Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Byron Bay, Australia
- Esther
- Sep 9, 2019
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 4, 2020
This week of the trip has been incredible! Even though the three places we've visited have been so different from each other, I’m combining them into one post because things have been so busy I never found time to do them separately.
Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast
Our first stop after Fraser Island was Brisbane; a big, busy city which felt a bit like a sunnier version of London.
We were only in the city for a couple of days but that was enough time to wander around the streets, try some of Brisbane's best restaurants and bars and chill by the lagoon on South Bank.
As nice as the city was, my favourite part about visiting Brisbane was taking a couple of day trips to the wildlife places around it - like the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where you can cuddle koalas!
I also really liked Australia Zoo, which felt different to other zoos back home because it was so focussed around the Irwin family. The famous crocodile show there was amazing and they even had a two-week old baby Sumatran tiger there when we went!
The Gold Coast
Next, we took the bus to Surfers’ Paradise. It turned out to be true what a lot of people had told me before about the Gold Coast; it’s basically a tacky resort town but you can have a lot of fun there because of all its theme parks, partying and enormous beach.
We decided to get the three-day theme park pass for the Gold Coast, which meant we spent most of our time at Movie World, Sea World and Wet ‘N’ Wild water park. To be honest, I don't think we'd have missed out on anything if we'd skipped going to the water park or Sea World, but the rollercoasters at the theme park were great!
Byron Bay
Byron Bay was by far my favourite place we went to this week because of its relaxed, beachy, friendly vibe. It was basically exactly how I’d imagined Australia would be before I arrived here in January!
My favourite thing we did there was going dolphin-spotting on a kayak tour with Go Sea Kayak. We got really lucky with this as we saw at least three schools of dolphins - and some of them swam right up to our kayaks!
The guides were also really lovely and told us stories about how the aboriginals believed that when the women in their tribe died they would come back as dolphins.
Cycling up to Byron’s famous lighthouse was another highlight because even though it was actually pretty hard work (!) the view from the top was absolutely stunning. From there, we got to see even more dolphins and whales popping up out of the water.
We also did a brewery tour with some people who were staying at our hostel (and who we’d met on Fraser Island - bumping into all of the same people along the East Coast is definitely a thing!)
Of course we also had to try a bunch of the cute, hippie (and pricey!) cafés that Byron's so famous for. My favourite for food was called Folk (everything on the menu there is vegetarian but even Ben liked it!) and the best coffee I tried was at Treehouse on Belongil, which was right on the beach and just next to the hostel we were staying at.
Our hostel (Wake Up! Byron Bay) was also really great because they organised lots of activities for us. We ended up sleeping through their sunrise trip to the lighthouse, but their pizza and wine nights were really fun and I also loved doing their beach yoga classes in the morning.
You could borrow surfboards and bicycles for free from reception too, which was perfect because the beach was right outside and town was only a few minutes’ cycle away.
Overall, I loved Byron Bay. I can see why the Hemsworths have gone to live there!
The only thing I heard the locals complaining about a couple of times was that the traffic is getting really bad as the town becomes more popular. There definitely were a lot of cars, but at the moment it still doesn’t feel too overcrowded or ruined. It’s just a really welcoming, surfy, laidback town. I’d love to go back one day!
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