We spent the holiday season in lovely Coolum Beach, located in the Sunshine Coast of Queensland.  Queensland is one of Australia’s six states and is three times the size of Texas!  Although Australia’s Gold Coast is much more of a popular vacation destination for tourists, we selected the Sunshine Coast because we had read about its laid back vibe and smaller crowds.  We were very lucky to find a newly-renovated studio apartment in Coolum Beach, which is managed by a nice Aussie-Kiwi couple who invited us over for a Christmas Eve barbie (BBQ).  We enjoyed the traditional “shrimp on the barbie”, chicken satay skewers, lamp chops, grilled stuffed mushrooms and South African sausage.  For dessert, we were served a traditional British sherry trifle that became Mike’s new favorite dessert.  It was a great night filled with laughs and traditional Christmas crackers.  You may notice that we’re wearing some funny paper crowns, they came from our crackers.  On Christmas day, we made a Christmas ham for dinner and topped it off with Christmas pudding (aka fruit cake) served with brandy custard.  It was divine!  We enjoyed celebrating a summer Christmas in Australia, but we missed our families and my mother’s chocolate-almond toffee.

Living in Coolum Beach brought a lot of normality back to our vagabond lives.  It had been over a month since we had a stable apartment to live out of.  Needless to say, we watched a lot of movies and BBQ’d every night.  It was wonderful to be in “home” again and lay low for a while.  We found some used bicycles on Gumtree, which is an Australian version of Craigslist, so we were able to get around town quite easily.  We both frequented the Coolum-Peregian Aquatic Center for workouts and in preparation for our Great Barrier Reef trip.  Stay tuned for more on that…

During our time in the Sunshine Coast, we took a couple of day trips to nearby Noosa and Brisbane.  Toward the end of our trip, Noosa had a decent surf swell coming in, so we rented a car for a couple of days to venture out and visit some neighboring cities.  Mike surfed at Tea Tree Bay, which is located in Noosa National Park.  This area of the park is surrounded by huge eucalyptus and tea trees and was both beautiful and fragrant.  We also visited Brisbane, Queensland’s capital city, where we enjoyed a tour of the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.  Because Australia has such unique native animal species, we wanted to visit at least one zoo while in the country.  Lone Pine is the world’s first and largest koala sanctuary established in 1927 and is home to over 100 species of Australian wildlife.  We got to see a plethora of animals including koalas, bats, a Tasmanian Devil, kangaroos, a dingo, a platypus, a golden bush-tail possum, barking owls, sulfur-crested cockatoo and an emu.  We had a great time learning about these animals and getting up close to some of them.  You’ll notice that we got to cuddle with a koala and walk inside a kangaroo park.  It’ll be an experience we’ll never forget.  After our koala overload, we met up with a couple of Aussies friends we had met back in Barcelona.  They had been traveling around Europe for three months and were now back home in Brisbane.  While in the city, we decided to meet & catch up, exchange travel stories and have dinner.  Afterwards, we walked up the Story Bridge to admire the beautiful city lights.  It’s amazing how life allows you to cross paths with great people.