A New Continent

Sunshine Beach, Noosa, Australia

Our journey from Hanoi to Brisbane was not a simple one. We were not able to find a decent point to point flight, so we decided to make our own connecting flight. We carefully monitored the destination and departure airports, and confirmed they were both KUL. Unfortunately when we arrived at Kuala Lampur we discovered that their international airport has a separate "low cost terminal" 20 km from the main one. Of course our second flight was out of that one. We found a pre-pay taxi counter where we could use a credit card instead of having to change cash, and a nice gentleman (with amazing English) got us to the next airport in only 15 minutes, so we still got there 2 hours early.

Landing in AU, we were also surprised to find out that there are several airports around Brisbane, and the Gold Coast airport that we had flown into 100 km from the city, involving a bus-to-train journey via public transit. Fortunately, we were now in English speaking territory, and were able to save $50 by not taking the airport shuttle to the train, but by taking two local buses instead. --Sidenote: the local buses here are amazing.

So, we finally made it to 'sunny' Brisbane to discover a cyclone was affecting the weather. We had to dodge some rain drops as we toured the city, but it was actually kind of refreshing, since we haven't seen any rain for the past two months. We were really impressed by the parks especially the pedestrian bridge over the river to connect the bike paths on both sides.

After two days in Brisbane, we drove north toward the Sunshine Coast. Our first stop was Sunshine Beach in Noosa. As we headed to check out the beach, we got pelted with rain.

Although the weather report was very pessimistic, the next two days we did see a lot of sun and got to enjoy the beach and the local national park.