Sydney to Brisbane

Last Saturday we left Sydney and started making our way to Brisbane, where we arrived Wednesday night. Even though we are enjoying ourselves, I have to say that there's not a whole lot to do between Sydney and Brisbane and even though Brisbane is Australia's 3^rd largest city, not a whole lot there either. Here's a bit of a play by play of our stops along the way:

Terrigal (like terrible but with a "G")

Saturday we hurried up to Terrigal from Sydney to meet up with our friend Janna who also happens to be a travel agent at Flight Centre. As mentioned before, she helped us book our rental car in Europe and we needed to be there to sign the paperwork at 11am. She even went into work on her day off to help us finish the reservation! In addition, of course, to having us as guests in her home that night. She actually lives with her boyfriend Dom (we met them when we were traveling in Thailand – we bonded over car sickness; they also stayed with us for a night in Melbourne a few months ago) in Dom's parents' sweet house. Terrigal reminds me of a small San Luis Obispo – it's a little beach town with a nice feel to it and a cute little strip of cafes by the water. Of course if Janna hadn't been there we would have never stopped to see it, but it was a great respite for a day.

Newcastle

Sunday we made our way up to “Newy”, home of the infamous Silverchair (dreamy sigh). And apparently they still live there on and off, which I find commendable. Aside from the “Silverchair Plays Home Town” poster that greeted us in the lobby of our hostel, we saw no evidence of their presence at all, which I found somewhat disappointing*. We spent Monday, a beautiful sunny day, wandering on the jetty and around Fort Scratchley – where cannons were fired at a Japanese submarine during WWII - and peeking into the cute boutiques on the main drag, Darby Street. We also had a wander through the free animal sanctuary a bit outside of town - very nice!

Byron Bay

We only spent one night in this sleepy little village since we spent all of Tuesday driving from Newy (approx 8 hours/450 miles), but we did manage to hike out to the lighthouse on the peninsula on Wednesday morning - the most easterly point on the continent! This is a total surfer town that isn't particularly exciting if you don't enjoy beach activities (yep we're lame). Cafes and long haired hippies abound, but Wednesday afternoon we were off to Brisbane.

Gold Coast – Surfer's Paradise

The Gold Coast is a strip of little surf towns turned tourist havens where development has not been restricted resulting in strings of huge resorts, condos, casinos and the like. People compare it to Vegas but I didn't think it was anywhere near on par with Sin City herself. We drove through the towns and stopped in the hub of Surfer's Paradise which seemed to me more like a poor man's Waikiki beach. It's made entirely for tourists and caters most famously to spring break-esque gallivanting and debauchery for teenagers. Needless to say it probably isn't really our type of place, but in the day I found it to be rather nice. Shops and restaurants line the streets interspersed with tacky high rise apartments and hotels. Everything is over the top and has a sort of vomit-recently-cleaned-from-the-sidewalk feel to it, but I found it to be kind of fun. At least there were people there and things to do. I think it could be good if you know what to expect. It did prompt us to be as cheesy as possible and eat and the ridiculously overpriced (and over-rated) Hard Rock Cafe. At least they play music videos to groove to while you eat.

And from SP we continued on to Brisbane, a proper city (finally)...to be continued. (Posting from crappy internet connection in Hervey Bay and hence not able to keep up with posting photos or info as much as I'd like, but, I take what I can get!)

*Yes I did sort of hope for a Silverchair museum or memorabilia center or free poster or something. And let's face it, I did hope that maybe we would see the guys having a casual coffee in our local cafe and give him a high five. Not all dreams come true...sniffle...