Ahhh..January in Townsville. 90+ degrees Fahrenheit and 90+% humidity. And all of this right next to an ocean that we cannot swim in without chancing a excruciatingly painful death at the tenticles of a host of jellyfish. What are a couple of expats to do? Well, we decided to go south for the weekend and hit the beach. Friday morning we caught an early flight down to Brisbane. We had capitalized on a super sale that was going on in December so the two tickets ended up being cheaper than 3 tanks of gas. Our friends Chris and Sara also capitalized on the cheap air fares and flew down with us that morning. We got in, picked up the rental car, and took off on the hour drive north to the Sunshine Coast.
Brisbane is situated between two very popular and distinct beach destinations. The Gold Coast to the south has been described to me as an Australian Daytona Beach, complete with mega-highrises and even higher prices. In the other direction, the Sunshine Coast is the place to be. This is the land of lowrises, laidback surfer towns and an altogether more relaxed feel. Although the most famous location on the Sunshine Coast is Noosa (where Chris and Sara spent the weekend), we decided to stay in Mooloolaba, a half hour closer to Brisbane. We had a nice ride up the coast and checked in as soon as we arrived. We stayed in a nice hotel right on the beach. I sprung the extra 10 bucks per night for the room with an ocean view and boy was it worth it....Lindsay was happy.
Over the next two days we played in the ocean, tried a bit of surfing and body boarding, took a drive up the coast, watched the sunsets, and just relaxed. We also rented a jet ski for a half hour and took it out on the ocean. Saturday night we had a great Moroccan dinner out on the Esplanade, and Sunday night we had delicious (and cheap) Thai. The Sunny Coast was a blast.
The morning of our third day we woke up early, grabbed a breakfast pie (egg and bacon), and took off south. We zoomed past Brisbane and around 10 we arrived at the big destination: Wet and Wild, which is arguably the best waterpark in the southern hemisphere. We met up with Chris and Sara, as well as our friend Megan, who now lives in Brisbane. We spent the entire day going on every single ride in the park and feeling like little kids again. At around 7 PM we were getting tired and cold, so Lindsay and I said our goodbyes and drove back up to Brisbane where we stayed in the Formule 1 motel, the cheap "near the airport" option. We grabbed a couple of gourmet burgers from "Maccas" (AKA McDonald's, pronounced Mackers), which was the only thing open unfortunately. Exhausted, we dined on our fast food and watched some Lord of the Rings in our ghetto motel room.
The next day was Australia Day, where all of OZ commemorates the landing of the first criminals. We flew back to Townsville early that morning to find it very rainy. All the planned events and fireworks were cancelled so we hung out with our friend Andrea and drank wine here at our apartment. It was a good way to celebrate criminality.
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