The last two and a half weeks travelling up the East Coast on our road trip have been incredible. The girls and I have thoroughly explored the East Coast of Australia, visiting famous landmarks, eating in local restaurants, experiencing more of Australia’s night life and finding hidden gems. Read on to see what we got up too!
Our Road Trip Up the East Coast of Australia
From Byron Bay we headed up to the Gold Coast and stayed in Surfers Paradise for 2 nights. We arrived at our hostel where they had put us in a room with not enough free beds. We were moved into a different room which absolutely stunk and had a couple of strange people in it. There were no lockers to keep our things safe so luckily, we had the car. We were all a bit lost as it was also chucking it down outside and ended up siting on the floor, sulking for a while.
One of the girsl in our room must have felt sorry for us as she brought us up some chicken and mash to eat. Looking back on it now we were being slightly dramatic, but we were so fed up at the time.
That night I was woken up by a girl who was stood staring at me through her gigantic glasses. Apparently, I was in her bed. So, the hostel managed to screw up again and had overbooked our room – the poor girl had to move rooms and she was not happy with me at all (totally not my fault).
The worst part is I bumped into her ALL THE TIME for the next 2 weeks!
The following night we went on a bar crawl and had such a good night. We met people who we then saw throughout the rest of our trip. Despite having my bottle of vodka stolen from one of the girls in my room it was a fab night.
Another disaster – We Broke Down
The next day we drove to a shopping centre that we found and went to spend some pennies. Libby was so tired, so she stayed in the car to nap. I called her about an hour later to tell her to come and meet us for lunch. She calls me back telling us that she can’t start the car.
She’d only gone and fallen asleep with the Aircon on and drained the cars’ battery. We were stranded in the car park for 3 hours before help came – we were even brought a bottle of water and some mints from maintenance as they had noticed we had been there a while. I couldn’t help but laugh it off while Libs stressed for a while.
Once that was sorted we arrived in Brisbane where we stayed for 2 nights. During the day we headed up to Lone Pire Koala Sanctuary where I finally got up close and fed a kangaroo which was so cool. Some of them are actual tanks and are quite intimidating but they are such softies. We later went on a free boat ride around Brisbane harbour to see the city form the water followed by a stunning meal in the harbour itself.
It is safe to say that the 3 of us aren’t really cut out from the ‘backpacker’ lifestyle and do enjoy the finer things in life – ordering a 3 course meal.
Noosa and Onwards
After Brisbane we drove 2 hours up to Noosa. We stopped at the Wild Horse Lookout on the way to see the Glass Mountains and to break up the drive. Noosa is really cool, just like a less popular version of Byron. On our first day, we went on a bout tour of the everglades. We had morning tea in the forest before we canoed up stream for an hour in a 3-man canoe. I was so sore after the first 2 minutes which made the whole journey an absolute chore.
The next day we went on the coastal walk which turned into a 4 hour trek and completely killed us off. That night we went to a paint party at the hostel and by this point I was back on the goon so I was majorly drunk.
From Noosa we went to rainbow beach where you stay the night at a hostel and receive a safety briefing for the 3day Fraser Island tour. We managed to miss the briefing as we were, of course, shopping.
Fraser Island was amazing!
There had been no rain on the island for 2 whole months which meant the sand was the softest it had been for ages. This was a massive challenge and driving the car was so difficult. There were only 3 of us out of the 8 people in our group, one of them being me, who, ill admit am not a confident driver. I of course had a go but hated every minute and handed the driving over to ‘Road Rage Libby’ who thoroughly enjoyed bombing about in the sand. The 3 days were so fun, we visited 2 beautiful lakes, Indian head and the Champagne Pools where we spotted a number of whales!!
We had to cook our own meals which was great for our group and spent the night drinking and toasting marshmallows. We came back to rainbow on our final day in the pouring rain and absolutely filthy. I said goodbye to the girs this morning which was sad but ill be seeing them again next month in the Philippines.
Now I’m 2 hours into my flight and once I arrive i’ll be back with T and ready for my Bali adventure!
Click here to read my next post: Reunited with T in Bali
