Welcome to part 2 of our journey along Australia’s East Coast:
(Click here to get back to part 1 from Cairns to Hervey Bay.)

Rainbow Beach
Basically a one-x-town. The x stands for café, restaurant, pub, bakery, supermarket, … . You need literally only 2 minutes to see the whole “city centre” 😀

Campground: Rainbow Beach Holiday Village
Quiet campground with a little bit old but ok restrooms and showers. They had no camp kitchen and no free WiFi. So we just crossed the street to Café Jilarty.

The beach
What surprised us was that although this is part of the National Park, people are allowed to drive on the beach with their 4WD. The speed limit is 80!??
We walked in the direction of the red cliffs. Beautiful. As we returned we took a dip in the ocean where a lifeguard controlled the beach. The swell was fantastic, but the current really strong.

Carlo Sand Blow Lookout
We walked from the campground to this nice lookout on the big sand dune. We reached the top just in time. The sundown was amazing as we saw up till Tin Can Bay. Unfortunately we were not alone and some people have to talk all the time – glad nobody had to phone home that moment…

Places to eat & drink
Rainbow Beach Hotel
The Burger was big, fish ‘n chips tasty and a Great Northern cold to wash it all down. A really good live band played as we ate there.

Café Jilarty
We had breakfast (omelette and breakfast burrito + good coffee) and dinner (chicken satay pizza and beef massaman). On top they had free (and working) WiFi and the staff was really friendly and attentive.

Bakery
Open from 5 am this bakery had very tasty pies and decent coffee.

Rainbow Beach to Brisbane
Greyhound, 5 hrs
The drive was nothing worth mentioning. We arrived at Roma Street bus terminal. The WiFi on the bus didn’t work, but in the arrival hall the Greyhound counter had free WiFi as well.
On the ground floor we bought the “Go Card” for the public transport system.

Brisbane
“We’ve chosen Brisbane, because we didn’t wanted to live in a European city like Sidney or Melbourne, we wanted to live in a Australian city”, said our Airbnb host Paul, originally from Manchester, as we asked him why they’d chosen Brisbane to settle in Australia.

Airbnb
“Beautiful Brisbane Queenslander” was the headline and the pictures showed a really beautiful wooden house with a nice porch. After we arrived in Brisbane we bought sandwiches, took the bus to the river and waited until our hosts came back from work.
Naomi & Paul – a nice young British couple who worked in Australia for a while – welcomed us to their home. They were very friendly and even took us for a trip to the country side at the weekend. To us it felt like our home. We hadn’t had that luxury since Santiago de Chile around April.

City Center
We had a nice stroll in the Botanic Garden and ended up on the campus of the University of Technology were they tested a very interesting looking vehicle on the lawn.

Southbank
The riverfront along the museums was very well done. Unfortunately it was a little bit to cold to jump into the water of the lagoon.

Gallery of Modern Art
We spend a whole afternoon here. Works from Robert MacPherson an Australian artist were particular interesting to us. Admission is for free and there were even volunteers that gave us a brief but very knowledgeable overview of the exhibitions.

West End
Along the shore line was a good path for jogging and biking with the best free fitness facilities that we have seen on our travels.
Around Vulture and Boundary Street were a lot of nice cafés and restaurants, many with an “organic” touch to it.

Globe Trekkers
Paul gave us this tip. It was the first shop with light quality outdoor equipment on our route. We bought a new stove for our planned hikes and treks in New Zealand.
Vaude – our tent company – informed us during our stay in Brisbane that they would send the needed spare part for our tent to Sydney (another Airbnb address that we booked upfront because of that.).

New Farm & Fortitude Valley
The Powerhouse reminded Tom of the area he was born and lived as a student – the Ruhrgebiet. In New Farm Park Brisbane locals spend their Sunday barbecuing, playing rugby or celebrating a children’s birthday. In Australia a lot of things take place outdoor. The parks are widely used. James Street Centro turned out to be a nice open air mall with cool cafés, restaurants and shops.

Campos Café
We drank very good self roasted coffee and spoiled us with fantastic sweets like “Rocky Road”.

New Farm Cinemas
In this small, comparable cheap cinema we watched “Walk in the woods” – a not so good movie – and where pleasantly surprised that they offered wine to take into the cinema.

D’Aquilar National Park, The Gantry
Naomi & Paul took us for a fantastic walk, the Somerset Trail. The vegetation changed often during the 4-h-walk and most of the flowers we saw for the first time in our live. The Somerset Lookout offered a stunning view over the countryside.

After a week we had to say goodbye to Naomi, Paul and the beautiful Queenslander. It made us a little sad, because we really enjoyed our stay and it felt a bit like home. Something that we started to miss somehow … so it seems.

Brisbane to Byron Bay
Greyhound, 3 hrs
We came past a few big towns like Goldcoast and Surfers Paradise on this route. One hotel lined after the other.

Byron Bay, New South Wales
Another playground for young adults, but with beautiful beaches that made the same sounds like Whitehaven Beach. The mixture in this town was unique: young backpackers, locals, surfer dudes, aged hippies and a few bums.

Campground: Glen Villa Resort
One of the nicest campgrounds so far, with a grassy spot under beautiful trees, quiet but very near to the city and the beach.
Because the weather forecast showed a big chance for thunderstorms the next three days, we changed into a cabin. From our former experience our spare tent wouldn’t keep us dry, especially after we saw even more thin patches in the roof. Good choice – it rained in the evening. More thunder and rain came in the following days. After two nights we had to change into a hut, and dreamed of the spare part for our own tent!

Tip
We heard that they were constantly looking for people to work for them. At best long term ones up to six months. In return you got a camping spot for free. Additional jobs on site are payed extra. Excellent e.g. should you like surfing.

We were forced to think about the end of our journey
We had enough time to make up our minds where our flight out of New Zealand should go – as we were required to provide evidence for onward travel while getting into New Zealand. We compared flight offers for going to Buenos Aires (our starting point) again or spend some days in North America. Mexico came up or Cuba, Jamaica and many more. In the end we opted for flights back home via Hong Kong. There were mainly two reasons for that: 1. We wanted to be back for Xmas. 2. We wanted to get the most out of our 90 days New Zealand Visa, but didn’t wanted to pay the ridiculous high prices for getting home around Xmas.

The lighthouse walk
It was a nice short walk along the beach to the lighthouse. At Fishermans Lookout we left the beach to get up to the most easterly point of Australia. Enjoying the beautiful view, we suddenly saw whales slapping the water with their fins and flukes, later even a group of dolphins. The lighthouse itself was beautiful. From there we saw another school of dolphins swim slowly around the cape. At the right lay fantastic Tallow Beach. On the way down back to the main beach we came along The Captain Cook Look Out commemorating him sailing this coast in 1770. Today it was only a parking lot with a sign, but no view. Back at the main beach we saw whales again.

Tip
Savor the moment when you see dolphins or whales. We saw whales only on two occasions although we went to the beach(es) every day.

Tallow Beach
We returned to this beach for another walk. It was fantastic. The sun came out that day, the wind blew strong and big waves rolled at the shoreline. Best of all, only a handful of people had the same idea. It’s a good place for long beach walks. You see a lot of paraglider in the air.

Cafés
L’Ultimer… (French)
The coffee was good, but the pastries fantastic. They drenched the small brown bag on the two minute walk to the beach.

Byron Fresh Café
The musicians that played in front of the café when we came by to make our “happy hour” appearance in the afternoon for coffee and the muffin of the day were great.

Byron Bay to Lawson, Blue Mountains via Sydney
Greyhound, 12 hrs + Train 2 hrs
The bus ride was ok. As we arrived at Central Station we grabbed a flat white and a croissant/sausage roll for breakfast and got the train to Lawson. The train to the Blue Mountains leaves every hour.

Tip
The woman at the info at Central totally underperformed. Normally we could have bought there the Opal Card, which would have saved us some money. She didn’t tell us… We later bought the card in a newspaper store.

Lawson/Blue Mountains

Airbnb
Jan was our lovely host. She had three cute little dogs as companions. In the garden full of flowers lived a hen named”Kate Middelton”. We had a nice room at her house, in the garden was a cute, little wooden hut for two more guests. Jan was so good to us. No wishes were left. We felt like home with her. She not only answered many of our questions about the walks, but also drove us as well to the different starting points in the morning. She was the perfect host!

Blue Mountains
Wow, how beautiful was this region! This was more our thing than the beaches. So many walking options to choose from. A big plus was that so many flowers blossomed during the time we were there – although it was quiet cool. Funny to see flowers that at home bloom around Easter here bloom in September.

Tips
– Blue Mountains Best Bushwalks by Veechi Stuart
is a fantastic book to plan your walks and find your way in the Blue Mountains.
If you want to look up what we did, the numbers of the walks we did are written at the end of every short description.
– The start and/or end points of the different walks were in many cases far away from public transport. So either a car is needed or one needs a nice host like we had.

1st day, afternoon – Lawson Waterfall Loop Track
Directly at our first afternoon we did this small hike around Lawson. This one was not in the book.

2nd day – Katoomba Scenic World along the rim to Wentworth Conservation Hut.
2,3 km to Echo Point + 4,1 km to Laura Cascades + 2,4 km to Gordon Falls + 2,7 to Moya Point + 2,3 km to Conservation Hut + 2 km to the train station
It was a beautiful walk. We often were reminded of our walk at the Great Canyon in the U.S.. In the morning however it was really, really cold. Long sleeve, light fleece, soft shell jacket + knitted cap – we had it on! During the day it got a little warmer every time we were sheltered from the wind. In the late afternoon – as we waited in Wentworth for the train back to Lawson – it got really cold again. The funniest part was as we were looking for the start of the last hike on a golf course, which was described as “from hole 14 you will see a sign, which marks the start”.
Numbers of the walks that we combined as mentioned in the book: 22, 23, 24, 29, 30, 31, 33

Tip
The supermarket in Lawson had some quiet good curries in the freezer

3rd Day – Evans Lookout to Govetts Leap and further to Pulpit Rock
6,75 km + 6 km back to Blackheath train station
Again this walks took us along the rim. This time we didn’t encounter many people. The views were stunning and the second part from Govetts Leap to Pulpit Rock the walk was a real bush walk, which we liked very much. From Pulpit Rock – from where we had breathtaking views by the way – we walked 6 ks back to the train station in Blackheath.
On our way an elderly woman asked us if she heard us speaking German? She immigrated 34 years ago from Kiel, Germany. In between she had worked in Guangzhou, China – a city that we visited a few month ago What a small world!
Numbers in the book: 13 (a combination of 11 & 12)

Tip
Altitude Deli in Blackheath was a tip from our host. They had great coffee, tasty cakes and we took some yummy sandwiches back home.

During the following night something unexpected happened to Tom. that forced us to change our travel plans. After a few days in the hospital in Penrith we had to cancel our already booked flights to New Zealand and had to book flights back home to Germany. That was for sure the right thing to do, but being so close to New Zealand, having read all the fantastic walks, being so full of anticipation for the upcoming trip …. it hurt a lot.

Our journey ended in a way that we got used to traveling the last nine month. We often had plans and ideas about where, when and how to travel … but again we had to adapt – as so often – to the circumstances. As so often – it turned out to be alright! New Zealand has to wait … for now. But we will try to continue our journey … some day in the future.

We flew home on the 4th of October 2015. We had travelled for 9 months. It wasn’t always easy and not every day was only fun. BUT …
We feel privileged to could have done this journey.
We would do it again – without hesitation.
We feel honored to have met so many nice, warm and caring people!

After our return to Germany and finding new jobs and a new home – wherever that may be – we will open this new home to travelers via Couchsurfing and Airbnb. The reason for this as you may have read is, that we’ve experienced some of our best travel moments with our hosts.

Sydney via Dubai to Munich
Emirates, Aircraft A380-800
SYD – DXB 14 hrs 20 minutes
Connection in Dubai 3 hrs 10 minutes
DXB – MUC 6 hrs 20 minutes

Excellent flight, excellent service.

As always, thank you for reading.
Take care & safe travels!
We are looking forward to welcome you in our home or maybe meet you on the road some day, somewhere.
Claudia & Tom