We picked up our rental car in Sydney and headed out for a twenty day drive north to Cairns. In the end we covered 4,011 kilometers (2,492 miles) and visited lots of beaches, many of them are shown in our pictures below.
Before the beaches we detoured west out of Sydney to see the Blue Mountains. Then we hit the Australian east coast starting at the neighbor towns of Shoal Bay and Nelson Bay. We took the opportunity to get in the water for the first time with our snorkel gear at Nelson Bay’s Fly Point. From there to Cairns we’ll let the pictures do the talking… OK, lets’s get this mentioned. There are stinging jellyfish at Aussie beaches from November to May. When we snorkeled we rented head to toe stinger suits.Nelson BayA sand artist working at Byron BayByron Bay is just stunning, a long curved beach leads to a natural view point where you can watch the surfersThis little guy was getting his first surf lesson at Byron BayByron Bay surfersSince beach swimming is limited by stingers, some places have built safe enclosed swimming lagoons, this is the one at Airlie BeachDaydream Island in the Whitsundays, we lunched with these three womenWhitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island is renowned for its pure white sand and clear waterWhitehaven Beach We saw people coming to Whitehaven Beach by plane and boat, there was even a group camping. I was envious that they’d have the beach to themselves after the tourists leaveSunrise coffee on Mission Beach.It’s windy enough at times to float a sail. This man was practicing controlling his on Mission BeachNudey Beach on Fitzroy Island, despite the name, swimsuits ARE worn hereFitzroy Island beaches are coral, hard soles are advisedSince Cairns doesnt have a beach, they’ve built a magnificent lagoon on the shore for swimming complete with a sandy part for the kidsMost communities on a beach have netted swimming areas to keep out the big stinging jellies. At Holloway Beach a lifeguard strains the water 3x daily to check for small jellies that can get throughWe saw signs similar to this at all the patrolled beachesLuckily our encounters with stinging jellies was limited to seeing this Bluebottle on the beach and a pass-by of a single box jelly as we did a guided snorkel
Sunrise jogger at Mission Beach, this is the closest Art’s come to a running for two months
