Newcastle to Brisbane (Fri 9th - Tues 13th Jan 2009)

On the road again. We have hired a car (Kia ) from Europcar in Newcastle and plan to drop it off in Cairns 3000 kilometres north of here in 11 days time. For the past 5 days we have been wending our way slowly up to Brisbane. Our first stop was the surfing town of Crescent Head to pick up Gwen's son Graeme who has been travelling all round Australia for the past month. He had just completed a surfing course and was joining us for 3 days. Our first night was spent in a YHA hostel in Coffs Harbour, an attractive holiday town about 400k north of Newcastle. We hired bikes and cycled around the harbour and jetty for a couple of hours.

We then headed 250k north to Byron Bay. However en route we came across the small town of Maclean which calls itself "the Scottish town in Australia". It sells haggis and all the street signs are in English and Gaelic. They have tarten lamp-posts. Byron Bay is a lovely town which seems to attract both the backpacker brigade (in which I include ourselves) and the Ozzie C list celeb type of person. Apparently the town was named after the grandfather of Lord Byron who was a mate of Captain Cook. In fact most place names in Oz seem to be named after Cook or one of his cronies. Some enthusiastic admin clerk in Sydney thought it was named after the poet and decided to name all the other streets in the town after famous poets. We stayed 2 nights in a rather expensive motel in Shirley St (I think he/she was a poet)as all the cheaper backpacker places were fully booked. Byron Bay is a lovely place with good beaches, great restaurants and a lively atmosphere and lots (heaps as they say here ) of young talent ! Sounding a bit like a dirty old man here

While Graeme practiced his surfing on Clarkes beach a short drive and a short walk took Gwen and me to Cape Byron which gives spectacular views from the summit and is the most easterly point in Australia.

The following day we headed for Brisbane. On route we dropped Graeme off at the Gold Coast Airport for his flight to Sydney and then home. The airport is just across the border in Queensland (1 hour behind NSW time). We then headed a few further miles north to Southport to meet another of Gwen's relatives Derani who was very helpful and gave us good advice on what to see on our travels. On reaching Brisbane we had time to check into our rather grotty hostel before spending a couple of very relaxed hours keeping out of the heat travelling up and down the Brisbane River on the City Cat - great value for money.

On our second day we drove a few miles out of town to Mt Coot-he Reserve which is a bit cooler and again gives good views of the city. We also killed some time by visiting the Planetarium to refresh our knowledge on the Solar System and the star constellations. However the highlight of our stay in Brisbane has to be a visit to the Gabba which is one of Australia's famous cricket grounds. I think its a good idea to go to see a local sporting event and fortunately there was a 20/20 evening cricket match on between Australia and South Africa (Australia won) There was a crowd of around 35,000 and it was played under floodlight. It was a good evening's entertainment with loud rock music between every ball. It was also a chance to say farewell to Matthew Hayden, one of their most famous players who did a lap of honour after announcing earlier in the day his retirement from the game.