Hello from a shockingly large and modern library in bustling Caboolture (the place names here are just excellent), where the internet is fast and the outlets are easy to find. I’ve just spent a lovely week and a half with Daniel and Jennifer checking out Byron Bay, Gold Coast, and Brisbane.

We started out in Byron, which is a formerly sleepy, now touristy small surf town at the very northern edge of New South Wales. It has lots of beautiful beach and tons of cafes, restaurants, and trendy shops, though as we discovered once we got to Gold Coast (which is, confusingly, the name of a metropolis) it’s still relatively small and quiet. We took it pretty easy in Byron Bay, hanging at the beach and strolling around and just generally catching up.

The big activity we did was a snorkel tour of Julian Rocks, a very famous dive site just off the coast. Unfortunately the tour operator only handed out spring suits (i.e. thinner, short arm and leg wetsuits) and it really was not warm enough for that, in the air or in the water. This meant that everyone on the boat was cold just on the ride over, and it was a little bit harder to savor the snorkeling. The spot was still beautiful though, with lots of fish, a couple of turtles (including a rare, critically endangered hawksbill), and some sharks milling around down below. It’s also whale season right now, with humpback whales migrating north along the coast, and we got lucky and got to see some very close on the ride out and back. Their breathing is extremely loud!

After Byron Bay we meandered up to Gold Coast by way of a nice stroll to a dry waterfall. Gold Coast turns out to feel a lot like Miami, with basically just several rows of high rise apartment buildings lining a long, long beach. Needless to say we fit right in. We had some delicious Indian food and wandered around a night market, but one of the very coolest things we did on the whole trip was visit the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary. They have a ton of different very cool animals to look at, and their bird show, where the shockingly well trained birds fly around right over the audience’s heads, was incredible. We spent a very fun several hours wandering through the whole park gawking.

Then it was time to head on to Brisbane, which we did by way of Tamborine Mountain. The day started with a winding drive up through vineyards and trendy cafes, with a quick stop off at a spot with an incredible view where parasailers were launching. Once we got to the national park (everything is a national park here) we did the Witches Falls track, which turned out to be an absolutely gorgeous hike through eucalyptus and temperate rainforest. At one point Daniel was absolutely convinced he’d seen a wild pig, which turned out to be a turkey. Everyone playing their part.

Brisbane was nice as well. It is, in fact, an actual city, and we spent time wandering around, checking out a great viewpoint, and chowing down. Our last big activity was a day tour to Moreton Island. Moreton is one of several large islands around here that you can take a ferry to, but then can only get around with a 4 wheel drive. That meant my van unfortunately wouldn’t cut it, so we booked a tour where they took us sandboarding down a huge dune, then kayaking and snorkeling around a series of shipwrecks right next to the beach. Sand boarding was pretty fun but a bit uncomfortable—the highlight was either Daniel getting the only board that wouldn’t slide, or me destroying a board (and myself, to a certain extent) trying to take a flying start, depending on where you’re sitting.

Kayaking was quite silly. The shipwrecks are all in a line quite close to the beach, and the directive was basically “go check them out”. The thing was that there was a substantial current, so the result was basically a while spent on a kayak treadmill. Even with kayaks made out of clear plastic there really weren’t enough shipwrecks or fish to look at for it to be that fun for that long. The snorkeling was surprisingly good though—it turns out you can see a lot more fish in the water with a mask on than you can through the bottom of a kayak (surprise!). The extra maneuverability of swimming also let us get more into the wrecks, where we could see how much beautiful coral was growing everywhere.

And then, before we knew it, that was it! We packed up that night and I dropped Daniel and Jennifer off at the airport early the next morning. This was the longest I’ve gotten to hang out with them in a long, long time, and it was decidedly good for the soul. It was a brief taste of the high life too, sleeping in a building, showering whenever I wanted, eating a diet that didn’t include beans every other meal. What a world!

Now I’m back in the van and it’s been a good couple of days. I was inspired by a friend in Sydney to randomly go and donate blood, which was great. I’d never donated blood before because, after my 6 years growing up in France, the US suspected me of having mad cow disease. It had always annoyed me, because I’m generally healthy and large and not afraid of needles, and donating blood felt like pretty much the easiest possible way to do some good. So that was an item checked off the bucket list, and I’m planning on donating another couple of time before I leave Australia.

I’ve also been working on the last few errands/purchases to get fully settled into the van. I finally bought a pan, taped up fairy lights so it looks very homey, and bought the materials to fully block out my curtains when I want to. I even went for a run!

Van life in Australia is a bit less straightforward than in New Zealand, and not just because of the camping issues I talked about in the last post. The other thing I’ve been finding tricky is just deciding where to go and what to do. New Zealand is so small, and so dense with incredible hikes, that it was quite easy to just wake up, hike, look at the map for the next hike down the road, and repeat. Here there are a couple of things that make it a bit harder. For one, it’s much bigger (duh). For another, the main activity I want to do these days is surf. But surfing is heavily dependent on the conditions, and the forecast is for very little swell this week. On top of that, I’m only a mediocre surfer, so instead of just looking for the best surf spots I’m actually looking for the least crowded ones, which is a bit trickier to figure out. It seems obvious that the solution is just to drive up the coast and stop wherever looks good, but the geography here seems to be predominantly a series of peninsulas with the beach at least 30 minutes from the main road. That means you have to pick your spots to go check out, or you could spend all day driving back and forth and barely get anywhere. And since I’m not totally comfortable with the totally standard technically illegal camping approach, I’m already doing a fair amount of driving back and forth.

Anyway, these are ultimately minor issues. I’m excited to finally get fully settled in the van, start cooking all my meals, get in surfing shape, read a bunch, and maybe even do some projects. Since they’re almost certain not to actually happen, these projects will remain unnamed.

You can find the videos for this post here. They’re all courtesy of Jennifer, documentarian par excellence. That’s me with the extremely cool hat surfing—look how close those whales are! Look at Daniel failing at sandboarding, even with a push from the guide! Listen to the sound I make when I hit the dune with a flying start! It really conveys the sensation quite faithfully.