Australia: all things great and small

We arrived at Noosa, to find it was the first town on mainland Australia that we had actually liked. Found a cosy little self-contained cabin for our stay, which seemed like an absolute luxury with its own kitchen, lounge (with TV) and bathroom, which for once we didn’t have to share with other backpackers, yay! Went for a walk to explore the coast, and headed into The Noosa National Park for a fantastic walk along the coast and bush. The place was swarming with surfers running with their boards and a long-boarding competition was taking place – Gaz was itching to get out on a board! We ended up at a deserted sweeping beach, windblown and full of sea spray – pretty cool. The walk back took us past some huge vines, which we swang about on Tarzan-style!

The following day we headed for the infamous Australia Zoo, the brainchild of the late Steve Irwin. We took an hour long bus journey in torrential rain out to the zoo, and on entering, were bombarded with pictures of Steve and displays of all the animals. We first went to feed the elephants, which was a very cool, if short-lived, experience. After that we headed to the centre-piece of the park – the ‘Crocoseum’ stadium, where we saw flying parrots, jumping crocodiles and giant snakes! The rest of the day was spent wandering around the huge number of animal exhibits. Highlights were seeing the huge Bengal tigers, feeding the super cute kangaroos, laughing at the cheeky wombats, watching the otters speed around their enclosure and getting totally mushy over the koala bears (especially Rach!). All in all it was very commercial but we had a great day. We left it too late to have a photo with the koalas, so Rach had a wobbly lip all the way home, but cheered up when we agreed to go to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane in a couple of days time…

In Noosa Gaz finally got his surfing fix and spent a couple of hours out at First Point riding the perfect waves rolling off the point. We had lunch on the beach then jumped on the Greyhound bus to Brisbane for our 24 hour stay there. We arrived and checked into our hostel, then walked across onto the south bank to see the parkland. We had a big milkshake and sat in a café by the river, taking in the great views of the skyscrapers of the city centre. After that we headed into the city to experience the manic hustle and bustle of Queens Mall. Lots of neon and traffic everywhere – it all felt a bit alien to us after our island experiences! We went for dinner in a great suburban Indian restaurant, which turned out to be a BYO, so we ended up consuming a fair bit of beer and wine, before weaving our way back home!

Rach woke up the next morning one happy bunny as we were off to the koala sanctuary. We took the bus, spilling our tea and muffin breakfast everywhere due to the insane bus driver, but it was worth the effort as the park was small, personal and not busy at all. We got to see a LOT of koalas, and Rach finally got her chance to cuddle one of the sleepy bears. Smiles all round as the little grey ball of fluff clung onto her with its soft fur and eucalptyus smell and we got some great pictures! We saw plenty of other animals during the day, including some big cockatiels, one of which seemed to take a great liking to Rach as he followed her round, displaying lots of colourful feathers! We also saw a sheepdog show, more wombats and kangaroos, and finally, some huge birds of prey. The staff flew a big sea eagle around our heads and then brought out a barn owl. They asked for a volunteer and Gaz’s hand went up like a shot – he donned a gauntlet and held a mouse’s tail and the owl swooped across the field straight to him. Very cool! We took the bus back to Brisbane, collected our stuff, and caught our final bus down to Byron Bay.

Byron Bay was our last stop before the flight down to Sydney. We arrived in late afternoon and spent a good hour running round looking for somewhere to stay. We hadn’t quite realised just how packed the place would be! Luckily we found a nice, if costly, campground with some little self contained cabins, which we checked into for three nights. The following day we hit the town to do some shopping around the hippy shops. Lots of cool clothes, didgeridoos and art for sale everywhere. The streets smelled of a combination of fresh bread, incense and surf wax – it was a brilliant place! We headed for the beach and discovered the bay was huge, and on walking out to the headland, we saw some great surf too at a spot known as ‘The Pass’. We were keen to get into the water so had a speedy lunch then hired a surfboard for Gaz and a bodyboard and fins for Rach. The surf was pretty good, if very crowded and the huge rip currents meant lots of paddling (poor Rach got swept half way along the beach!). We were both pretty tired after a couple of hours, so we walked back to the main beach for some gentler waves and some sunbathing.

The next day we must have been feeling a bit brave, because we decided to go skydiving on the spur of the moment. We booked a 14,000ft jump over the bay (the highest in Australia!). We headed back to the cabin to prepare, only to find the bus waiting for us – somehow news of the one hour time difference between Queensland and New South Wales had not reached us, so we were in a huge rush, which actually helped as we forgot about our nerves for a while! We arrived at the airstrip and filled in all the necessary forms, none of which were particularly reassuring (words like ‘fatal’ kept cropping up). Before long we were called through to put on our harnesses and we had a briefing on how to angle our legs and keep our heads back when we jumped from the plane, attached to an instructor. Then the plane’s engine started up and we climbed into the small interior. The plane climbed really steeply for what seemed like ages, then suddenly our instructors were clipping buckles and pulling us close, and as the plane door slid open and cold air rushed in we both felt absolute terror overwhelm us. We watched another guy go first and he dropped out the plane like a lead weight. Then we were shuffling on our bums to the edge (no longer feeling particularly keen about this) and before we knew it dangling out the side of the plane with a 14,000ft drop below us. Comfortable. What followed was a whirlwind of plane, sky, land, sea and heart in mouth as we tumbled towards earth, before we stabilised a little and could put out our arms and finally grin like idiots with the exhilaration of freefall. We both had 70 seconds of silly billy freefall and at 4,000ft the parachute was pulled, which sent us shooting upwards, and then everything went quiet and we were floating. We were lucky to have some clouds to play with, so we swooped the parachutes past them, and Rach’s instructor even let her take the rungs for a while. The instructors also decided that we had not yet suffered enough adrenalin and so sent the parachute into a couple of fast downward spirals, which made our heads feel giddy! Gaz landed first, then Rach, and we ran over and gave one another a very big wobbly hug. We were both a bit stunned after the jump that day, but the in the days to follow we didn’t stop talking about it and reliving the experience!

Not afraid to get back on a airplane, a short hop on a flight took us to Sydney, a city we came to adore over the next 3 days. We ended up landing ourselves in a pretty grotty hostel, so spent as much time away from it as possible! We crammed our time there gawping at the famous views from the waterfront, catching a performance by Katie Noonan in the Opera House (she had a voice like honey – amazing), drinking with the Irish in the downtown pubs on St Patricks Day, strolling around Manly with ice-creams and meeting up with Cara from university for a great dinner out – nice to see a friendly face!

Keen for some greenery and less skyscrapers we jumped on a train to the Blue Mountains. Stayed in a great YHA hostel and spent late afternoon doing a walk to the famous views of the Three Sisters. The following day we strapped on our walking boots again and completed the amazing Grand Canyon walk. The day started looking like a complete shambles, with seriously thick fog, but our luck was in and it cleared up later in time for some great views from the top. It was a beautiful trail down through eucalyptus forest into a huge gorge dripping with fern trees and waterfalls and the sounds of birds. Just what we needed after several days of hectic city life!

And so ended our adrenalin, beach and animal-fuelled Aussie adventure. We were in need of some culture shock by now and were very excited about Asia…