Luvvly day.......
Trip Start
Jan 08, 2011
1
192
261
Trip End
Dec 20, 2011
Redland Bay, Queensland, Australia
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Day 6 Australia Road Trip
Kilometres travelled ; 178
6am up and coffee,its nice to be getting up at a normal time again!! Though wouldn't mind if it was warmer... Saying that you can definitely feel the difference as we get closer to Queensland - in the day the heat is nice, though windy at the moment, but by night its not freezing, just cool, and no rain either!! We left the rest area by about eight and backtracked a few kilometres to go have a look at south golden beach, somewhere we had picked off the map to stay last night but had missed the turning and found the rest area and we were glad we didn't miss it!!
A beautiful long beach, miles in either direction, soft sand that squeaks as you walk on it, perfect yellow/white sand, near enough deserted and with a nice quiet residential area - cross the little road from the timber beach houses and your on an amazing beach, that's basically yours, what more could you want??
We had to do it today, it was one of the few showers we have seen along the way, and after 5 days thought we better... So a cold, very cold water shower out in the open by a path leading to the beach, not the best but clean at least. Well, kind of!!
We cooked up some eggs, after that took a walk along the beach, after that took some pictures, after that drove on....
We drove up to Pottsville beach, onto Hastings point, Onto Bogangar- at some point inbetween Hastings and Bogangar found some place in a small town to park up in a park right by the coast, we had some food, Claire had a power nap and I wandered off to check out the beach - the first one I wandered onto through some bush was deserted and was also the same stretch of beach as south golden beach, just the northernmost part of it, km's further on. It was beautiful but taking a right beating from the wind, saw a headland to the left and walked over to it, watched the waves mashing into the rock and walked on a bit further thinking that it should be a bit protected round that side - it was, that's where everyone was, all the sunbathers and surfers so took up a pew on the sand and read some book laying in the sun, went back found Claire, both went back to the little bay for a while then made a move ..
From there through Kingscliff, nothing there for us, beaches but no where good to cook and sleep, onto Chinderah - same same, onto Tweeds head and that took us by surprise a bit - last part of NSW before Queensland and had expected it to be much like all the other 'heads' sleepy, rocky, high up, but it wasn't - a bigish' city I guess you would call it, beautiful beach, lush white sand, nice sea, good surf, everything you could want as far as food, nightlife, entertainment and employment as well,we presumed, what with it being a city n all - a minutes walk from this awesome beach - looked perfect from an outsiders point of view, at a glance, and we decided if we would live in Australia this would be one place we would have to try!!!!
Drove through, along the beach road, got to Coolangatta - much the same only looked a little more low key - had some awesome Kitesurfing spots that we sat and watched,
And on - Burleigh heads, Miami [ we went to Miami!!!] Surfers paradise - which was nothing like how we imagined it from the name - we had images of some laid back, slow little place with beautiful beaches - which it did have, but its actually just a sprawling city of concrete and flashy high rises and top end hotels and resorts - in fact we had that whole part pictured in our heads wrong - the gold coast, if we had had money and were staying there probably would have loved it, but not to be this time, maybe on a holiday..Onto Southport, joined the M1, got stuck in a jam which crawled for ages and eventually, after a long time ended up in moreton bay, Not before, I was treated to Claire's version of Queen, I want to break free, which she screamed at the top of her lungs along with radio up full blast as we cruised along with the sunset happening on another great road towards moreton bay...something not to forget!!!! Well, she can't anyway, cos I got it all on video!! Was pretty damn good actually - all those hours of queen on the way down to south of France I think ay Claire!!!!
Found a cool little spot in a park, by a rec field, right on the bay waters edge, toilets and no one seemed to mind, that'll do nicely
Randoms from the day -
Radio presenter - Wanky little city cafe [ sorry mums, dads, grandparents - it was the radio presenter who said it, not us, we're just repeating]
Random 53 yr old bloke living in a car at the rest stop this morning, telling us about the nineties, and Australian pot.
Naked hippy dude and naked hippy girlfriend on south golden beach this morning
Leaving NSW ?? [earlier than planned!] Lots of bush, forests, green fields, hills, water, cattle, National parks and nature reserves, or nicer in some ways - to what we saw briefly of gold coast prefered the beaches.
