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Published: August 7th 2007
We left you in Hervy Bay, from where we moved onto Brisbane!
Brisbane is a really nice city, its not too big or busy and is well looked after. We stayed at a really nice hostel called Bowen Terrace, it was more like staying in a big house than in a hostel. You can get around the city using the city cat, which as it sounds isn't a large feline, but a catameran that cruises up and down the river in the centre of the city! We decided to take a trip to Australia Zoo, home of the late Steve Irwin. We encountered lots of animals, from mini crocodiles to the largest you could ever imagine, to circus rescued elephants, bengal tigers, wombats, turtles, dingoes and of course lots of Koalas, we even got to cuddle one called Mash, although he was very smelly! We ventured into the Crocoseum (see what they did there!) and witnessed a breath taking show involving lots of snakes and birds and also the infamous crocodile feeding demonstartion! Whilst in Brisbane we checked out the Gabba, for those of you who don't know is the Brisbane Cricket Ground, where England no doubt lost during the Ashes!!
We also headed to the funky area known as South Bank, which like many of the town up the coast offers a lagoon type swimming pool, this one even had a man-made beach.
After Brisbane we headed to the Gold Coast area of Suffers Paradise! A lively town, especially on St Patricks day. Living up to its name, in residents anyway, the area was covered in cool, surfer dudes!! It also had a very holiday town feeling to it. Whilst in the town we headed towards the Q1 tower, the tallest residential building in the world, even taller than the Eiffer tower. It had a viewing platform on the 77th floor, which we reached in an elevator (thankfully!) in as little as 43 seconds, making it the fastest elevator in the world, you could actually feel your ears popping with the change in pressure! The view from the top did not disapoint, we could see for miles, being a particularly clear day over the sea and the town. The next day we headed to one of the many theme parks the Gold Coast has to offer, we decided to head to the water park Wet n Wild. Being a
sunday we got up bright and early and headed town ward to board the bus to the park, arriving early was a good idea because the park was teeming with kids within minutes of opening! Being big kids ourselves we headed straight for all the biggest rides, our favourite being The Tornado, imagine if you can being shot into the wide end of a funnel lying on its side in a rubber ring big enough for two people, great fun! Nick also decided to excercise the daredevil in him and rode the Mach 5, apparently Australias tallest and fastest water slides.
From Sufers we headed to Byron Bay, once again up bright and early to catch the Greyhound only to be left waiting at the bus station because it was stuck in traffic! This should have been a sign of things to come, when we arrived in Byron we had to wait a couple of hours to be collected by our guesthouse, however when Jim arrived it was clear why! Laid back isn't even close to describing him, but that seemed to be the way things were in Byron anyway! The highlight of our stay in Byron Bay was
another long trek in the midday sun to Byron head, Australias most eastern point where we saw some dolphins playing in the waves.
After 3 nights in Byron Bay we moved on to Coffs Harbour. Coffs Harbous we found to be a very quiet place and not a huge amount to do unless you like the beach. After being stopped to do a questionnaire in a shopping mall we found out about a place called Dorrigo. After having done our research into getting public transport we found there wasn't any so we hired a car, and how nice it was to have a bt freedom. So we took it in turns to drive our mighty chariot and being an automatic it was so much fun! After an hours drive we arrived at Dorrigos National park where we walked out onto the skywalk, a long platform that above the trees gives you views of the hills below. There were many walks around the parklands to chose from, we chose one which took us through the rainforest to Crystal Clear Falls a waterfall which allowed you to walk behind it. We headed to Dorrigo village but on the way stopped at Dangar
Falls another waterfall on a much bigger scale than the last one, this one was huge, so big that you could see a rainbow through the spray. Our visit to Dorrigo village however didn't last long due to the lack of anything there! We left Dorrigo to our last night in Coffs Harbour before we moved onto Sydney.
We arrived in Sydney at a nice early hour of 6:15 am having one over night on the Greyhound and the clock going back so we did gain an hour that day! We met a couple, Nicola and Paul on the bus so we waited until 8am having coffee and tea with them before we could check into our hostel. The same night that we arrived we went out to a Neighbours trivia night which was great fun, we got to meet (for those of you that watch it) Toadie, Elle and Boyd. With a week to play with in Sydney we really tried to cram in as much as we could. We started off with a harbour cruise which included coffee and muffins so we obviously took advantage of that. As the sun was starting to go down we went
up the Sky Tower to see a birds eye view of the city.
The following day we went to the Telstra Stadium where the Olympics were held and had a tour around it allowing us to go into all the exclusive areas such as corporate boxes, platinum lounge and the warm up and changing rooms for the teams who now use it for sport. We also went to have a look at the Aquatics centre where the pool for the Olympics was used. Having been to the Stadium we decided to book some tickets for an AFL game Aussie Rules Football saturday the first of the season!
The following day we got up and headed down to the harbour ready for our birdge climb. We got all kitted up with a jump suit type outfit and harness allowing us to be attached to the bridge at all times. It took about 3 hours overall and we had a fantastic clear day and the views from the top were incredible you could see for miles away, even the Blue Mountains which take a 2 hour journey on the train. Once at the top we all got pictures, a group one and
individual ones. Coming down was alot easier probably fuelled by the fact that it was well past lunch so we were all hungry! Once returned to ground level and fed ourselves up we went to the Opera House for a look around, and the insides were incridible and the two main venues were huge, holding over a thousand people. That night we met up tihe Nicola and Pal and went to the Minus 5 bar, a bar where everything is made of ice, the bar, sculptures, tables and even the glasses! We got a couple of professional pictures done as we ere not allowed to take in our cameras.
We took a boat trip out to Manly a small town north east of Sydney by the sea. Unfortunatly the day we had chosen to go it was particularly wet, however that didn't stop the hardcore surfers catching plenty of waves. On our way back the sun began to set and the clouds begain to part over the Harbour Bridge making a beautiful skyline, which made the whoel rainy trip worth while. Up early the next day to catch the train for a 2 hour train ride to Katoomba our entrance
to the Blue Mountains national park. It was a bright and sunny day although being so high up meant that it was also very cold. We used a hop on hop off bus service, which went to the various sights around the park including many spectacular falls and the infamous 3 sisters rock formation. Within the Blue Mountains there used to be an old mining village and we rode the the worlds steepest train down into the valley at an angle of 52 (that is ver steep). At the end of the day we made our way into Leura where we headed straight for an old Tea room as our tickets gave us buy one get one free on devonshire teas. The tea rooms were full of old antiques and we were most definatly out of place, however we enjoyed out tea and 2 scones each and headed back to Sydney.
Our final day was quite relaxing as we prepared for our flight to New Caledonia and in the evening we headed back to the Telstra Stadium to watch the Sydney Swans in an Aussie Rules football game. With over 60,000 people there there was a really good atmosphere althoughwe
didn't quite understand what was going on we managed to have a good time even though the Swans lost to the West Coast Eagles
Well thats the conclusion of our time in Australia. As you can see we are having an amazing time and although we have been away for 2 months now it doesn't feel like it.
We hope that you are all ok and we shall be in touch soon.
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Mum Hodson
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Photos are amazing and you both look so well. I think Australia will be a place you will want to revisit again and again. Have a relaxing time in New Caledonia. Love to you both