Friday 7th September 2012 Gold Coast, Queensland

We left Causeway Lake, and stopped off at a town called Gin Gin on our way to the Gold Coast. The Gold Coast (pop. 500 000) is a real surprise to us, because we expected a brash, noisey concrete jungle and it has turned out to be a very pleasant destination. It has about 30 km of very good clean wide beaches, which are not at all crowded. There are a lot of high rise buildings, but they are not offensive.

We cycled up the coast from Southport to Sanctuery Cove (very tastefully designed gated suburb), and then on another day we rode down the coast all the way to Coolangatta/Tweed Heads on the New South Wales border (70 km). The bike network here is very good. Tomorrow we are heading down the coast to Sydney via Byron Bay.

Thursday 30th August 2012, Causeway Lake, Yeppoon

Yeppoon is just outside the main Central Queensland city of Rockhampton, and Causeway Lake is just down the coast from Yeppoon. We've had a very relaxing week at Causeway Lake Tourist Park. Everyone here is so friendly and seem to be enjoying life. The change of tides here are very dramatic, and consequently the lagoon/lake has a waterfall into it at high tide and a waterfall out of it at low tide. The beaches are also very wide with millions of tiny blue crabs making the most of the big tides. They seem to burrow into the wet sand as the tide goes out and then spit wet sand balls out of their little hide-out. It's quite a sight.

Les went for a walk along the wilder side of the beach and promptly came across a Tiger Snake which reared up at her, giving her a real fright. Tiger Snakes are very agressive and not at all afraid of humans, so she was lucky to escape unscathed. We were also lucky enough to see a Jabiru Stork on the beach. They are much bigger and more colourful than I had realised.