Byron Bay – Stradbroke – Brisbane – Goldy
Suggested songs for a Queensland road trip:
The View Between Villages, Noah Kahan
Lemon to My Lime, The Grogans
White Sky, Vampire Weekend
Skin to Bone, The Jungle Giants
Daisy Chain, Slowly Slowly
all-american bitch, Olivia Rodrigo
Techno Fan, The Wombats
After Easter finished, Emma and I drove straight to the Gold Coast to see my friend Josh and do some laundry. But… mostly to see Josh… (at least, that’s what we told him). Crossing from NSW to QLD, Em told me to brace myself, because the landscape shifts instantly from fat, jungle leaves and sugar cane plants to concrete skyscrapers and palm trees. The change was surprisingly jarring, but it felt cool to be in a big city instead of a muddy campground.
We parked up at Josh’s and went straight to the beach, riding rusty bikes along the footpath. School holidays had just started, so the beach was packed, and I noticed that everyone seemed so glamorous with tanned arms and tiny bikinis.
Emma and Josh biking back from the beach.
That night, I had my first proper technical difficulty when, at 5am, Emma and I woke up to the solar battery incessantly beeping and flashing red warning lights. What fun! Feeling exceptionally guilty that my battery was keeping Emma awake, I sent her into Josh’s house to see if she could get any sleep on the couch while I tried to figure out how to get the beeping to stop (which, with a battery that appears to have no switches or buttons turns out to be very difficult and takes about 45 minutes of googling and removing the entire contents of the car to figure out). With silence at last and dread in my stomach - what the hell is wrong with the battery? - I tried to get back to sleep but couldn’t.
Eventually, we just said “stuff it” to the battery and decided to go camping the old fashioned way with an esky in the back and torches strapped to our heads. The battery shop that I called said to not worry too much because it’s “just gone to sleep so that it doesn’t explode.” …. That didn’t give me loads of confidence, but I think I was too tired to care. I dropped Emma off at the airport and just as the rain started to peel in, Josh, his housemate George, and I went north to Stradbroke Island.
On the ferry to North Stradbroke.
The van was packed to the rafters with a swag and surfboards, and even though she’s a three-seater, I think three adults is pushing it. We got a bit of sun in the afternoon and after setting up camp near Cylinder Beach, we took Finska and some drinks down to the sand at sunset. The waves were really gentle, and plenty of campers had similar ideas so the beach was busy with everyone playing games and having a swim before dinner.
The following day we took our coffees to the beach to assess the surf before heading off to get an early start on the day. We took the boards to Main Beach where I got completely pummelled and copped a nasty bruise, and got a coffee from a cute little cafe overlooking the water. When we got back to camp, our neighbour told us about a metre-long water monitor that had been sniffing around… glad we were away for that one! Josh, George and I then went for a walk along the clifftops, watching lazy kangaroos lounge about under cover from the drizzle. The air was heavy and thick, my glasses fogging up and dusted in tiny flecks of rain. When the sun started to come out, we decided to drive to Cylinder Beach for a swim before heading to the pub and dropping George off at the ferry.
That evening I had another rude awakening - this time a small trickle of water coming in through my open air vent, dripping on my neck as I tried to sleep. Come on! I shut the vent to ward off the rain but by now I was already well and truly awake, the curlews screeching like children being tortured into eating vegetables. Josh’s swag was flooded, and all of our bathers and towels completely soaked through. We had no choice but to pack up everything while it was wet and hope for sunny days ahead.
The two of us set off on an adventure to find coffee, art, and a blue lake. All day was pretty misty, so by the afternoon when we were boarding the ferry, the van was smelling damp. I was even getting excited at the idea of putting my clothes through the dryer - what a luxury that would be!
Off the island and with some logistical issues aside, we collected Josh’s other friend, Tyler, and set off to Brisbane to meet up with our mate, Jim. Josh and Tyler were lucky enough to score tickets (real and fake) to The Grogans that evening, but Jim and I had been slack and weren’t quick enough to get some as well. Nonetheless, we planned on having a chilled out evening and meeting up with the others after the concert. BUT as fate would have it, as we were on the M1, my phone buzzed with someone reselling two tickets to the concert for that night, so I snatched them up and instantly called Jim to tell him to put his dancing shoes on.
We were in a rush to get ready and grab dinner before the concert, but the excitement of seeing each other and serendipity of actually getting tickets fuelled me through the late night. The music was fabulous, the dancing was absurd, the company was heart-warming, and the uber driver made me anxious that we’d both get stabbed. After only a couple of hours of sleep and a side quest to the upside down elephant as featured in the book, Lola in the Mirror, we all drove back to the Gold Coast for some goddamn rest. …. and to fix my solar battery which is still flashing an angry red warning light.
