Sending you a Postcard: East Coast Trip - Brisbane, Surfer's and Byron Bay

Brisbane

After Fraser we headed down to Brisbane to spend Australia Day (26.1.) there. The Aussie Way hostel offered us a neat and comfy place to stay in and the city itself with its lagoon, parks and Southbank’s restaurants and cafes turned out to be a great place for hanging out. During our stay we also passed by “QUT”, Queensland University of Technology, which locates right in the city center, next to the Brisbane River and Botanic Gardens. QUT (another friend university of my home Uni) seemed to be a good exchange destination in a nice city from where you can do weekend trips to interesting places nearby such us Noosa, Fraser, Byron etc.

We had good time in Brisbane, we met some Finnish friends and spend Australia Day eating well outdoors and watching fireworks. :)

Surfer’s Paradise

Sunshine Coast and Gold Coast are known for long beautiful beaches and endless sunshine – and yet it was cloudy or raining during our whole stay there… Surfer’s felt like the most American city so far, somehow in my mind popped up mini Miami or minimini Las Vegas. Guess the town would have had more to offer if the sun was shining, but for me there was nothing special. The best thing and worth doing was a surf lesson (we are masters of surfing now!) – didn’t even mind the rain for it was truly fun.

Byron Bay

Nearly every backpacker, from whom we have asked which place was the best at the East Coast, answers “Byron Bay”. With dozens of relaxed restaurants and bars, long cozy-looking beaches and a pictureperfect lighthouse Byron Bay is an extremely charming and chilled out town. People here are laidback, no-one is in a hurry and locals and backpackers drag their surfboards into the waves early in the morning. Outside Byron you can do a daytrip to Nimbin (a small rather curious village still living the 60's) and to the waterfalls near by. Either you can attend a tour that visits the top of the 120-meter-long waterfall or rent a car of your own, drive there and hike to the bottom of the fall to dip into the cool pond.

The Pass Beach

The Most Eastern Point of Australia and The Lighthouse

Minyon Falls

One week in Byron Bay has passed by graciously meeting new people, surfing, hiking along the beaches and lighthouse trails, and eating delicious Mexican, Spanish and Middle Eastern food. Also we went diving again - our instructor from Cairns had advised us to go diving at the Julian Rocks – and what an extreme sport it turned out to be this time. The water was much colder than in Cairns (21 degrees only!!!), there were stronger currents and because of the mixing currents the visibility wasn’t as good as usually. So definitely more physical type of diving this time! And we also broke our diving tables - obs... And what we saw was – sharks. Plenty of sharks! Well, no worries, they were only wobbegong sharks meaning lazy sleepy vegetarians calmly lying on the bottom of the ocean.