Halfway along the route...

From Noosa we went down south, along the so-called-but-differently-seen Sunshine Coast. Closed beaches, rain and wind drove us to find some bad weather activity -we went to the zoo (of corse that was the only day the weather stayed decent for a couple of hours in a row...anyway). The Australia Zoo, founded by ozzy icon Steve Irwin (and a fitting homage to that wildlife enthusiast, to say the least) has them all: slimy and dangerous snakes, giant lethal crocodiles (stars of the brilliant daily show in the famous Crocoseum), cuddly koalas, wombats and kangaroos, funny Tasman Devils and other local folks as well as visitors from Asia (Tigers and Elephants), Africa (the usual suspects) and the US (Alligators that seem like toys compared to their Australian relatives). We watched giant tortoises get their morning scrub from little birds, fed kangaroos, petted koalas and spent tons of time observing Wombats building their holes. The day went by before we knew and we didn't even get the chance to see all the birds, flying or walking, or the otters, camels and what not. It was time very well spent, and although the Australia Zoo probably already is on every traveller's list, it is not overrun and we can highly recommend it - it's a creature feature that shouldn't be missed.
 
We went on to the third biggest city in Australia that also happens to be Queensland's capital: Brisbane. We got their early and spent only half of the day looking for a carpark that would actually let us in (being taller than 2.4 meters doesn't make Rita a favourite guest on most of the carpark parties...). When we finally did find a spot to park, it had a 2 hours max limit, which obviously wouldn't do a city like Brisbane any justice. We took it anyways and decided to just make the best of the following two hours. And so we did. We walked through the beautiful South Bank Parklands with its artificial  Streets Beach, historic Stanley Street Plaza, patches of rainforest and hidden lawns. From the western side of the Brisbane river we crossed over to the city centre and continued our sightseeing trip along the beautiful sandstone buildings that house the City Hall, the Parliament and the Treasury. After a stroll down the pedestrian mall we even found time for a short bite before we headed down towards the river to the City Botanic Gardens. We were shocked at the sight of a sign that indicated the floodlevel of the 2011 floods and, when it started pouring in that same moment, hurried back to the car to go somewhere dry.

NO JUMPING ... on the edge!

The stretch of coast around Brisbane seemed rather fitting, the Gold Coast, known for its surfing spots and long white stretches of sand. So we went to the laid-back seaside resort of Coolangatta, ready to soak up some of that famous sunshine and finally catch a wave or two. Well, you know what happened...right, we took the rain with us, beaches got closed, the surf got too dangerous for amateurs to even look at and the wind started to blow away everything that wasn't fixed really well. There were still 2 things left for us to do: jump around on jumping pillows for hours and watch a professional surfer tournament from the beachfront while eating a hot dog stuffed with beetroot and salad...
Since we needed to keep moving, we tried our luck a little ways further down the coast, in famous Byron Bay. On our way there, things turned really bad regarding the weather. Trees were falling on streets all over the place, cars were blown onto the wrong lane by sudden wind and flash floods turned driving into a series of deep water river crossings. Byron had nothing to offer in this kind of weather and since we had to get Rita fixed in a garage in the nearby town of Ballina, we decided to go there right away.

That was stupid of course, as we got caught right in the middle of things. The storm was raging over Ballina, the whole city was without power and water levels kept rising while trees kept falling. We ultimately got trapped in the city. When the heavy rainfall stopped over night and the sun even showed itself for a couple of beautiful seconds the next morning, it brought some relief for the drainage system and we were able to get out of the city. The damage the storm left in town was really bad but there was hardly any time to clean it up as even harsher weather was predicted for the whole coast all the way down to Sydney starting that afternoon. Cities were being evacuated as major flooding and dangerous surf was expected and Highway 1, the most trafficked and important route in eastern Australia, had to be closed down due to damage and floodings. This left us no choice (not that we would have chosen to stay anywhere close to the storm after what we experienced before) but to go inland, along those roads less travelled...