Sorry for the long English silence

My last trip is over and I am back in Sydney for the final. I have been up the north east coast to see a little more of the countryside. And again I had somebody to share, as Mandy, a friend from home, was over here for three weeks. We left Sydney on the 5th of May but have been to the Sydney Opera House the night before to see it from the inside. We saw Guy Sebastian in the concert hall, the biggest venue under the shell roof. The location and the orchestra was great, Guy sucks…

Anyways, Mandy and I rented a cute little red car and headed north late afternoon. Unfortunately it took us two hours to get out of town, so we only made it to ‘The Entrance’. Sounds like there should be something you can actually enter, but there was not even a backpacker. So we ended up in a mobile home for the night with amenities nobody under 14 was allowed in without parental guidance. Assume yourself…

We checked out the coastline next morning and tried to drive as many scenic drives as possible (although there is nothing scenic about them) and tried to find the nicest places. Different from the south and west coast there is not much to see except from beaches. But we had a very fun experience with squeaking sand and made a movie of it. Premiere is screening in August in Berlin.

Spent the night in Port Macquarie and visited the Koala Hospital first thing in the morning. Wet bottom seems to be THE disease among these cute little things and I can tell I wouldn’t like it either. Walked the inner city rainforest afterwards and we have seen enough Mangroves for the rest of our lives now. Rewarding us for all the walking and getting up so early we went to the Pancake Place for breakfast.

Next stop Coffs Harbour (where Billy comes from) and indeed it has a permanent surf and nice long and wide beaches. We had a quick run through the botanic gardens, as they were about to close, but it would have been quiet nice. More than disappointing was the famous Big Banana. So were the Big Prawn and The Rock. We could hardly believe what we saw. Don’t you ever try to find the Big Lawnmower, the Big Lobster and not to think of the Big Merino. I have no idea who came up with all those ideas, but they are just wrong.

Byron Bay is what it is supposed to be, a surfers village where we were way to old (at least as none surfers), but it is worth a visit. But we decided to went on for Surfers Paradise as we imagined it the same way. As soon as we reached the Gold Coast we realized how wrong we were. Skyscrapers and nothing like paradise. Even the backpacker was the worst we’ve been in. Surfers Paradise sucks too.

The furthest north location we have been to was Brisbane. We have seen heaps of the city as we got lost a few times. We spent 3 hours looking for a petrol station (with an almost empty tank), a backpacker, a parking space and the tourist information. But we found all of it and got a really nice room with balcony. Spent another 3 hours looking for fun in the Queensland Museum and especially in the Science Centre. Very highly recommended place.

The way back was mostly driving as we didn’t have much time and were pretty slowly on the way up. Only overnight stop was Gosford just outside Sydney, where we’ve done a BBQ for a proper Goodbye Australia for Mandy. Next morning driving into the city, dropping the car of at the airport and say farewell.