The third and final road trip on our Australia tour. This trip we continued prioritizing relaxation and taking it slow vs. cramming everything in. We started in Sydney, drove up to Noosa, and back down to Brisbane. Every single day was rainy for our last week and a half in Australia, but we tried to make the most of it.
A lot of photos below, so grab a cup of coffee or a beer first.
Zenith Beach
We originally were not going to hike the Tomaree Head Summit Walk due to the rain. In true Nathan and Celeste fashion, we walked to Zenith Beach to see the summit we missed. While walking the beach, we saw the clouds and noticed a potential break in the rain…so we ran back to our car, put on our hiking shoes and started the trek. It’s a fairly short hike after all.
Very glad we ended up doing this hike! While the weather wasn’t the best, it definitely was worth it. It had been raining a decent amount that morning so there was a lot of rain draining down the mountain while we were hiking up.
Koalas!
Nathan unfortunately never got to see wild koalas just roaming around. We did however make a stop to visit koalas at the Koala Conservation Hospital in Port Macquarie. This free conservation hospital had a decent amount of koalas that you could observe and learn more about each one (what their names were, why they were there, etc.). Overall, a great experience to watch koalas.
Leeches!
Moral of this story, if the trail head says there are leeches in the area, you may discover a leech on you. Rewinding a bit…after a long and VERY windy road we stopped in Dorrigo National Park for a quick hike. The rain trend continued, but rain in a rain forest is not unusual. When coming to this park, I noticed a sign that leeches were active in the area today and to check your ankles any time you stop (this is important later). We hiked about 5 miles through the park observing giant trees and waterfalls along the way. At one point we took a quick break and I remembered the leech sign so I checked my ankles. AND OF COURSE THERE IS A LEECH THERE. Mind you it was the size of a small ant, but I acted like it was the size of a snake (not dramatic at all). I was paranoid the rest of the hike, but that was the only leech encounter we had.
Lounging Kangaroos
I didn’t realize the amount of animals I would mention in this post, but here is the last one. Nathan randomly found this little walk on Google Maps and it mentioned that kangaroos were often sighted there. Little did we know that we would just see so many kangaroos chilling on this cliff side living their best lives.
Noosa & Brisbane
Honestly, I’m not sure how travel bloggers do it. You upload the images, compress the files, write your thoughts out, and organize..so much effort. So here are the last images from a hike in Noosa and the skyline of Brisbane.
