Not all Treasure is Silver and Gold, Mate

After we'd left byron bay we travelled back southwards to see what Byron Bay was like. We'd booked the Wake Up hostel after someone recommended it to us, but we hadn't looked into what it would look like. The hostel was beautiful, right next to the beach, and on our first day we won $50 vouchers to the whitsunday islands. The second day we rented bikes to cycle around the neighbourhood, check out Byron in all its glory. Byron is a hippie-town, not as crazy as Nimbin, but definitely hippie.

We cycled up a hill to the lighthouse on the bay, good for the legs and health, but nobody is used to bikes on the road there. As many bike-paths as we have here, that's how little they've got there. When we arrived at the lighthouse there was this annoying zooming sound that later turned out to be a drone. We could see sharks and turtles swimming around from where we were stood up the grassy hill past the lighthouse, and there were some rocks that someone sat on to fish quietly.

At our hostel we could take out paddle-boards for free.They were gigantic and really heavy, and I couldn't stand-up-paddle to save my life, but I tried and had fun failing. We were there until it started to get dark, so we took our boards back and after rinsing them off we went back inside. The following morning Chris, Anneke and I watched the sunrise. We booked our trip to the Whitsundays from there on and we travelled on through Surfers Paradise to Brisbane.

Anneke had wanted to go to Brisbane to see her man again, even though we hadn't really planned to go to Brisbane at all. She'd seen the Island off the coast of Brisbane and in hindsight I would've wanted to go there too, but that could be something for another time. We only stayed in Brisbane for a few days, seeing the city for a bit, visiting the south-bank. The parks were beautiful. We walked through a Nepalese peace Pagoda, which looked a bit misplaced but made you feel like you were in a different world once you were walking around there. On the south-bank was a swimming pool called the blue lagoon, because you're not able to swim freely in the ocean that borders Brisbane. The blue lagoon was in the middle of the Botanical gardens, so we were surrounded by beautiful plants and trees. We had a barbecue on one of the last nights we were in Brisbane, all put together by Annekes Portuguese friends. During the barbecue they hadn't though about Samir eating halal, so I drove him to the city to get some halal burgers. Driving through Brisbane is horrifying, even worse than through Sydney to be honest, so I don't recommend doing that. I hit something twice. The city was pretty though.

Next stop: Fraser Island