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Published: July 30th 2010
After 289 days, 10 countries, 7 flights, 47 bus journeys, 25 boat rides, 11 train journeys, 5 boxes of purchases sent home (plus 2 bags sent home with Chris and Mum) and 55 GB of photos and videos taken....we said goodbye to Asia. Painless and stressfree flight from Bali to Brisbane via Hong Kong. Friendly welcome to Australia by the Immigration staff and made our way into Brisbane city on the train. It was winter so cooler than we have been used to in the last few months and we really felt the cold. Good job we had our Nepal trekking outfits with us (only been lugging those around for 8 months!!). Weird to wear socks and shoes again.
We'd joined Couch Surfing, which is a worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit. It's good because you get to meet real and like-minded local people and do the things real locals do. A bonus is that you stay at peoples houses for free! We had been accepted to stay at a house in yuppy Paddington suburb called The Farm shared by 4 university students (Graham, Neran, Tom and Ellen), 2 chickens and a fluffy
cat called G-Unit. We arrived in the day when eveyone was out but they'd left the back door open for us and we enjoyed hot showers and made our own proper cup of tea for the first time in 9.5 months!! Heaven. When the guys got home we had a great evening chatting and watching Aussie TV (Masterchef!!), super friendly people. Cooked them a 'Dee's famous lasagne' the next day and even invited over Kevin and Lora, our friends from Laos who were settling in Brisbane........how cheeky where we! They said to make ourselves at home!! ;-) Explored the city, went to the Gallery of Modern Art and saw a brilliant exhibition by the life-like sculpturer Ron Mueck. Really nice city, clean and safe.
Next we moved north to Noosa on the Sunshine Coast, via Brisbane's very efficient rail and bus system. We had requested to stay with a British guy on Couch Surfing in trendy Noosa Heads and it turns out that he used to skate at Radlands all the time so knew Dee and they had many mutual friends. He lived in an amazing comtemporary house with a pool and picked us up from the bus station
in his fourby (4x4!) and everything. We hit gold with this guy!! Spent a wicked couple of days walking in Noosa National Park trying to spot wild koalas (saw 1), cooking for John and his housemate Sam and hanging out with their mates. Bought and drank our first 'Goon' (cheap boxed wine). An essential backbackers drink as other drinks are very expensive here. Ate our first Aussie pie from the delicious Noosa bakery. Think we're gonna get fat in Aus! ;-)
Highlight was our day trip to ''Crikey'' Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. It was a bit theme-parky and we walked around the enclosures listening to terrible piped pop music (sang by super-famous Bindi Irwin!) but it was very good. Loads of Aussie animals like crocodiles, dingos, wombats, kangeroos you could stroke and feed, kookaburras and super cute koalas as well as elephants and tigers. They had loads of koalas sitting in man made eucaliptus trees so we could get really close. Mostly they were asleep curled into cute balls as they sleep up to 20 hours a day (Holly thinks this sounds like bliss!). We went to an animal show at the 'Crocoseum' and saw loads of free flying
birds and the keepers feed a giant croc called Graham. Those things are huge! Really good day out.
With a long distance to cover between Noosa and Cairns up the east coast in only 14 days, we decided to get a move on. Hired a car and said goodbye to John, Sam and Noosa. Hope to see those guys again someday. So good to have our own wheels. Good job we like driving as we have 1580 km (982 MILES!!!) to do.......
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Sophie and Dale
Sophie & Dale
Ron Mueck
Wow how awesome are those sculptures! Bit scary though some of them! How was lovely Graham when you saw him.. still fighting fit! Excellent name for a croc for sure! Hope you are having an awesome time in Oz.. my friend said it is 26 today which is pretty hot so hopefully you aren't needing the thermals too much ;o) Take care x