The Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast

The Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast

The Sunshine Coast and the Gold Coast are both the perfect regions for spending a holiday. While the Sunshine Coast is mainly visited by families because of the nice and quiet beaches, the Gold Coast is world wide known for good surfing beaches and even has a town which is called like that, Surfers’ Paradise.

First we went to the Sunshine Coast which is situated north of Brisbane. Here we made a short stopover at the Glasshouse Mountains. Well… Australia is not the best place for mountains and it’s funny when you see that a hill with a height of 200-300 meters is called Mt. But still, it was worth stopping at the Glasshouse Mountains and hiking the trail up to the peak as we had a nice view over the whole region. Then we went to Noosa which has a very nice beach and even better the Noosa National Park has some really good trails to walk through with amazing beaches. Through the town of Noosa flows a river so you can choose if you want to kayak in the sea or in the river.

If I will remember Tasmania forever for its huge and sweet cherries, the Sunshine Coast definitely has the best mangos, pineapples and watermelons we have ever eaten. They’re so sweet that people with diabetes shouldn’t be allowed to eat them :=) and even better, there are farmers selling them for almost nothing near the road every couple of kilometers so you cannot pass without stopping.

After the Sunshine Coast we headed south for the Gold Coast which like I said, is totally different from the Sunshine Coast. Here we first went to the place called Surfer’s Paradise. Though it was very touristic with lots of huge hotels and many restaurants we liked it’s atmosphere and stayed there for 2 days before continuing our trip on the coast. The next stop was Byron Bay, which was once the typical small hippie town but soon the hippies became capitalists so it slowly caught the trend of it’s bigger sister, Surfer’s Paradise. But still, the locals kept everything small and nice so that it does not become the next big touristic attraction on the coast.

One amazing thing we’ve seen or done

I could not have left Australia without taking some surf lessons and “trying to catch the waves, dude”. And I’m so glad I did it in Byron Bay because the waves were so much better than in Surfer’s Paradise. I managed in staying on the board on the first day and liked it so much that now I’m thinking to convince Diana to come back here in April and spend some more time in search for good waves. Take a look at the pictures with me trying to stand on the board, without laughing too loud :=)

Next stop

Sydney