Rainy Coast?

After Fraser Island I headed south on the bus and stopped in a little town on the Sunshine Coast called Noosa. It started raining the day I arrived. There was a brief reprieve that first day and I set out to get some groceries and explore a little. I really wish the weather had been nicer when I was in Noosa, as it's such a quaint and charming little place. As with most places along the east coast, if you aren't doing something outdoors there isn't much else to do. That night and the following day it rained like nobody's business - torrential downpours. I read books and got organized and what-not. At least the backpackers I was staying was really great in terms of common areas to lounge around in, hang out, meet other folks, and even watch a little TV. I met a few really cool people there since we were all just hanging out, escaping the rain. The only folks who did anything fun were the surfers - apparently it was warmer in the water than outside. We were getting reports that the storm was going to get worse and there were flood warnings. I headed off the next morning on the bus and we barely made it to Brisbane. In fact, due to detours and traffic caused by flooding on the highway, we were very late and I missed my connecting bus to the Gold Coast. I got on the next bus a few hours later and that bus nearly didn't make it to the Gold Coast. The highway was being closed and the storm was worsening. The winds were picking up and people's BBQs were flying off the decks and what-not. It was not safe. I did make it to the Gold Coast and my friend, Lynn, picked me up.

I spent the next several days hanging out on the Gold Coast while Lynn went to work (she and I used to work at the same company back home and she's now working for them over here - her manager kept offering me jobs here... interesting pause for thought!). On the weekend we tried to make the best of the weather... Saturday we went to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. I got to pet the kangaroos and hold a baby koala and a snake. It was super fun!! We saw all kinds of neat things: dingoes, wambats, tree kanagroos, different birds, etc. We went to see a movie: Samson and Delilah, which has won an award at Cannes this past week - it's about some Aboriginal kids in Australia's outback... I'd highly recommend seeing it. On Sunday we went to Byron Bay for the day - wow! What a fun little town. We walked up to the lighhouse (most easterly point in Oz) and toured around the little town (had to stop at the Byron Bay Cookie Company). Caught a bit of a cool show at a bar that evening before we left.

The storm wiped out all of the beaches along the Gold Coast, so on my last day there, as the weather was clearing up I managed to walk down part of it at Surfers Paradise. It's going to take a lot of time and money to recover from it. Parts of inland northern NSW and southern QLD are still swimming in water. On a high note - the drought is officially over for QLD. Although I'm sure that those whose houses are floating aren't too happy about it. So I didn't get to enjoy the sunshine of the coast too much here, but I've still managed to find some interesting things to do and it was great to hang out with Lynn for a few days.

I decided to fly to Sydney instead of continue my way down the coast by bus. Many roads are still closed and all of the beaches are closed, so visiting beach towns would be a little boring at the moment. It cost the same to fly as to take the bus and was 1.5 hrs of my time instead of 12 hrs. It was an easy decision. I arrived yesterday and the sun was shining here (they did get rain here for the past week too though). Today it's raining so I will finish up a few errands left to do before flying out to Japan in a couple of days! I'm excited to go to Japan!!! And I'm also eating as much hummus and peanut butter (not together) as I can before I leave since it will be three weeks before I expect I'll be eating them again.