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Hi All
Cairns and North
We arrived on the East coast of Australia at about 5am Monday morning after a 4 hour flight with uncontrolled children! We had a couple of hours sleep at Cairns airport (didn't we look like hobo's in the arrival lounge?!) then we finally got a taxi to the spaceships depot. They hire campervans which are converted Toyota MPV's decked out in bright orange with a bed in the back and camp stuff. Cairns is hot, probably early 30's. We picked up our new home, 'The Shrek' - number 131 of a fleet of 150 and hit the roads. We grabbed brekkie, did a bit of food supply shopping then started our East Coast Adventure!
e headed north of Cairns to a place called 'Yorkies knob' which was by the sea. We pulled up in a picnic spot and explored our new home and put everything away, then had an hours nap â€" we were both shattered! After a short walk along the beach we hopped in our van and hit the road again. After that we next stopped in a small town called Palm Cove right on the beach. We saw a wedding happening on the beach and walked along the pier. The sea was quite rough but the beach was stunning. Further up the coast, we paused at a viewpoint right on the coast road where people were hang gliding from! It was spectacular scenery. The road hugged the coast and any of the corners had a wonderful view. We made our way up to Port Douglas, a pretty little sea side town where we absorbed the views from a viewpoint at the top of a hill, grabbed some leaflets, had a general mooch around and had fish 'n' chips for dinner! We moved up the coast a little bit, to a town called Mossman, there we found a campsite and crashed out for the evening.
After a good nights sleep in our portable home we hit the roads again. We made our way inland through the huge 'Wooroongran' national park. We stopped along the way at various viewpoints and waterfalls and saw some immense sights. Millaa Millaa falls, Zillie falls and Ellenja falls were amongst the best! We stopped in a town called 'Mareeba' for lunch then drove through Atherton towards Mission beach, just south of Innisfail. It was getting late so we made a bid to find a campsite. The first one we found was nice, it was a free site so we checked the signs, when we noticed a sign stating that crocodiles lived in the creek that ran around the site... we drove on for a bit in search of a non-crocodile friendly site! We found a beautiful site practically on Mission beach (only a few tree's separated it). We cooked dinner in our alfresco kitchen then hit the hay.
On Monday morning we got up early and took our morning tea to the beach. We had a wander the hit the road again - a long day travelling ahead. Pete drove for 5 hours barely stopping other than for a mooch around 'Townsville' a big industrial port town where we picked up some supplies, then a really high viewpoint near Ayr. There was a very friendly man at the viewpoint who told us all about the local 'cane fires', which we foolishly thought were micro-bush fires! Turns out that their method of farming over here consists of setting fire to their fields of sugar cane crops - whilst they stand in the middle of the fire! We took some pictures of the cane fires and some very friendly rock wallabies that were hopping around, then we moved our big orange portable home in search of a campsite. It got really late before we found one close to Bowen right in Horseshoe bay, as most of them were full - school holidays here in Queensland! We finally found somewhere to crash and had dinner - joined by some (giant) bull ants, who found a good meal in Pete.
Central Queensland
We had an early start Tuesday morning and hit the roads again. En route we stopped at various viewpoints again. First stop was Peter Faust Dam, west of Prosperpine. It was beautiful up there, there was huge mountains in the backdrop and it was a lovely sunny day too! We carried on driving for a while when we found a camping shop - we stopped off for some essentials then made a move. We finally arrived at Airlie beach, a very backpacker-esque resort strip next to beautiful turquoise waters of the Whitsunday Islands. We stopped for picnic by a sailing club then headed into town to find a great barrier reef trip! We went in search of somewhere to sleep, we found a lovely place next to the airport (a local and very quiet one) and spent the evening chatting by candlelight and watched the possums stumble around our table and chairs!
The next day we got up super early to head for our reef trip. We'd booked onto a bright purple catamaran yacht called 'Camira'. We hopped on board and had morning tea whilst we sailed out to sea. It was a lovely sunny day and the water was fairly calm. The scenery was amazing! We stopped off near Hook Island to go snorkelling in the inner reef for about an hour, it was pretty cool and we got to see heaps of fish and coral! We hopped back on the boat and had more food while we sailed towards Whitehaven beach. When we arrived we were greeted by pristine white sands and bright blue waters, it was truly amazing! We jumped in a dinghy and headed ashore where we lazed around the beach for an hour or so, just chillin' and making the most of the views. We were called back to the boat where we had an Aussie style BBQ then we sailed back to Airlie beach perusing the scenery along the way. It was a long day out (7-6) so we had a restful evening giving our van a spring clean before we moved on.
Southern Queensland
We woke up and had brekkie then hit the road fairly early as we had a long day driving ahead, about 8 hours to Gladstone. We stopped for a nice little picnic at Sarina for lunch. We hit the road again stopping at Rockhampton to do some food shopping but were soon back on the road. 25 minutes later we heard a grating noise from the engine and the temperature gauge shot through the roof, we pulled over and called the breakdown company. It appeared that the Shrek was broken! We waited at the side of the highway for about an hour, by that time the sun had set so we were a bit nervous - what with the snakes and spiders... oh, and the very large trucks whizzing by at 110kmph (70mph) while we were balanced on the edge of the tarmac! The breakdown man finally arrived, plonked our Shrek on the back of his truck and towed us 75km down the road to Gladstone â€" bonus, saved us some petrol! The insurance company kindly put us up in a hotel for the evening which was a pleasant surprise â€" so we moved home unexpectedly for the night and awaited a call from the garage the next day.
... Shrek was dead. He 'lost compression' apparently, and wouldn't be back on the road for some time. The people at spaceships wanted him back so they arranged for us to be towed 600km (400miles) down the coast to Brisbane on Friday. They'd also arranged for us to be put up in a hotel for another two nights until we could get a new van from them. We weren't all that bothered as we were heading for Brisbane anyhow so it saved us the petrol and was a pleasant surprise to have the comfort of a hotel for a few days!
We waited for a phone call to tell us when we were getting picked up. It finally came so we made our way to the garage where the Shrek was being held, when we were told our lift wouldn't be there for another 3-4hours! We went for a wander in search of food, Gladstone is an industrial town with very little to see or do so it was a bit of a waste of a day. It was a roasting hot day and there was very little shade around but we walked for about half an hour. On the way Pete was attacked by a rather angry magpie so we were pleased for the safety of Subway when we found it! We had lunch then wandered back to the garage to pack up our Shrek and hit the road with a different driver. The first driver we had was a friendly old chap, he drove us half way to Brisbane. It was nice to catch up with an Aussie - most of the people we meet are fellow travellers. We had a good natter and he told us lots of stories about previous breakdowns which passed the time a bit and before we knew it we were nearly there. We stopped for a loo-break, where Pete shared his toilet with a pair of possums, grabbed a coffee then made tracks. We swapped drivers shortly after, the second driver was just as friendly and before we knew it we were in Brisbane. We emptied the entire contents of our van into a taxi (including lots of tinned and dried foods) which was a bit of a mission, then headed for our new hotel-home again! It was late when we arrived so we threw all our stuff up the corner and went straight to sleep.
On Saturday we got up late and headed for Brisbane city. We jumped onto a tour bus and begrudged having to use public transport again! Oh well, we got a guided insight into Brisbane and we could hop on and off the bus as we pleased. Brisbane is a pretty city, its very clean and neat! We hopped off the bus at Mount Coo-Tha and had a walk around absorbing the scenery. We could see all across Brisbane for miles! We grabbed a cuppa-Tea before jumping back on the bus and finishing our tour of the city. We got off the bus at Roma street parkland and spent the rest of the afternoon milling around the park looking at the beautiful displays of colourful flowers and dodging the huge lizards! We had a slow meander back to the hotel, ordered a pizza and got an early night.
We woke up early on Sunday morning, packed up of our stuff and headed to the spaceship office to collect our new van! It's an older van, number 44 called 'Space Patrol' but its kitted out the same and it's good to have a van back! We filled it with our stuff, made it home then hit the road again. We made our way to the 'Lone Pine Kola Sanctuary' where we watched a koala presentation/talk; walked amongst the red kangaroo's (the big ones) in their enclosure - we had the option of feeding them too but they had bloody big claws and teeth so we opted for a short walk through with a few quick photo stops; then we cuddled a koala! It was a lovely day. We then drove down the coast a bit further, until we reached the gold coast. We looked for somewhere to stay but it's a very resort-orientated area so we carried on until we got to Byron Bay. We found a little campsite outside of the town where we crashed out for the evening, we didn't have time for much other than dinner. Australia is huge and we spend a lot of time driving between towns! Byron cape is the most Eastern point of Aus and it's just over the border of New South Wales so that's the end of Queensland. In total Pete has driven 1569km (975miles) and we were towed a further 675km, we've covered a total of 2244kkm (1400miles) in just over a week, not bad eh?!
See you in NSW,
Hol and Pete
xXx
P.S. Check out / download a picture of us cuddling a koala http://photo.koala.net/1810023465.htm
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