Surfers to Nimbin to Byron

We started the day with a trip to the beach at Surfer's Paradise.

Not surprisingly, the day was overcast yet again but there were plenty of people still out enjoying the beach.

Here's the view in the other direction - such a beach town feeling with the high rise hotels lining the beach.

Of course there were surfers surfing in Surfer's Paradise!


Once again, this is what it is supposed to look like (not what we saw). Where are the blue paradisical waters? Paradisical is a term Austin coined during the trip. I so appreciate people who make up words. I am in total agreeance.

We enjoyed a very scenic inland drive between Surfer's Paradise and Nimbin. The view was spectacular with mountains, picturesque views, and quaint towns.

Nimbin is a town filled with unexpected 'treasure'. The town is known for free wheeling and dealing of all pot related goods. Although as illegal here as in the rest of Australia, a political blind eye is turned to such activities in this dopey town.

The town consists of a two block strip of stores and the most saddening people who look completely out of it, many with kids. Everyone looks completely checked out and out of touch with any form of reality. Many people are wearing hippie attire, dreadlochs, and sandals or no shoes at all. People stand along the street offering to show you their plants, sell you cookies, or outright sell pot. It was a shocking experience.

There is even a very colorful museum full of images, art, and declarations for protecting what is grown in nature.

It was hard to take it all in, so much to look at. Every shop smelled of incense and contained something quirkier than the store before it.

The town was full of these colorful parrots, which seemed only fitting in such a colorful little town.

The store fronts were psychadelic, bright, and colorful many with a clever play on words. I was quite nervous to drive and even walk along the street as I think most of the other drivers were high.

We saw more amazing scenery as we continued our drive from Nimbin to Byron Bay.

We arrived in Byron Bay just in time to appreciate the bay. Here's a view of the lighthouse.

Once again, we were privvy to a beautiful sunset as we watched surfers venture out into the water at dusk, a peak time for shark attacks. Are they crazy?

Austin went in for a quick swim. How convenient to be a boy and be wearing your board shorts all day.

We saw more surfing at Byron. Of all the beaches we saw, Byron Bay was our favorite and I'm told the best place for surfing, even beating out Surfer's Paradise.

Once again, a shot of what the beach is meant to look like in sunlight, not that we ever saw sun or blue water. No, I'm not bitter, just hard to impress after the beaches in Hawaii, Thailand, and the Whitsundays.

Austin is working for Global Gossip in Sydney and was on a mission to capture photos for a work assignment, so we stopped in this Global Gossip which happened to be adjacent to our dinner stop that evening.

We headed out to sample the nightlife in Byron and to get an early jump on celebrating Austin's birthday (Apr 13). We started with a drink at this place, but it shut down quite early so we moved onto Cocomanga's and danced til we got the boot at 3am.

Happy Birthday Austin!

Gold Coast

Austin and I started the day with a quick drive from Noosa to Brisbane, then wandered around the main walking street in Brisbane looking for a good spot for breakfast. We narrowly escaped a torrential downpour, a theme of our trip.

Too bad we did not narrowly escape the evil parking garage! I was fooled into trying to validate our entrance coin on the 8th floor where I mistakenly slid it over an early bird register which deactivated the coin and trapped us in the garage with no chance to pay or exit. Being a holiday weekend, no attendants were manning the exit booths. We had to call an emergency number and wait for an off-site attendant to charge us bucket loads of money to exit. Austin was mid photo capture of the screen as we were just about to force the exit arm up for a dodgy escape from the garage when an attendant finally arrived. We were so relieved to finally leave Brisbane, a city we were not overly impressed with and the parking garage incident did not help.

We cruised on down the Gold Coast to Surfer's Paradise, the next stop on our tour of the coast. Shock of all shocks, we arrived to more rain!

Our hotel was in a prime location and we thoroughly enjoyed our balcony overlooking the heart of the city and the beach beyond it. We were fascinated with the rooftop lawn across from our hotel as neither of us noticed it was atop a building for ages.

That night we bought into a tourist trap pub crawl. For hours we were sure we'd been suckered, but when we arrived at the first bar (next door to our hotel), we were happy to find it was actually a good deal. We had free entrance, free drinks, and games aplenty with 200 other travelling suckers at five clubs around the city. It reminded me a bit of Contiki!

The scene at Titanium, the neighboring bar to our hotel, Vibe.

A few of the other pub crawlers as we made our way from the first bar to the second.

Austin got down with the pole at Melba's!

The pub crawl started at 5pm so it was quite early in the night, but when you're bringing a party of 200 with you, it doesn't matter how early it is.

More dancing at Melba's.

Let the games begin.

No, we're not having a good time.

Sunshine Coast

I decided to see the rest of the east coast of Australia over an extended Easter holiday. The trip was inspired by Bluesfest in Byron Bay, but it ended up covering from the Sunshine Coast north of Brisbane all the way down to Sydney. After flying into Brisbane, Austin and I rented a car and went free wheelin' along the coast. We had our accommodation booked each night but other than that, we didn't have too much of a plan. Our first stop was the southern end of the Sunshine Coast in Caloundra for fish 'n chips lunch.

We made it to our Noosa Heads destination at the northern tip of the Sunshine Coast in no time and went to enjoy the beach. Hmmm... we were shocked to find very little beach and brown water. We asked ourselves if we were supposed to be impressed. We worked up some nerve to ask the locals if this is what it normally looks like. No. The beach was hit a couple weeks ago by a cyclone which carved away the sand on the beach and all the turbulance left the water looking brown. The pipe and boulders in the picture are usually covered completely. We were a bit disappointed to miss it in all its glory but we still enjoyed a nice walk along the beach.

Austin and me at Noosa Heads


What Noosa Heads is supposed to look like (not what we saw).

This guy is known for his sand castles which are usually where the water is now, and there are usually a lot more of them.

We walked all along the beach to this end by the Noosa coast guard station.


We saw a pretty amazing sunset.

Then we set out for a night in not-so-happening Noosa. Our hotel was perfectly located on the main drag, Hastings St. Unfortunately, because it was Good Friday, everything shut down about 10pm, and didn't open again until midnight. I tell you, for being such a heathen country, Australia is more stringent in holiday observance than the U.S. for sure. So Austin and I enjoyed a few margaritas and a pitcher of sangria at Montezuma's, strolled along the beach again in search of nightlife, and surrendered to an early bedtime around 11pm.

Mountain Goat Microbrewery

Fiona (middle), Raf (right), and I had a mini-reunion at Fi's office Thursday night. Fi happens to be the general manager of a microbrewery, so her 'office' was conveniently a bar complete with free beer and pizza! And I cannot say enough good things about their Fancy Pants wheat microbrew. YUM!


The brewing process was underway during our visit and many other patrons decided to participate in the tour. Fi, Raf, and I elected to chat instead.


This giant Mountain Goat logo light is the latest addition to their cosy bar.

Housewarming at Jojo's

Saturday night started with a housewarming party at Jojo's new house up the road from me in Coburg. Above, we have Jojo, Caz with Jojo's nephew Zach, Mel, Jojo's sister Debbie (the mom), Suz, and the back of Alex. The party had quite a mix of different Greek and Arabic cultures, and some traditional Arabic dancing proved to be a big crowd pleaser later in the night.


Alex, Suz, Jojo, me, Duff, and Joey. Oh how I've adpoted Alex's friends!


After the housewarming party, we moved onto party #2 at Alex's old house in Carlton where her brother David was DJing some good dance tunes. I got to see Katie again from the Tassie trip.


Duff and Sam get down with it.

A Weekend with the Yates

Friday after work, I took the train to Hoppers Crossing to spend the weekend with Mel, Waz, and Archer. He's 4 weeks old now and it's amazing how much he's grown. Here he is just starting to wake up. Yawn!


Stretch...


I got to hold Archer lots, and even rock him to sleep Friday night.

Archer loves bath time - he smiled and kicked around in the tub he is already outgrowing.

I stole a good look from him.

He was quite entertained on his play mat.

Saturday we headed to Werribee Mansion for lunch with the girls.

Belle, Sean, Les, Waz, and Mel. We enjoyed a lovely antipasto and dips entree course followed by wood-fired pizzas at the winery restaurant.

The Werribee Mansion. Common people have to pay for entrance, but knowing the right people pays. Mel's dad works for the mansion, so we scored free entrance.

There were beautiful gardens surrounding a lake, with a wedding underway.

Belle, me, Mel, and Les in front of the mansion. This is the lawn on which Mel and Waz got married a couple years ago.

This was a fun little island to explore in the middle of the lake. What a beautiful day.