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Coffs Harbour - Byron Bay - Noosa
Jan 7th - Jan 16th

The east coast of Australia is backpacker heaven as crowds of young travellers head up to Cairns from Sydney stopping off along the way to get very drunk, laze about on beaches and ‘do’ Fraser Island, the Whitsundays and each other. We joined the herds waiting for the overnight Greyhound out of Sydney - overnight buses mean you save on accommodation but don’t actually get to sleep.

Just after new year is peak time for leaving Sydney so we couldn’t get anywhere to stay in our first choice stop of Byron Bay so had to head to Coffs Harbour for two nights.

Coffs is a small coastal town with not a lot to do but we were lucky that a free outdoor cinema was happening the weekend we were there and as we missed out on the outdoor cinema experience in Perth and Sydney were very excited to be going to one for free! We stocked up on cheese and biscuits and a few bottles of fizz and settled down to watch Marley & Me. I have to say that sitting outside in Australia with only a sarong between you and the ground is pretty perilous. We had a fair few insects crawling on us (I was glad I had covered up in jeans and a high neck cardigan even if I was a bit hot) and the sound of the insects in the trees was deafening. As soon as it got dark I forgot about the bugs and settled down (well sat up with the least amount of contact with the ground as possible) for the movie.

The overnight bus is a bit of a killer especially as just as we had nodded off (around 1am) the driver took a one hour rest stop. So frustrating. By the time we got to Coffs Harbour at 7.10am we were ready to drop but of course couldn’t check in until 12.30pm so ended up nodding off on a park bench.
Thankfully the journey to Byron was just under 4 hours so we got there feeling quite refreshed. We were in separate 10 bed dorms in the Cape Byron YHA which were spacious enough but had no air con. It was unbearably hot at times but we soon got used to having a constant sheen of sweat on our bodies and never actually being able to get properly dry after a shower.

We had a lot of fun in Byron Bay as we met a great bunch of people and ended up playing drinking games with an ensemble that made us feel as if we were at an EU summit. We took the party to the beach at 11pm and finally got to bed in the early hours. I say bed but Simon actually fell asleep hugging the toilet. Oh how the tables have turned…

Byron Bay is a lovely little town with plenty of quirky shops, lovely cafes, restaurants and bars. We even ate out a couple of times as we didn’t spend much money during the day. We basically spent our time sunbathing by the open air pool or at a gorgeous private little cove at The Pass beach. It was too hot to do much else really. We did however go on a trek up to the lighthouse in time for sunset which was wonderful but a bit sweaty.

After Byron Bay we headed to Noosa where we had booked to stay in an apartment-style hostel which was basically split into houses each holding five people. Unfortunately the free pick up didn’t materialise and after several bus rides and a 3km walk with all our luggage my bag gave up and broke (I managed to buy another one before we left - my fourth bag of the trip )I was not happy when we finally made it to the accommodation and even more upset to find that there was no air con. Seriously people it’s over 30 degrees why would you not have air con?! Every night in Noosa we went to bed with the temperature gauge reading 29 and every morning we woke to the same temperature which gradually crept up during the day.

Noosa reminds us of the South of France as it is very upmarket with stacks of restaurants and lots of very fancy houses, some of which have yachts moored up outside. Again we spent our time in Noosa sunbathing on the beach until we felt we would melt. Unfortunately we couldn’t cool off in the sea as it is stinger season and there were hundreds of jellyfish washed up along the shore. The small bluebottles make a satisfying popping noise when you tread on them.

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