On the way to our first night at Port Macquarrie, we made a few detours from the highway to see the shoreline.

There are so many amazing beaches, it is hard to not become a bit blasé about them.

Once we arrived in ‘Port’ (as it is locally known), we weren’t in our bnb five minutes, when we realized that the Koala hospital was less than 5 minutes away and was starting a tour in about 7 minutes. Off we went…

The Koala hospital was located on an old homestead which also contained a farm house from the 1870s. It has the iconic wrap-around deck, so common here in Australia.

While in Port, we did a few excursions out to beaches (of course…)

After a couple days, we headed further north, stopping here and there to…

and …

… see more beaches.

Our next stop was Byron Bay, another iconic Aussie locale, famous for surfing and, well, … beaches. It was not named after Lord Byron, but interestingly, his grandfather, Lord Byron, also once Governor of Newfoundland.

They do surf at Byron Bay, although it is not actually one of the best surf beaches.

Byron Bay has another connection, however tenuous, with Newfoundland. Just as Cape Spear, Newfoundland is the most easterly point in North America, Cape Byron is the most easterly point in Australia.

Being a tourist destination, we spent a few days to enjoy…

and ventured inland to see some farmland, including these Macadamia orchards.

Next, we continued ever northward passing the Gold coast on the way.

At Coolangatta, we found some surfing instructions which I thought might serve as a great life motto:

I also found inspiration for my next project at the cottage.

Our most northerly destination was Buderim, Queensland, where our good friends John and Julia live. We knew John and Julia from our time in Dubai, where they were a great inspiration to enjoy life. Their love of music makes for great evenings.

They also keep bees in their backyard.

While there, they gave us a demonstration of how you ‘keep’ bees.

After a couple days of their hospitality, we started on our return trip, looping out into the outback to check out some non-beach scenery.

On the way, we passed through endless fields of wheat, cotton and other crops. We also saw lots of prickly pear, which is one of many invasive species.

On our first night in Goondiwindi, we were so far out in the back, they had to share a giant sign post to let us know where we were.

After another picnic or two in small dusty outback towns,

… we arrived in Coonabarabran, which is the closest town to the Warrambungle National Park.

We went off to the park to do some hiking. On the way, we found a few oddities like the …

We were confronted by a couple kangaroos, just sort of hanging around in the bush like they had nothing better to do.

However, they did not stop us from hiking up to the Grand High Tops Trail…

… and the Dagda Saddle

After all that, we simply drove home and went back to work.