Our Whitsundays Adventure.

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

A lot of people come to the Whitsunday Islands to get on a sailing boat and sail around for 3 days and 2 nights. We don't really have the luxury of time to be able to do this so when we finally arrived in Airlie Beach we took ourselves off to a travel agent to see what day trips were available. Ideally we would have liked to have done a dive/snorkle trip but unsurprisingly they were already booked up for the following day so we opted for just a snorkle trip aboard a boat called The Fury.
The Fury has 4 outboards and is 900 horse power so we thought that would be quite fun.

We had a cool day. The boat went very fast and felt a bit like a rollercoaster at times. We stopped for a snorkle, but before we could go in we had to don a rather attractive and stylish stinger suit as the stingers in these parts kill you quite frankly and we don't really want that. We're at the end of the Great Barrier reef here and so we saw an amazing amount of coral, it was stunning. We also saw some nice fish, including anemone fish with bright blue stripes and huge parrot fish, we might have seen a maori wrasse too but we're not really sure - it hid under some coral too quickly. Luckily we didn't encounter any stingers so we live to snorkle another day (the 30th on the Great Barrier Reef to be precise).
We had a spot of lunch on the boat before we were whizzed off to our beach destination - Whitehaven Beach, which is apparently one of the top 10 beaches in the world. It was very nice, with clear blue water and fine white sand.
We had quite a cloudy day, but we were quite grateful for that really as when the sun did come out it was scorchingly hot. Queensland is much hotter than we've been experiencing, very humid and in the middle 30s. Not as hot as it's going to be when we go to the middle though!

An Aussie Christmas

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We had a very nice Christmas Day in Agnes Water and hope that everyone at home had a great few days too!
We started our day in the traditional way - with a few pressies. We'd done our shopping in Brisbane and bought presents that could be used like books and cds. I am also now the proud owner of a small wombat called Aussie Bob (watch out for him!).
We sat around a bit for the morning, I made a bracelet and Chris played on his new Mario game that I'd bought for him. Feeling quite hot we thought it would be fun to go for a swim. It felt very odd to be in a swimming pool on Christams Day!
We barbequed up our nice fresh reef fish and had our christmas dinner hiding in the van from all the flies who wanted to share it with us. In the afternoon we took a drive to the main beach and sat for an hour or so reading our books and people watching. There were quite a few people down there, it seems like the Australian thing to do after Christmas lunch is go to the beach for a boogie board, a surf or for a game of beach cricket.
We had a nice evening - turkey sandwiches, fizzy wine and silly hats. We queued for the pay phone with all the other brits to phone home and then retired to bed after a few more glasses of wine.

Rather than lazing around and eating more turkey sandwiches as should be done on Boxing Day, we decided to do our longest drive so far. We're running short on time a bit and it's a bloody long way to Cairns. We drove around 700 kms up the Bruce Highway (!!) to Airlie Beach the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands.

CRIKEY! We went to Australia Zoo!

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

It had to be done really, we couldn't come to Australia without visiting the home of that loveable legend Steve Irwin. We weren't disapointed either - it was an excellently run Zoo, with lots of cool animals.
We saw...
kangaroos, wombats, dingoes, snakes, spiny echidnas, cassowarys, emus, lizards, parrots, koalas, camels, otters, elephants, tigers, aligators and of course crocodiles.

We were really impressed by their show. They do a snakes alive / birds alive/ crocs alive show in the middle of the day in their Crocoseum. The snake segment was good and told you about how to avoid being bitten and also showed off some rather large Pythons. The birds were pretty and the croc was impressive. We really liked the way the show was centred on respecting the crocodile as an apex predator and learning how to be safe around crocodile waters. The show was funny and still included a short documentary by Steve.

As yet there's no memorial to Steve, but there is long section of gate where people have put up khaki shirt's with messages on. It's very touching and I'm sure there'll be something more permanent in the future.
We had a great day and again in the later part of the afternoon we thought we'd make up some more km's and drive on up the coast to Hervey Bay. Lots of people come to Hervey Bay to get to Fraser Island, but we'd decided we haven't really got time to visit the island and just went to Hervey Bay because it was in the right direction and we thought we might get to use the internet there.
We found one of the campsites in our handy book and checked in. We were greeted by a very drunk bloke who invited us to come and join him and some English girls in the camp kitchen. We had quite a strange night as he was very very drunk and the campsite was more of a trailer park than a caravan site for tourists. There were some odd people around! But it's okay because we've since noticed in our campsite book that it tells you if they're tourist or tourist & resident parks, so we can avoid the ones that have residents in the future.

Today we drove to a little costal town called Agnes Water where we'll stay until Boxing Day morning. We're planning on having a picnic on the beach and have just bought a fresh fish to barbeque up for our Christmas dinner.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Brissie

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

It's Wicked's rules that if you're travelling up the East Coast you have to take the van in for a safety check when you get to Brisbane, so that's the first thing we did on Friday. It wasn't too long a wait with a few other vans before us - and we got a bottle of fizzy wine for our trouble, which always goes down a treat.

We caught a bus into the city centre and then went our seperate ways for an hour or so to do a bit of Christmas shopping. We went for a drink on the Queen Street Mall where it's pedestrianised and a few different street performers were doing their thing. We watched a Charlie Chaplin guy for ages - it's funny watching people's reactions from the safety zone of a barstool. We also watched a Didjeridoo player who was also quite funny. We bought one of his cds. It was interesting when a litltle girl asked him what country he was from!

For the rest of the afternoon and evening we headed to the park area of the South Bank which they built for the 1988 Expo. We caught a City Sea Cat to save our weary feet, it was great, our bus tickets were valid all day for the public transport network. Bargin!
We had a look around and then had some tasty Turkish food. We'd decided to go to that area because they had Christmas stuff going on. There was a Santa in his Ute with 6 White Boomers (Kangaroos), which goes along with a Aussie carol that we heard later that night. We went to a carol concert and watched some fireworks, it was a really good evening. We learnt a new song:

Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way,
Christmas in Australia
on a scorching summers day, Hey!
Jingle bells, jingle bells, Christmas time is beaut!,
Oh what fun it is to ride in a rusty Holden Ute.

We could have stayed to watch a film in the park but we were a bit knackered so caught our bus back to the caravan park.

Surfers Paradise and Beyond

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We moved on from Byron Bay on the 20th to try to travel a bit further on towards Brisbane. Along the way is a town that someone rather cleverly named Surfers Paradise - from what we'd heard and read it not actually much of a paradise so we didn't want to stay there but did drive by for a bit of a look. It's very built up with what look like quite expensive hotels and it had miles of sand. It's where the Aussies come on holiday - very nice! Around the area are several theme parks and we thought we'd treat ourselves to a day at Movie World. We decided to camp in the nearby Mount Tamborine National Park so that we could be close for the following day.
We have found that the people who run campsites are generally a bit odd and standoffish so it was lovely when we found a campsite in Mt Tamborine where the lady was kind and helpful and chatty. We liked her very much. The campsite was situated beside a creek which we walked along and we also took a look at the local waterfalls. From the other side of the mountain we got some very good views back over to the coast - we could see the sea and all the highrises of Surfers.

That evening, excitingly, we had our very own campfire and toasted marshmallows. To make the most of our fire we sat around and made up stories about Kookaburras!

MovieWorld was pretty cool the following day (21st). It was a bit smaller than Alton Towers but with around a 10th of the people. We hardly had to queue to go on the rides or to get into any of the shows. Chris had fun on the Batman space shot, and luckily Superman rescued him from a subway a couple of times. We saw a funny Shrek 4D show where the seats move you around a bit and Donkey sneezed on us!
Continuing our hectic shedule we drove onto Brisbane late that afternoon. We visited a not too helpful Tourist Information place in the city centre who told us there were no campsites near Brisbane. We knew this wasn't true as we'd found one on the internet which we'd forgotten to write down the directions for, but with some greatly inspired bus following by Chris we found it!

Byron Bay

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Apparently, Byron Bay is historically significant, but it's mostly for surf dudes and aging hippies these days. In an attempt to fit into at least one of these stereotypes I went for a surf lesson yesterday. As it had been since we got here, it was a grey overcast day. It wasn't raining, which makes a change. Anyway, having got kitted out with wetsuits the 3 other noob surfers and I got into the van and were driven off to find some waves.

Clark's beach was apparently the place for beginners so we carried our boards down to the beach and went through the process of lying down and jumping up and running around and lying down and jumping up and running around and that sort of thing that you need to do before you actually get out into the sea.

I was a little distressed when the first person to try and catch a wave got onto it perfectly and surfed all the way to the beach. Needless to say, that was probably the best wave anyone caught all day. I certainly never surfed that far, however I did catch some good waves and stood for quite some time. More often than not though I wiped out. On probably the largest wave all day I somehow contrived to get the board a bit too far sideways at which point I was taken sideways on to the top of the wave and pounded into the ground when it broke. Anyway after 3 hours of that sort of treatment I ache today, but I'm looking forward to hiring a board tomorrow and getting out there again.

Jen's feeling a bit poorly at the moment. Her foot is a little bit infected and it's a bit painful for her to walk around. She's got some cream to rub in and it's getting better, but we'll probably stay in Byron Bay until she's up to walking around all the surf clothes shops. In the meantime she's going to attempt to fit into the other sterotype and sit around making some jewellery.

Cute Koalas in Port Macquarie

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We drove on from our bush campsite fairly swiftly to get to Port Macquarie futher along the coast. We had some very good fish and chips for our lunch. I'm tempetd to say that the Aussie fish & chips are superior to British ones. Far less greasy with just a bit of batter and they use all different sorts of fresh fish.
The Port Macquarie area is somewhere you're supposed to be able to see Koalas in the wild so we took a walk along a trail that led through some forest and over the beach. We had our best koala spotting eyes on but didn't manage to see any.
Since we were staying in a town we thought we'd take the opportunity in the evening of experiencing a bit of night life. We walked a few km into town expecting to come across a pub or 2 on the way but we didn't really find anywhere until we got to the main harbour. We sat in a very Aussie pub/hotel which has designated betting & Pokie areas.

Following our disapointment with spotting any wild animals we took a visit to the Bilabong Koala Breeding Centre. They have many very gorgeous koalas who we're all having a nice snooze or a bit of a scratch. We didn't realise quite how cute they are - I took a polaroid photo and it looks as though I stuck a teddy bear in the tree. There were some other nice fellas at the centre including some 'roos and wallabies, lizards just wandering around, scary emus, scary cassowarys, pythons, wedge tailed eagles, sleepy wombats and possums and a nice long billed cockatoo who talked to us. It was a cool place to visit - all native Australian species, something you don't really get when you visit similar places at home unless it's a farm.
On our drive back into town we spotted a mob of Kangaroos chilling out on the golf course - very cool to see so many in the wild after meeting a few captive ones.
That night we moslty sheltered in our van and ate cheap pizza to keep out of the rain. We thought that Australia was having it's worst drought for 200 years but so far it's rained about 3 nights out of our 7 in the van!

The following day we drove to Coffs Harbour via inland a bit to Dorrigo National Park. We visited their visitors centre and walked along a skyway to get some pretty nice views across the rainforest. We felt quite intrepid and a bit under prepared afterwards as we took one of the advertised walks through the rainforest to Crystal Waters Falls. I was very nervous that a python might fall from above at any moment but Chris assured me that they only squeeze you to be friendly ! We were impressed by the falls as you could walk behind them and they had quite a lot of water running through.
Our drive to Coffs Harbour was easy enough and we booked ourselves into a fancy campsite with swimming pool.
Yesterday we did what had to be done when you come to Coffs Harbour and went out to the BIg Banana. It's not quite as big as we expected but quite funny. We hope to see more Big things as we make our way around. Had a nice BBQ for lunch and a swim in the pool in the afternoon. We were a bit disapointed when we couldn't find a cheap small BBQ to use from the supermarket until we realised that there are BBQs everywhere - campsites, rest stops, near to beaches - it's great.

Today Chris was meant to go out diving but unfortunately it's too windy ( I don't know - Aussie weather), so we're catching up here and then are making our way to the surf capital of Byron Bay.

Blue Mountains

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Just an hour and a half's drive from Sydney are the beautiful Blue Mountains. We decided to stay near to the biggest town in the area - Katoomba which also has the biggest tourist attraction in the area - Scenic World (more about that later). We visited the supermarket to stock our new kitchen, filled the esky up with stubbies and ice and made our way to the campsite. We can park our van and stay the night at a variety of places, some free and some not. The site in Katoomba has showers and plugsockets so we paid for a couple of nights.
After parking our van we got our first Australian wildlife experience - a Kookaburra flew into a nearby tree and let us get quite close to look at the lovely little fella. He even gave us a little laugh - very cool.
We still had a few hours of daylight left so went for a walk. We went a few minutes down the road to Katoomba falls and then took the sign posted walk around the cliff edge to Echo Point. There are lots of lookout points along the way that give stunning views, but make your knees go a bit wobbly. We saw and heard some more interesting birds along the way including some rainbow lorikeets, crimson rosellas and some big white cockatoos.
We enjoyed being able to cook for ourselves for a change, and spent a cosy first night in our van.

The next day we woke up to the sounds of cricket and Chris enjoyed watching them play while we had some brekkie. We walked along the road to Scenic World - a place where you can view the mountains & rainforest from 4 different perspectives - a railway, a cable car, a walkway and a glassbottomed cable car. It was quite cool as it took you through the rainforest which is quite difficult to get to otherwise and the views form the skyway (glassbottomed cable car) were pretty amazing.
We spent a bit of the afternoon shopping in Katoomba as we were getting worried that we had no adaptor for our plugs and the camera was running out of battery. Later, we explored a bit further afield and went to Wentworth falls. We walked down quite a few steps (and hence back up them again) but it was worth it.

The next day we left Katoomba and drove about 4 hours to the Hunter Valley - a wine growing area. It was bendy and bumpy and invloved lots of quite steep ascents and descents. We were again really impressed by the scenery, but a bit worried when we drove through areas that had clearly been badly burned at some stage. Unfortunately our next wildlife spots weren't very alive anymore. We saw the weirest dead wombat at the side of the road that looked like it had just died of old age! It was very fat! We also saw a few poor Roos.
We stopped in at a couple of Vineyards for a spot of tasting and bought a couple of bottles before continuing our journey to the Pacific Highway and the coastal region of Myall Lakes.
We spent the night in an unusual campsite that had been marked in our map book as being full of facilities but it just had some toilets with no lights and lots of flies.
On the subject of flies, for those of you that have read Bill Bryson's Down Under, we've experienced flies like he experienced. They land on your mouth and near your eyes and don't go away when you flap at them. It's definitely the worst thing about Australia, that and the constant fear of Redbacks & crocs!

Our Wicked Van

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

We picked up our home for the next 25 days - it's Wicked! It's got all we need for travelling around Australia - air con, a bed, a kitchen, and a table & chairs. We bought a little i-pod radio transmitter so we can listen to our tunes while we're driving.

Incidentally we had no choice over what van we had - just good luck.

Bondi Explorer Bus

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Having seen the iconic sites of the city centre our next day in Sydney needed to be a day to see the sea. We hopped aboard a Bondi Explorer tour bus and had a very nice day driving around a few of the coastal sites. There are some gorgeous places to live in Sydney if you've got a few bob - amazing views. We stopped near to a girl's school where you could look back across to the city to see a long stretch of skyscrapers and the harbour.
We arrived at our main destination - Bondi Beach a little before lunch and were suitably impressed with the only beach we've ever actually heard of. It's a huge stretch of near perfect sand and beautiful blue sea. We were pleased to see a few people surfing, and the life guards patrolling. After a bit of a wander up the beach we took the coastal path along to the next beach, the path led you past some more stunning views. We looked at a couple more gorgeous beaches before getting back on our bus to take us back into the city. Sydney seems so very well thought out. The beaches all had plenty of bins, useful signs, lifeguards and places where you can sit in the shade, and our bus came at the time it said it was going to. Bonza!

We thought we'd go to the cinema in the evening and watched The Prestige - very good film, but don't let anyone talk to you about it before you've seen it!
After that we checked out the harbour in the dark, still looking pretty cool. Back to the hostel, via a bar having an open mic night, to pack before heading out to the Wicked office to pick up the van the next day.

We're in Oz!

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Originally uploaded by theslaad.

Wow - We're in Sydney! It's a bit nice here. We arrived on our flight from Bangkok safe and sound and checked into our room at The Jollyswagman Hostel (we've been singing the song quite a lot, along with 'Tie me kangaroo down sport'!). We opted for a dorm room as accomodation here is a bit more expensive than in Asia. It's okay, fairly clean and not too noisey but it is a bit like being back in Waveney except without the luxury of having your own room. Seems like there's a few evening activities we can get involved in if we like though which is quite fun.
We spent our first morning here in a shopping mall where we discovered it's Christmas time. Hadn't really noticed until now. Having said that though, it is a lot more subtle here, not that many decorations up.
In the afternoon we did what had to be done and walked through the botanical gardens to Mrs. Macquarie's Point to look out at the Harbour Bridge and Opera house. We'd caught a glimpse of the Opera House from the aeroplane window which was pretty cool, but it was amazing to look at from the Point.
We were quite surprised by the colour of it, not really as white as it looks on the photos you generally see, more of a cream colour with quite a lot of the brown metal showing through.
We were really impressed as we walked round at how green a city Sydney is, with plenty of nice places that you can sit and absorb the view. After walking to the front of the Opera house we thought it was time for a beer and a look at the cricket score. Later on we carried on defeating our jet lag for a few hours longer before falling asleep for a long time!

Today we visited the fabulous Sydney Aquarium. By all accounts we saw quite a lot of lovely little fellas! It's a nicely done place, with a few big tunnels to walk through to admire the sharks & fish. It was great! The Aquarium is situated in Darling Harbour which seems like quite an upmarket part of Sydney. Figuring we were on for a draw in the cricket we thought we'd have a look at the score in a bar for a while, but it turned out to be a bit of a match so that's where we continued the rest of our day really. Apparently when they win a match the Australians shout 'Aussie Aussie Aussie!'. We left quite sharply.

Sydney is a beautiful city, and we have a couple more days here to explore.