Smiley Nomad

It was an otherwise lazy weekend until Brett my good friend from Sunshine coast decided to drive up and hangout with me for the weekend. We had a beautiful dinner at the Grunskey sea ford restaurant on Saturday followed by a movie, wonder, which we thoroughly enjoyed - well who would not enjoy a movie with Julia Roberts in it. We woke up late on Sunday and was wondering what to do, and decided to visit the Coonarr beach and the Kinkuna national park. Coonarr beach is a 30 minute drive from my place. We passed several farms from sugarcane to water melons and reached the Coonarr beach. Coonarr beach is an isolated beach. Other than us there was another family enjoying their Sunday noon on the beach. We strolled along the beach for sometime looking at the pretty little sea shells and flowers rising against the salinity. After our little stroll we decided to go back as the tide started to rise and the sea got murky. Leaving the Coonarr beach we left fo...

I had always wanted to see the Great Barrier Reef, but the closer the attraction to you more that you tend not to see it. Nalin, one of my friends visited from Sri Lanka and he wanted to see the place too and I booked a tour with 'Lady Musgrave Experience' ( https://ladymusgraveexperience.com.au ), 210 dollars per head. Tour departed from Bundaberg port marina at 7am which is a 30min drive from my place passing across the sugar cane fields. There's enough parking at bundy port, there was a designated parking area for our tour people which was right at the end of the road. The catamaran was anchored just across in the waters, beaming elegantly in the morning sun. At 6.30 it was only me, my mother and Nalin at the jetty, other passengers started trickling in slowly, by 6.45 there were about another 15 people. I felt bad for the tour operator, less than 20 people for a 120 seater catamaran?? Then at 6.55, two buses loaded with about 60 tourists from China came in, 80 int...

It was my first conference in Australia, IMSANZ 2017. Flew to Hobart from Bundaberg with stops at Brisbane and Melbourne.  Surprisingly I met 3 more Sri Lankan doctors at the conference, 2 from Tasmania and one from Victoria. At the end of the first day, we still had time before dark and Shantha suggested that we drove up to mount Welington. Me and Sagarika agreed and we hopped in Shantha's car and drove up the hill. It was rather an easy drive up the hill. As you drove up, the snow started appearing here and there until it was all snow besides the road in the end. You can drive right up to the top of the mountain. Soon as we got off the car, cold hit us hard and my face went numb instantly. Only Sagarika had dressed enough to cover from the cold, me and shantha were just in jackets, and coming from the tropics it was quite unbearable for us. It was constantly drizzling and looked like we were inside a cloud itself. At the top of the mountain there's one c...

It didn't rain as it was predicted yesterday and weather was very clear, alas my friends missed on going to Byron bay, but we had plans for Burleigh heads today. It was again a short 20km drive from south port and we were there by 11am. Parking was a big issue especially being a Saturday morning and we had to do a few rounds until someone decided it was enough surfing. Australians love their beaches and Burleigh heads undoubtedly seemed very popular among them, especially the surfers. There was lots of surfing happening. I was watching them with this 'nostalgia' wishing I could swim. It was amazing how they manoeuvered towards the ocean, picked the correct wave and glided those waves. Now that none of us could do surfing or swimming, we decided to take the rain forest trail by the beach. The trail has several entrances and we took the entrance at the beach. Walk up to the end of the popular surfing area and you will find this trail. There's limited p...

This visit was not on my list of things to do for this short holiday to Byron bay, but one of my friends dared I take the challenge of taking a detour to the drug capital of Australia - Nimbin. It was 70km inland from Byron bay. The drive on the Lismore road via Bungalow was pretty scenic, cutting through pine forests, farm lands with grazing cows and a backdrop of beautiful mountains. Some parts of the road was very narrow and jagged and had to go off road to allow for the oncoming vehicles. I was praying my car would hold on and wouldn't betray me in this remote new south Wales drive. This question kept popping in my head - would RACQ road side assistance cover remote NSW too? As I drove further inland remoteness was getting more tangible. A school had just finished and there was a bunch of kids by the road and as I drove past them they were waving and screaming at me, guess I am the only brown man been to this part of NSW for a while? It took almo...