Our Month in Australia – Final

The Final Weeks

I’m going to be wrapping up this final installment and cover almost two full weeks of our Month in Australia, so it’s going to go over a lot of ground. I’m starting to write this section as we’ve been in Brisbane for 3 days, and by the time I’m finished writing, we would have been in two more destinations, completing it near the end of this trip.

We spent 5 days in Melbourne. We ended up staying in two large cities throughout our trip, and Melbourne was by far my favourite. Melbourne is a sprawling city, and on many days, we walked 7-8 Km. We had lots of good weather while here, other than the travel days, so it made walking around the city a nice way to explore. We were within walking distance of many restaurants and shopping, and if we didn’t feel like it, we could take the tram which was free in the central city district.

We remember when we arrived in Melbourne, driving into the city, it was pouring rain and that first day walking from the hotel to find a place to have lunch, we all got drenched just walking a few blocks. It was the same heavy rain on the day we left Melbourne for the airport, but every day in between it was generally great weather, sunny and around 30.

In addition to taking the tram, or once or twice an Uber to get around, most of it was walking. One of the unique places we went to in Melbourne was a jazz club called Bird’s Basement, where we had dinner and drinks while we listened to the band play. It wasn’t a spontaneous idea to go to the jazz club as it was suggested by the husband of my cousin in Bendigo, long before we were in Melbourne. I can’t say that I’m a big jazz fan, but it’s always a great experience seeing live music when on vacation and getting a taste of the local music scene.

Also, while in Melbourne, Barb and Liz had made arrangements to do a tour along the Great Ocean Road. Barb asked me if I was interested in joining them, but I declined after finding out the tour was going to be about 14 hours, which was about 12 hours longer than my enjoyment of these kinds of outings. After returning, both said that they really enjoyed the tour but both were very tired by the time they got back to the hotel around 9 PM.

Leaving Melbourne

After our stay in Melbourne came to a close, we were back again at the airport, boarding our flight and heading north to our next destination of Brisbane. We had dropped off the rental car when we first arrived in Melbourne, so we were free from needing to deal with that before moving on. Knowing that we would be staying in Brisbane was a concern for us long before leaving Vancouver, as Brisbane was part of the area of Australia reported to have been hit by Cyclone Alfred. At this writing, we’ve been here in Brisbane for about 3 days, and I can report that … there appears to have been zero impact from the cyclone. There isn’t one noticeable part of the city that appears to have been damaged in any way.

The Smaller Big City

We planned to stay in Brisbane for three full days, and moving up north from Melbourne was part of our plan to situate us closer to our next destination. After disembarking the plane, were immediately hit with the higher humidity of Brisbane, which we hadn’t experienced anywhere since arriving over two weeks ago. We were now well into the middle part of our Month in Australia, where we were staying in hotels in between stays with family.

Brisbane, compared to Melbourne, was much smaller and more compact in every way. Our hotel in Brisbane was in the downtown area, and we walked everywhere, rarely more than 10 blocks away. The area where we ended up spending much of our time was the Queen Street Mall, just a few blocks from our hotel. A massive mall with a combination of outdoor and indoor shops and restaurants, which we went back to again and again over the days.

All of us were cognisant of purchasing anything too bulky as we all had precious little room in our suitcases although we had all joked about the possibility of buying another bag if we wanted to purchase anything a bit larger.

We planned to rent our second car near the end of our stay in Brisbane as we would be driving, not flying, to our next destination. It turned out there was a car rental office just around the corner from our hotel, so it was very convenient for me to pick up the car and then drive around the block to get everyone else and load the luggage before heading off north again, driving about almost two hours to Noosaville, our next family stay, located on Australia’s Sunshine Coast.

The Not So Sunshine Coast

In every case, we all looked forward to our stays with family during our Month in Australia and driving up to Noosaville from Brisbane, our longest drive yet, had our spirits high despite driving in the heavy rain. But after all, we were driving up to Australia’s famed Sunshine Coast, how long could the rain possibly last? As it turns out, quite a while.

For the most part, it ended up raining the entire time we were with family in Noosaville. There were times when the rain stopped for a time, but overall it was fairly relentless, and we all got used to carrying umbrellas and hats while walking outside. There was at least one time we stayed under cover of a shop, hoping the driving rain would ease off, which it did not. Now, keep in mind that we’re from Vancouver, known all over for the amount of rain we get, so it’s not like we’re not used to it but it’s not something we expect to this degree while in Australia.

My cousin and his wife made us feel right at home and took us to see several of the local sights, including a ferry to Noosa Heads Beach, a surfing hot spot and also having lunch at the Noosa Heads Surf Club. The combination of seeing the local sites and spending time indoors made it for a casual few days where we mostly enjoyed the company of my cousin and his wife, also allowing us to talk for many hours.

The Island, Luggage Optional

We had only planned a short stay with family in Noosaville, and soon it was time to pack up the suitcases again to make our return drive back to Brisbane, in heavy rain, of course.  I had made arrangements to drop off the car at the Brisbane Airport, making it much easier to get our next flight to Hamilton Island. One of only two destinations on this trip that we also did on our first trip to Australia in 2011 (Melbourne being the other), Hamilton Island was also our final location to finish our Australia trip before heading back home.

Hamilton Island was a short 90-minute flight from Brisbane and we were all looking forward to returning here with the memories of the previous visit fresh in our minds. When we stepped off the plane, we were treated to hot sunshine and incredibly high humidity. Luckily, we were all wearing shorts, making the warm weather a bit more bearable.

Unlike the previous Hamilton Island visit, we weren’t staying at a hotel, preferring to rent a 2-bedroom condo. We had made arrangements for us to be met at the airport in a golf cart, which is a common way to get around on the island and allow us to drive the four of us to our condo.

However, we were given the bad news that our luggage didn’t make it onto the flight.

It would take another 24 hours before our luggage finally arrived on the next day’s flight from Brisbane. It’s amazing how many difficulties you experience without your luggage, such as not having a change of clothes or even just being able to charge your phone.

We’ve been on Hamilton Island for a few days now and toured the island in the golf cart, also going to the local grocery store several times to replenish our supplies. Overall, the weather has been very good, sometimes raining in the morning and usually clearing up with sun later in the day with temperatures in the high 20’s and of course, very high humidity.

And Finally …

I’m writing this last section on Tuesday, April 1st and we will be flying home tomorrow, so we’re all in suitcase-packing mode again. We will be home in Vancouver on the same day, gaining one day that we lost arriving in Australia almost four weeks ago.

We’d never travelled anywhere for a month, so this was new ground for all of us. We had decided from the very early planning days to make the focus of this trip to visit and see family, and we are all glad that we did that. One of our regrets from the first trip to Australia years ago was that we did not do this and only met most of the family on a single day. The last four weeks went by fairly quickly, and there wasn’t a time when I was counting the days for it to end, which is always a good sign, especially since I have to go to work the day after we get home.

We’d experienced more rain on this trip than we thought we’d see this time of year, but we always tried to make the best of it. Luckily, the cyclone that hit the coast about 4 weeks ago didn’t impact us or any of our family.

I now feel that, if it came to it, I could drive on the left side of the road permanently. It took a very short time for me to be really comfortable driving here and even driving in the city, as long as I had Apple CarPlay navigation to guide me, was not very stressful, also considering most of our long drives were in the rain.

We’ve now done two trips to Australia, 15 years apart. Will we return? Definitely, as Barb and I want to come to Australia again in the future to attend the Australian Open tennis which would make it a January trip. Lots of travel planning to do.

We have two more trips booked for later 2025, and my retirement date has been pushed out to the end of this year, so both of these will still be while I’m still working. We’ll connect again in several months.

By now I’ve uploaded all of my photos from this Australian trip, visible on my photo website here.

Take care and safe travels,

Baden