Winter blues? snooze...

We are now officially in mid winter in Australia. The sun has turned once again and the days are getting longer. Sydney is however still coldish and the other day we woke up with ice on the inside of our windows. I guess that mainly tells you a bit about how badly our apartment is isolated, however it was also the coldest week in Sydney since 1949. As a norwegian you cant help laughing a bit inside when Sydneysiders are discussing the cold weather on the bus. Yes it is cold but its not that cold. Its still 16 degrees during the day and 10 degrees at night. I believe the issue is rather that people just don't have warm enough clothes. Nevertheless, when your winter only lasts from June to September complaining is not allowed.

In saying that, if you get hit by winter blues why not snooze with a trip to warmer weather up the coast. That is what we decided to do late last week. Last Friday, Hanne, Lars and myself jumped on an afternoon flight up to Queensland (the sunshine state) to snooze away some winter weather and for a Gold Coast, Byron Bay, Nimbin, Brisbane road trip.

  Hanne and Cecilie on the beach in Surfers Paradise, Gold Coast


We started our trip with a night in Surfers Paradise, a very tacky Miami Beach look alike place, but also a must see and do on the Gold Coast. The best part of the Gold Coast are the beautiful beaches. There are just miles of perfect beaches and during summer its packed with tourists. Lucky for us it is "winter" and "only" 23 degrees so we had the beach to our selves together with some european tourists. I have to report that we did sun bade on the beach for a few hours and we now go by the name "The Crazy Norwegians".

Lars in Byron Bay, out by the lighthouse

Next stop on our road trip program was to head south to Byron Bay. Byron is 1,5h South from the Gold Coast and you cross back in to the New South Wales border (not the sunshine state???) We drove down to Byron along the coast during the afternoon and we actually stayed in a backpacker hostel. I must say it was a bit weird to write down my age on a paper note at the hostel, but 29 is better then 30..... Although the backpacker was very nice, cost us nothing and we had our own room and bathroom we where happy to stay at a 5 star apartment in Brisbane after one night in a Backpacker Hostel. Its been a long time since we fell asleep to the sound of someone throwing up in the next room.  OMG we are getting old......

                          Nimbin, the town of "peace mate" and "drugs mate?"


Last stop before Brisbane (or Brisvegas as Sydneysiders like to call it) was Nimbin, the number one hippie town of Australia. Its really just a "drive through and have a quick look" town. But it is interesting to see how some people still live and breath the peace and love life. There are a lot of herbs in this town.

After stopping in Nimbin on Sunday we drove up to Brisbane and the Sunshine state again and the temperatures crawled back over 20 degrees. I worked in our Brisbane office on the Monday and Tuesday while the other guys did some sightseeing and shopping (life is not always fair).

Nevertheless it was a great snoozzzze from cold, old Sydney, and a taste of the summer to come.

Have a great summer in Europe.

Hugs from Cecilie and Lars