King Kong Territory

So, after completing all the typical tourist attractions nearing Brisbane (Australian Zoo, Dreamworld, Gold Coast, Surfers Paradise, Pacific Fair Mall), we began heading south back into the bush! But before we did this, we enjoyed a nice morning at Pacific Fair, which was a big mall in Surfers Paradise. It had loads of store, and too my surprise I only bought one $5 top from Cotton On Body. I like to say I’m a bargain hunter, but I know people who would argue otherwise! We then headed to Broadbeach which was pretty busy! The cloud was blocking the sun so it actually started to get a little cold, but Camiel and I still had heaps of fun burrying Esmee alive in the sand. We stayed at a campground for two nights and they had this huge giant air thing that was called a jumping pillow. I’d never seen or heard of one before. It was pretty much the equivalent of a trampoline, but ten times the size. We also found a huge spider in the power box! We all got such a fright!


Esmee in the sand


The spider!

So we kicked of south into the bush (our favourite place!) and did some short walks to some remarkable sights. We drove for a few hours then walked to a waterfall, and then another waterfall. I can’t remember the names, but each one is so unique and different from the last. After our waterfalls, we walked a 45min return walk to a ‘natural bridge’. This was a huge rock that looked like a bridge, which has a hole in the middle where a waterfall plundered down into a pool of water beneath. It had a small cave which you could walk into, but only up to a certain point otherwise you would disturb the glow worms and bats. Eugh. Bats. We stopped to have some lunch, and Camiel and dad started cracking jokes that we were in King Kong Territory. Typical boys. After this we drove onto the border of New South Wales and Queensland. We had to stop the car and Camiel and I just had to jump back and forth from one border to the other. New South Wales is one hour ahead of Queensland, so it was like we were jumping back and forth in time. We took some photos and jumped back in the car because we still had a bit of driving to do.


On a waterfall walk


Crossing the border

We drove through a tourist place called Byron Bay and thought about staying there but it was really busy. Kind of like Tauranga in the summer. It was nice, but the streets were a stand still. We drove up to the lighthouse which was a nice attraction. Byron Bay is the most eastern point of Australia, so it was cool to stand on the beach and look out into the pacific ocean and know that there was nothing there for miles and miles and that you were right on the edge! We spent a night nearby in Lismore, and drove the rest of the next day down to Ballina. We stayed in a resort which had mini golf and a water park. We got there at about 4.30, so Esmee dived into the pool and played in the water park. We then did some mini golf and jumped on the jumping pillow where I happened to bump into a Whitby friend! Completely coincidental and random!




Jumping pillow

Dad cooked some pasta and chicken while I went on the internet and caught up with Ross and my emails. The cicadas here can be incredibly loud. They were even so loud at one point we couldn’t hear each other and had to cover our ears. All part of the experience I guess!

Happy Birthday Monique :)
Fem
xox