East Coast Road Trip: Part II

AIRLIE BEACH

After our slightly strange experience at Paronella Park, we headed back out of the rainforest to Airlie Beach on the coast again. Oli drove down as far as Ingham, and then decided he wanted to have a sleep in the back of the van, and for the first time left all the responsibility of driving to Harry and I. We were happily cruising along, chatting away and enjoying the view of the sugar can fields and mountains in the distance, until Oli woke up and yelled at us because we had been going the wrong way for 45 minutes out into the middle of nowhere, to the point where the tarmac road stopped and became a dirt track leading off into the distance 50m in front of us.... whoops. He couldn't believe that we hadn't noticed that we had gone so far into the middle of nowhere that they had even stopped bothering with a proper road! You can see our little tangent from G to H on the map below.... yeah, not quite sure how we got that so wrong!

Oli was spitting poison about us wasting time and petrol, but Harry and I had been having a great time and tried to explain to him that this was what a road trip was all about and that we would cover the cost of our little adventure. Needless to say, he just got even more annoyed with us for laughing it off and banned Harry from driving, who took a handful of selfies in the back of the van to show just how many fucks he gave...

When we finally arrived in Airlie Beach we stayed in the Nomads Backpackers hostel underneath a huge mango tree which was full of possums and fruit bats - a pretty noisy night! Whilst we were in Airlie we realised we each had a lot more money than we all thought and splashed out a bit on some celebratory breakfasts and hit up some of the bars. One of the nights we met this crazy group of people and had one of the strangest but most hilarious nights out of the trip.

Some random guy's tattoo about his love for moustaches...

WHITSUNDAYS

Oli and I also booked to do a trip out to the Whitsunday Islands to visit Whitehaven Beach and do a scuba dive. On our boat we met the coolest couple called Raf and Rachel who we hung out with all day. Big shout out to you guys! We had an awesome day and scuba diving was an amazing experience. We were super lucky as there wasn't a single cloud in the sky and the visibility was amazing. Going to Whitehaven Beach was also an incredible experience.... never seen anything quite like it!

Action man

Rach and Raf

FRASER ISLAND

That night when we got back from our idyllic day, we grabbed Harry and hopped straight in the van and did a loooooooooong 14hr drive down to Hervey Bay where we were to pick up our 4x4 which we were renting for Fraser Island. We took it in shifts to do the driving through the night and it was pretty horrific but we didn't have much choice as we had to get a move on and get further south as we had spent so much time up north. There was nowhere that we wanted to stop between Airlie Beach and Hervey Bay either, so we just zoomed right on down.

We picked up our truck and caught the ferry across to Fraser Island for a two day adventure on the world's largest sand island. All the roads are just sand tracks and everyone just crashes about in their 4x4s. You can do a group tour but we thought it would be much more fun to drive ourselves.

Oli letting the tires down - something you have to do to drive on sand apparently!?

Fallen down tree.... 

We went to this amazing freshwater lake called Lake McKenzie which has crystal blue water and white sands and was just goooorgeous.

All down one side of the island is a beach called Seventy Five Mile Beach which you can drive up and down. There's literally no rules apart from a 80km/h speed limit and you have to be careful of washouts and stuff (so that you don't end up nose first down some sand cliff thing) and everyone races up and down this huge beach during low tide.

We spent the night at a little hostel with another group of some Germans who were our age and doing exactly the same as us. The hostel was unmanned and we found the master key and so all of us got our own individual bedroom which was great!

There's loads of stuff to do and look at on this island, it's genuinely like a magical forgotten treasure island. It even has a shipwreck and a river which you can get in and float down to the sea! Amazing.

Maheno Wreck

Shipwreck photography

The second day on Fraser was the only day for the whole trip that it rained, and it actually couldn't have been timed better as it made driving on the sand tracks much easier! 

NOOSA

After our island adventure we drove on to Noosa which is a beautiful beach town which is very popular as a nice holiday destination with Australians. We just spent some time chilling on the beach here and enjoying some of the nice beachy cafes.

BYRON BAY

We decided to leave Noosa early the next day and drive down past Brisbane to Byron Bay as I felt that I had to take the boys there after we had such a good time on our semester break. We stayed at a hostel called the Arts Factory Lodge which is genuinely just the most chilled out place in the world. Everyone just lolls about in hammocks and befriends the lizards by the lake, and everyone is so relaxed and friendly.

I took the boys on a tour of Byron and we spent a few days just chilling on the beach, walking up to the lighthouse, going for brunch at The Top Shop (favourite cafe in the whole of Australia), befriending some hippies, browsing the amazing little shops and abusing happy hour at Balcony Bar.

Boys being annoying on the beach

Stumpy the lizard

View from the lighthouse

Just before we left to go to Brisbane, Harry had a snooze and Oli and I went and browsed the amazing Artizan Market. We spent ages walking around, buying Christmas presents and trying some of the yummy food and drinks that all the quirky little stalls sell. This is a MUST in Byron, it's such an amazing market!

Another must us a place recommended to us by Raf and Rach. It's a secret lagoon in an old quarry and it is honestly one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. There's a huge cliff which you can jump into the water from on one side, and a big grassy area on the other, and the whole thing is covered in lilypads! It's a real locals spot and not that many people know about it. We stayed there for a nice swim before our last drive and had the whole place to ourselves. Check out the website here.

BRISBANE

Finally, we managed to drag ourselves away from lovely Byron and headed back up to our final stop, Brisbane. When we arrived we stopped for lunch at a lookout and had this amazing view over the city in a yummy cafe up there.

We checked ourselves in to a nice hostel for our last night so that we actually had a proper bed and a shower etc. and headed out to test out Brisbane's nightlife. A local girl recommended a club called Laruche in Fortitude Valley (Brisbane's equivalent of Kings Cross in Sydney) which was very trendy and we had a big final celebratory blow out to end the road trip.

The next day we had to drive to the Wicked Campers depot and drop back our van. After a sad goodbye to our trusty tin can which had been our home for the past two weeks, we headed back into the city to have a wander around their botanical gardens and promptly fell asleep in the shade by the water and didn't really see that much of Brisbane at all!

Bye byeeeee

Eventually, Oli and I packed up our stuff, said goodbye to Harry (who was staying on for a few more days) and caught our flight back to Sydney. Road trip DONE!

Our route

We had such an amazing time and the whole thing FLEW by - I only wish that we had twice/three times as long to do it! We managed to see and do everything we wanted to do, and even found some great secret places, but there's always room for more exploring. So sad to be back in Sydney now - severe travelling blues are kicking in and writing this blog post is not helping....!

If anyone who's reading this want to know some more about the logistics of doing a trip like this then just comment below/message me on Facebook and I'll be happy to give some tips. Driving the East Coast comes very highly recommended as I'm sure you can all tell...!

B