The last phase of my trip was the east coast. By far the
most touristed trek in Australia, it’s the one that every backpacker and
tourist does. If you’re in Australia for a short time, you do the east
coast. Or if you’re dense and just
here to party, then you do the east coast. This part of the country certainly
does have a lot to offer, but my journey didn’t take me there until the very
end, so it unfortunately got shafted a bit. It would have been great to have
another week or so to have a bit more time to explore, but I made the most of
what I had and rocked it. The one GIANT roadblock that I ran into? The weather.
It was pretty terrible from the moment I touched down in Cairns, and stayed
awful for about 10 days. It really put a damper on the experience (ha! Get
it????), especially because rough weather means bad visibility in the water,
and rough seas for boat rides. Unfortunately, other than partying for the young
backpacker crowd, the east coast is all about the water activities.
I flew from Adelaide up to Cairns, which is a big tourist
town up on the coast of northern Queensland. It’s basically as far up as the
bulk of the tourists go, with people generally starting in either Sydney or
Melbourne and then inching their way up the coast to Cairns. I did it
backwards, working from Cairns down to Brisbane. I’ve already seen the coast of
New South Wales, so I just chose to focus on Queensland instead of travelling
by bus all the way back down to Sydney. No tours for me though this time – just
me and the open road!
I stayed at a
cute little hostel in Cairns, it was a bit away from the city center and in
need of some repair, but it had lots of character and a friendly kitty. My
first order of business on the east coast was a day trip to Cape Tribulation,
which is north of Cairns. It’s a popular day excursion to go up and see the
Daintree rainforest, which is the most ancient in the world - makes the Amazon
look like an infant still in diapers. The forest was beautiful and I was glad I
saw it, but it rained buckets all day long. We went to a small wildlife park,
went for a walk through the forest, and went on a boat ride to go croc
spotting, We found a wide variety of crocodiles, everything from 4 month old
babies to Scarface:
Scarface is a 5-meter male. You don’t get in the water with
Scarface, but you can kind of get that vibe from him from the photo. Scarface
does NOT want you to be his friend, he wants you to be in his belly.
My next activity was a scuba dive boat that left from Cairns
as well. I was going to do a few introductory dives on the famous Great Barrier
Reef! I was really excited about this part. The Great Barrier Reef is one of
the world’s great natural wonders, and it’s so large that you can actually see
it from space. Once again, however, I was hampered by less than stellar
weather. That meant rough seas and poor visibility in the ocean. Not very good
conditions for diving. I was supposed to get 5 dives but only ended up with 4,
since they had to cancel one session due to the terrible weather. That was
disappointing, but there was one giant positive: The boat was really sexy! I
somehow booked myself on quite a luxurious vessel. I had my own room, and the
bed was one of the comfiest I’ve ever slept in. The food was quite good and
they fed us constantly. That didn’t quite make up for the bad conditions, but
at least when we weren’t out in the rough ocean squinting to see coral that was
a foot in front of us, we were hanging out on the boat in the lap of luxury.
The visibility was enough that you could get the idea of how majestic it all
was, but it certainly wasn’t the clarity that I’d always dreamed of. Here I am
under the water:
And here is one of my favorite photos. Nemo!
I had a great time diving, and I think after this experience
I would like to get certified one day. I plan to re-do the Great Barrier Reef
at some point though. I really want to see it when the water is nice and clear.
Just my luck, I travel the tropical Queensland coast during the dry season, and
I stumble upon the wettest dry season that they’ve had in like 50 years. Great.
After I finished up my sightseeing in the Cairns area, I
took the greyhound down to Townsville and headed over to Magnetic Island. I
stayed at a little budget resort/campground that had an on-site wildlife
sanctuary. My room was a little bungalow out in the bush, it was very cute.
Once again, the weather was terrible, but I tried to make the most of it. They
had lorikeet feedings every day in the late afternoon, so I checked that out
after I had settled in to my bungalow. The birds were beautiful, and there were
just SO many of them!
I went on a tour of the wildlife sanctuary of course, and it
was well worth it. It was all very interactive, so I got photos taken with most
of the animals that we looked at. Here I am with a baby saltwater crocodile.
Yeah, when that little girl I’m holding grows up, she’ll be
able to take down a full-grown man without much fuss. Even at that size, they
keep the jaws taped shut. But how cool is that?? I got to play with a saltie! I
also played with a snake. I really like snakes, they’re fun to handle and to make
people uncomfortable with. I think I’d like to have a nice python as a pet one
day.
I did go on a little solo adventure on Magnetic Island as
well. I went on a 5-hour hike, going from isolated bay to bay. Towards the end
of the day when it was starting to rain a bit and was starting to creep towards
the end of sunlight, I got a bit lost in the bush. The trails are very poorly
marked, and I had a bit of a wander before I properly re-situated myself. It
was all in good fun though! I rewarded myself for not getting lost in the
jungle in the dark and rain by buying myself an ice cream bar at the local
general store at the end of the excursion. Here’s a photo of what the beaches
looked like that I was hiking around visiting:
Most of them are only accessible by walking through the
bush, so they were quite pristine and not crowded. It was a great hike, and was
much more adventurous than following a tour guide and group around like I’ve
been doing previously!
I spent the next day back on the mainland in Townsville. I
took it easy and just wandered around town. The main beach was pretty, and I
was entertained by all the information about the local jellyfish:
The beachfront towns up in northern Australia are all so
gorgeous (when the sun is shining!), but you can’t even swim in all that
beautiful water for more than half the year. There are sections of the beach
that they rope off with stinger nets to keep the little buggers out, but all
you need is one idiot to sit on the floating fence and all of a sudden you’re
frolicking in the water with Australia’s deadliest creature…
After exploring Townsville, I hopped on another greyhound
bus to Airlie Beach. Airlie is a popular jumping off point to explore the
Whitsunday islands, which is exactly what I was going to do. I had booked
myself a 2-day 1 night sailboat tour around the Whitsundays. Once again the
weather was not on my side. The sun was finally shining over Airlie Beach the
morning that I walked down to the dock, but then naturally we sailed right back
in to the bad weather. The water was rough, so while I did not get seasick, we
all got soaked on the sail over to the islands. After we hoisted the sails and
all got into position on the boat deck, it occurred to me that I’d never
actually been sailing before. I
wasn’t really sure what to expect! Despite the large swells the sailboat
actually cuts through them quite well, and we didn’t bounce up and down too
much. We did, however, rock from side to side, and sometimes we were on such a
high angle that I couldn’t fathom how the damn boat just didn’t tip right over.
Naturally I was unable to photograph our boat half-tipped over as we were
sailing along, but here is a photo of it with sails down, parked while we went
snorkeling in a calmer area.
As I mentioned, as a consequence of the rough water there was a LOT of splashing. We got absolutely drenched. I wish the skipper had been a bit clearer that we were going to get soaked while sailing. I would have sat in the yellow slicker they give out with just a bathing suit on instead of being fully clothed. My clothing got wet and then didn’t dry for days because the sun never came out. Packing wet clothes into your backpack is not fun I tell ya!
The snorkeling was nice, once again the visibility wasn’t
great, but the coral was quite pretty and in some spots made the water so
shallow that we had to swim around it like a maze. I saw a few different types
of fishes that I hadn’t seen up in Cairns, and on the second day of the trip we
even found a giant sea turtle! He was enormous, but quite chilled out. We
stalked him in the water pretty closely, even accidentally snorkeling on top of
him at some points, and he didn’t seem to be all that fussed. The boat captain said that based on his
size he was probably about 50-60 years old. He was amazing to see.
We did 2 bits of sailing on the first day, one to our
snorkel spots and then one in the afternoon to the spot where we were going to
drop anchor for the night. It was some sort of a sheltered cove, which would
provide us some protection from the rough water. The sail over there was rough
for me though, and I got seasick. Didn’t throw up, but I lost all muscle
tension and was weak all over. Sat slumped over a bucket like a rag doll in the
little nook in front of the ships wheel. I didn’t have the strength to sit on
the side of the boat like everyone else and hold on. I couldn’t hold on to
anything at that point. The girl who helped with sailing and cooked our meals
asked if I wanted water, and I couldn’t even communicate what my answer was. It
was not a fun ride. And to make it worse, no one else got sick. I think I’m
just getting super sensitive in my old age.
The second day of the trip, in addition to seeing the giant
sea turtle, we also visited the famous Whitehaven beach, which is considered to
be one of the most beautiful beaches in the world. It was so gross and rainy
when we went that we all just wore wetsuits and rain slickers. So here I am, at
one of the world’s best beaches, in the terrible weather:
Here’s a view of the beach from the lookout point. You can tell that if the sun was shining, it really would be an absolutely stunning beach. It was still pretty even in the gray, but it was quite disappointing that every stop along the east coast that I’d made was reduced to a gray blotchy experience.
Once back on land at Airlie Beach I hurried back over to the
hostel to grab my things before catching an overnight bus to a town called
Hervey Bay. On the sail back to Airlie (which I did not get seasick during!)
there must have been some sun poking through the gray clouds, because my face
got slightly burnt. Never a good thing, especially in the intense Australian
sun, but sunburns make you tired, and being tired is a good thing when you have
an overnight bus ride ahead of you. I didn’t sleep soundly through the whole
ride, but every time I looked up another hour had gone by, and to me it felt
like 5 minutes. So the sunburn wasn’t entirely
a bad thing…
Hervey Bay is the gateway to Fraser Island, which was my
primary reason for heading there. I had a nice relaxing day in town and hanging
out at the hostel, and then the next day I took my last tour in Australia
(!!!!!) to the island. It’s quite an interesting place. It’s the largest sand
island in the world, and is home to Australia’s most genetically pure dingo
population. The water on the island is also the clearest I’ve ever seen
anywhere. Here’s a photo of Lake McKenzie:
How gorgeous is that??? You can also tell that for the first time, the sun is actually shining! Even the tour guide said that this was the nicest day they’d had in months. So at least I had a bit of luck on my side for Fraser J
Another really cool spot was the shipwreck:
It was an old passenger liner that was being towed to a
Japanese scrap yard when a cyclone plopped it down on Fraser’s beach, and there
it stayed. It was pretty amazing though. I’ve never seen a real shipwreck, as
they are most frequently found deep under the sea J The wreck was also from the
1930s, so the ship was built in the same style as the Titanic. I saw a mini
Titanic wreck washed up on the beach!
Fraser Island also has a ton of amazing fresh waterways. One
of the more popular ones is Eli Creek, where you can wade through a section of
the water right before it spills out into the ocean.
It was beautiful. Crystal clear water, great scenery, and a little current. It was most certainly the prettiest natural lazy river I’d ever seen!
And of course, I must show you all this:
That, dear friends and family, is the LAST hostel bed that I
will sleep in on this giant year-long trip of mine. That is a photo of my bed
in a 4-share room at Woolshed Backpackers in Hervey Bay. The end of the line
for hostel room sharing. Wooo Hooo!
Upon leaving Hervey Bay I took my last greyhound bus down to
Brisbane, where I was met by my friend Shayleen from Glen Helen. Shayleen grew
up in Brisbane, which meant that for the next few days I didn’t have to do any
thinking. I just followed her around and never had a clue where we were going
or what trains were needed. It was a nice change of pace! We stayed in a hostel
above a pub called Elephant & Wheelbarrow, where we had our own room with a
mini-fridge. We ended up chatting for hours at the downstairs pub where we
caught the attention of a local who had come out for a quiet beer on his own.
We ended up going out to dinner with him before we said farewell. I think his
name was Matt. Hope we kept him sufficiently entertained!
My first day in Brisbane was pretty relaxed. We wandered
around town, and went to the mall. Nothing much exciting happened, but it was
nice to have a little break.
The next day Shayleen and I took the train down to the
beginning of the Gold Coast to go to Dreamworld. The Gold Coast is sort of like
Australia’s version of Miami… with a bit of Vegas mixed in. It’s the holiday playground
area of the country. I didn’t allot any time for it on my travels since I
wanted to see the sorts of things that I could only do in Australia, and the
Gold Coast isn’t all that unique. But back to Dreamworld! Dreamworld is
Australia’s big theme park. Yes, you can go to a theme park anywhere, but I’d
never been to an Australian one
before. There weren’t a whole heap of rides, but it also had a little zoo and
was just overall cute to walk around. I haven’t been to a theme park in a long
time, and Dreamworld filled the void. I took tons of photos such as this one:
I also bought bubble gum fudge and went on a spinny ride and
got ill. I know I’m always yapping
about how old I am, but I really feel it on big amusement park rides. I don’t
handle them as well as I used to. I think my days of riding the Six Flags
roller coasters are about over.
The last day in the Brisbane area we went to the Australia
Zoo, home of Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter. It was a beautiful zoo, probably
the nicest one I’ve ever been to. Lots of animals in big enclosures, and the
grounds were all immaculately groomed. The zoo is also very much about the
family though, you see pictures of the Irwins everywhere you go. Here I am
posing with the bronzed fam:
We went to as many shows and interactive things as we could.
We fed elephants, watched tigers jump up trees and crocodiles leap out of the
water. Here’s one of the tigers:
He was gorgeous. Reminded me quite a bit of J.P., only
tigers are a bit bigger. We also saw lots of koalas, including one with a
little joey! So cute!
And of course, the crocodile jumping out of the water going
after some yummy meat…
But the highlight of the day? I finally HELD a koala! Yes!
Here I am holding April.
April and I are good friends now. She didn’t want me to put
her down, but other silly people needed photos as well, so we had to bid each
other a fond adieu. I really genuinely think that we bonded in the 7 seconds
that we were together though.
So that was the east coast! It was rainy and gray for most
of the trip, but I tried to make the best of it. Shayleen was even a really
good sport about me wearing mildewey clothing. She only scrunched her nose a
little bit, and then did everyone a favor by spraying me from head to toe with deodorant.
I tried to only pack dry things. I really did. But the weather would not allow
my stuff to dry!
This is being posted from Sydney. She and I flew down to
Sydney together, and now I am in the midst of making my final preparations to
leave Australia behind. As I said up top, this will be the last entry actually
posted from down under. How wacky is that? I really do want to write something
deep and reflective, but I simply haven’t the time. I have a laundry list of things
to do before I leave, so you will all just have to wait a bit longer for the
deeply thoughtful post-Australia entry. For now I must focus on what is ahead!
The Games of the XXXth Olympiad, France, and Rome. Too much fun stuff still to
come to get sad about the end of the kangaroo and koala era.
So that’s all for now kiddies! Stay tuned. I have about 20
hours of flying to survive tomorrow, and then it’s time for The Games. I’ll be
staying with my friend Suzy, who has kindly reserved her London couch and television
for my sleeping and gymnastics watching needs.
But for now, Farewell Australia!!!!!!!!!!!
