Cairns to Sydney - Our last days in Aus
Trip Start
Aug 07, 2008
1
16
22
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Sydney,
New South Wales,
Australia
Monday, July 6, 2009
Tw - And so it was, we had to fly from Cairns to Brisbane to escape the floods. It was a pain as it meant we had to double back on ourselves to get to Fraser Island, which was our must see parts between Cairns and Sydney. There are a lot of other places to visit along the way, but they all offer very similar activities, such as the Barrier Reef, which we went to in Cairns. We would have liked to have done a sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands, but it was one of the places cut off in the floods which meant we had to miss out on that. The other problem we had was one we have mentioned before about cost. We couldn’t afford to just hang around in Aus, as it was s expensive for us, we averaged £100 a day, so we knew we had to keep moving, doing all the trips we wanted along the way but getting around in just over 2 months instead of the 3 we had planned and saving money on accommodation
Brisbane war memorial
.So we arrived in Brisbane, the capital city of Queensland, a booming city that is growing rapidly. People love it there and say it is a fantastic place to live. It gave us that impression, with good weather, nice riverside, beaches close by etc, but for the traveller, it was not so great. Firstly, it seemed all the backpacker hostels were full and the one we went for, which unbelievably, was the Lonely Planets pick, was by far the worst Backpackers we stayed at. It was called the Yellow Submarine and the bottom of the ocean would have been a good place for it. Everything about it was bad, so bad I might add, that Suzanna signed onto Tripadvisor web forum to get her opinion out there in the world wide web!! Crappy backpackers aside, as I said, Brisbane was nice enough, but had nothing to offer us really. We went up a famous bell tower, which used to be the tallest structure in Brisbane, but is surrounded by Skyscrapers now, so the view is not so great. We did do the obligatory city walk, which was nice. It took in the city centre, the Botanical Gardens and the riverside, but that was about it for Brisbane, so with not much to keep us there, we quickly headed north up to Hervey Bay, which is the main jumping off point for Fraser Island. The journey took us 14 hours, which may surprise a few of you who know that part of the world, but it took that long because we went via Australia Zoo, Steve Irwin’s Zoo, and spent most of the day there
Brisbane's Anzac square
. We’d heard so many good things about it we went with high expectations, which often leads to disappointment, but, not in this case. We loved it and for all the right reasons. As a zoo, it seems to have it just about right. Great diversity of animals, in enclosures that are of a decent size and that they work hard on to replicate their natural environment. Then there’s the side that brings out the kid in everyone, a bit cheesy, but brilliant for being just that. They have made the zoo as interactive as possible and have keepers on hand throughout the day introducing animals to the public and explaining things about them. Then, of course there are the crocodiles, which I must say, spend almost all their lives sitting around doing nothing, except waiting for their next meal to go by. They are very impressive beats though. The funniest thing we saw at Australia Zoo was the keepers mowing the grass in the crocodile pens. They had two guys running around cutting the grass and another stood near the pool part keeping an eye on the crocs to make sure they don’t eat the lawnmower man. After checking out the crocs and the other animals, Suzanna had her must do moment and had her picture taken with a Koala, who’s name was Leno. He was very cute and Suzanna and Leno bonded, after an initial moment of rejection, so much that if she could have taken him with her she would have. From there we went to The Crocosium, the 5000 seat arena where they put on a show . Again, although a bit cheesy, it was brilliantly done
A Brisbane tree
. Not only did they show off all the animals and their talents, but they got everyone involved. After that show we headed for the tiger show. Again it was brilliant and at no time did I feel as though any of the animals where being exploited. I loved it so much I became a “Wildlife Warrior” and that’s the part I really loved, the fact every part of what the zoo does is about the conservation of animals and their habitats. It was deffo a F.A.B experience. So, feeling good, we left the zoo and went to the bus stop to wait for the bus to take us the rest of the way to Hervey Bay. This is not normally a problem, except that a tropical storm came through and flooded the car park we were waiting in. It was a nightmare and the rain was so hard it meant the bus was an hour late, so I’m sure you can imagine how wet we and our backpacks got. So after a soggy 5 hour journey we arrived in Hervey Bay. It’s famous for whale watching, although only at certain times of the year and not at the time of year we were there and as I mentioned before, Fraser Island. We had a look around Hervey Bay and it was like a ghost town. This, we were reliably informed was due to the floods north of here. Apparently the road to the Whitsunday’s had just reopened and everyone that was holed up there had moved on. Regardless, it was dead and we were glad to be heading to Fraser Island.
We had no idea what to expect from the trip. Most people who go to Fraser Island self drive in a four wheel drive and camp. We didn’t fancy that, mainly due to you having to go in groups of eight and having no say in who you travel with. We, instead, opted for an organised tour , where we had a guide and got to sleep in a hut and we were driven around in a four wheel drive truck, converted into a coach, a lot like the one we were on in South America, only the difference in condition was a bit like comparing my Fiesta, to a new fiesta
Careful, there's crocs in that pool!!
. We opted for the 3 day, 3 night option, getting to the island the day before the tour started. When we arrived, we couldn‘t believe our luck. The place we arrived at was like a plush resort. We were very excited. This excitement was, however, to be short lived. Despite arriving at about 9 in the morning, we were told our room wouldn’t be ready until 1. This in itself wasn’t a problem, but, why pick us up in Hervey Bay at 6.30am! Then we found out our room wasn’t in the nice hotel complex, but over a nearby hill. Again this was not a problem on the face of it, but it was turning into one of those trips where lots of little things start to add up, to potentially make the whole thing a nightmare. As things progressed, we then had a problem getting the transport to our room, apparently they had to ferry wedding guests and a bride around. I was like, what’s more important, the biggest day in someone’s life, or someone who’s getting married!! We then get to our room. It’s a hut with four rooms, three that sleep four and one that sleeps 2, our room. It was ok, especially if we compared it to the Yellow Submarine. So we started to settle in and went for a wander around our hut. We found the eating/drinking area, which seemed ok, although there was no one around. On retuning to our room, we couldn’t open the door. After what seemed like an age, we decided to find someone to help. Not as easy as you may think, remember no one was around. The other thing I should mention was that the reception was about a mile away and the next shuttle bus to the reception was in 2 hours
Told you there were crocs in that pool!!
. Our hut did have a phone, but guess what. It didn’t work. Eventually we found a man and he tried our lock, only to confirm the key we had couldn’t open the lock!!. He did, however, have a master key and opened the door for us. I then had to walk back to reception, over the hill that I can confirm is very steep, to reception. When I got there, they were all jolly and nice, which was wasted on me at this point, and cheerily told me we were supposed to be in a different hut!!! So I trudged back up and over the hill, we moved rooms and thought things would now be ok. Only problem was there was no one to tell us what to do and when. Anyway, I feel as though I’m ranting on a bit, so will cut to the chase. It’s safe to say, things did not get better for a while. The next morning, we had breakfast and were wondering what would happen. We had been given a form that told us to wait in the restaurant for our guide. So we waited and waited. There were some other people waiting so we checked they were on our tour and then waited with them. We exchanged stories of how average everything had been so far and all came to the same conclusion. If they had one person running a reception at this part of the complex, most of our problems would disappear! So with that sorted, we waited some more, then, out of nowhere , this old guy appeared and barked at us to get on the bus out front. This, it turned out was our guide and we all thought, oh my god, on top of all the other things, we’ve got a guide who’s had a personality bypass!
The perfect Crane pose
! We spent the next half an hour, being told nothing while we worked our way back to the main reception, stopping at various places on the way for no apparent reason. Eventually we end up back at the jetty where we were dropped the day before and we pick up the rest of the group. We did a role call and finally set off on our first day of the trip. It was at this point we found out our guide was called Karl and that one of the things he picked up at a previous stop was his personality, because as soon as we were off and running he was like a different person. All of a sudden he was cracking jokes and full of all kinds of information. Those of us that had been there the day before all let out a huge sigh of relief. So, we were off on what would turn out to be a fantastic three days. The off road driving is truly off road and Karl was a demon driver, who managed to give us an extremely in depth commentary along the way. So, what did you do and see, I here you cry. Well I’ll get to that in a sec. First a few Fraser Island facts. It’s the biggest sand island in the world. It’s 122 km’s long and up to 22 km’s wide. The highest of the many sand dunes is currently 244 metres, although this is subject to change. Although it’s a sand island it is home to a sub tropical rainforest and is home to hundreds of species of birds , mammals and reptiles and we spent three fab days having a good nose around. Our first day was spent travelling through the forest in the truck, visiting the beautiful Basin Lake, an old, redundant, logging station, a walk through the forest, finishing off with a relaxing swim in another beautiful lake, known as Lake Mackenzie
Norman the crocodile
. As you’ll see from the pictures, we had a Dingo visit us here, which was cool, although you have to be careful to remember they are wild and although they look like our domestic dog, they are actually more like the Asian Wolf and have, famously, taken a couple of small children recently. Once back at the huts, we all ate and had a couple of drinks and got to know each other a bit better. Day two started at 9 am, following breakfast, and it was straight into another day full of sights, sounds and loads of information, from our now favourite guide, Karl. We started off by driving across the island, through the forest, to the beach. Then we drove along the beach for about an hour before getting to “The Champagne Pools”. You may be surprised to hear they don’t actually have champagne in them, but are in fact pools fed by the sea crashing over the rocks, where the water appears to be a champagne colour due to the sand. From there, we walked up and over Indian Head, a rocky bluff that I’m reliably informed is 60 meters high and am less reliably informed looks like a whale, not something that was obvious. From there we headed back down the beach stopping at the very famous Maheno Shipwreck and at Eli Creek, a surprisingly popular spot for swimming. From there it was back to the huts and the end of another day. The final day took us to more parts of the Island. We trekked through the forest to Lake Wabby, which could have been a nice place to chill out, but in what became a feature of the final day, it rained very hard and there was no shelter
Suzanna and Leno
. We did have a swim though and saw cat fish in the lake. From there we walked across a sand dune back to the bus. Then it was lunch and onto our final spot, lake Birrabeen, which I’m sure would have been great if, again, it hadn’t been hissing down with rain. Having said that, we’d all bonded well, so the atmosphere was good despite what could have been a disappointing end to the trip. So there it was, our Fraser Island trip. As I said, we loved it in the end and despite first impressions, it was Karl that really made it what it was.From Fraser Island it was back to Hervey Bay, which was still empty, for a days rest, before heading back down the east coast. We’d made the decision to get back to Sydney pretty quick, stopping only at Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay on the way. There are other places to stop on the way down, but they mostly offered beach, or, similar things to those we’d already seen, As it turned out we couldn’t get accommodation in Byron Bay, so had to miss that, but, we did spend a long weekend in Surfers, which whilst being like any other resort town, anywhere in the world, did give us a chance to “dress up” (I wore a shirt, and I ironed it!!) and have a night out on the town. We went to a few bars, one of which impressed Suzanna a lot, by asking her for ID, and we even had a dance. The town was very busy, but had a bit of a Cath and Kim feel about it. From Surfers, we took the bus straight down to Sydney, which took a bum numbing 15 hours. Once in Sydney we took a bit of time to sort a few things out and treat ourselves to lunch at one of Bill Grainger’s restaurants and then it was onto South East Asia. We were ready for the change, mainly due to the fact we felt like we spent the whole time in Australia haemorrhaging money. Having said that, we had a great time here. We loved the wildlife. We saw and experienced some amazing things. We spent some quality time with old and new friends and we spent new year in what is probably the coolest place to do so. There are a bunch of things that spent time trying to annoy us, but the pros far out weighed the cons.
Take care everyone and we’ll mail again soon.
Tobs and Suzanna
xx
