My favorite moments in Australia

Last Updated on February 24, 2023

Since I’ve been to Australia 3 times, I thought it’s time to collect my favorite moments and share them with you. At first, here’s a little background story about what I did in Australia each time.

I travelled to Australia with my family back in 2014. We flew into Sydney and after spending a couple days there, we took another flight up to Cairns. Within 4 weeks we completed a Roadtrip with a rented camper van and ended up in Brisbane.

2014

In 2019, I did another Roadtrip on Australia’s East Coast. This time I travelled with the greyhound bus all the way from Brisbane to Sydney within 2 weeks. Click here to read my blog post about this Roadtrip.

2019 I

I also lived in Brisbane for 2 months while I was going to a language school called “Browns”.

2019 II

So, let’s start with my favorite moments:

1. Sunrise & Kangaroos in Byron Bay

In Byron Bay, Australia’s most easterly point, it’s a must-do to watch the sunrise from the famous white lighthouse. Usually I’m not really an early bird, but thinking I’d be rewarded with a stunning sunrise, it was slightly easier to get up around 4am.

As we were camping a bit outside without any bus systems nearby, we had to walk the whole way. Somehow, we thought it was easily manageable to walk 5,4km in the dark and make it in time for sunrise.

Well, we soon realized, that our plan simply was pretty unfeasible and we decided to watch the sunrise from Tallow Beach. As we reached the beach, obviously too late, it had also started to rain.

Tallow Beach

Tallow Beach - Byron Bay

At least we had the whole beach to ourselves! Honestly it wasn’t the most beautiful sunrise, I’ve ever seen, but we still managed to watch the sunrise in Byron Bay and from the beach we could see the lighthouse too.

After a while we decided to walk home (to our tent) on the beach. As mentioned before, we were the only people at the beach, so we were a little surprised to see something moving in the dunes. Getting closer, we recognized a little kangaroo! When it noticed us, it quickly hopped away and disappeared in the bush.

To sum up, our idea of watching the sunrise turned a little more difficult and with more challenges than thought, but we got rewarded with a little wild kangaroo! And who wouldn’t be happy about that?

2. Whale watching in Hervey Bay

In 2014 we did a whale watching tour on a Catamaran in Hervey Bay. It was raining the entire day, so we thought, we had really bad conditions and might not be able to see some whales. But gosh, we were so wrong!

After spotting some humpback whales in far distance, 3 humpback whales showed up at our boat! They kept swimming around and underneath our boat for a whole hour. Everyone on board was soaked with rainwater, but now nobody cared anymore. I couldn’t stop taking photos, it was insane!

They came so close, that one girl was able to touch one of them. This experience was so amazing and I’ll never forget it.

3. Skydiving

Being an adventure lover, I was pretty excited to go skydiving and to do my first skydive in my favorite city: Brisbane. I wasn’t really scared; my curiosity and anticipation were way too great.

Our small plane was filled with skydivers and their tandem-partner. It was quite funny to see facial expressions from raw excitement to fear and regrets. Anyway, I was really looking forward to my first jump.

When we reached 15 000ft, the door was opened and one by one jumped out into the clouds. I had a free fall for approximately one minute and then my tandem-partner opened our parachute. From up there we had an amazing view of the ocean and parts of Brisbane like Redcliffe. Since I was the last one to land at the beach everybody was expecting me with a big smile in their face, as they were as stoked as me.

I can’t wait to go skydiving again!

4. Holding a koala

I think everyone agrees, when I say, that koalas are super cute. In 2014 we visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary close to Brisbane and I was so lucky enough to be able to hold one koala. He was heavier than I thought, but also really calm and the experience was amazing! I’m still waiting to see koala in the wild one day.

5. Dolphin watching on a police boat

Last year I visited some of my Australian friends in the area Port Stephens. One of them was working as water police officer in the bay, so he took me and my friend out with the police boat one day.

Port Stephens
Port Stephens

In this area there are many dolphins and there are lots of tours with bigger boats to watch dolphins. We were cruising around the bay and checking if everything was in order – just doing his job.

Obviously, we weren’t just looking for criminal actions and people, who needed our help. I was busy searching for dolphins.

After a while we spotted some dolphins and I was happy like a little kid, that has been given an ice cream.

6. Hiking up my childhood dream

This moment also happened in Port Stephens. But first, let’s go back in time. When I got my first smartphone and was looking for wallpapers, I saw a photo of a beautiful beach. Ever since, I tried to find the location, but unfortunately, I never succeeded.

Wallpaper

Credit: https://www.pinterest.de/pin/712061391054666321/

So, when I did some research about what to do on my Roadtrip from Brissie to Sydney I came across one article about a mountain called Mt. Tomaree. The moment I looked at the photo, things were clear for me. This was the place from my wallpaper 6 years ago. And even better, I wanted to go there anyway, because my friends live there.

I was able to fulfill my childhood dream and it was amazing. Fun fact: this moment will stay with me forever, because I was too stupid to climb the mountain and have a little scar on my leg now.

My photo

Port Stephens

7. Spending one night in the outback

Back in 2014 my family and I spent one day driving into the outback with our camper van. We slept at a campsite and I remember waking up in the middle of the night, because I heard some noises outside.

I looked through my window and spotted little wallabies hopping around our camper van! Out of the sudden I was fully awake and not even angry anymore, that they woke me up.

I’ll never forget this night in the outback and I think my sister too. In the evening a little spider was climbing up one thread, that was sticking to her arm. As you probably know, spiders can be pretty dangerous in Australia, so she screamed and after we got rid of the spider, she didn’t leave our camper van until we reached the beach again.

These are my favourite moments so far. I hope you enjoyed reading this blogpost. Let me know in the comments, which one you like best!

Check out my photo gallery of Australia!

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