Noosa to Coff's Harbour

After four golf filled days in Noosa, we began the drive south to Sydney.  It's about twelve hours from Noosa, so we deed to break it up into a few days and see the coast.  Today we drove from Noosa to Coff's Harbour, the halfway point.  Joel had to golf once more at the Palmer Coolum this morning and claimed we would be on our way by one.  That didn't happen.  By the time he got back and we packed up the car and had lunch it was after three.  We met some rather rude Aussie's at lunch, which gave a great start to the drive (not).  To add to the mood, Brutis began leaking fluids and backfiring.  In addition to not being able to go above 100 km/hr, whenever he felt like it he'd give out, make some loud noises, and drop down to 80 km/hr.  Of course this always seemed to happen when we were trying to pass another driver.

 

We made it back to the Gold Coast, gased up and said a happy goodbye to Queensland.  I will not miss it.

Once over the border we learned about some new fun driving rules in New South Wales- variable speed limit.  This means that every ten km or so the speed limit changes!  It goes from 100 km/hr, to 80, to 60, back to 80, down to 40, and so on.  Most of it was single lane.  Surprising as this is Highway 1 in Australia.  There are also speed cameras everywhere.  Most of the highway was under construction.  At this point we had discovered that Brutis had a hose leak and was burning though water, which caused the engine to overheat.  We had to stop every so often to refill the engine water.  Later we discovered that he was shooting fluids at the engine, which was why it kept backfiring.  Joel is not a calm driver on the best of days, so you can't even start to imagine what fun this drive was!

Finally at ten o'clock we arrived at our hostel in Coff's Harbour.  So far everyone in NSW has been super friendly!  A nice change from the Queenslanders.  After some parking difficulties with Brutis and Alistair, it was finally time for bed.  Our room was super tiny, but it actually had a good bed, surprise, surprise.