Sydney to Brisbane

After spending nine days in Sydney, it was time to hit the road again.  According to Google, the journey from Sydney to Brisbane is more or less the same distance as from Melbourne to Sydney, but takes a couple of hours longer, so we’d given ourselves an extra day – six in total – to complete the drive.

Our first day’s drive following much the same route as we had taken a few days earlier on our visit to the Hunter Valley, slogging through the congested and often narrow roads of the North Sydney suburbs.  When we finally hit clear roads, we had just a 90-minute drive remaining to the Port Stephen’s area, where we would be spending our first night.

Port Stephen’s is a 24km long natural harbour, larger than its more famous cousin in Sydney.  The southern shore of the harbour forms the northern coastline of the Tomaree peninsula which reminded us of the Mornington Peninsula, where we’d spent our first night after leaving Melbourne.  It’s close enough to Sydney for a weekend away from the rat race, and so there are many attractions here that seem to be aimed more towards visiting Aussies than overseas tourists.

One such attraction – and our first opportunity since leaving Sydney to soak up some NSW sunshine – is quad biking on the enormous sand dunes found on Aboriginal land along the southern coastline of the Tomaree peninsula in an area known as Worimi.

This was my first time on a quad bike, and though Kit has ridden a couple of times before, those experiences were tame in comparison to this.

After being kitted out with helmets and high-vis jackets, our 15-strong group received the Worimi quad biking 101.  Because the gears are automatic, it’s really very easy: to go faster, hit the gas – a lever on the right handlebar – to go slower, don’t!  There are brakes of course, but engine breaking and the fact that you’re driving through deep sand means that they are almost never needed.

Out on the sand, we drove in single file, under strict instruction not to overtake.  Several guides came out onto the dunes with us, one leading the way, whilst others flanked the group or hung back to keep an eye on the slow coaches.

During the briefing, we were asked whether anyone had a fear of heights, and when we reached the top of the first big dune, we could appreciate why!  The drops were quite stomach-churning, but the bikes handled everything thrown at them with ease – just lift off the gas and keep it headed in a straight line.

The biggest challenge – for me at least – was the feeling that one minute the bike was under steering, and the next, over-steering, a result of driving on a camber, and on very soft terrain.

Later the same day, we visited Tomaree Head, Port Stephen’s southern headland.  Though it is little more than a kilometre from the car park to the lookout point, the walk is steeply uphill, and it was very hard work!  The 360 degree views were incredible though, and made it well worth the effort.

The next morning, we visited the marina at Nelson’s Bay, the largest town on the Tomaree peninsula.  From here, a number of small cruise ships operate, and we joined a morning harbour cruise in search of dolphins.

During the 90-minute cruise, we encountered dolphins three times, although they were feeding, and so photo opportunities were very few and far between.  There are very strict rules around contact with dolphins – which our captain was very keen to explain – so we couldn’t give chase, or disturb their feeding.

This was not a problem though.  Kit and I have seen Dolphins before, and we’ll almost certainly see more when we’re in New Zealand in a couple of week’s time.  We still had a great time because our boat came equipped with a boom net – a large net suspended from the back of the boat, available to anyone who fancies being dragged at high speed across the water!

Day two was the longest in terms of miles covered.  Almost five hours of driving was broken up with visits to three beautiful beaches:

Bluey’s Beach, several kilometres off the main highway along a scenic drive known as the Lakes Way, was not actually our intended destination.  We had been headed to Boomerang Beach a kilometre further north, but both beaches share the same car park, and we took a wrong turn once out on foot.

Second up: Diamond Beach.  Even more isolated than Bluey’s, we briefly trespassing on Aboriginal land while trying to locate the car park.  Would the ‘faulty Sat Nav’ defence stand up in court?

And finally Crowdy Head Beach, which proved a perfect spot for an early-evening paddle.

Our second night was spent at Port Macquarie, my favourite of all the towns we visited between Sydney and Brisbane.  With a population of just 50,000, Port Macquarie was originally established as a penal colony, and is named after Lachlan Macquarie, the once Governor of New South Wales and one of Sydney’s founding fathers.  Though not large in terms of population, the town feels comfortably spread out, with a number of beaches, and more than one commercial centre with shops and places to eat and drink.  As well as some delicious Mexican-inspired pizzas, the highlight of our visit to Port Macquarie was the 10km walk from Flynn’s Beach to Tacking Point lighthouse, and back.

Though Flynn’s beach is popular with locals due to its accessibility from Port Macquarie, further towards the lighthouse are two more beautiful beaches: Shelley Beach, and the clothing-optional Miner’s Beach.

Later the same day, we visited Port Macquarie’s volunteer-run Koala Hospital.  Though this really is a medical facility for sick and injured koalas, and not a zoo or wildlife park, the hospital runs daily tours to raise awareness of their work and encourage donations.  Although many of the hospital’s patients have been the victim of an attack by cats or dogs, or hit by a motor vehicle, the number one reason for admission is Chlamydosis, a bacterial disease similar to human Chlamydia.

The highlight of day four was a visit to Sawtell, a recommendation of our Port Macquarie AirBnb host, Derek.  Sawtell is located at the southern end of the Solitary Islands Coastal Walk, linking a string of idyllic golden beaches, rocky headlands and lush rain-forest along a 60km stretch of the NSW coastline.  After finding coffee in the centre of Sawtell, we spent a lazy two hours out on the sand, eating a picnic lunch and nosing around the rock-pools.

A few miles north of Sawtell is the coastal town of Coff’s Harbour, home of the Big Banana.  The Big Banana is perhaps the most famous of Austalia’s Big Things – a loosely-related set of over-sized structures, some of which are novelty architecture (such as the giant windmill where we ate dinner later the same evening), and some of which are sculptures.  The Big Banana is located on the site of a former banana plantation.  It has been a Coff’s Harbour institution for over 50 years, and people come from all over the country to have their picture taken in front of it.  Needless to say, there is a gift shop offering an abundance of banana-themed memorabilia, as well as mini-golf, water slides, laser tag and a giant snow-less toboggan run!

Considerably more fun that having our photo taken in front of a giant banana, we spent the early evening kayaking on the Bellinger River, which empties out into the ocean at Coff’s Harbour.  The tour runs every night an hour before dusk and on this particular evening, we had the services of our guide, Matthew, to ourselves.

At the beginning of the tour, Matthew explained that he would be giving us some information about the local aboriginal tribes, and the history of the region, as well as introducing us to some of the local flora and fauna.  As it turned out though, Matthew was very interested to hear about our travels in Australia, so it became more of a social paddle… which we were completely content with.

We did have a go at yabby catching though!  Yabbies are a crustacean that look similar to a cray fish.  They live below sand and mud beds in shallow waterways, so to “catch” a yabby, you need to dig… or alternatively, use a tool not dissimilar to a bicycle pump to “suck” them out of their holes.  I was rubbish at it, but Kit fared rather better, “catching” two tiny yabbies which we quickly returned to the water.

Further up-river we had some very shallow waters and Kit very graciously climbed out of the boat to drag us over to a deeper channel.  With the tide going out, this was our cue to head back to the car.  Though we have kayaked a few times before, this was our first paddle on this trip.  It will not be our last…

Five miles up a very steep and winding road on the hills behind the Big Banana is the Sealy Lookout which we visited briefly the next morning.  From here you get a 180 degree view across Coff’s Harbour and the ocean beyond.

The town of Coff’s Harbour itself did not leave much of an impression on us.  The roads here were the most congested that we encountered anywhere between Melbourne and Brisbane, and the town appeared to consist almost entirely of holiday parks and low-budget motels.

In stark contract to this, three hour’s north of Coff’s Harbour is the painfully trendy town of Byron Bay.  Though we knew very little about Byron in advance of our visit, we knew it is one of the most popular towns on Australia’s east coast.  With our accommodation conveniently located at the entrance to the town, we remained ignorant about just how popular it really is until we ventured into the centre of Byron for dinner later that evening.  Armed with the address of a highly-recommended Mexican restaurant, we headed downtown, only to find the main street swamped with thousands of backpackers, hippies and surf-dudes/chicks.

The centre itself is full of bars, restaurants, and boutiques, catering mostly to the beach crowd.  Needless to say, Miss Margarita, and every other restaurant on the main street, was queuing out of the door, and we needed to walk two blocks out of town to find somewhere that could seat us without a 45 minute wait.

After dinner, we briefly explored the beach front.  Sitting out on the grass just behind Main Beach we found a large group enjoying the performance of a busker who had somehow fused electronic music with live trombone playing!  We got the impression many of his enthusiastic crowd may have had a few drinks… or something stronger!

During the half hour we spent driving around town the next morning, looking for somewhere to park, we saw literally hundreds of people carrying surfboards and beach towels, many with their faces covering in fluorescent green sunscreen.  Eventually, we found a place to park close to Tallows Beach.  Just one of several Byron beaches that is popular with surfers, this was definitely the most spectacular beach we have visited so far, putting Bondi well and truly to shame!

At the far end of the beach, we climbed up onto the rocks to get a better view of the action out on the surf.  Whilst, further along the beach, the waves were pushing surfers back towards the sand, alongside these rocks was a channel where the water flowed out into the ocean.  So, time and time again we watched as a surfer would walk or paddle over towards us, ride the current out into deeper waters, and then paddle away from us again in search of a big wave.

Before leaving Byron, we walked out to the Cape Byron Lighthouse, which we had seen lighting up the rocks below as we wandered around the town the previous evening.  En route to the lighthouse, we passed the most easterly point on mainland Australia.  Curiously, when crossing the border into Queensland three days later, we would put our watches back by an hour, despite at that point being further west than where these pictures were taken.

Upon leaving Byron Bay, Gold Coast – Australia’s 4th largest city – was just an hour’s drive away.  Though we had not yet reached Brisbane, we would be using Gold Coast’s airport as the drop-off for our hire car, since, for the next 48 hours, we would be staying with our good friend Lyn, who had offered not only to be our host and tour guide for the next couple of days, but also to drive us on to Brisbane at the end of our stay with her.

Gold Coast is another of Australia’s tourist meccas.  Whilst the beaches at Byron Bay might be more spectacular, Byron is – by comparison – a small town, and caters for nothing like as many tourists as Gold Coast does.  Gold Coast’s population exceeds half a million, and – with a sky-line filled with high-rise apartment blocks, many of which are used for holiday lets – this figure swells considerably when also counting tourists.

During our first evening with Lyn and her sister Wendy – visiting from Adelaide – we drove into the tourist heart of Gold Coast, Surfer’s Paradise, and sampled its bustling nightlife.

The next evening, we spent the night at the Outback Spectacular, described on Wikipedia as “an Australiana dinner and show package featuring many Australian animals, songs and bush tucker”.

On arrival, all guests are kitted out with a cowboy hat.  Though we had arrived an hour before show time, the bar was already bustling, with live country and western music and photo opportunities with some of the animals that would appear in the evening’s show.  Lyn explained that when a new horse is brought in to join the cast of the show, they are put into the stables adjacent to the bar for several weeks before their first on-stage appearance so they become used to the noise and the attention of the crowd.

At 19:30, we took to our seats, and as the show began, so did the food service.  Unlike any show I have ever been to, we were served a full three-course dinner, whilst the show was going on!  The purpose-built auditorium has a bench in front of each row of seats for our plates and glasses, and between rows is a gangway providing access for the waiting staff.

Of course, the food service was a bit of a distraction, but this wasn’t the kind of show which required our undivided attention at all times.

The show would be best described as a cross between a rodeo, a big-budget west end production and a procession on Horse Guard’s Parade. Although horses always play the starring role, the show changes regularly.  For our visit, it was Salute to the Light Horse – a tribute to Australian Light Horse, mounted troops who served in the Boer War and World War I and who played a pivotal role in the allies’ victory at Gallipolli.

As well as the horses, there was also a dog and a donkey in the main cast, as well as an ensemble of cows and a brief appearance by two camels!  The human cast was 20 strong, including two singers.  There was some acting, and a plot of sorts, but the sound system wasn’t great, and we actually couldn’t hear what was going on all that well.  This did detract a bit from our enjoyment of the show, but both Kit and I still had a really great time.  It was certainly an experience!

The next morning we visited Q1 in downtown Gold Coast, once the tallest residential building in the world.  On the 77th floor is an observation deck, as well as a restaurant where we enjoyed an excellent breakfast buffet.

At the top of Q1 is Skypoint – an arch-shaped walkway offering fearless visitors the opportunity to make an open-air walk several storeys above the observation deck.  It was fully-booked on the morning we were there… but we will do this some day!

Later the same day, Lyn provided the wheels for the final leg of our long drive to Brisbane.

Having completed the drive to Sydney just a few days earlier, it is inevitable that we found ourselves comparing the two journeys:

The road between Melbourne and Sydney is certainly better.  North of Sydney, there are many more single-lane sections, although most of these are being upgraded, so this won’t be the case for much longer.

South of Sydney, the towns and villages – or at least the ones we happened to be passing through – tended to have more character.  But, further north, the beaches are more numerous and more spectacular, and of course the weather is generally hotter and the UV stronger – during the Nelson’s Point dolphin-watching cruise, I managed to get sun burnt on a day that was almost entirely overcast!

Finally, north of Sydney we came across many more, very loud birds than we had encountered further south.  The Kookaburras – in particular – are very loud.  Though we’d learned a song about it in school, I had never heard a Kookaburra’s ‘laugh’ until we reached Port Stephen’s, and the fact that we kept on hearing this all the way up to Brisbane will make this one of the abiding memories of the journey.