Tropical Update

So here we are... Back in Sydney. I got the Jet Star flight out of Cairns this morning at 7 and arrived to a decidedly cooler Sydney (34 in Cairns; 26 in Sydney). I walked out of the airport terminal here to an overcast sky but within 2 minutes the clouds parted and the sun came out and it's been a beautiful day ever since.

Back on the Underground to Circular Quay...




I've come to be a little lax when it comes to the so called 'security restrictions' for domestic flights because they are not enforced anywhere near as rigidly as for international flights. Anyway, that all proved to be interesting at 5:45 this morning as my flight was actually routed out of the International Terminal! Something about where the plane was parked. So there I was with my backpack full of various liquids, aerosols and razor blades! I think I became a training exercise... At least we didn't get as far as a full body search! The ridiculous nature of these restrictions became apparent when the security officer removed my various bottles of gel/shampoo etc from my wash bag, put them in the required clear plastic bag... and then put that back in the wash bag and ultimately back in my backpack... And so the difference was...? Oh, and the razor blades were left. Crazy.

Anyway, a bit of back-tracking to how I got here...

I left Airlie Beach (again!) and headed north. Having lost about 10 days in total to various "rain events" and floods I had to cut out Magnetic Island and go straight through to Mission Beach. On the way, I stopped at Townsville which turned out to be a really great tropical town...




Ten points if you can spot 'The Saint'...




And from the top of that hill, Townsville...




As an aside, Aussie politics is quite interesting at the moment at federal level with lots of rough-and-tumble going on. At State level it's also hitting the news with recent Queensland state elections giving the incumbent Labour party a hiding to the point where, "they now couldn't field a netball team!". At a local council level, it's rather more basic...




Mission Beach is, genuinely, a little slice of tropical paradise (albeit, still, with some debris and damage from taking a direct hit from a cyclone last year)...




And exhibit (b) with Dunk Island in the background...




Very relaxed! With the ant infestation in the van reaching biblical proportions, I checked into a nice little motel and had a couple of very entertaining evenings with two engineers who were staying there whilst surveying all of the local bridges after the most recent storms. They were funny!

Next stop was Cairns and, would you believe, within two hours of dropping off the van I got a stone hit that cracked the windscreen! The rental company wanted $550 but after ringing around I found a place that would do it, whilst I waited, for $220. it was worth the wait!

Cairns proved to be a very, very pleasant surprise. I really liked the place. A pretty big tropical town with a tremendous feel to it. The focus is the Esplanade and man-made lagoon. Everybody there seemed to spend the whole weekend lying around the lagoon and surrounding park, swimming in the water and playing sports or lying under shady trees. Nice life!




... By late afternoon there were plenty of family gatherings and people, generally, enjoying being outside. Great! There are also a lot of Japanese tourists in Cairns... In fact, enough to support both Louis Vuitton and Cartier shops!

Everyday a different band played on the bandstand at the lagoon and the whole place was just the epitome of a relaxed, no-stress life...




So there's maybe one more post to come after this week, then that's it!















- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Back in Sydney

Sunset

I had a 'holiday' in Hervey Bay and whilst the weather there was decidedly mixed, it was a whole lot better than "up north". In fact it proved to be exactly the right decision as the monsoonal trough sat over the northern Queensland coast for a week and made the regular news bulletins daily. Flooding, road closures and reports of 700-900mm of rain in a week! I discovered a number of others were in Hervey Bay doing exactly the same thing... Sitting it out.

I came through Rockhampton last night, affectionately known as "Rocky"... More "Rocky Horror Show" if you ask me but I was told (twice) that I was lucky as the rains from further north are due to hit their river tomorrow with widespread flooding expected and roads in/out cut off. Rocky is a major town and that would have necessitated a big diversion!

I'm back in Airlie Beach, just for the night. I will remember this place for the English and German 'youth' lying on the beach in uncomfortable-looking starfish shapes, desperate to ensure no part of their bodies are safe from sunburn... The 'red' colour they achieve would put a Space-Shuttle-Heat Shield-Tile-on-Reentry to shame!

Anyway, enough of all that. Back to Hervey Bay which is one of the few places on the east coast where you can see the sun set over the ocean.

Around 5:30...




The day had been one of the rare cloudless days of that week but just as the the sun drifted down the sky was suddenly freckled with these little ones.

Man fishing for whiting; dog barking...




Five minutes later; people enjoying the last rays...




A couple more minutes...




Nearly gone...




Gone (6:00)...




Nice!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Airlie Beach

Post #28 A Weather Report...

If you are (a) looking for a new mailbox whilst (b) discarding an old microwave oven, may I offer this little nugget of recycling inspiration...




Last weekend I decided that, with now limited time left, I would head straight to the Whitsundays to allow me a decent amount of time there. Then, the plan was to visit just three more places further north en route to Cairns, namely Magnetic Island, Hinchinbrook Island and Mission Beach. The overriding plan was to have a relaxed last three weeks before heading back to Sydney.

With all of that in mind I put in a good few hundred K's to Airlie Beach. On the way I travelled through "Beef Country", "Sugar Cane Country" and "Rum Country"! Rockhampton, the Beef Capital, was an interesting stop off point complete with statues of famous beef cattle. The Botanic Gardens were a pleasant find...




A typical Queensland House, on stilts to catch the breeze with a nice shady palm...




Airlie Beach is the mainland gateway to the Whitsunday Islands; a name I've always thought sounded so exotic! It's a small, one-main-street, town focussed on the myriad ways of getting tourists to part with money and explore the islands. Everything from cheap-alcohol-focussed backpacker boats gong to Hamilton island to seaplanes taking Russians to the $1000 per night, Hayman Island. The Whitsundays are a bit down on their luck at the moment with 7 islands recently being mothballed, going bust or being put on the market. The exceptionally strong Aussie dollar is being blamed for the marked drop off in tourism in the last couple of years.

Airlie is a pleasant place but it's the first I've been to so far that has a population of European backpackers far outweighing anyone else. It's a bit annoying to be honest!

Nevertheless it is a beautiful spot and the Coral Sea is the most dazzling aquamarine colour (not that it shows up in photo's)...




I spent a couple of very relaxed days exploring the environs and researching what tours to join.

Cedar Creek Falls is a great little spot for being lazy, 20 minutes from Airlie




And Conway Beach, also nearby, was all to myself!




As time passed, the weather deteriorated. It is, to be fair, still the back end of the wet season and I'm told that some years there is a "sting in the tail of the season". This will be one of those years then...




At first it got really cloudy. I went to the Marina to book a tour and just happened to see plenty of people getting off the incoming tour of that day looking rather green and unhappy. Pretty choppy out there apparently and difficult to see anything. With that in mind I changed plans and booked onto a day's fishing charter... Might as well be doing something exciting whilst out on the water!

The blanket of cloud developed...




And by the next day it was raining, hard! The fishing day was actually great fun. 5 of us all caught lots although the best catch went to Marcello who landed a 50-60lb Great Trevally (GT). We were also treated to watching a Sea Eagle fishing within 2-3m of the boat. Amazing!

Back on dry land I checked out various weather reports and spoke to a few people to gauge what was unfolding.

In brief, a monsoonal trough had moved in and all reports showed heavy rain for weeks with no prospect of seeing sky in that time. These weren't downpours followed by sunshine to dry out, just rain!




No matter how keen I was to see any particular place, I was more keen to not spend the last couple of weeks in relentless, miserable monsoon rains confined to the back of a van! The reports were even worse the further north I looked so my best bet was to retreat south to a longer term forecast of "sunshine and some showers" which sounded a whole heap better.

So after having a long chat to myself to make sure I wasn't being crazy, I stocked up on crisps, coke and Tim Tams, and drove 900 km back south! About ten hours, easy.

I've concluded over these months that decision (even if it proves to be not the best) is far better than indecision. Also, that if you are to have regrets it is much, much better to regret what you did over regretting not doing something. after around 400km the crazy, super-sized monsoon raindrops eased and the clouds began losing their menacing blackness for something a little fairer. Another couple of hundred km's and there was a chink in the cloud with blue sky! I was so pleased to see it and felt vindicated.

Yesterday was, as forecast back down here, sometimes sunny and sometimes raining ("normal" rain!) and it felt good to be out of the cycle of getting out of the van in the morning in torrential rain, not being able to cook, sit outside etc and to retreat into the van at night with everything soaked... Miserable!

So, after a couple of nights in a motel drying out, I'm now just going to relax back here in Hervey Bay and enjoy the intermittent sunshine! A further twist is that there is some heavy rain to come here. The upside is that the 'Heavy Rain' where I was, has developed into several weather warnings with the possibility of a cyclone developing about Cairns. Joy. Currently all roads 'about Cairns' are closed due to flooding and the rainfall quantities up there and in the Whitsundays are making regular news bulletins. I'm pleased I decided to leave when I did.

Let's hope it's all moved on by the time I have to make my way to Cairns which is where I've got a planned trip to the Great Barrier Reef, have to return the van, and have a flight booked back to Sydney.

All good fun! Anyway, must dash as I appear to have an ant infestation in the van to deal with...














- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Back in Hervey Bay!

Post #27 Fraser Island

Fraser Island, a 40 minute barge ride from Hervey Bay, is the world's largest sand-island and is a 400,000 acre, World Heritage Site. Those of you that have visited will be familiar with the itinerary but here goes for those that haven't...

The weather was clearing nicely and so, on Wednesday, I booked to join a tour group for a one day trip on Thursday. I'd initially hoped to hire a 4wd and go over independently but the cost was crippling. Having ruled out the 'big bus operators' I booked with a firm that takes 7 at a time in Toyota Land Cruisers. Right decision; great day had.

Having assembled the 7 of us by 8am, the day started with a 20 minute drive to the barge with (3 espressos that morning) Christine, our guide at the wheel. She was a hoot! After 10 minutes one of the 50 litre boxes on the roof, full of provisions for lunch, came flying off and scattered its contents across the road behind us. It was actually hilarious and solidified the group as we cleared the road of buns, plates, mustard, ketchup, salad and the like.

First stop on the island was the freshwater Lake McKenzie (with no tributaries it is only fed by rainwater).




It was a fabulous place for a swim (and was much warmer than it looks), followed by morning tea.

Then onto the Maheno shipwreck...




The ship was built in 1905 in Scotland and was a luxury liner, crossing the Tasman Sea, between NZ and Australia. She then served as a hospital ship in the First World War before returning to her former duties. In the 30's she was declared 'outdated' and sold to a Japanese company for scrap. They were towing her to Japan in 1935 when a cyclone wrecked her. Amazing that she's been there so long but current estimates give her another 7 years before complete decay.

We then did hair-raising speeds along 75 mile beach to see The Pinnacles (coloured sand; not that interesting) and then onto Indian Head.




... Whilst the weather had improved significantly and we were treated to a dry day, the clouds were still ominous! The whole island is sand and 75 Mile Beach is a designated highway (and runway which was interesting when we saw a light aircraft come in!)




It was pretty quiet but in the high season there can be hundreds of 4wd's on this 'highway'!

Indian Heads was our spot for lunch. Whilst the guides set up (what was left!) for lunch, we all climbed the Head...




This was where Cook first saw Aborigines and vice versa. He was mapping the coast of Fraser Island from his ship, thinking it was the mainland and the Aborigines saw a ship for the first time and amassed on the Head in War Paint, thinking it was something from the Spirit World.

Lunch was with the other Landcruiser, carrying an older party.




Our party, I have to say, was absolutely great fun. A very funny young Danish couple, two girls from Mexico (although one was an Aussie), a guy from Switzerland, a girl from Auckland and me! We had a very, very funny day of it with relentless laughs.

After lunch, we split from the other group and headed further north for the Champagne Pools. (these are at the top of the island and these guys are the only tour group to get that far on a day trip... We were never rushed but we were definitely breaking the 80kph speed limit on the beach!)




The ocean to the east coast of Fraser Island is one of the world's largest shark nurseries. (Apparently, flying over it on a clear day is mortifying!). They will beach themselves chasing fish into shore so even a paddle would be decidedly dicey. The pools, with their breakwater were a great place for an afternoon dip...




Then a good run back down 75 Mile Beach to Eli Creek and then the barge back to mainland.




Great day. Fraser Island is fascinating with an interesting history far too lengthy to detail here. One interesting fact is that the Satinay tree was logged heavily there and, for various reasons, it was used in the building of the Suez Canal and in the rebuilding of the London docks after WW2.

The group was tremendous and a couple of us continued the day's 'High Spirits', once back, at a bar, into the wee hours.




... Swiss Marco contemplating the day as we left.

I have just spent the day... Driving! Having loitered in many places so far I needed to catch up a little on the general northward movement!




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Brooks Rd W,Sarina,Australia

Post #26 It's meant to be the Dry Season by now!

Sunday morning I left Noosa after a great few days doing perilously little.




The sun shone, the water was warm, it was busy with people having a good time and I met a couple of interesting people. Mike was one of them... He'd sold his property business in Sydney a couple of years ago and moved to Noosa. The weekend was his 60th birthday celebrations and he'd flown family in from around the globe to join him. He was very genuine and very excited to be seeing all his family. He was great company for an hour and answered, indirectly, a couple of questions I had...

1. Before I left home a few people recommended visiting Noosa and described it as a "quiet hippy place" yet I found "Knightsbridge-on-Sea", albeit very relaxed. Turns out the place was 'gentrified' and transformed to its current state only a few years ago. Not a hippy in sight!
2. Surfers Paradise had also been described as a 'chilled', small place. Mike said he worked there a while back in a timber-clad house/office and would walk to the beach, along the high street, with surf board under arm. 5-7 years ago, Japanese investment money arrived and the place turned into the "Las Vegas" that it is today!

Amazing how places can change so quickly.

I left with clouds building and some rain expected. What transpired; wow...




A deep low/weak tropical cyclone (some disagreement as to what it was as, technically, it is sub tropical here) came in and dropped its rain on the Sunshine Coast! Above, is crawling along the freeway with the wipers on top speed!

I headed to Tin-Can Bay and then to Rainbow Beach (famous for the 74 different shades of sand colour on the beach that shimmer in the sunshine). Here it is...




I was, by now, wondering what to do. My plan had been to loop down to Brisbane but, looking at the weather maps, it would be hissing down there too and was forecast to be around for a week. I didn't want to be in the rain! The next hour or so was straight from a comedy with me tapping away at the iPad, looking for an escape route. In hindsight, I was very clearly focussed on getting out of the rain as the thought-process randomly went:

1. I'll take a little trip to Fiji. Ouch! Flights are v expensive so, no.
2. Looking at the radar, Townsville is dry. I'll go there. Oh! 1300km and it's noon now so, no.
3. I'll drive to Alice Springs after all... Several thousand kilometres so, NO!
4. OK, I'll fly to Alice... Only Qantas fly to Alice from Brisbane and they wanted over 500Ausd! (Qantas... You are rubbish! Poor service, often tired planes, surly staff and 200 dollars more than anyone else. And there's Virgin Blue! No wonder you are going bust... And you still haven't replied to my letter from December, pointing out these facts!)

So, after all, off to Brisbane it was to be!




... Roads were flooded. And then...




... Here's where I spent much of the rest of the day.

There were two major hold-ups on the Bruce Highway. First there was a crash. Inevitable as Aussies cannot drive and so as soon as rain is introduced to the equation, they start driving into each other. This is not a slur... Australians seem willing to admit their lacking skills on the driving front. Secondly, the highway temporarily flooded and so the traffic was stopped to wait for the water to subside. By now, a 2 hour journey had taken about 7 and it was dark so as soon as I was able to leave the highway, I did so and checked into a suburban motel.

Brisbane was obviously wet...




After a day there I concluded that I was right, initially, to skip Brisbane on the way up and I was having no fun in the rain so, having trudged around the major sights I got back on the road to head to Hervey Bay, the gateway to Fraser Island.

Out of the city, I realised the magnitude of the rains. New South Wales and Victoria to the south are currently having major flood issues with something like 75% of NSW either under water or at the highest risk of flooding. Thousands of people have been evacuated (8000 alone in Wagga which has been declared a national disaster zone) and now, Queensland had become the third state to succumb to major flooding...




... The White posts behind the KFC ad are on a footie pitch.




It rained hard, without a lift, for at least 36 hours. At times it was like nothing I'd seen and the reports were of 400mm (15"?) in that time. Everywhere was flooded or flooding! Really quite amazing to see. Every creek and river had burst its banks and trying to get north, this was a very common sight...




With lots of doubling-back and cutting from one road to another I very nearly made it all the way to Hervey Bay, although at a very slow pace, but the journey came to an abrupt end with just 40km to go.




This is a bridge over the Mary River, in a little town south of Maryborough. It was a few centimetres off covering the bridge and so had been closed. To my right was quite a gathering of the locals looking at the scene and waiting to see what machinery, vehicles or cattle would be washed down the river! The bridge is 'listed' so the Victorian railings and lamp posts had been removed. There was nothing to do but to check into the campsite and stay the night. The power in the town had been off all day so the only "shop" open was the pub that sold take-outs. I had bread so it was a "Beer & Bread" night!

Made it to Hervey Bay yesterday. The weather looks to be clearing and the travel restrictions to Fraser Island have been lifted so I hope to get there tomorrow. I suspect this post might be quite dull but it's very interesting to have seen how, even in heavily populated areas like Queensland, Mother Nature can still take the upper hand with ease! Not to mention what 36 hours of torrential rain is like...




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Elizabeth St,Hervey Bay,Australia

Post #25 heading up the East Coast

"There are some things which cannot be learned quickly, and time, which is all we have, must be paid heavily for their acquiring.
They are the very simplest things..."

... said Ernest Hemingway (the quote is a little longer but this is the thrust of the message). Having only travelled previously for about 7 weeks in South America with P, this trip is obviously much longer and, having plenty of time to consider and learn, is sometimes quite insightful. I'm not attempting some deep and meaningful message here but he was right that it can often take a long time to learn something new (or get reacquainted with something) and, I guess, I'm lucky to be able to afford the time here. I've learnt lots of things so far, like don't spray aerosol mozzie spray when you're standing next to your gas burner, cooking supper! But the 'very simplest things' take time to reacquaint with, like the sun rising and setting; occurrences that go by almost unnoticed at home, especially in a city, and yet so profoundly significant and very special when you do have the time to be there watching.

Right, that's enough of all that. I went to Surfers Paradise. Gosh!




This part of the trip continues to be in absolute contrast with the one up the west coast. I'm glad I had New Zealand in-between to ease the passage back in to civilisation! This is good fun too; just different. It's busy with multilane freeways, service stations not roadhouses, big towns, cars, people and traffic wardens. I can imagine your average WA Aussie laughing at the concept of traffic wardens. (although in Surfers Paradise they are rather attractive and in Gold bikinis). In WA I would drive for hundreds of kilometres to a 'town' on the map, only to find a roadhouse and nothing else. Here I expect to find small places only to find huge conurbations!

I left Dennis last week with the warnings of every Aussie I've met in the last fortnight ringing in my ears... "Don't bother with Coffs Harbour; give it a miss; just keep going; only stop if you've got a drug problem and need supplies!" I drove in and drove straight out. Shame. Those of you that saw it years ago, did so at its height. So I carried on a little way and stayed the night in Ballina which was a nice little town on the coast.

From there it was through Lennox Head towards the legendary Byron Bay. I got there around lunchtime on Sunday and got stuck in a traffic jam for about 40 minutes. Grid lock... In Byron Bay! My fault for arriving on a sunny, late-summer, weekend when every Aussie and his dog was there to enjoy the surf. So I backtracked to Lennox Heads for the night and then reapplied myself to BB the next day.

The famous BB lighthouse...




I saw a podiatrist there, next to the tennis club, called "Foot Fault"! Brilliant.
(I didn't SEE the podiatrist. I just saw the building.)

Amongst the tourists and fit locals who incorporate the steep climb to the lighthouse into their jogging route was a woman practicing some kind of yoga and was basically slapping herself pretty hard everywhere other than her face. That would look pretty unusual in East Bergholt or London but in Byron Bay... It just seemed perfectly normal!

Meandering up the coast further I visited Brunswick Heads...




... Nice spot but cloudy for goodness sake.

Then The Pocket, banana plantations, tea plantations (!) and then a couple of days at the very lovely Hastings Point.




A small place, really friendly with lots of fishing done, sitting on the rocks watching surfers and I even got to sit on the river bank watching an Osprey fishing very close to me. Fantastic! And there were loads of birds on the beach...




Then... Surfers Paradise. Why, I don't know but I was expecting a small place but, as the capital of the Gold Coast, arriving was rather like arriving to the Perth skyline as you can see in the photo up top. Incredible. It is described as the Las Vegas of Oz. I was expecting Benidorm. I think it's fair to say that it's both and more. Actually not a bad place but far too hectic for my current mindset. A Mecca for holiday fun with plenty of 'icons'...




I only spent a day there and then headed north. I completely bypassed Brisbane (which I will double back to see next week) with the sole intention of having a relaxed "holiday" in Noosa Heads. I think I've just got a bit of culture/travel overload and need to do nothing for a while. I think I'm also getting preoccupied with coming back to the UK and all that entails.

So I've wrestled with my financial conscious and booked into a nice little hotel for 5 days.




Great little balcony from where I'm tapping away now and I like Noosa. A lot!
Very smart, chic and stylish and yet so incredibly laid back that the whole place is practically horizontal. The guide book warned that, "if you're overwhelmed by Main Beach with its population of supermodels, head to Sunshine beach". I was happy to be 'overwhelmed' today so will see Sunshine Beach tomorrow! Of course it has its more run-down areas too...




Its very, very good to be here. Just relaxing and doing little more than nothing. 32 ish by day and 22 ish by night. On the topic of weather, I've been lucky to have sunshine pretty much all the time since arriving back in Australia. Extreme rain and flooding affecting large chunks of NSW is happening right now and is only a few hundred kilometres south from here. They have had a rotten summer and evacuations are making the news today but I've managed to miss all of that.

It's good to be in an hotel room for a few nights. I had to haggle hard to get a reduction that felt agreeable and I think the lady at reception felt sorry for me in my disheveled, 2 weeks in a camper van, state!

Why is it called the Sunshine Coast, I wondered early this morning?




Finally. 3 nights ago I was lying on the bed in the van at about 8pm (it's dark by then) reading. I noticed a movement and was confronted by a Huntsman spider above my head, on the roof, which is really not that far above me! I don't think I can claim a true phobia but I definitely dislike spiders a lot! I'm tempted to say it was as big as my hand but, in truth, it was probably as big as my palm. Holy moly. It took every ounce of self control to stay calm and slither out from underneath it, very slowly, in order to make a plan for capture. 1. Thank goodness I'd looked them up only a day or two before when I saw the last one and, at least, knew that it was not deadly just by looking at me. 2. They are famed for their speed and I just didn't want it shooting off into a corner somewhere I couldn't see it... There'd be no way I could then sleep in the van that night.
I finally got to the tiny space that is in the rear of the van, but is not bed, and slowly held up a plastic beaker to capture the intruder. It wasn't big enough! A cereal bowl did the trick and eventually I evicted the hairy fella (about 10 metres away to ensure he didn't beat me back into the van!)
yikes...



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Noosa Heads