Tag: Outdoors

A Layover in Los Angeles

LAX is a busy hub, with hundreds of flights to and from destinations around the world, including many long haul flights across the Pacific. These lengthy flights make most people arriving in L.A. tired and cranky. Knowing your next flight doesn’t depart for ten or twelve hours only makes it worse. On our most recent trip from Australia to North America and back, we traveled through LAX, so we can relate. We helped ourselves by staying overnight and made the most of our time. Here are suggestions for things to do on a layover in Los Angeles.

Runyon Canyon hike view
View from our Runyon Canyon hike

We recently took a break from the boat, left Go docked in Australia and flew back to North America. This is one in a series of posts about our trip to the U.S. and Canada. We’ll be back to Australia content in no time.

Pick a Neighborhood

L.A. is huge, sprawling, and has terrible traffic. If you have only a night or two, you’ll want to stay close to where you’ll be spending the majority of your time. Otherwise, you’ll be stuck in traffic.

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Highlights of the Hinterlands

Over 85% of Australia’s population lives within 50KM of the coast. The area beyond is called hinterland. In the three months since landing in Queensland, Australia, we’ve driven into the hinterlands and explored a few times. These are our highlights of the hinterlands.

Driving to the Hinterlands

Getting to the hinterlands has been easy, as they aren’t far from the big cities and the coast, and on well traveled roads. By now, we’re used to driving on the left side of the road and the right side of the car. Australia has plenty of highways leading between cities and into the hinterlands. The main concern is driving at night because kangaroos come out of nowhere.

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Nature’s Paradise K’Gari Island

One of our Queensland highlights is the nature’s paradise K’gari Island, a huge island a few miles off the coast. K’gari is the recently readopted Aboriginal name for Fraser Island. The name means paradise, which we found highly appropriate for this beautiful place.

About K’gari Island

K’gari is the world’s largest sand island, 122km long. It’s been called Fraser Island for generations, but the name is shifting back to K’Gari Island.

The unique geography makes it one of Australia’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Not only is it the largest sand island, it’s also the only one where tropical rainforests grow in the sand. And they grow! Some of the trees on the island are towering and hundreds of years old. Add to that perched freshwater lakes and miles upon miles of sandy beaches that you can drive on, and the name Paradise really resonates.

ancient trees, K'Gari island rain forest
Ancient trees grow in sand on K’gari Island

Accessing K’Gari Island

This natural treasure is a popular day trip from the mainland. The common way to get to K’gari is the ferry from Hervey Bay, south of Bundaberg. We sailed from Mooloolaba, after Brisbane, happily stopping in a couple anchorages on the way north up the protected west coast of K’gari Island.

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