With Sydney still a little further away than expected we decided to hit the happening sea-side town of Byron Bay for Christmas. We though we would celebrate the occasion by staying a whole 3 mights in one place! Although due to the collapse of our $5 charity tent after night 2 we did end up moving from one side of the campsite to the other so take refuge a hug tent owned by a couple of Dutch girls.
We arrived much later than planned on Christams Eve (partly due to the bizarre 1 hour time differnce when you cross the, err, North/ South divide between New SouthWales and Queensland and I set up camp while Jonno got down top the important task of brewing the mulled wine. We thought we had purchased a good 5 litres of red goon for the purpose but it turned out to be white. Luckily white mulled wine was an absolute triumph and som of th best I have ever tasted. After a lie in on Christmas morning we exchanged ou not-so-secret sant presents and christmas cards and then headed down to the beach where we lounged for most of the day, apart from when we were getting angry waiting 2 hours for a bit a bbq space to cook our traditional backpacker christmas stir fry.
We had planned to spend the evening partying down on the beach, which was a fine idea. Sadly having got totlly lost walking back to our campsite and spending a few gazzillion hours wandering around instead of 30 minutes we didn't quite have the energy left to go back into town and instead whiled the night away playing cards with a group of 3 dutch we met at the campsite (whose tent we would later retreat to). We had a little more success the next day by driving into town and back to our campsite in their car (so we didnt have the chance to get lost) and after a valiant effort at surfing we just about managed to party in the evening before all crashing out early and needing to go to bed.
Tuesday 26 January 2010
Wednesday 20 January 2010
Back down again...
So they say what goes up must come down...and so it was that having reached the most northerly point of my travels I must start to head south again to Sydney away from the tropics and back to the cosmopolitan with just 2 weeks until Christmas and 3 until my parents were arriving in Sydney coming to see Australia for themselves, and to check I was still alive etc.
It was an awesome few days of powering up and down beaches, jumping in crystal clear rain water lakes and camping out under the stars. At night the sand would sparkle if you moved it due to tiny phosphorescent particles that released light when activated by movement, a surreal addition to the beautiful landscape!
Sadly though the trip did wind to an end, and as we caught the ferry back tothe mainland a thunder storm ripped across the skies. We returned to Hervey Bay just inorder to make our way down to the nearby Rainbow Beach, the first place on our journey south not covered by the Great Barrier Reef (which is flipping huge!) and therefore the first place with waves! Rainbow was a small and quiet town, relaxing after the major backpacker hotspots we had been in before, we liked it so much we turned our 1 day trip into a 2.5 day stay and happily spent our timetrying to learn to surf...and kind of succeeding, standing up pretty regularly on a big board with small waves and thinking we looked much cooler than we really did! Surf wasn't the only thing Rainbow had going for it though, as a short walk out of town there was an enourmous sand blow (a huge area of sand, a bit like a dune but further inland and much larger area) on top of a cliff which gave fantastic views out to sea and round the coast on the one side and inland over miles of bush and rivers on the other. Accompanied by the harmonica, and a few litres of good lemonade we waited there until darkness and a massive thunder storm came in before making a run for it down the dune, through town and back to our tent. We paid the guy who rented out surf boards one 6 pack of beer for 2 night camping in his backyard and in return he gave us the consolation leaving gift of fresh mackerel, caught by himself that morning that we took down to the beach a barbequed straight away.
By now Christmas was fast approaching and we had decided that when it came Byron Bay was where we wanted to be. There was just one place left in mind to reach before then and that was Noosa, a busy beach town another short hop down the coast from Rainbow. Noosa was a large town compared to most paces we had been so far and the 24 hours or so we were there weren't enough to really do it justice apart from for a couple of walks I took through its Nature Reserve on a search for koalas which I finally did spot (very cute picture to follow!) on my way home from the second walk having pretty much given up.
Our first stop was Airlie beach, gateway to the Whitsundays, a group of small picturesque islands off the Queensland Coast ideally suited to cruising about in a yacht over a few days, awash with snorkel spots and silica beaches. Sadly despite being a big backpacker destination it is also a fairly exclusive and expensive place full of posh island resorts. I was also wary of much here first time around as I knew I would be back for a week with my parents the following month. Having almost decided that it was too expensive to do anything here we took a last walk into the tour agents to ask about deals and settled on a standby rate for and inclusive resort on nearby Long Island. We raced to catch the earliest ferry we could and once on the island determinedly worked our way through kayaking, tennis, bush walking, swimming, crazy golfing, snorkeling (again in silly stinger suits) and eating (and stashing) as much as we could from the buffet, oh and picnicking with a giant monitor lizard!
Refreshed from our break in Airlie Beach the next spot we aimed for was Hervey Bay where we stayed a day before joining a group of 7 other backpackers in a landrover to explore Fraser Island. The biggest sand barrier island in the world.For the trip we got an extensive briefing on 4wd driving as there are no roads on Fraser, just sand tracks, beaches and alot of dingos (wild dogs!). The first obstacle though was to meet at 7am in the morning with a bunch of other backpackers and try to decide what and how much food to buy for 3 days for 9 people (not a calculation any of us had done often) let alone how much alcohol we would also require! Luckily we still j 
ust about made it intime for the 9o'clock ferry and were happily pushing landrovers out of sandpits by mid morning.
It was an awesome few days of powering up and down beaches, jumping in crystal clear rain water lakes and camping out under the stars. At night the sand would sparkle if you moved it due to tiny phosphorescent particles that released light when activated by movement, a surreal addition to the beautiful landscape!
Sadly though the trip did wind to an end, and as we caught the ferry back tothe mainland a thunder storm ripped across the skies. We returned to Hervey Bay just inorder to make our way down to the nearby Rainbow Beach, the first place on our journey south not covered by the Great Barrier Reef (which is flipping huge!) and therefore the first place with waves! Rainbow was a small and quiet town, relaxing after the major backpacker hotspots we had been in before, we liked it so much we turned our 1 day trip into a 2.5 day stay and happily spent our timetrying to learn to surf...and kind of succeeding, standing up pretty regularly on a big board with small waves and thinking we looked much cooler than we really did! Surf wasn't the only thing Rainbow had going for it though, as a short walk out of town there was an enourmous sand blow (a huge area of sand, a bit like a dune but further inland and much larger area) on top of a cliff which gave fantastic views out to sea and round the coast on the one side and inland over miles of bush and rivers on the other. Accompanied by the harmonica, and a few litres of good lemonade we waited there until darkness and a massive thunder storm came in before making a run for it down the dune, through town and back to our tent. We paid the guy who rented out surf boards one 6 pack of beer for 2 night camping in his backyard and in return he gave us the consolation leaving gift of fresh mackerel, caught by himself that morning that we took down to the beach a barbequed straight away.
By now Christmas was fast approaching and we had decided that when it came Byron Bay was where we wanted to be. There was just one place left in mind to reach before then and that was Noosa, a busy beach town another short hop down the coast from Rainbow. Noosa was a large town compared to most paces we had been so far and the 24 hours or so we were there weren't enough to really do it justice apart from for a couple of walks I took through its Nature Reserve on a search for koalas which I finally did spot (very cute picture to follow!) on my way home from the second walk having pretty much given up.
Friday 8 January 2010
Up Top
At Cairns, while enjoying some time relaxing by the lagoon and planning our next few days we met a new friend, Jono, who I've now been travelling with for several weeks. Sitting on a wall by the sea we discovered that we had both just graduated in science degrees, were starting teach first next year taking a gap year on the way and had both just done the same trek in
Nepal. It was enough coincidences to keep us chatting long enough to decide to hire a car together along with Sarah and drive on up to Cape Tribulation, the most northerly you can go on the East Coast on sealed roads, after that its a 4wd adventure.
Having arrived in Cairns on a sunday we spent monday chilling out and getting organised and then headed up on the tuesday. It was a meagre 1.5 hours up the coats first to a place called mossman to swim in their famous gorge full of rapids that turned out to make a pretty bumpy waterslide! We also bumped into a bunch of 4 kiwi guys who had been in our hostel the night before and we seemed to have the same sorts of plans. From Mossman we carried on up to the cape stopping only for some freshly made icecream from local fruits (including the 'chocolate pudding plant') and then on to our campsite. The receptionist happily told us happily that even though the area is renowned for its killer saltwater crocs and literally lethal jelly fish (including a close relative of the portuguese man of war)
she regularly runs in and out of the water and we ought to give it a go! She also let us know that the legendry cassowary had been seen about our camp, a bird the sixe of an ostrich with black and blue plumage we had been looking out for all day! Unfortunately we didn't spot a cassowary but on the other hand nothing ate us or stung us to death so overall I think we came off well. The afternoon was spent wondering through boardwalks in the rainforest and the the evening was spent making camp fires with the kiwis and the star gazing on a stunning deserted tropical beach, it was a moment when you have to pinch yourself that its still real.
After the cape myself and Jono dropped Sarah back in town as she was on a quest to Tasmania to refind her true love whom she had met 2500km further south and headed into the Atherton Tablelands. It is an area of high ground inland of Cairns full of picturesque lakes, waterfalls and wild life. The first night as we drove around the lake looking for a campsite a stunning crimson sunset was followed up by what looked like a trail of lava across he hill. It took a moment to realise that what we could see was several mile of forest fires!
Nepal. It was enough coincidences to keep us chatting long enough to decide to hire a car together along with Sarah and drive on up to Cape Tribulation, the most northerly you can go on the East Coast on sealed roads, after that its a 4wd adventure.
Having arrived in Cairns on a sunday we spent monday chilling out and getting organised and then headed up on the tuesday. It was a meagre 1.5 hours up the coats first to a place called mossman to swim in their famous gorge full of rapids that turned out to make a pretty bumpy waterslide! We also bumped into a bunch of 4 kiwi guys who had been in our hostel the night before and we seemed to have the same sorts of plans. From Mossman we carried on up to the cape stopping only for some freshly made icecream from local fruits (including the 'chocolate pudding plant') and then on to our campsite. The receptionist happily told us happily that even though the area is renowned for its killer saltwater crocs and literally lethal jelly fish (including a close relative of the portuguese man of war)
she regularly runs in and out of the water and we ought to give it a go! She also let us know that the legendry cassowary had been seen about our camp, a bird the sixe of an ostrich with black and blue plumage we had been looking out for all day! Unfortunately we didn't spot a cassowary but on the other hand nothing ate us or stung us to death so overall I think we came off well. The afternoon was spent wondering through boardwalks in the rainforest and the the evening was spent making camp fires with the kiwis and the star gazing on a stunning deserted tropical beach, it was a moment when you have to pinch yourself that its still real.After the cape myself and Jono dropped Sarah back in town as she was on a quest to Tasmania to refind her true love whom she had met 2500km further south and headed into the Atherton Tablelands. It is an area of high ground inland of Cairns full of picturesque lakes, waterfalls and wild life. The first night as we drove around the lake looking for a campsite a stunning crimson sunset was followed up by what looked like a trail of lava across he hill. It took a moment to realise that what we could see was several mile of forest fires!
Although we did eventually find an open campsite the peace did not last long as I woke up half way through the night with an eye so swollen I could hardly open it! In the morning we delayed our trip to the Tablelands to go via Atherton hospital where we sat in the waiting room and ate cereal with long life milk out of plastic bowls with 2 of the jokers from a pack of cards as we had forgotten our spoons. It was I think perhaps my most quintessential backpacker moment so far. The mystery of the swollen eye was solved after the long ditherings of a plump junior doctor by a House like figure who strode in trailed by all the female stud
ent doctors in the hospital (not a big place) and gave a decisive run down of possibilities, problems and solutions, deemed a certain prescription suitable and swooshed out again.
We set off to explore, first stop the "Giant Curtain Fig Tree" of which we were both seriously cycical and both extremely impressed as a growth that Tolkein himself would have been gutted to have missed out of Lord of the Rings, had he got the chance to see it. This followed up by a series of giant waterfalls, some deep ethical discussions, a few tyre skids and the decision that this was quite fun and
we might aswell carry on travelling together so we booked back into the same youth hostel and got excited about diving on the Great barrier Reef the next day.
Diving was particularly exciting for me since I had only dived 6 time before (4 on my Open Water course) so although I was qualified I was far from experienced and these promised to be my first ever unguided dives. The reef is actually a couple of hours by boat off the coast of Cairns (or at least the good diving is) and so we settled in for our boat trip on deck, trying to tan on the waay to our first
dive site "labyrinth". I was guided afterall for this die as a group of us less experienced ones buddied up with each other and were led by a Dive Master incase any of us had forgotten the basics, and after diving we were allowed as long as we wanted snorkelling off the back, clad in the extremely sexy 'stinger suite', an all in one lycra creation designed to defend one against the tentacles of killer jellyfish which unfortunately roam these waters along with the killer crocodiles and killer sharks. I did have fun though playing with myunderwaater camera (see opposite) and the reef was often shallow and good for snorkelling too. It was at the second site though that I really had fun! Now allowed to roam free of a guide, I buddied up with Jono and his previous dive partner and we reeled about, somersaulting and exploring tunnels and crevices in the coral. It was like escaping the teacher on a school trip, except for...underwater, and in Australia.
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