Australia Adventure #3

Surfer Paradise

The home of most of the Schoolies festivities surfers paradise was packed.  Originally we tried to stay in Surfer Paradise but the Worldmark there was no accepting reservations for that week as they don’t want their guests being disrupted by the teen festivities.  That said, we wanted to see what all the commotion was about.  On the Sunday that we were there we decided to go to night church in Surfers Paradise and see the town.  The town was jammed with teens everywhere.  The night before we say on the news that the earlier festivities had already resulted in one death due to drugs or alcohol and one of the hotels caught on fire.  I think if there was some kind of tradition like this in the US I don’t know that I would encourage my child to participate.  It seemed that it was just an out of control drinking fest for 2 weeks.   The town part of the city reminded me a little of Las Vegas, the main street was just store and restaurant after restaurant, most American chains such as the Hard Rock Café, Starbucks, Cold Stone Ect. 

The remaining portion of our short time of our trip we spend at Gigi café sipping coffee, walking on the beach, and watching the surfers and wind surfers.  When I left Australia I knew I would miss it, the modern conveniences and the lack of a language barrier was a nice break.   We also felt all the people in Australia were very helpful.  Any one we would ask for suggestions or questions were very helpful.  We enjoyed our time there.

Australia Adventure #2

The Koala Zoo

A couple of days later spent the day in Australia going to art museums and seeing the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  This is where they take in injured or koalas in need of help.  While there we were able to feed kangaroos, hold Koalas, and baby chicks.  It was amazing.  What we learned about Koalas is that there number one predator is the house dog, who attacks when they are in people’s back yard, they only eat Eucaplyse leaves which is made up of about 95% water and 5% protein, which is why they sleeps so much because they basically get no energy from their food.

Our Australia Adventure part #1

Our time in Australia was short being only a week long.  We met many Australians in Fiji during our snorkeling adventure that gave us many suggestions of what we should do so we tried a few. 

Our condo in Australia was in Kirra Beach which is on the Gold Coast about an hour and a half from Brisbane.  Kirra Beach is a small community main populated by surfers.  The beach in front of our condo was once know as one of the great surf beaches of Australia but with a couple of storms the surf conditions changed and now there are only wind surfers.

Byron Bay

One of trips in Australia was to Byron bay which is a small community about hour from Kirra beach.  Two different individuals we met in Fiji recommended we go there to see the city and the lighthouse.  So Adam and I ventured out there.  On our way we stopped at a shop to buy something and one of the clerks asked us if we were going to Byron bay to see the hippies.  Adam and I became fascinated to see what we might find.

What we found was Schoolies, as an Australian teen they see it as their birthright to participate in Schoolies, in which 17-18 year olds throughout Australia flock to the gold coast to participate in the graduation partying festivities during 2 weeks in December.  That said when we arrived the town was packed.  Although it was so cute and reminded me a lot of Lynden there were so many teens there we couldn’t even get into a restaurant for lunch.  So we decided to walk up to the lighthouse and on the way we saw the dolphins surfing on the waves under the cliff (I added the bad picture from my cell).

In the end we did see a couple of hippies and had a nice time exploring the town with the rest of the teens.