The only big tourist city in Australia

Even though Melbourne has completely stolen my heart I still have some very warm words for Sydney. For one thing it is by far the most interesting Australian city to visit for pure touristic purposes. With the mythical Opera and harbour bridge view, spectacular museums and amazing beaches Sydney truly has something for everyone. One comparison that comes to mind is Los Angeles in the way that both cities are HUGE and best experienced from the suburbs.

Manly Beach

Located a short ferry ride away from Circular Key, Manley beach lies sheltered from the hustle and bustle of Sydney on the other side of the bay.

Generally less crowded than Bondi this beach comes off as even more relaxed, if that's even possible. The road from the ferry terminal to the beach, about 10 minutes, is littered with everything from cute little cafes to big brand stores and is worth visiting even if the weather or waves aren't up to snuff.

Coogee to bondi beach walk

If you grow tired of lying on the beach or walking around in the crowded city center I really recommend taking the time to walk from Coogee beach to Bondi beach.

The walk takes you through many beautiful lookouts and takes around 1.5 hours to walk.

As I walked I kept passing the same guy over and over again and eventually decided to say hello and he said hi back. Funny how other travelers are easy to get in touch with like that :D

Bondi Beach

If you go to Sydney, you have to go to Bondi. The hustle and bustle on the beachfront, the hip cafes and generally great and consistent waves ensure you'll have a great time! You can easily catch a bus out at anytime and from what I hear the area is great for nightlife too. 

AKA the wet canyons

During my stay in Sydney I was plagued with a fair bit of rain( 4 days straight in January, can you believe it???), but undeterred my swiss friend and I set off for the Blue mountains. I had no preconception about what the Blue mountains would look like, hadn't even googled it, all I knew was that it's one of the many supposed must do's close to Sydney. 

After a long, yet cheap because it was a Sunday, train journey we arrived in a cute little town and started making our way to the base of the mountains. At this point I should also mention it wasn't just the two of us because we had found new friends from the FB group backpackers in Australia also going to the Blue mountains that day. 

When we arrived at the entrance to the national park I realized that the blue mountains of Sidney actually looked quite a lot like a miniature, green Grand Canyon. The fact that I use the word miniature is more to the testament that the Grand Canyon is indeed grand rather than the Blue mountains being small.

After enquiring at the visitor center we decided to embark on a 5 hour circuit hike that would take us to most of the must see spots. Unfortunately, when we were about one third of the way though we were ambushed by some very heavy rainfall that just refused to let up. Caught in the jungle with only some cheap rain ponchos as protection we soon accepted our fate of being wet and miserable and made all haste to get back to the start. We had of course made it all the way down the canyon before the rain so we ascended the Giant Stairway, a 1000 vertical steps, weighing a couple of kg extra due to the rain :P Hehe, I realize I'm writing this to sound like a terrible time, which in fact it wasn't. Sure we were wet and cold, but it actually gave us a nice sense of camaraderie braving nature together in that way. 

The Blue mountains had one final surprise for us before we got out and that was blood sucking leeches! We found a couple on the way up the Stairway, to the great distress of the girls, but the real surprise was when 3 more fell out of our shoes when we were back in Sydney. This was extra funny because we had been joking about the possibility of this on the train and just laughed it off.

Where backpackers go

Mention going to East coast Australia and I can almost guarantee one of the first questions you'll get is "Sick dude! How was Byron Bay?". Byron epitomizes the East coast experience with it's perfect climate year round, famous surf and generally chill attitude to everything. After a week in Sydney with way too much shitty weather I was more than ready to get going up the coast and get my surf on again. The plan was simple, kick back and relax for four days with surf and drinks. And so that is what I did.

Paradise is lost and the surf is better elsewhere

Or is it? Hehe Surfers Paradise has a mixed reputation, but what everyone can agree on is that it's the Las Vegas/Miami of Australia. So if you like those kinds of places you'll likely enjoy this too. Surfers is a lot more hustle and bustle than Byron, but then again almost everywhere is. You can still surf during the day and party during the night, I reckon Surfers actually has the best pub crawls on the East coast, but be aware you might have to dress a little fancier to get in some places. 

I spent two nights at the Down Under hostel which was nice, clean and central and had a great time. One of the best things I did was catching the morning breakfast at the Q1 building. Even in my slightly hungover state, or maybe because of it, the glorious buffet breakfast and view from the skydeck really made my morning one to remember :)

Don't swim in the river, do go to lone pine koala sanctuary

Brisbane is a pretty cool town and definitely worth a visit. It's warm all year round and serves as a little break from the beach. Then again, you don't need that long a break from the beach :P

If you do find yourself here I propose the following itinerary:

- Go to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary for the first half of the day

- Head to the museum area, IE the north shore of south bank and walk all the way past the lagoon and into the botanical gardens across the river.

- Maybe have lunch at one of the restaurants on the way if you can afford it (I couldn't :P)

Boom there you go, Brisbane for a day. I had the great fortune of having some friends who lived there so I got to see some local stuff as well, but if you're just passing through the above should give you a memorable day. 

Oh, and there are bull sharks in the river. So don't swim there.

Crikey!

The Australia Zoo, funded by none other than Steve Irwin, is the largest zoo in Australia and has everything from Steve's favourite the "crocks", koalas and roos to elephants, giraffes and tigers.

The zoo is so large in fact that one day might not be enough so if time is a huge concern I would deffo recommend the Lone Pine Sanctuary in Brisbane instead.

Not too much else to say about this place, if you like zoos or crocodiles or both it's definitely worth your time, but it is quite expensive (around 80 dollars for bus + entry from Noosa) so you might be better off spending your money somewhere else. I guess one way to put it is "you'll be glad if you go, but you won't be sad if you miss it".

Shout out to my Swedish bro Henrik for coming with! :D

Another beach break

Together Noosa junction, Noosa heads and Noosaville are combined into the little paradise simply known as Noosa. I spent a whole week here simply lying in hammocks, catching waves and even doing a bit of work. Shout out to dolphin beach house for good wifi.

Other activities I really recommend is to do the costal walk in the national park, have a massive bonfire party at the beach and kayaking on the river. 

I recon Noosa is a bit of a hit or miss seeing as it can be a bit quiet, but for me it was exactly what I needed.

Getting closer to nature in a 4x4

Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island, lies just off the town of Hervey Bay. Roughly 4 hours north of Brisbane or 9 hours South of the Whitsundays and Airlie Beach.

You have two options for exploring the island. Rent a 4x4 car yourself or join a tour, like Dropbear adventures. My friends and I went with the former and sat off on the morning ferry.

Fraser island is mostly devoid of human tampering, besides the dirt roads, and that is what makes it pretty unique. We spent the first half of the day exploring the lakes on the south side, including lake McKinzey pictured above which had some of the clearest water I have ever swam in. 

Fraser isn't that wide, but it's very long (over 120 km) so the only efficient way to get anywhere is on the Beach highway. It consists of the beach on the east side and you can drive up to 70 or 80 kmph there, which is pretty intense when you only have sand under your wheels. The trick is you can only drive on it when there is no tide, otherwise your rental car agency will skin you alive. So when the tide finally receded around 13.00 we made our way to the coast and made all speed to reach the Meheno ship wreck. 

When we finally got there we had about 10 minutes to rush out and take pictures and then drive even faster on the way back to catch the ferry back to the mainland. Worth it :D

The question you'll eventually ask yourself about Fraser is "How long should I stay there?". The tour agencies will try to sell you three days, which in my opinion is a bit too much. I did it in one day which was a bit rushed so I would recommend you the middle way of two days. You'll get to see the all the interesting parts like Indian heads to the north and also be on to your next adventure faster. Time is limited on the East coast after all :D

Small, but full of surprises

Just outside the city of Townsville lies Magnetic island. I only stayed for a night on the Cairns-Brisbane trip, but it's actually one of the experiences i remember most fondly. In short, we got really lucky with timing and got a lot done. 

Setting out from Cairns the same day we reached the island around 14 and went to check into our hostel X-base. It was the first large, resort hostel of it's kind I stayed at and to be honest I didn't like it that much at first. I felt it took a lot of the charm of hostels out of the equation and replaced it with "no private alcohol on premises" and "no free wi fi". However, at Magnetic it actually turned out to be a great idea to stay here seeing as there isn't too much else to do at night. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After checking in at the hostel we went to feed the local rock wallabies. They appear in the same spot every day at 4 pm and is absolutely one of the main attractions on the island. We brought some carrots to feed them, but apparently the best thing to bring is water. (because everyone else brings carrots).

Heart of the reef

Cairns is located close to the top of the east coast of Australia and is known as one of the best entry points to the Great Barrier Reef. I arrived with the night bus once again in the early hours of the morning and after dropping my bags off at the hostel I would be staying at a few days later I headed to the Pro DIve Cairns dive shop. 

I had booked my way onto a three day dive trip to take my advanced PADI certificate and Nitrox, diving with a richer blend of Oxygen, to boot. It was an extremely intensive program with four dives on the first and second day and three on the last, that's 11 in total!

The GBR isn't called great because it's the most stunning reef in the world, in fact a lot of it's beauty is fading away because of the bleaching of the corals. It's called great because it's so F'ing big. It's over 2600 km's long and some parts are definitely better than others. On my first trip to the east coast the guys and I just booked a trip to Green island, the cheapest and closest reef trip from Cairns and while it was fun enough, even saw a small white tip shark, the reef was concentrated around the jetty and it was not at all what I expected when I thought about seeing the GBR. The Pro Dive Cairns dive trip on the other hand took me deep into the heart of the reef, hours and hours away from Cairns and when we went under it was like entering another world.