For this part of the trip we rented a car and you can see our route and directions here.
Brisbane
Brisbane is considered to be Australia’s Pittsburgh, and it certainly seemed to fit that description on our brief stop there. We spent half-a-day there, enough to get a great breakfast at Spoon,
Maybe a little scared. NBD
Soooo sleepy!
and snap a few pictures of the street art, but our main destination was the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary (LPKS) 40 minutes outside of Brisbane. That’s where Presidents Putin and Obama, and a few other G-20 leaders got to pet koalas on the tour of Australia just a couple of weeks before our arrival. If you are in that area, the LPKS is a must! It’s open from 9 till 5. Travel Tip: Many wildlife sanctuaries or zoos in Australia get overrun with huge crowds of tourists after lunch, so we would recommend getting there early in the morning to avoid crowds.
The LPKS admission is $31.50, and if you buy your ticket online, you get a 10% discount. Inside, they will let you pet a koala for free (while somebody else is holding it) or you can have a picture with a koala taken for additional $15. Considering that your travel companion or anybody, really, can snap a picture of you and koala while the sanctuary employees do the same, the $15 price per photo seems to be a great deal!
We spent close to two hours in the LPKS, most of it petting and feeding kangaroos and watching koalas hang out on the trees. By the time we were leaving, the place began to be overrun with kids and large groups of tourists and I started to feel bad for the animals. So, if you can, go early in the morning, when the animals are not yet jaded and are still hungry enough to eat from your hand. (Don’t worry, there is a roped-in area of the sanctuary where kangaroos can go if they don’t want to be petted, so they have a way of avoiding the crowd).
From the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, we took M-1 south to the Gold Coast. If like us before our trip, you are wondering where you should stay in the
Gold Coast, their equivalent of Florida
Gold Coast, I’d say, there is really no bad place. The beaches are long, wide and seem to run for miles. We stayed at the Sheraton Mirage (highly recommend), just a few miles away from the Surfers’ Paradise, and there really seemed to be no difference in the quality of waves or the sand or the view between where we stayed and the Surfers’ Paradise. If you surf, you might have different outlook, but we were there for the beach, and from that standpoint, both areas seemed to be very similar.
The best part about our hotel was its proximity to the grocery stores and a collection of great restaurants overlooking a marina. A little pedestrian overpass connected the hotel to a small mall, where you could buy anything you needed for the beach (and more), and then to the restaurants. We ate at Omeros Brothers Seafood Restaurant one night and their seafood dishes and Steak Diane were amazing.
Travel Tip: We were warned by the locals that the Gold Coast in late November/early December is overrun by “schoolies” or all the high school students that come to Gold Coast to celebrate their graduation. Apparently, similar to American spring break time, this means that the Gold Coast turns into hell for all the adults. However, while we did see hundreds of teenagers roaming the streets of Brisbane, drinking and hollering, our paths really didn’t cross while we were there, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
Blending in with the locals
Byron Bay
Byron Bay is about 2.5-hour drive south of Brisbane and was our favorite place out of everywhere we’ve visited in Australia. A chill surfing town, full of young good-looking surfers, burger cafes and swimsuit shops, and framed by a beautiful beach made this place seem like the most relaxing place in the world. Unfortunately, we were there for just a day, but if we had to plan our trip again, we’d definitely rent a room at one of the quaint hotels there for a few days and take up some surfing lessons.
So, there you go, if Queensland is on your itinerary, skip the Surfers’ Paradise and check out the Byron Bay instead! And if you are looking to get some quality time with kangaroos, check out the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.
One Sunny Morning 