Byron to Noosa, and most things inbetween... (to be read before the previous post)

Note: This should be read before chris's entry, as his follows on.

Well, this is my maiden post on this here blog, so after such a long amount of time relying on the others I've put alot of pressure on myself to make it a worthwhile addition.

So we left Byron bay, and drove probably 2 miuntes down the highway after a free meal to a rest stop on the side of the road, which was far more of a owner-less camp site. When we pulled up at about 10pm there must have been 30-40 cars (some with tents!) all doing like ourselves and avoiding the hostel fees. One comfortable night there and then we were off to see what the next day would have in store.

Chris divulged some rumours of a place called Nimbin, basically a little hamlet obsessed with the 60's. Some 'lonely planet' research told us it had been the host of a small concert in the 60's, and some people had just refused to go home. We headed there, and on the way came across Mount Warning. Not taking the name as a warning we headed steeply up to the summit car park; no problem, until we stopped and the bonnet started fizzing, hissing, and blowing out steam. Disaster number uno. The steep climb had been too much for one of the coolant hoses, and it'd gotten itself a nice little hole. We took the walk to the bottom of the hill, and phoned for the helpful RACV guy to come and sort it, then raced on up the mountain. It was a gorgeous afternoon (we seem to have had a lot of those) and the climb was worth it.

Nimbin was definitely the most bizarre place we've been to, not what I expected to find in oz. Many of the shops and shop keepers seemed to fit the description of folk who were around to enjoy the 60's and all they had to offer. A couple of hours was enough, and we were off. We stayed at another gorgeous campsite, and a fire and red wine were the order of the evening.

The next day is not one worthy of note. We knew that surfers paradise and the surroundings were very commercial, but nothing prepared us for what we came across. Firstly we went to Tweed Heads to see if that would offer the same thing in terms on waves and relaxation, but we were let down and pushed on to 'Surfers' as its locally known. I've never walked around LA, but this is exactly what I imagine it to look like. A huge strip of beach lined with highrise after highrise, club after bar, and building site upon building site. We walked around and landed on the idea of a trip to the supermarket because we needed food. Had another free bbq in a plastic park and then carried on north again. In the small islands north of the strip we got a sneak at what all the money from the Gold Coast is going towards; the luxury beach side apartments and villas with private pontoons and 40ft cruisers plonked in the water. We moved on.

(I'm running out of time)
Straight to Brisbane, which was kind of a mixture between Melbourne and Sydney, but probably more like the former. One night at a rather anal campsite owned by a pom, and the second at the first hostel we'd stayed in since January probably. Didn't like the hostel, very cliqy, bit smelly, and the tv room wasn't showing the ashes!!

Next morning, and North again would you believe. We soon started spotting some weird looking mountains on the left, which turned out to be the Glass House mountains. A sharp and late turn about and we we looking at a crazy looking bloody big one. It was marked as an expert climb, we fancied ourselves as experts and up we went. The burn was incredible, the heat was intense, and the view from the top was spectacular (it spanned a large section of the Sunshine and Gold Coasts). Brilliant! After that we sped past Steve Irwins Australia zoo, and so can say that we saw it.

It was getting pretty late when we got into Maroochydore, and we looked about for ages for a place to stop. We couldn't so we took a rather twisted route around the next 40km of coast to find Peregian Beach which had a perfect campsite for us. We stayed there, and went to coolum beach for the whole of the following day, then back to the same campsite to watch our first part of the last test. Very luckily a couple of ex-pats invited us to watch the rest in their van, so we did and idulged in some free beer and cheese and biscuits! (Can't remember what day it was, but england were lookin good.)

The next day we pushed on to Noosa, which is where chris's section comes in. But he apparently forgot to mention the incredible deal we got on 24 bottles of wine from a big Dan Murphys (bottleshop); 2 cases of clean-skins wine, working out at about $2.85 a bottle (or GBP1.40). We came away pretty happy.