New South Wales

Well, I never finished my story.

When we left Brisbane, it was cloudy, and it got dark fast. Then it started to rain. Then it started to POUR. Tim called me and told me that there was severe flood warnings for the area, and the roads were pretty dangerous, so we only drive for about two hours before we pulled over in Southport and decided to stay at a hostel for the night instead of camping. The hostel we found was one of the dodgier hostels we’d stayed in, mainly because the sheets were a little gross and the room smelled quite badly of mildew and stinky feet. But we cooked some pasta and ate on the porch with the rain and wind outside, and got a good night of sleep.

In the morning, it was sunny, and Eva drove south through Surfer’s Paradise. The landscape had definitely changed from Queensland. The area was more developed and looked much more Westernized. We didn’t stop. We started driving West to go to Nimbin, a town famous for marijuana and other such substances. Anders had spent a few days there during ISP and was offered to buy drugs three times during his first hour in the town. (He didn’t, of course.) It was a long, windy drive to Nimbin, but it was absolutely beautiful. The landscape was much different from North Queensland, but in some places the vegetation almost reminded me of home. It was very hilly, and there was a lot of forest and many farms. Everything was the wet new green after a rainstorm. Parts of the road were a bit flooded (Nimbin had been evacuated a couple of days prior due to the flooding), and we literally had to ford some streams with the good old station wagon. It was pretty bizarre. When we finally made it to Nimbin, we parked the car and got out to walk around. The town was basically just one main street, lined with hippie shops: hippie clothing stores, spiritual bookstores, organic food and supplies stores, a bong shop, music stores, and arts and crafts galleries. Almost every shop had a colorful mural or painting above it. We all did a little bit of souvenir shopping, checked out the art galleries, and then had veggie sandwiches and pancakes at a little café. We also checked out the Nimbin Museum, as cluttered as it was colorful. The museum was about eight rooms, and everything inside was painted from the floor to the ceiling with murals and quotes. Newspaper clippings covered some walls, artifacts others, and just plain weird shit covered the majority of the museum. We were offered pot several times outside of the museum, as well as pot cookies outside of the public bathrooms, but we declined all offers and got back in the car.






I drove out of Nimbin. We found a much easier road to leave the town by, so we didn’t have to cross anymore streams, and those in the backseat weren’t getting carsick anymore. However, I drove in about one million directions because every road we took to try to get back onto the Pacific Highway was closed because of flooding. We wasted so much time trying to get on the closed road that we had to completely bypass the Gold Coast, Byron Bay, and all of the other beaches in that area. (Byron Bay is where the abroad program I originally applied for was held. It’s also the eastern most point on the continent.) I was getting fairly stressed of passing through the same roundabouts one million times to try to find a place to go, so Steve took over. We determined that we had to head West in order to head South to get to Sydney by 3PM the next day. We drove past nightfall and ended up camping in Uralla. It was our last night of camping, and it was COLD. It was late Autumn at this point, and we were heading closer and closer to the South Pole. We could see our breath in the starry night, and we put on as many layers as possible to cook our last campside meal before we headed into our tents. I pulled my sleeping bag completely over my head, but was still shivering all night. I was very happy to wake up in the morning to put away our tents (for the last time) and get in the warm car, with the sun rising over the New South Wales landscape.

Leaving Queensland: Tin Can Bay to Brisbane

We woke up in Tin Can Bay to an absolutely beautiful sunny morning. We had slept in til almost eight, and we took our time getting ready, hanging out damp clothes and towels on top of our tents and the car to dry in the sun. The people who worked at the caravan park told us about a dock where they feed dolphins every morning at about seven, (which we had clearly missed), but when we left, we drove by in case any dolphins were still there. There weren’t any, but the bay was really pretty in the morning.

From Tin Can Bay, I drove us south to Noosa Head. We were now on the Sunshine Coast. It was a very pretty drive. Noosa is a ritzy town that has more roundabouts than any other city in Queensland, and maybe the whole country, I forget. Maybe even in the world! I navigated us through so many roundabouts we were dizzy. Once we found a place to park at Noosa Head, we got out of the car. The town was really cute, but it looked a bit expensive. We walked down to the beach and walked along the sand to the other side of town. The waves were huge. People were surfing—it was the first surfing we had seen in Australia. (Further north, there aren’t big enough waves on the coast because the GBR blocks them.) Surfers wore wetsuits and carried their boards along a pretty, wooded path alongside the curvy road on their way to the beach. We were walking on the very top of the beach, near the rocks, when a huge wave came in. There was nowhere to escape. I was up to my waist in unexpected ocean water, and absolutely covered in sand. It was an uncomfortable walk back to the car, but we got into dry clothes, and Kelly drove us to another side of town, where we walked along Sunshine Beach, which was absolutely beautiful. We then went to a cute coffee shop where I ate some pretty fancy banana bread before getting back on the road.




The drive from Noosa down to Redcliffe was absolutely the most gorgeous drive. We passed the Glass House Mountains, where I wish we could have stopped. On our right, the sun was setting, and the sky was a brilliant yellow of golden light. It was raining a little bit, and on our left, up the lit-up, dew-dropped greenness of the cane fields, a rainbow shone out of grey clouds. As we drove, the rainbow grew taller and taller. It arched around and reached the ground on both sides. It was the largest rainbow I’ve ever seen. As we drove further, a second rainbow began to double over the first. I was glad Kelly was driving, because I could not stop looking at the scenery and wouldn’t have been paying any attention to the road. We got to Redcliffe past nightfall, where we just stopped for a short walk on the pier before continuing to Brisbane.

We got a little bit lost driving into Brisbane, but after a short detour which actually took us around the perimeter of the city, we made it to Kelly’s friend Dan’s apartment. We went inside, where we met Dan’s cousin Jackie, an immense Maori woman with a beautiful face and long black hair. Soon after, we drove to downtown Brisbane, which was really just like any other city, to have dinner at Bow Thai. Steve paid for my green curry, which he owed me after our sky-diving bet. After dinner, we headed back to the car and waited on the street to meet my friend Tim. Tim came to New Jersey during the summer of 2006 for about two months, and we had spent a fair amount of time together at Culver Lake. I hadn’t seen him since, but he and his friend Matt met me in Brisbane. I said goodbye to Kelly, Steve, and Eva for the night (they were staying at Dan’s), and Tim and Matt and I walked to Tim’s car.

Tim drove the three of us up to Mount Coolth (or something like that), where we could see a view of the city all lit up at night. It was sort of a hilarious drive to get there, because Matt was giving directions from the back seat, but wasn’t really paying attention, and it took much longer than it should have to get up the mountain. But we made it. We ordered coffee at a small café on top of the mountain, a skill I never mastered in Australia; what I wanted was a plain black coffee, and what I got was a luke-warm small puddle of espresso. Yuck. It was a bit chilly on top of the mountain, so we didn’t stay too long, but we did get a good view of Brisbane. When we left, Tim dropped Matt off at his house and we went to Tim’s dad’s house for the night. For the first time since homestay, I had my own room! I stayed in Tim’s brother’s room with a bed all to myself. Before bed, Tim and I talked for almost two hours, just catching up on the past three years of our lives since we had last seen each other. It was really nice.

I definitely slept in the next morning. It was wonderful. I was so warm and comfortable and relaxed. In the morning, Tim, the best host ever, made me a breakfast of orange juice, toast with butter and jam, and instant coffee (the only kind they drink, basically). We ate on the back deck. It was a pleasant, slow morning. Unfortunately, the koalas that Tim had nearly guaranteed would be outside our windows in the trees in the morning were completely absent. Because I had never seen a koala in the wild, Tim was determined to find me one. After showers and packing up, we headed out to Redlands IndigiScapes Centre, an area of restored forest and gardens where koalas could often be found. We walked through some of the walking trails, but all of the koalas must have been hiding from the rain, because we could not find any. When it started to pour, we ran back to the car. Luckily, Tim’s friend Taco, who knew we were on a koala hunt, gave us a call. He had found one in a park near his house. We drove over to Taco’s and walked to the end of his street where I saw my first koala, about one million feet up in the tallest eucalyptus tree in the world. It was nothing but a wet gray blob swaying among wet gray branches. But it was a koala, nonetheless.


Believe it or don't, but there is a koala in that tree.

After our semi-successful koala hunt, Tim and I headed off on an American food hunt, where we obtained bagels and Dr. Pepper. I have no idea why they don’t have bagels in Australia. They don’t have Dr. Pepper because there is a medicine that tastes very similar to it, and the soda went bankrupt there because people associated it with being sick. But Tim knew where to find it, and it was delicious. The bagels were stale, but I got them at a severe discount because I complained. They man at the bakery was like, “Bagels are supposed to be a little bit hard…” and in my head I was thinking, “These are the only five bagels in the entire country. Don’t tell ME what a bagel is supposed to be like.” But I didn’t say that.

Tim drove me back into the city to Dan’s apartment, where I met up with Kelly, Steve, and Eva again. We said our goodbyes to Dan and Tim and Steve drove us into the night, leaving Queensland, the state we had lived in for the past four months.