The second part of our trip was new to both of us, and I had a great time seeing some new parts of Australia! Sorry for a bit of a delay as Sharon & I’s trip finished up on April 8th – I have been a bit busy getting back into the swing of school. But I am here now to catch you up!
Thursday April 5th
Sharon & I woke up bright and early and drove about 3 hours south to Montecollum for our excursion at the Crystal Castle. We arrived before they were open, so we ended up having to wait a bit – but at 10 am we were let in. Crystal Castle is home to some of the biggest crystals in the world and is also a gardens area. Upon arriving, Sharon & I took part of an hour long meditation session in the Enchanted Cave. This is a 120 million year old amethyst geode that weighs 22 tons! Needless to say, it was huge. It was even more cool because all 3 of us in the session were able to mediate inside of the geode!
After this, we ended up spending about 3 more hours walking around the gardens, having great conversation over lunch, and seeing some amazing crystals and sculptures! It was a nice area to bring my camera and go crazy taking pictures – here are a handful of examples of what we saw at the Crystal Castle. It was beautiful!
After our time at Crystal Castle we drove about a half hour east to Byron Bay which is a town right on the east coast. We got settled in our beautiful AirBnB and then decided to take a walk on the beach. Right out our backdoor there was a small, 5 minute trail that lead right to the beach! So we decided to walk for about an hour on the beach, share good conversation, and see the sunset. Afterwards, we chose a night in and to order pizza!
Friday April 6th
After sleeping in this morning, we met with the owner of our AirBnb to ask questions about good places to go in downtown Byron Bay. So we packed up our stuff and headed out! It was a great town because the main hub of businesses is perfect for just a stroll. It is very much a hipster town. We stopped in crystal shops, thrift shops, and anything random that we saw. One of my favorite finds was a cute ring that is of an ocean wave, to always remind me of the beautiful Pacific Ocean! After shopping for a few hours we decided to have a quick lunch at a cute little place on the corner of the street.
On our way out of town the police were doing random alcohol checks, and the only check they did was a breathalyzer test and then you could be on your way again. I’d heard that getting pulled over randomly in Australia was very common, so I was surprised that it had taken this long! We then proceeded to drive 2 hours north up to the big city of Brisbane. It reminded me a lot of the Twin Cities. After settling into another beautiful AirBnB in a suburb of Brisbane, Wollengabba, we took the bus downtown to a festival in the park. Due to the Commonwealth Games (Olympics but for the commonwealth nations) there were a lot of festivities going on. It reminded me of the festivities surrounding the Super Bowl in the Twin Cities this past year. So, Festival 2018 was going on in the Southbank area, another part of Brisbane. We walked across the Victoria Bridge to the Cultural Centre, enjoyed the fresh air, took pictures by the famous Brisbane sign, and then began to explore the festival.
We rode the Wheel of Brisbane ferris wheel, once during daytime and once during nighttime. I personally liked it better at night because everything was lit up, but both were very pretty! A great way to see the city from above.
The was also a great exhibit in the part that was a 4 metre tall string and light-based puppet! Many people would work together to make the suspension work and have the puppet dance to music, it was great entertainment.
There was also a lot of live music going on, so we had pulled pork sandwiches and fries for dinner while listening to once performance. And then we also listened to another performance on the big stage for about an hour. We were quite wiped out after a long day, so at about 8pm we decided to head home and call it a day!
Saturday April 7th
Our adventure this morning was probably my 2nd favorite of break – very close after the Great Barrier Reef! We went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary about 20 minutes away from our AirBnB.
We started off the morning by feeding Kangaroos!! A definite highlight. I love kangas. They were so sweet & tame. Sharon & I both fed a mama kangaroo who actually had a Joey in her pouch at the time! There were about 130 kangaroos in that area. So we of course had to go around and say hello to a lot of them, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take pictures of the cute animals!
Then after those amazing moments, if you can believe it, we had an even more amazing moment! We got to hold a koala! We bought surprisingly decent priced tickets to get our picture taken and hold a koala – it was amazing. I was just a little bit happy!
After that we attended a sheep dog show and a koala presentation. It was a great place to spend multiple hours because they had a lot of hourly activities and presentations going on. I did love that everywhere we turned there were koalas. There were just so many! And they are so so adorable. Same as with the kangaroos, I have a million pictures of them… I tried to narrow it down for you all to see!
We decided to take a break and have some fish & chips (with ice cream for dessert of course) for lunch. Afterwards we were back at it, exploring the rest of the sanctuary and seeing the other animals! We both had a great time here!
After the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, we drove up to Mount Coot-tha. This is a famous lookout at the top of a mountain where you could see the whole city of Brisbane. It was cool to get a new perspective of the city from afar! We also decided to walk around on the trails for a bit and get some hiking in. After all of this, we decided that after another long day we would take it easy for the evening!
Sunday April 8th
Today was Sharon & I’s last day together 😦 We decided to kick the morning off with a delicious breakfast at The Pancake Manor! It was a very neat building as it was an old cathedral converted to a restaurant. After a long (but worth it) wait, our delicious breakfasts arrived! We split meals so we could both try different pancakes – one was a macadamia nut and maple ice cream pancake & the other was a chocolate ice cream, strawberry, and walnuts. I personally enjoyed the chocolate pancake better, but they were both amazing!
We had some time to spare so we walked around the shops for a bit, explored the dangerous Target (of course I didn’t walk out of there empty handed… I bought a great pair of fun shorts for only $5!), and then it was time to leave. We drove to Redbank to go see Black Panther at the cinema! I was in heaven having popcorn again (Australia doesn’t love popcorn as much as the USA… boo.) and the movie was great! After getting back I packed up all my things and said goodbye to Sharon 😦 I took the bus/train home to Sunshine Coast, and for a country girl, I was quite proud of myself for managing the bus/train system all by myself! After arriving back home, I finished off the evening with pepperoni pizza & a glass of Moscato (I know, classy).
I had a great time with Sharon and it was great to have a chance to explore more of Australia! I was sure glad to have a visitor from the US 🙂
School has been picking up as it’s after mid-semester now. Lots of big assessments coming up – yay. I have also, for the first time since arriving, been feeling more homesick. Definitely could be due to the fact that I had a visitor. I am honestly quite surprised it has taken this long to become really homesick. But thankfully there is FaceTime, Skype and lots of ways to communicate with people back home!
Next adventure: This coming weekend a few of my friends & I will be headed to Moreton Island for a 2 day trip! It will involve a lot of activities, but also relaxing at the beach – I look forward to it!
– Haley
Another Point of View 