Campervaning along the East coast
Trip Start
Jan 05, 2009
1
12
15
Trip End
Jun 30, 2009
Brisbane,
Queensland,
Australia
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Anyway, going back to where we left you, after Darwin we flew to Cairns and, as we liked so much the 5.000 Km and three weeks spent in our Cheapa Campa, we decided to do the same on the East coast.
So we rented another campervan to go from Cairns to Brisbane. This time the name wasn't as funny as the previous one, it was called "travellers Auto-Barn" (www.travellers-autobarn.com.au - it sounded more like a german motorway...) but it was exactly the same model so we knew what to expect.
We initially spent a couple of days in Cairns during which we took the typical tour on the Great Barrier Reef. Even if we thought we already had enough and the best possible snorkeling in Galapagos, we really enjoyed the Australian Reef: the big difference with Galapagos was actually the reef itself (what a surprise!), with its beautiful colours more than the fish (as we saw almost the same in Galapagos). Being a very touristic cruise (around 100 people on the boat!) we had a deal with the agency to get one "initiation to diving" for free!! So Massimo had his first time experience "breathing underwater"...it was a great experience but he's not going to do it again...men is not supposed to breathe underwater so why pushing it?
We then took the campervan and started our trip south to Brisbaine by....going north to the Daintree/Cape Tribulation rainforest: incredible desert beaches, with inviting blue sea but there is no way you're even going to put a feet in the water as it is full of deadly jelly fish and, if you're lucky enough to avoid them, still you've got the good old crocs waiting for you...in the queue just before the sharks...so no swimming in this beautiful sea, just looking!
On the way south we took the occasion to go visiting Emilia, a cousin of Massimo's grandmother, who emigrated to Australia with her husband Pierino in 1951 to become a sugar cane farmer.
She is a very active 82 years old lady who welcomed us in the typical Italian way, making us a huge lunch that lasted three hours filled with the stories from her life, a great example of the Italian emigrant working population who succesfully escaped the misery of the Italian post-war. As a good Italian, she lives in Ingham, a city where 80% of people are Italian emigrants, mayor included.
Now, to follow the typical East coast tour we were supposed to go to Airlie Beach and from there take a day cruise to the beautiful Withsundays Islands...actually we did go to Airlie beach however the bizarre wheather that was unusually cold when we were in the South, this time decided to be unusually wet, so our cruise to the Withsundays went flooded!
Then, as Massimo was pushing to start surfing again, we decided to leave Airlie beach and the Withsundays to head to the first part of the coast where you can swim with a "lower risk" for your life (it is still there!). We stopped in Agnes Water, a nice coast village where we manage to push the rain away for a couple of days and enjoy the beautiful beach and waves.
The rain caught up with us with the interests when, while driving to Noosa beach, we have been under pouring rain for 24 hrs straight, with water getting in the van through the not so new windows and our bed becoming a pool!
We concluded our trip on the East coast on the beautiful and "waveful" Gold Coast quickly stopping in Surfers Paradise, the Australian version of Miami (on a smaller scale of course) and then spending one week in Byron Bay, where Massimo has risked to convert into a fish as he was spending most of his awake time in the water while Melanie was happily enjoying some "private" time on the beach, swimming in the olimpic pool and doing yoga (to make herself capable of standing Massimo for the rest of the trip).
We then quickly visited Brisbane and Perth, where we managed to catch up with a guy we met in Bolivia (!!). We're now in Hong Kong, our next stop in Asia, looking forward for the third and last continent of our trip.
Soon following M&M's in Asia.
Comments
after going through your nice stories...
...ma va' a lavura', barbłn!!!