Sunshine Coast & Byron Bay, Australia

We've been staying with friends Steve and Maria just north of Brisbane on the sunshine coast in a place called Currimundi for the last week. It's been really great to chill for a while and excellent weather too, and it was really nice to see where Maria is now living, having emigrated from London six months ago. We've been up to Noosa and spent time in and around Caloundra, down on the beach playing tennis and cricket, went to see some wild kangaroos, fishing in the sea etc. We had a couple of BBQs in their back garden and even had a barbecued breakfast one morning. They live only a 20 minute walk from the local beach, and it is definitely an enviable lifestyle. Having applied for our India visas in Brisbane and posted some of our winter clothes home, we headed south yesterday to Byron Bay. Byron is a beautiful place, with an incredible sandy beach that seems to go on forever. The town is quaint and friendly with lots of great shops, restaurants and bars. Apparently, it used to be a popular hippy hangout here in the 70s but with the rise of tourism, locals have been priced out of the area and only the richest hippies remain ;o) We went walking around the cape of Byron today, which was a relaxing experience until a kangaroo suddenly burst across the path not 15 feet in front of us! We've booked our tickets to Coffs Harbour for tomorrow morning.