Byron Bay and koalas

We are continuing our trip north up to Brisbane and have stopped in Byron Bay. We heard from numerous people that we just couldn't miss this place. We're finding that it's not exactly our cup of tea, but we did have great fun at the beach yesterday.

Byron Bay is the eastern most point in Australia. It's a town inhabited by hippies and tons of backpackers who come here for the sun, surfing and parties. Luckily, we landed ourselves in a guesthouse called
"A Peaceful Place" and it lived up to it's name. It was nice, quiet and peaceful and we actually got some good sleep. Just what we were looking for after being on the go every day. (I know we've had it so rough :) I have a feeling we would have headed out after 1 night if we had stayed at the usual hostel. A hostel would not have been peaceful nor quiet.

We have been much happier with the accomodations up north. It seems that the farther north you go the better the hostels are. We haven't ended up in a dump since Sydney. In fact, we stayed at an extremely nice hostel in Coffs Harbour. It was brand new and had a pool. I wish we could have stayed longer. I've also found myself a "job." Hostelz.com was looking for people to review hostels while they travel. They only pay $7 USD per review and require that you take a couple of pictures and write a couple of paragraphs. Not that bad. I figure we'll be staying in quite a few between now and when we return. Plus, I have already been keeping a log of everyplace we've stayed so that I can create a blog with my recommedations at the end of the trip.

We had a great day at the beach yesterday. We played in the water for a while and had fun letting the waves carry us back to shore. In the afternoon we headed to the town of Lismore and a nature reserve called Tucki Tucki. It's a reserve specifically for koalas. We were hoping to spot some wild ones. We went through the entire reserve and didn't see any. It isn't very big and we figured we'd be able to spot them easily. Finally, right at the end Mark spotted one high up in a tree. You could barely make out what it was, but it was definitely a koala - the ears gave it away. On our way back to the car, right by the road, wouldn't you know there was one taking a nap. He was in a tree, but not very high up. He was just high enough so he was out of reach. He put on a little show by stretching and scratching a bit, but just kept on going back to sleep. I guess we couldn't convince him to come down and play. We left the reserve and went to another lookout point. This one was in the town of Lismore and right in a neighborhood. We saw another koala and this time he was eating. It was dark at this point and that's when they start to become active. He was pretty high up, but we could see him reaching to get the best leaves all the way on the end of the branch. So we ended up spotting 3 koalas in the wild. Pretty neat. Although, we will still be visiting the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary which is just outside of Brisbane. They allow you to hold a koala and get your photo taken with it. I can NOT leave Australia without this taking advantage of this opportunity!

Today we head into Queensland (this is state where Brisbane is located) to a town called Surfers Paradise. We spend a night here and then head to Brisbane. Only a little over a week left in Australia. I'm a bit nervous and excited to get to Asia. One thing I can't wait for is the fruit!! Fruit here is very expensive, even fruit that's home grown. Can you believe they sell bananas for as much as $4 a kilo? We've found them for a little cheaper, but no where near the 40 cents a pound we pay back home. They even grow bananas here. Oh, and if you think that New Zealand has cheap kiwi fruit, think again. We waited to get kiwi until we got to NZ and it was $4 a kilo as well. Mark promises lots of tropical fruit when we hit Asia!

Well, I have to get going. Time to move on.

Hope everyone is well!