mike & rhonda's latest adventure: Family & Friends Coastal Tour

While we hated to leave Fraser Island, we had plenty planned for the next week.

We made our first stop in Noosa Heads (on the Sunshine Coast) which we really liked. It had many canals, enabling most homes to have backyard docks, and a large park at the headland providing several hiking trails. We chose the coastal route to Hell's Gate and back through the forest for 7 km's of nice views. From there we continued on to Coloundra where we walked along the boardwalk watching kite-boarders flying through the air in big winds.

The next day we had a good visit in Twin Waters with Geoff and June (Darren's parents) where we had a lovely lunch together and caught up on their new home adventure. We then drove on to the top end of Brisbane (North Lakes) where we spent a couple of days re-visiting with Darren and Amy (Rhonda's niece). Darren took us to our first National Rugby League (NRL) game to watch the Brisbane Broncos play the South Sydney Rabbitohs (Russell Crowe owns them). It had an unfortunate ending for the home team but it was fun to watch in our mid-field seats with another 40,000 fans at SunCorp Stadium. We walked back to the downtown area for a lovely late evening dinner afterwards. After saying good-bye to D&A we walked around downtown Brisbane the next day which we thoroughly enjoyed. It has an active downtown area, helped by 2 university campuses, and the Brisbane River that meanders through the city, and has parks, boardwalks and pedestrian bridges along the way. The Songkran Festival was underway for the Buddhist community, and while well attended, it was extremely tamer than our experience in Thailand last year. It was still fun to see everyone out celebrating.

Our drive further south took us along the Gold Coast....too many ocean-side high rises, and too many people as a result for our tastes. We made a brief stop in Surfers Paradise.......good swells but none of the surfers I have met would be able to afford to stay there.......we hang with the younger crowd! We continued on to Byron Bay for a second visit (previously there for the Blues Fest a month ago), just in time to see the final swimmer come ashore in the Ocean Swim Race. Two kayaks followed him to shore so he arrived safely but well behind most of the 1,500+ entrants in the 2.5 km event. We had intended to watch Bobbie swim in one of the many ocean races in which she likes to compete......in shark-infested waters for some strange reason?......but arrived too late. We tried to find Bill and Bobbie in the Surf Club crowd but with several thousand people attending, including the crowd and elbow-rubbers with the real athletes on the Beer Patio, we didn't manage to find them (they were there as it turned out). We checked into the Caravan Park that we stayed in the night before the Blues Fest ($30 now vs. $100 during the Festival) and went to the busy Sunday Market down the road from our CP. We bought some fresh veggies, had lunch and listened to a band playing some very good blues-rock tunes. After that we caught up with B&B, and their Yamba friends Allan and Jane, at the CP and we all hiked up to the lighthouse overlooking Byron Bay. This was the easternmost point of Australia and also near the starting point of the Ocean Race. Allan and Bobbie had similar times (38-39 minutes) and both finished in the top third of their divisions. We all had dinner together in their shared cabin at the end of the day.

The next day we were on the road again, stopping at Lennox Head (surfers), Ballina (shopping), Evans Head (picnic) and Maclean (Scottish heritage with over 200 tartan lamp posts). Our destination was Bill and Bobbie's new abode in Yamba, a very pretty town, non touristy, and offering sailing opportunities for Bill and ocean swimming for Bobbie. We enjoyed our time with them, spending most of one day taking a ferry to Iluka and doing a rainforest walk out to the Bluff, having a lunch at the pub and taking the ferry back to Yamba on a rainy day when we managed to be undercover whenever it was raining.....including only a light mist while we were in the rainforest. Bill entertained us during the evenings with his new 47 inch 3D Full HD TV where we watched 2 wonderful Great Barrier Reef videos and the Disney move “Up” which we all enjoyed. This morning.......after Bobbie had her regular daily ocean swim while Bill did a walk or tried to swim with her.....and we slept in until 7 am......we all walked around the headland and over to the Wednesday Market where we purchased some veggies for the next few days.

Tomorrow we will continue our journey south towards Sydney.