20th Feb - 4th March Coolangatta to Kinka Beach (Great Keppel Island)

Days spent:
Coolangatta: 3
Surfers Paradise: 5
Noosa: 3
Hervey Bay: 1
Kinka Beach (Great Keppel Island): 2

The journey to the Gold Coast takes you through cauldra of Mount Warning, a picturesque valley of sub tropic flora and mountains. It brightened up as we came over the hills toward the coast.

You know when you arrive at the Gold Coast, it's like Miami to look at, high rises set against the sea. On the way to our campsite (as recommended by our Top Tourist Guide), we passed into Queensland as we went from Tweed Heads (New South Wales), to Coolangatta (which is basically the same place).

We stopped off at Danger Point first, where you could see Snapper Rocks below, where many surfers were catching the waves of a huge swell.

For once the sun was shining, so we took a walk from Kirra Point to Snapper Rocks, both famous surf spots. We stood on the jetty at Kirra Point and noticed a lot of professional photographers, later we found out that many of the worlds pro surfers were out there. We had fortunately arrived just before the Quicksilver and Roxy Pro. surfing competition and were lucky enough to witness some real professionals making the most of the huge waves - 2-3 times overhead and full stand up barrels.

We took a look at the set up for the competition. There were stands, competition merchandise shops, food stalls, and on the beach, a big screen to see the surfing close up. This was all situated around Rainbow Bay Surf Club, which had a fantastic view of Snapper Rocks and the comp.

As we were pretty starving by this time, we thought we would treat ourselves to lunch here and had a huge burger on the veranda overlooking the sea. What a fab place to be at that time and we thought we could get accustomed to this, but not likely on our budget. Oz seem to have a lot of money invested in their clubs, from bowling clubs to ex-service men clubs, including the surfers clubs. Each one is extremely new, plush, with bars and restaurants producing sophisticated menus.

That evening, as we sat drinking our wine, our next door neighbour came over to ask us what time it was and whether we were in Queensland time or NWS time. Urh, that was news to us. We finally realised that going into Queensland meant we needed to put our clocks back an hour. It seemed a bit strange that one part of town was in one time zone and the other was an hour behind.

On one of the days in Coolangatta we went down to see the preliminary rounds for new talent to compete against the pros. in the main event. We watched all the way to the finals (and getting sun burnt in the process), and also the presentation to the winners by Kelly Slater (world famous surfer and multiple world champion).

Not far up the road was Surfers Paradise (SP), where we had planned to stay for a few nights. That morning we jumped out of bed and out of the van at the crack of dawn because the heat was cooking us in our oven-style, tin-can-of-a-van. It was reported that a heat wave was upon us, with temperatures reaching 39 degrees.

Luckily it was only a short trip to SP, and as soon as we got to our campsite (which was opposite the beach), we flung our swimming cossies on and jumped in the sea, and stayed there for most of the morning.

We checked out SP town centre and had an afternoon Guinness, as you do. On the way back we had a kebab, as you also do (saves cooking and it's cheap). The southerly winds had arrived and made it difficult walking back. We felt thankful of our little van when we saw a few tents had been blown down and their stuff scattered all over the place.

The next day the weather had taken a turn for the worse and while Carl was happily playing in the waves, Vik slept on the beach complaining it was too cold to go in the sea - even though the water was about 24 degrees.

Unfortunately, we had arranged to do two day trips, one to Warner Brothers Movie World and Wet n Wild over the wettest period of our time in SP. One thing was pretty good about the weather was that Movie World was really quiet so we didn't have to queue for any of the rides. Our favourite rides were, the Scooby Doo rollercoaster (in the dark), Superman rollercoaster, which shot up to the top right from the start. Lethal Weapon was crap because it hurt our ears from the jerking motion. We were also entertained by the Police Academy stunt show. See Pics.

The next day we were supposed to go to Wet n Wild, but it was cold (too cold for Vik) and raining continuously - not great for a water park. Therefore we found the only indoor entertainment we could find (and afford), an indoor crazy golf course with themes of Jurassic and Ancient Egypt. There was some serious competition, but Vik won one for once.

The weather had slightly improved, at least it didn't rain. Wet n Wild, being American and all that, was extremely strict (hadn't been told off as much in years!), and had many do's and don'ts which made some of the rides really tame and even slightly boring. However, we did enjoy the Tornado and the SurfRider. Again, it was really quiet, so we were able to go on all the rides over and over again.

After a few fun days in SP, it was up north to Noosa Heads/Noosa Village. Another surf spot, but a nice boutique town and a bit of a rich folk's playground. This also happened to be one of the closest places to stay for visiting Australia Zoo, the home of the Crocodile Hunter - Steve Irwin).

The evening of our arrival was spent walking through the national park of Noosa Heads, known to be a whale spotting location as well as Koalas, and Sea Eagles. We took the coastal track and watched long board surfers making the most of the small, slow, sheltered waves. The total walk was around 7km, and it was getting dark by the time we made it back through the forest and the night creatures were beginning to make themselves heard.

Our first full day at Noosa was to visit Australia Zoo, which was full of Oz animals, but to Vik's disappointment, no Duck-billed Platypus. The aim of this zoo is conservation through exciting education. Hence they had loads of animals wandering around the park for you to pet, such as Red Kangaroos, Wallabies, Wombats, Koalas, Echidnas. Obviously there were crocodiles, but not for petting. Crikey! Vik wanted to take a Koala home, and Carl wanted to nick a Wombat.

It was a very polished set up, with the main focus on the crocodiles, and teaching kids about conservation, also some very handy info on how not to get eaten by crocs. Crikey!

For one, the next day was sunny and hot, so we walked around the fancy boutiques before Carl hired a long board (9' 2" Donald Takayama) and headed for the beach. The break was really crowded, mostly of women pro surfers practicing for the Noosa Festival of Surf, so it was difficult to get a wave to himself, but was worth the wait as it was a great wave - probably the best in Australia. Vik didn't even want to bother, so she went for swim instead.

That evening we spoilt ourselves with a meal at one of the fancy seafront restaurants, the first proper meal we'd had that we hadn't cooked ourselves since 'Uncle Bob's' fab Sunday Roast. We had Scallops, King Prawn tempura for starters, followed by Grilled Barramundi and Sword Fish - Yum!

We left Noosa on the same day as the start of the Noosa Festival, which was a shame to miss, but we had to move on. We had an overnight stop at Hervey Bay, the gateway town to Frasier Island. Unfortunately you need to have a 4X4 car to go there, so we gave it a miss. It didn't really have much going for the place, other than its close proximity to Fraser Island, so we spent most of the time updating our blog, which was at a reasonable price compared to a lot of places. Although, the campsite was really nice and was really spacious. Vik got eaten by a load of mozzies, as usual.

Our next stop was to be Yappoon, for access to Great Keppel Island, however we found a really nice campsite opposite Kinka Beach, south of Yappoon. This was an area where wild Emus lived, but we didn't get to see any. Also, we were now north enough for crocodiles too!

The journey on the way to Kinka Beach was one of the longest journeys we had done so far. The road had reduced to a single carriageway and the road was so straight that mirages formed in the distance. It was also important to fill up with petrol at every opportunity, as these didn't come very often as there was nothing for miles except trees.

We got up early to catch the 9:00 ferry to Great Keppel Island, but were a bit too casual about the whole thing that we arrived at the wrong marina, only to discover with minutes to spare that it was 2 km away at a totally different place. We screeched our little van around the corners (which everyone heard from miles around), to get to the ticket office right at 9pm. We needn't have bothered as the ferry didn't leave until 9:30!

The ferry trip was really bumpy, as the weather had been really bad with rain and winds. Fortunately, we were having one of those rare sunny days. We arrived at the island around 10am and we were left there to amuse ourselves for 6 hours. All the resorts were closed (for refurbishment), and there wasn't much around but beach and trees.

We spent some time swimming and walking along the empty beach. It was weird wandering through the resorts that were abandoned, bit ghost townish. We were planning on going snorkeling but the conditions were too bad because of the winds churning up the sea. Vik thought she saw a sea snake, so we didn't do any swimming after that. It was a bit hard trying to do nothing, it didn't come to us very easily, but we killed the time in the shade where possible because of the scorching heat.

Our next stop was Airlie Beach, gateway to the Whitsunday Islands.