and surf forecast not in favour. We shall see.
Went back to services for the night. We've been noticing its been getting really quite cold during the evenings now. The on-shore winds don't help either, since we've been cooking near the beach a lot recently. In fact it's just and in general that will make 20 degrees feel like 12. The past few nights we've been shivering while making dinner, often putting on about 4 top layers and tracksuit bottoms. This is the first time we've been cold in Australia and I think with it being so humid in northern Queensland we have almost acclimatised to living in 25+ degrees. So whenever it drops below 20 with a strong wind chill we can't deal with it! Obviously we have lost our manliness for bearing cold, rainy and windy English evenings! Shocker.
Thursday 7th
So we drove round most of the coastline this morning and checked the surf reports and guess what... Rubbish surf conditions. Surfers Paradise did not deserve its name at all today. Needless to say, after walking around, grabbing lunch and taking some pictures, this was a good enough time to move ourselves on to the next place on our journey - Byron bay - and hope for some better surf.
Point Danger - this was the only spot we found where there was good surf. You can see all the surfers if you look close. However these surfers where clearly very experienced and there was a lot of them in one area so we thought we better not cramp their style by practicing on our board right next to them. Somewhere quieter maybe!
By the way, Point Danger is notoriously known by locals as the point at which the state border line meets the east coast. It divides Queensland from New South Wales, and at this time of year there is a 1 hour time difference, which we found a little confusing since we were driving over it, back and forth, quite a lot over two days. Literally back in time and back to the future! So as of now, we are back in New South Wales, and that's an 11 hour time difference from back home.
We arrived in Byron late afternoon and when checking out the beach I noticed some big splashes a few hundred metres out in the sea. We waited a few seconds and saw a big black mass emerge from the surface, compete with big tail fin! Whales!! We kept watching and saw them jumping up in and out of the waves. Nobody else seemed to have spotted them. Pretty lucky to be treated to that unexpectedly!
Friday 8th
Slept in instead of getting up early to go and check the surf. Good job we did though as we found out it wouldn't have been worth it at all. The surf conditions at Byron were terrible. 1ft waves if that, and breaking way to late. Checking the surf forecasts for the next few days in various places further south revealed that we are all out of luck for the next week. Bummer. Conditions deteriorating until middle of next week.
So all we could do was walk round the town of Byron bay and look at everything we couldn't afford to buy. Similar to Noosa and port Douglas, Byron is made up of mostly quirky gift and clothes shops and expensive bars and restaurants. It relies almost solely on the money from tourism. So being a backpacker on a bit of a strict budget, with no job, living out of a van, is not really ideal when wanting to get the most out of that sort of place. Because the wages are so high here (to compensate for the high cost of living) no Aussie job means no Aussie wage. So consequently we have been enduring our former english pounds literally disappearing form our Aussie accounts extremely quickly.
After trudging round and walking out of a few bars in disgust at the drinks prices we decided to give up the ghost so to speak and continue on. Which admittedly was a shame as we were hoping to spend at least a few days here.
We drove 2 hours south to a rest area by a services about 15 mins north of Coffs Harbour and will check out the local beaches tomorrow.
