Coolangatta

We were fortunate enough to plan a Spring Break for us this year and took a 10-day vacation to the Gold Coast in Australia! To sum it up, our vacation was super relaxing and so much fun. This was my third visit back to Australia but Joey's first time and I was really excited to get away from the grind for a few days.

My parents flew out a week prior to us kids meeting up with them. We got a few email updates about how wonderful the weather was and how warm the water was and it didn't help the anticipation - we were ready to get out there already!

We left March 10th, headed out to LAX, and prepped for our 17 hour flight overseas. We flew V Australia and were very impressed by the luxury of even the economy class --- personal tv's, spacious seats, and even the food wasn't all that bad! It was somewhat difficult to sleep, however, you could definitely bypass the time with all of the fun movies we had to watch! We watched "Tangled" and "Harry Potter 7," among other films on the way there. After the long leg of the flight, we had a quick layover in Melbourne before finally landing at the Gold Coast.

Joey looks totally thrilled, doesn't he? Such a cheeseball...

We were greeted by my Dad in the airport, who you could tell was more than thrilled we were there! We grabbed a cab and headed to our hotel where we met up with our Mom. We stayed at a three bedroom timeshare RIGHT ON the beachfront. We were on the 8th floor, so we had an AWESOME view of the ocean.

Each room had their own personal deck, but we also had a patio with the view in the pictures above. I spent every morning reading out there (the sun came up around 6am, so of course I was up around 6:30am taking it all in). It was so peaceful.

We grabbed a bite to eat at Outback Jacks before taking a stroll around our neighborhood for the next week. My parent's used to live in Coolangatta in the 80's (I am bummed because we actually walked by the house my parents used to live in, which apparently looks the exact same as it did in the 80's, and didn't get a picture!!). We then went to take a dip in the ocean and ohmygosh the water was SO warm - even my Mom was enjoying it (my Mom NEVER goes into the ocean in HB). I guess you can't beat bathwater temps! It was so refreshing.

The next day was my Sister's birthday! Leah and I began the day with a little run around Rainbow Bay and then strolled through the farmer's market on the beach with the rest of the clan. We met these cute cute cute little "entrepreneurs" who were selling hand drawn bookmarks for $.10 - we couldn't resist. They reminded Leah and I of ourselves when we were that age...totally something we would have done!

We spent the next couple of days just laying out! We had just a couple full days of sun while we were there - which was probably a good thing considering how terrible the ozone layer is down there - no one came back with ANY sunburns!

That night we had dinner at Crust, a local pizza joint (so yum!) with all of our parent's friends and their families who live in Australia. It had been 18 years since Leah and I had seen them last and it's very safe to say a lot has changed! It was definitely fun catching up and seeing where everyone was in their lives.

From left: Leah, Spencer, Lauren, Joey, Sophie, Johno, Lily, Kruse, Dad, Richard, Krystal, Judy, Lynne, Harry, Mom

We got a rental the next day and set out on a little trip to Byron Bay. We visited the lighthouse and got to stand on the eastern most point of Australia. The beaches are seriously so gorgeous anywhere you go. The views were incredible! We had a great time walking around the town checking out all of the fun surf shops and indulging on some baguette sandwiches and gelato!

Afterward we visited another family friend, Mike, who is from Laguna Beach but moved to Australia either 20 or 30 years ago (I can't remember). Anyways, he bought this beautiful piece of land in the 90's and is an excellent landscaper. He is turning his property into a small wedding venue and it's gorgeous.

One of our goals this visit was to get a picture of Joey with a baby joey - and success! We visited the Carrumbin Sanctuary and got to see a ton of cute Australian furballs...koalas, kangaroos, dingos, tasmanian devils, etc. It was awesome! We also got to hold a baby crocodile that was only a year and a half old.

We were excited to endure the ropes course they had on site. It was VERY challenging, but SO FUN! There were three courses, green, which led to red, and then to black (in order of toughness). Once we got through the green and red courses, we decided to give the black course a whirl. Oh man, I think we all had thoughts of "what were we thinking?" when going through each challenge, but we made it! I was very proud of ourselves. It was difficult - especially the tightrope and rope ladders!

We spent the next day hiking up Mount Warning - the first peak the sun hits in Australia. It was a 4-hour hike up and down - thank goodness we kept ourselves entertained playing 20 questions. It was overcast once we reached the peak, but being surrounded by so much tropical nature was awesome and I loved just hearing all of the forest noises!

We had lunch at Marvis' after our hike.

We spent the rest of the time shopping, hanging out, playing cards during the rainy afternoons, going for walkabouts, and relaxing. It was definitely a much needed vacation!