Days 63-77 - Airlie Beach - Brisbane
Trip Start
Nov 29, 2007
1
49
70
Trip End
Mar 27, 2008
Brisbane,
Australia
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Sadly, I have been lazy of late and have not kept up to date with writing in my diary so I will give a run down of what has happened since Airlie Beach.
We left Airlie with the intention of making it to Rockhampton although it is a very long drive. Rockhampton has been in the news all week as they are expecting a mass flood there which is predicted to peak tonight. The highway goes through 'Rocky', so we want to get there, and maybe past it if we can.
The rain was absolutely torrential as we set off from Airlie and stayed like that for two hours solid. I have never known rain like it and over such a long distance too. At times, we literally could not see the car in front of us even though we were only crawling behind it. The windscreen wipers were at top speed but still struggling to keep up and the car kept aqua planing. It was really scary at times, Dean's hands were sore from where he had gripped the steering wheel so hard, it was absolutely mad - I thought Australia was supposed to be hot and dry.
It took us about six hours (and a few more torrential downpours) to get to Rocky and we could see how flood affected it was. Luckily, the highway was okay but the water was really high and not far off touching the road bridge that goes over the river. There were loads of people around taking photo's of it. Dean decided we should drive to the next big town on the coast which is Gladstone. It took us another hour to get there, it has been a really long journey, so we meant to find somewhere to stay for a few days. We found a lovely caravan park by the beach and hired a beautiful cabin which was really comfortable. We enjoyed our few days in Gladstone, the cabin had everything and there are loads of Lorikeets flying around the campsite. It is not really a touristy place, more industrial with a huge port and lots of big ships coming and going.
After a few days we went to Agnes Water and town of 1770 which I wanted to go to because the guide book raves about it. I don't know why because there is nothing there. Okay - the beach is lovely but there isn't even a pub and everything shuts at the latest 7pm. The kids that live here wander the streets at night, bored to death. We weren't very impressed, a bit bored and soon moved on to Noosa Heads which was a long drive but worth it.
Noosa Heads is a beautiful place, the beaches are gorgeous and there is the Noosa river which is also beautiful. There is a national park here, woods and the everglades are nearby. There is also loads of shops and plenty of backpackers. We managed to find an apartment slightly out of town but absolutely stunning with a balcony overlooking the pool. We had a washing machine, tumble dryer, dishwasher, DVD player and everything in it. It is their low season now so we got a very good deal and it had a bath which sold it for me. We haven't had a bath since we left the UK and this is something we have both missed as we are more bath people than shower people.
We liked it here so much that we decided to stay until it was time to go to Brisbane for our flight to New Zealand. We had a fabulous time walking, swimming, barbequeing and generally enjoying ourselves and it only rained for a couple of days. We went to see the Australia zoo while we were here (Steve Irwin's zoo) which was absolutely amazing. I finally got to hold a koala bear and she was so beautiful. She didn't take much holding because she held onto me, I gave her a firm cuddle and she cuddled me back, it was lovely. We were the last in the queue so I got to keep hold of her for a good few minutes, I didn't want to let her go and she seemed content in my arms. We paid for the professional photo that has both of us and the koala in it and they are sending it home for us. They also allowed Dean to take some photo's with our own camera so that was a dream fulfilled for me - I finally got my Koala photo.
I totally reccommend the Australia zoo as a day out, It is not like other zoo's we have been to. They are dedicated to conservation and education about protection of wildlife. They are running several breeding programmes for endangered snakes and other animals that are losing their habitat, to later be released into protected habitat. The animal enclosures are large and the wallabies and red kangeroos have a huge enclosure that you can walk through, they are running around you freely. We even stroked the kangeroos and they weren't bothered a bit. They have short, soft, fluffy fur and they are so cute. There are loads of crocodiles which Steve and his mate have trapped and brought here. Mostly he had been asked by Queensland authorities to trap and remove them, either because they were about to lose their habitat or they were 'problem crocs'. Either way, bringing them here had saved their lives. Each one has a name and a plaque on their enclosure fence telling us about how, when and why they were brought to the zoo and a bit about their personalities. They do crocodile shows in the 'crocosseum' and we went to watch one. They basically let the crocodile into the arena and someone feeds them by hand. All the staff that do this have been personally trained by Steve but I found it slightly nerve-wracking to watch. Their jaws are huge and they make a loud snap when they close them which can be clearly heard in the huge arena. You can hear the massive power (and speed) of the jaws with that loud 'snap'.
Steve is everywhere here, it's like you can feel him around (that probably sounds weird). There are pictures of him, Terri and the children everywhere, all with captions underneath telling where they were taken and when. I would have liked to have met Terri, she still does the croc shows but we didn't see her around. Underneath the crocosseum, there is a large area which is a dedicated memorial to Steve and there are all kinds of things on display. People from all over the world have sent things; poems, books of condolence, a surf board with hundreds of messages scribbled on it, many khaki shirts with lots of messages on. Terri has also put some more personal items there too such as a locket with pictures of the four of them together, some wedding photo's amongst other things. There was a letter there from his little girl to her dad saying how much she loves him and misses him, it was so sweet but so sad. It made me shed a tear when I read it. There are lots of things that have been sent by children from all over the world; drawings, cute messages in child's pen and many of these are on display and they are so sweet.
I got to see absolutely loads of koala bears while we were here, they are everywhere and in some places, there is a park ranger with them and you can stroke them. Koala's are so definitely my favourite Aussie animal and they are just so gorgeously cute. I could watch them all day (even though they don't do much, mainly sleep) and I was in heaven to see so many.
We stayed in our apartment until Saturday morning and it was strange to have our backpacks packed again. With us having the car, we'd kept a lot of stuff just on the backseat and our packs have been in the boot the whole time, having taken everything we needed out of them. We have enjoyed our time in Australia and I'm glad we came here but I don't think I would ever come back. We certainly didn't fall in love like we did with Thailand. I will miss hearing the Gheko's chirping away at night as we have got so used to hearing them every night for the last 76 days. I don't think they will have Gheko's in New Zealand. We are both looking forward to New Zealand but I'm feeling a bit apprehensive about being back in the big city, Auckland looks huge. We are going to hire some sort of camper van but I seriously doubt we will be able to do this the first day we arrive so it will mean having to stay in Auckland which I am dreading.
We spent our last night in Australia sleeping in the car which was not very comfortable and we got bit to death by mozzie's. We dropped Sheila off at the airport at 6am sunday morning. In total Dean has driven 4,883.2km in five weeks.
