Josh & Allison’s 2010 Australia Trip

Last day in Australia   Packed everything up and ended downtown for breakfast and last minute shopping! Headed out to the airport around 1pm to start our long journey home to San Diego. We got lucky and ran into free wine tasting at the airport Flight out of Brisbane was at 5pm Sat 23rd and arrived in LA 3:50pm Sat 23rd. Then drove back to San Diego!

Amazing trip!!

Went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary today. The zoo is name one of the best zoos in the world (along with the San Diego zoo Over 130 cute koalas live here and a huge park of kangaroos that we fed and pet. Also saw a sheepdog show, tanzmanian devils, wombats and dingos. After the zoo we headed to the XXXX brewery. XXXX  is one of the most popular beers in Australia. Tour was fun and we did a beer tasting after. Went downtown and grabbed some drinks at an irish pub. Ordered some shots which ended up being served in half size dixie cups! Weird..

Woke up about 7am and started our long drive back south to Brisbane. Got in about 1pm, checked into hotel and went out for a walk around the city. It was a cool city. A lot of new buildings and great architecture!

Agnes Water- Town of 1770 is the farthest point south where you could see the Great Barrier Reef. Since we didn’t have time to travel further north we stopped here for a day snorkleing cruise to the reef. Got onto a large catamaran boat with about 130 other people and took an 75 min ride to the island. Very rough ride in the ocean. When we got to the site we cruised over to Lady Musgrave island, we learned about the history of the island and saw all the wildlife living there as well. We spent most of the day snorkeling in the clear water and colorful reef. Beautiful colors and tons of tropical fish. After a long day headed back to the hotel grabbed some dinner and went to bed for an early morning drive to Brisbane.

Spent the morning at the beach. Huge waves and extremly hot. Didn’t last too long laying out.  Started our drive up to Agnes Water. Stopped in the town of Noosa and went up to a lookout point with an amazing view! After a 7 hour drive made it to Agnes Water-Town of 1770 about 10pm.

Woke up early and rented a surf board for Josh. Spent a couple hours on the beach, even saw a cute dog surfing as well! We headed out to the town of Coolangatta for lunch. Josh was very nice and opened up a parking spot for another guy who ended up being a resturaunt manager at a mexican joint who offered us to come by for lunch! Mexican food is very rare in Australia but the food was great!! We then headed out to make our way to Surfers Paradise. Not what we expected coming into this town or actually city. Huge high riser hotels, traffic, and tons of people. Very similiar to San Diego/LA. Found a hotel looking right over the ocean. Room was alright, but great view!

Woke up early for our first snorkel trip in Australia! A group about 10 of us took a short boat ride to the snorkel spot. Spent about an hour exploring. Water wasn’t to clear but saw a group of rays, sea turtles, and fish.

Drove to Byron Bay today. Found a cute motel with a short walking path to the beach. Spent the whole day at the beach and got a lot of sun. Walked around downtown Byron and grabbed some dinner and drinks. Amazing how horrible the service is! I guess because they dont work for tips in Australia! Looked forward to some shots as well but didn’t serve those. Bummer.

Today we went on a white water rafting tour.  It was not that crazy of a river and not dangerous enough for me lol.  It was like a introduction class to rafting down the river.  We stopped alot for them to explain what do do next instead of us just going down the river free.  However it was a fun trip.  On the way to the river we got to see Russel Crowes ranch.

In Coffs Harbour we stayed in a creepy hotel (Allison’s words) that provided the worst service ever!  The first night we went to a beach called Moonee beach and they had this walk on hills next to the beach.  It had a large population of wild Kangaroos.  Was pretty cool to see them up close in the wild.

Today we went to shelly beach, did a rainforest walk, lighthouse beach, and Nobby Beach.  All the beaches were the perfect white sandy beach but the wind was killing us.  Felt like a million needles stabbing us so we never really laid out hurt too much.  The rainforest walk was not all that great, nice to see the the different types of trees but it was way over priced.

Today we visited the beaches of Newcastle.  The day was very overcast but still laid out and played in the waves.  We went to the Ocean Baths which pool but instead of clean filtered water, it had ocean water in it.  Was crazy to see a lap pool with ocean water. 

Later that day we began our drive up to Port Macquarie.

Last night we checked into the Newcastle Backpackers Hostel.  The hostel was one of the worst I’ve ever seen and the temp outside was unbearable.  It was between 80-90 with no wind and humidity.  As some of you know, Hostels do not have A/C, so that night I slept with my feet out the window trying to catch some sort of breeze.  After that night we decided to get a hotel.

Today we did a wine tour in Hunter Valley about 45mins away from Newcastle.  We got to visit Kevin Sobels Winery, Tempus Two Winery, Draytons Family wines and then did a cheese and chocolate tasting.  The wine tastings were alot smaller then we were use to.  It was alot warmer and can get to temps as high as 56 degrees Celsius which is around 120F!

Today we just went to the white sandy beach called Bondi Beach! This beach was so packed! The water was even crowded! Parking was terrible, we had to park 5 blocks away. That night we drove to Newcastle and stayed in one of the worst Hostels Australia probably has.

Today we did the Sydney bridge climb. It’s not so much a climb but a walk to the top of the bridge see the city from high and then walk back down. But it was def a fun time. www.bridgeclimb.com.au if you want to check it out. After that we went to the ANZ Stadium where the 2000 Olympics were at. The stadium was actually made smaller after the Olympic games (approx removed 100,000 seating). Then we got to see the torch that starts the games. After that we got some dinner and went to sleep.