After our short stop in Alice Springs, we were off to Brisbane. Only spent enough time there to pick up our rental car and off to Coolangata on the Gold Coast. We were looking forward to spending a week on the beach with a bit more luxury than our trip to the Outback. Our resort was right on the beach and we were on the 12th floor with two balconies, one was wrap-around. We had views of the ocean and the mountains.

This was the view from our balcony. There was a market
in the park on Sunday. We spent some time there and then
walked to the beach and suntanned(burned, just a bit)

We did a bit of touring the next day to the interior rain forest and some
mountain areas. We went to a cave where we saw some bats.

On the Monday through to Thursday, there was an international
surfing competition at our beach. There were great waves due to the Cyclone off shore
and the competition was quite good. It was won by a local surfer. People were
quite pleased with that. We didn't have to go down to the beach, we could
watch everything from our balcony.

Footprints in the sand.

During one of our walks, we came upon a lot of surfers enjoying
the waves.

The walk would take us about one hour and we climbed up and
down the coast and had great panoramas.

This is a view of the small urban area looking inland. We climbed up
a small lookout which we could see from our room.

On our way to Sydney, we stopped at a few places that Marilyn had suggested.
This was the lighthouse at Byron Bay. From here, we saw a huge pod
of dolphins frolicking in the waves.

The beach view in the other direction from Byron Bay lighthouse.
Very few people on this beach.

It was a bit windy, but very warm and Jannose wanted to try
her flying skills.

A seafood restaurant at Nelson Bay. No people lined up, but there were
some birds waiting to eat.

We went on a dolphin watching cruise on a catamaran. We
saw a few of them, but the greatest part was just hanging out
enjoying the silence as we sailed out in the harbour area.
Very relaxing as you can see from the picture below.

That night we went down to the harbour again and waited for the
sunset. This was just one of the twenty pictures that Jannose
took during the 5 minute period.

So, this was the end of our little mini-adventure from Adelaide to Sydney. We had landed in Sydney and Greg and Marilyn had picked us up and we had headed for the Blue Mountains and eventually, Melbourne. We were headed back to Sydney and so were they to meet us for our last five days in Australia. It was a bit sad for us to realize that our time in Australia was winding down. But we had five days in Bondi Beach to look forward to with our friends. Good times!!!!