Hervey Bay to Cairns

July 24 - 28, 2006

The drive from Hervey Bay to Cairns, essentially the stopping point of our Australian odyssey, represented a pretty big chunk of road. The drive amounted to about 1468.2 kilometers north through Queensland and included a diversity of towns and sites made cohesive solely by their residing in the same state. It felt a little disjointed, this mish-mash of places, but we enjoyed the bright, sunny days of driving along the coast and through fields of sugar cane.

Monday, July 24, our first day out of Hervey Bay, we intended to drive to Mackay, a popular jumping off point for exploring the Whitsunday Islands. Aussie distances, our increasingly late starts and the practical limitation of driving after dark saw us stop about 3-4 hours shy of Mackay in Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia (the plethora of steak houses and cow statuary in front of local businesses make this obvious to even the most near-sighted visitor). We stopped for lunch at Gin Gin (steak pie for Roger and beef burgundy pie for Amy) which really hit the spot. We also looked for and found the best hotel for the money that we’ve stayed in, The Bridge Motor Inn (www.thebridgemotorinn.com.au) - $75 AD for king bed, refrigerator, laundry, tea/coffee, full bathroom, book exchange, dvd player and movies, and free wireless in the room. The facilities were so nice that we were tempted to stay a lot longer than the local attractions would otherwise dictate.

We asked around for the best place to try the famous local steak and heard that the Bush Inn at Criterion Motel, which was also in our Lonely Planet, was the place to eat. We were totally excited for some big steaks and our excitement only grew when we walked in to find the restaurant a cross between a novelty chain-style steakhouse and an Elk’s lodge. Amy tried to talk Roger, already swollen from a month eating through Australia, into getting the Aussie mixed grill platter with steak, bacon, sausage, rissoles and egg. At the time of this posting, several months removed from the carnage of constant fried food and pie-eating that was our Australian road trip, the meal sounds delightful (to Roger), but on the night it would’ve concluded with a sickening thud and a trip to the emergency room to reattach Roger’s ribs to his body.

Curiously all of the steaks on the menu were listed as being served under some sort of sauce or gravy (about six different ones to choose from). This treatment of steak, which we considered a tasty delight all on its own, particularly fresh from the grill, was foreign to us. Amy ordered rump steak and Roger ordered rib-eye with calamari and shrimp, both with the sauce on the side. After a bite of our steak we realized the importance of the sauce. That is not to say that the steak was bad as much as the style of serving the steak seems to be different in Australia than the USA. “Medium” comes out without a trace of pink and a lot like “well done” without much concern over the tenderness of the meat. American steakhouses would just as soon serve shoe leather than risk serving a steak that could be labeled “tough.” Thankfully Roger’s side of “garlic sauce” resembled country gravy.

We say this not as an affront to the Aussies but more as an invitation: if someone from Australia had Kansas City barbecue or steak their head would explode.

After dinner we enjoyed the free internet, movies and the second to last Desperate Housewives of the season (we were cleanly weaned off the show until it started following us through Australia…). Despite having just eaten a generous portion of beef we also wrestled with regret over not having gone to The Sizzler we found on the other side of the Fitzroy River, though we would soon fill this particular gap on our list of accomplishments.

Rockhampton (simply “Rocky” to the natives) looked like a very nice town and it is supposed to be the home to the real cowboys of Australia. Another distinction held by the town is that it rests directly on the Tropic of Capricorn, a geographic wonder that, for some reason, made Roger absolutely giddy. First thing Tuesday morning, after our first real sit down breakfast since being in Australia, we stopped for a lengthy photo shoot at the Tropic of Capricorn, neatly delineated near a tourist information building in a park on the edge of town (regrettably these pictures are the only ones from the 14,000+ photos we have taken thus far on this trip that were somehow lost or deleted).

Tuesday, July 25, we drove the roughly 460 kilometers from Rockhampton, through Mackay, to Airlie Beach. Prior to meeting up with some Aussie gals in Vietnam we had never heard of the Whitsunday Islands, a collection of pristine and sparsely populated island off the Queensland coast and the Great Barrier Reef. As we traveled, however, the Whitsundays had become a highly recommended stop and the reason for our stopping in Airlie Beach, where a number of cruise lines and tour companies offer tours and island stays.

We arrived in Airlie Beach around 4pm and immediately began searching for accommodation. Based on computer research we had done prior to arrival it didn’t look like too much would be available so we went to a tourist center to see if they could book us a room. The tourism office put us just outside of Airlie at Club Crocodile, probably the ideal hotel for a kid on vacation. Club Croc has a lagoon style pool, game room with video games, lots of open spaces, and a bar with live music and a dance floor to keep the adults busy while you do cannonballs into the hot tub. The hotel does seem to attract a lot of families with kids as well as large tour groups, including People to People, a program designed by President Eisenhower to get young Americans interacting with different nationalities and driving hotel guests insane. We got to the resort and went right to the booking office and picked out a cruise for the next day with 5 minutes to spare before it closed.

With our cruise booked we headed into Airlie for dinner and internet. The town resembles most popular beach towns with the single street business district lined with cruise companies, music shops, bars, swimsuit shops and takeaway. The obligatory loud girls in flip-flops and daffy barefoot surfer boys are also present. The strange thing about this town, at this time of year anyway, is that many of the restaurants and shops close very early, including an enticing looking Mexican place that closed at 6pm (as if to say that they prefer the dining doldrums from 2pm to 6pm to the traditional consumption time called “dinner”). We settled on falafel as it was one of the only cheap, open options (and they were cleaning up when we arrived).

Wednesday, July 26, we went on a three island Whitsunday cruise with Voyager. The Whitsundays are protruding tips of underwater mountains fringed with coral. There are more than 90 islands, most of which are uninhabited. Our Voyager vessel was a brand new catamaran - only about 2 weeks old - with a capacity for 150 people (fortunately for us there were only 63 tourists today).

Our first stop was Hook Island, a bumpy, tea-and-coffee-spilling 45 minute ride from Airlie. Hook is the 2nd largest island in the Whitsundays and has one resort, the Hook Island Wilderness Resort. We had looked at staying here as it is the cheapest resort in the Whitsundays (around $130/night which was a little too steep). Half of our group went to the beach to snorkel while the other half visited an underwater viewing station and took a submerged viewing platform boat cruise of the reef before switching activities. Amy went snorkeling despite the cold water and chill wind. The reef was not as good as what she had seen at Lady Elliot but she got to see some different coral and some smaller fish. Meanwhile, Roger found a three foot lizard in a trash can to take pictures of. The underwater observatory was not riveting but the submerged vessel cruise provided excellent views of the coral.

Our second stop was the eponymous Whitsunday Island, home to Whitehaven Beach, and the largest of the islands. Our catamaran just dropped us off for a couple hours allowing us to get in the water and lay on the beach. Again it was a little cold because of the wind but the perfectly clear water and sparkling sand demanded that we get in. The sand here is perfect - 98% silica - and easily the best beach we’ve ever been to. There is no accommodation, shopping or vendors here, just six kilometers of unspoiled beach. Between naps and dips we watched a couple of sea planes land on the water and a few more tourist boats unload passengers.

Our final stop was Daydream Island Resort & Spa on Daydream Island. Daydream is the closest Whitsunday to Shute Harbor, our departure point, so it’s a popular daytrip. We only had about an hour on the island so we did not accomplish much more than to looking around the impeccably manicured grounds of the resort. They offer a 19 hole mini-golf course where each hole is themed according to a natural or cultural Australia highlight (Sydney, Uluru, the legend of outlaw Ned Kelly, Canberra, the Great Barrier Reef, Daintree Rainforest, etc.). In the center of the recreation and eating area the resort also boasts one of the world’s largest outdoor aquariums. We spent our hour watching the fish, browsing the gift shop, and eating a dream dog (hot dog with pastry and cheese) while lorikeets and other birds parked around us in case a morsel dropped to the ground.

On our way back to our boat we looked over the island’s beautiful wedding chapel, basically an open A-frame filled with natural light and an unobstructed view of the sea and the setting sun. It took us a few minutes to realize that two well camouflaged wallabies were looking in the window opposite us.

Our trip back to the harbor featured Star Wars Episode II, a feature they ran at our various stops for those more interested in green screen film-making than in the Whitsundays. We returned to our hotel to shower and, in accordance with our new Australian routine, watch Neighbors before going for dinner at KFC and the internet cafe.

Thursday the 27th of July we got up early so that we could get a jump on the drive to Townsville. Townsville was a natural stopping point because it was ½ way to Cairns and it was supposed to have a great aquarium. We also figured that we would quench our increasing thirst to see a movie and go to the Sizzler.

On the way to Townsville we stopped at the Big Mango in Bowen. With our delightful Big Banana experience still fresh in our minds you can only imagine the joy with which we greeted the Big Mango. Unfortunately we were a little disappointed to find that the Big Mango, parked out in front of the Bowen tourism office, was simply a Big Mango and did not come complete with themed rides, themed snacks (out of season), or a themed gift shop (there is just no pleasing some people). The volunteer at the tourism office was delightful, however, and talked us into a scenic drive to an overlook of the peninsula that houses the town, which was beautiful.

We pulled into Townsville around 1 pm and immediately got a weird vibe from the city. Townsville sits on the water but also has a large military and industrial presence which waters down the beautiful neoclassical and tropical Florida-style buildings. We didn’t have a good feeling for how the city was laid out but we found the Strand in the city center and drove down it, surprised to find more hotels than restaurants and bars. We were hoping to stumble upon the Sizzler but Lonely Planet still does not see fit to include the location of the Sizzler on their list of must eats. Thankfully, Australia’s new and often sprawling cities are a lot like those in the USA and we sniffed out the Sizzler on the edge of town, right off the highway near the big box retailers.

We both had the “salad bar,” just like at home, and just like at home it did not live up to expectations. We still ate until we felt sick, so that expectation was met.

Our research the previous night indicated that there were few vacancies in the Townsville hotels and another drive through town confirmed that to be true. After a quick stop at a comic book store we decided to head out of town aiming for Ingham, a small town our phone calls revealed to have at least one vacancy among their three otherwise full hotels.

We stayed that night at Lee’s Hotel, an edgy, noisy, gambling hall and pub. Lee’s is on the Aussie cultural map as allegedly being the original pub with no beer glorified in a popular Australian folk standard. The guy at the front desk was very nice but the place and the town felt just a little sketchy. Ingham was also one of the only times we’d seen many aboriginals since Darwin or Alice Springs. We walked along the 1-2 block strip of shops and restaurants to find almost of all them to be closed. We used the internet café (inside a bar) and then ate at the Ingham Chinese Restaurant, which was filling but not particularly tasty.

Friday, July 28, we woke up and had our free breakfast at the hotel before going over to the post office to send the stuff we had accumulated over the last several weeks to various people. The tally for postage weighed in at around $200 teaching us a valuable if often ignored lesson about sending gifts that cost less than the postage required to send them. On our way out of town we stopped for pies (Mexican pie for Amy, steak for Roger) before heading to Cairns. We arrived in Cairns in time for dinner at a Subway with a fresh bullet-hole in the window and a cautious welcome / warning about Cairns from the teenager behind the counter (himself new to the city). We also went to see My Super Ex-Girlfriend, which unfortunately no one had warned us about.

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