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Excited this morning as Miss McCarthy is coming to visit for a couple of weeks, the plan is then to fly to Brisbane and drive to Cairns in a camper.So introducing our monster… 7.5m long, 3.5m tall it's basically a 5* hotel on wheels. You can tell that the McCarthy has arrived!!!Features include: 3 double beds, toilet, shower, DVD player, TV, Aircon, Microwave, kitchen, living room!! A little over the top maybe, but fantastic.
DAY 1 - Brisbane to Dicky Beach
It takes us about 5 mins to work out that the monster is possibly a bit excessive and is a nightmare in car parks, taking up 2 whole spaces! Plus has no uphill acceleration at all. So off we pootle onto Australia Zoo. After watching the madness that was the croc show, the trainers are so close to the crocs chucking them chickens to eat (clearly didn't learn a thing from Steve Urwin), we find Tasmanian devils and wombats something I was yet to see in Oz and then time for me to pose cuddling a koala who stank and actually poo'd on me! Yuk…Back in the van to find our first home for the night, we managed to navigate our way into the supermarket and into our first campsite space with ease. (clearly all of our team bonding training days at Lloyds paid off!).To celebrate we enjoy a bottle of Sparkly wine and BBQ veal steaks in Caloundra after a brief wander along the beach,
DAY2 - Caloundra to Bororen
A day of driving as you will tell from the photo's (loads of random shots from the window), we did manage to stop in Noosa, which was beautiful, some amazing houses and bath water sea, which Karen was dying for a swim in. So a quick swim, walk along the rocks and back in Goliath we go. 6pm and bored of driving we stop 35km south of Bororen in a weeny roadside campsite and park up next door to the couple we were next to last night, how bizarre! The guy that owns the campsite is clearly quite lonely and takes to coming over every few minutes to have a chat or bring us videos to watch, bless him he had had an amazing life mind you and I found him quite interesting, although was slightly transfixed as he reminded me of Cliff Richard.
DAY3 - Bororeen to Airlee Beach
Basically another big driving day through sugar cane and mountain territory, very boring after 8 hours! We broke the journey only with a stop at Bundaberg sugar factory where I got some ginger beer! On arrival in Airlee Beach we booked a sailing trip and a scenic helicopter flight so the excitement starts tomorrow!
DAY4 - Airlee Beach
Rubbish!!The excitement literally does begin today we have a category 5 cyclone heading straight for us, so the sailing has been cancelled.The helicopter company is still game though so we relax by the lagoon for the day glad to have some time out of the camper. The helicopter flight that afternoon was amazing, my first time in a helicopter and it's a private one, so just me, Karen and our pilot Luke, oh and our champagne!We fly over the Whitsundays which are absolutely stunning and get dropped off at our own private Island, Langford beach. There are 74 islands in the Whitsundays, only 5 inhabited, all with lush green trees and turquoise blue water, must come back on a boat to explore some more! Whilst walking along the peninsula of sand on our island we see 2 sharks just a metre from us, sadly I didn't get the camera out in time! I am very proud of my photo of Hills Inlet which will definitely be going on my wall when I'm home. The evening saw us out for sushi with a box of wine from the bottlo, then a brief tour of the various backpacker bars before settling back in Goliath with a pre bed cup of tea (we are clearly getting old!)
DAY5 - Airlee Beach to Townsville
It rained, it poured! The Cyclone is still heading straight for us and people are running around the campsite trying to secure down their vehicles.We decide to head North fast, keeping our eye on the cyclone and hopefully bypassing it by going slightly inland. 5 Hours later and Goliath has done us proud, we have braved the wind and rain and we are safely in Townsville and the sun is even trying to come out! A quiet evening, with a walk into town, a dip in the pool and a meal outside Goliath.
DAY6 - Townsville to Magnetic Island
We jump on the ferry leaving Goliath behind as he won't fit and at the other side hire a smaller, cuter and breezier model….a topless Barbie car.It was hilarious, we wanted pink but ended up with turquoise but it drove like a go-cart and was much fun on the island. Madly in the heat of the day we embarked on a 1.5 hour climb to a viewpoint a the top of the hill to check out some history (WW2 forts) and view the 360 panoramic views. It was well worth it and we cooled down quickly afterwards with a swim in the sea, after checking with the lifeguards about the stinger situation in the area! Sadly the passing cyclone had really churned up the water and the once turquoise clear waters were left slightly murky and brown - but the Island was definitely worth the visit none the less.
DAY7 - Townsville to Mission Beach
I loved this place, we stayed in a little caravan park called Dunk Island view where the owners and some locals had beer o'clock everyday at 5 that we soon became regulars at! There were some interesting, to say the least, characters at this place which is why I love the campervan lifestyle you meet locals as well as other travellers. I won't mention everyone but I think that Tania and Ano a couple from UllaDulla need a mention as they had just sold their house bought a caravan and were now travelling and working around Oz indefinitely following the sun, loads of people have this lifestyle over here and I think it's great! Then Ma and her son Scott, who words won't ever do justice in the describing sense but I'll give it a go…..trailer trash! They lived in an old school bus that was prime location for the next Kim and Aggie series, it stank!
DAY8 - Mission Beach, Wongaling
We literally spend the day enjoying our campsite, relaxing by the pool and reading. Karen gets herself familiar with snorkeling again in the pool which amuses a local girl who makes it her mission to annoy Karen. Beer o'clock followed by another BBQ outside Goliath.
DAY9 - Great Barrier Reef
A great day out on a boat visiting the reef, mission beach turns out to be the closest mainland point to the GBR and we are on the Calypso II with no other boats moored up near us, result! Even more of a result, only 4 of us were diving. The reef was amazing and thoroughly exceeded my expectations. 20 Nautical miles out to sea parts of the sea are as shallow as 3m and the sea was all different shades of torquoise. Reef sharks were circling the boat as we arrived but by the time we were kitted up and in the water they had disappeared. I did manage to swim behind a couple of turtles though that were so cute! The corals were such bright colours and the visibility was the best I have ever seen, with a water temp of 28 I could have stayed in all day.
DAY10 - Mission Beach to Port Douglas
A quick nosey at Boutique Bungalows, holiday accommodation owned by a couple we got chatting to on the boat yesterday who invited us around for a cup of tea, if anyone is heading to mission beach on holiday I would thoroughly recommend staying here the couple were lovely and the accommodation fantastic, although not for a backpacker budget!
En-route we decide to stop at Hartley's croc adventures and I'm glad we did, the staff were informative, fun and crazy all in one! We fed cassowaries and heard their random husky call and learnt that they are essential to rain forests here spreading seeds with their poo. We saw Tai Pan the most deadly snake in the world that can kill 50,000 mice with 1mg of venom. There was a crazy keeper in the water with the croc doing a demonstration and I held a 1 year old croc, but made sure that his mouth was firmly taped up, he was surprisingly soft! Then we learnt about Koalas, out of 1,500 types of eucalyptus leaves they will only eat about 12, fussy devils! And they sleep for 90% of their time.
Port Douglas is very nice but very posh, no good for me in my fisherman pants and just out of season still it was pretty dead. A visit back with money would be great as there are loads of restaurants, bars and spa's to entertain yourself in, this time we walked back to our campsite after a few glasses of wine!
DAY11 - Port Douglas to Cairns
Today we decided to do the Kuranda scenic special, up on a cable car and back on the railway to a rainforest hippy town essentially in the middle of no-where! The scenery was breathtaking and we had a very clear and hot day. Baron Falls was really impressive thanks to the recent rain and the noises in the rainforest were very interesting and loud,you could even hear these from metres above up in the cablecar! The town itself was odd, I think some people have literally been sat up here since the 60's selling their random tat! I did manage to purchase a boomerang, which I love and will be another feature on a wall at home - poor Karen is taking it home for me so will have to carry it on as hand luggage!
DAY12 - Cairns
A sad day the camper has to go back! So prolonging the morning we head off to the creek in the campsite to feed the resident turtles, they ate bread from our hands when they were quick enough and the fish didn't get it or worse the eels!! The Dutch girls I had helped last night set up their bed in their camper as they couldn't work it out (somewhat an expert now, ha ha!) got the rest of our supplies as a gift and off we headed to Cairns. We had covered 2114km in 10 days in Goliath, but it was now time to get in a taxi and head for our hostel. After a wander around town and a few dips in the pool we head out to dinner, as it's Karens last night, I am lucky enough to get treated to a Thai meal and champers (thanks Karen) and then we head out to do a crawl of the backbacker bars. The woolshed the most imfamous, people dance on the tables here by 7pm!! An interesting evening, we got chatted up by some very random people, but good fun never the less. I can't believe that Karen goes home tomorrow it's gone so fast, but we've had a great time! I pinch her toiletries and a pair of trousers, in exchange for some photo's and other bits and bobs I want to send home and sadly wave goodbye to Karen for now - safe journey chick! xx
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