Helloooo hellooo!

As I mentioned in my previous blog, I went on a road trip along the Sunshine Coast. I did this together with my friends from Argentina I met in Brisbane. They are travelling with a campervan and they picked me up here in Montville. We started our road trip at the Buderim Falls. We suspected a short walk so Mariel and I wore flip flops, but eventually it turned out that it was quite a long walk, how funny? Luckily it was an easy walk so not too bad for our poor feet. However, the falls were really nice. Later that day we arrived at our hostel in Mooloolaba. Did some grocery shopping and had dinner. We went out for a beer and played some games in a pub.

On the second day of the trip we started with a stand up paddle boarding tour. The hostel was offering it for free, definitely something we had to do. And guess what? It was really nice. It is quite a balance sport, but once you get the balance it is not that hard anymore. After that we had some swimming pool rest (try to get some tan) and visited the beach. In the evening we had our lovely barbecue dinner at the beach and we talked a lot. We learned a lot about the differences in our cultures and enjoyed the lovely evening. The next morning we decided to go surf. The hostel was renting the surfboards for free as well (I know, how awesome is this hostel that everything is for free?!) and asked them where to go. I was teaching Fernando and Mariel how to stand up and went into the water. The current was pretty strong so it was not easy to stand up at all! It didn’t really matter, because we had lots of fun. I gave them a bit of the surf feeling and the weather was awesome! After our surf session we continued our road trip up to Inskip. We arrived at 5pm ish and set up my tent. We literally ran to the beach for watching the sunset, otherwise we would have missed it. It was stunning! The sky was orange, pink, yellow or whatever color, just awesome! In the evening it was time for playing the Dutch game “regenwormen”.

The next day I started my day with a beautiful sunrise at the beach. Had a good breakfast and went to some sand dunes with a lookout spot. Waaaauuuw. Every single time I am impressed by the fact that Australia has so many beautiful spots. It’s just stunning. We spend here a couple of hours and took a lot of pictures, you just never get bored of it. Then it was time for another beach. What a lovely day was it. And again we ended our day by playing games. The next day in the morning we packed up everything and drove back to Montville, because I had to work in the evening. Maybe it sounds as a boring trip, but it was a really good break and awesome to being out of Montville. And it was great to sleep in a hostel again, went for camping, saw amazing spots, enjoyed the weather and learned more about the Argentina culture. Nice nice nice!

My hours are a bit bad lately, what brought another opportunity for travelling. This time I went with my housemate (read co-worker) for two nights to Stradbroke Island on recommendation of my other co-worker. We booked a hostel for two nights and there the new travel started. By public transport it takes forever to get somewhere. Luckily our other housemate could bring us to the train station in Palmwoods which decreased our travel time from 6 hours into 5 hours.

So after a long travel morning we arrived at the Island. Dropped our luggage at the hostel and took the bus to the lookout point. Over here we were meeting a friend of my housemate and did the Boardwalk along the coast. It was a short walk, but again with amazing views. There were kangaroos and lots of beautiful views. We walked back via the beach, went for a swim and watched the sunset. We only made one mistake: we thought we could walk back on a sandbar -> WRONG!!. The water was increasing so quickly that we almost got in trouble, it was scary at that point but now we can laugh about it. In the evening we met some lovely people in the hostel.

On the second day we decided to rent a surfboard. Again I was teaching the others how to stand up. The sea conditions were better this time, so we spent a few hours in the water. I managed to stand up almost every time, which made it so much fun for me. Next time I will go further into the sea and try to stand up at the blue waves. In the afternoon we had our late lunch in a nice chilled out café and a lazy evening on the couch with some wines.

On the last day we planned doing a hike to the river. We woke up, the weather was good, and so we got up and ate some breakfast. After breakfast it started raining and it seemed like it was not going to stop for the whole day. We rearranged our plans into a shopping day. We went on an early ferry and went to Brisbane. We spent basically the whole day over there and took the last train back to Palmwoods where our housemate picked us up.

The time is passing by so fast, I can’t even believe it. So I have been thinking about my travels after Montville…. On the 19^th of June I will fly to Broome, the 21^st I start a West coast tour for ten days down to Perth. I will stay in Perth for 2 nights and fly back to Surfers Paradise (Gold Coast). From there I will travel for three weeks along the East coast where I will catch up with my lovely friend Anu I met in Tasmania and will travel together from there. Of course I will do all the highlights of the East coast. On the 24^th on July it is time to leave this beautiful country (by myself) and experience a completely different culture in Southeast Asia. This will be for the last six weeks of my travel year, because on September 4^th I will be back in the Netherlands. It’s scary, crazy and such mixed feelings that the end is getting closer. So I realize now what I have to do even more then I am already doing: “ENJOY” before it’s over!

Next to all this my work is good, my house I life in is funny and my co-workers are awesome. I keep on meeting new great people which is even better and I think I am lucky with sunny weather and 23 degrees during fall. Sounds not bad, does it?

PS: more pictures are in the album: Road trip.

Thank you all for reading, it was a pleasure again.

Cuddles and kisses to you all! Cheers