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Published: March 9th 2007
(Seamless transition from last entry . . .)
Byron Bay So, after a long train journey (where, during the last part, I had to transfer to a bus at about 3:45am - not pleasant) I arrived in Byron Bay at around 5:30am. Realising that there are not many occasions that see me up and about at this time of the morning, I took full advantage of this and headed straight to the beach to watch the sun rise. For the first ten minutes or so the birds (of the feathered variety) were my only companions, but it was amazing how quickly the surfers descended onto the beach to enjoy their early morning surf. It was a truly beautiful sunrise, as the pictures show, and it was lovely to walk barefoot along this unspoilt beach where the only footprints in the sand were my own. Having said that, it would have been even better had I not been thoroughly weighed down with my backpack, daypack and numerous other bits and pieces, but I guess you can't have it all!
Byron Beach is undeniably lovely, situated right next to the town itself. Unfortunately it is also an extremely busy place,
but walk a couple of hundred metres west along the same stretch and you come to Belongil Beach, which is just as lovely but much, much quieter. I was staying in a hostel situated about 2 minutes inland from this beach, and the 15 minute coastal walk was the shortest and most pleasant walk from here into the town. The town itself was mostly as I expected it to be - a fairly contrived, tourist-led small town, with a whole load of surf, 'surf' and 'New Age' shops selling mostly overpriced tat to the tourists. I didn't spend much time there, only really venturing in to buy some supplies. But it was a good place to spend a couple of days unwinding, and this I did with pleasure. The hostel had a hammock that I took full advantage of on at least one occasion.
Sunshine Coast and Hinterland After a couple of days in Byron, I took a bus to Brisbane and then a connecting train to Landsborough, a small town in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland where I was going to be staying with Keith and Heather, friends that Mum and Keith met when they were in
Turkey last year. I had no trouble recognising Aussie Keith when I arrived at the station, as Mum had told me to look out for someone who looked like
her Keith, and sure enough he does!
It was fantastic staying with Keith and Heather, a real highlight of the Aussie leg of my trip as they were so welcoming and made me feel so comfortable at their gorgeous house in the mountains. The climate was a few degrees cooler than it had been on the coast and, coupled with the lush greenery of the surrounding area, I really began to unwind. Oh, and did I mention that I had a room, complete with TV and DVD player, and ensuite bathroom to myself? That may have added to why I didn't want to leave after being there a few days . . .
On my first full day there, Heather took me to Eumundi markets, about a half hour drive from their house. The market is enormous and seemed to go on forever - a shopper's paradise. I was very restrained but couldn't resist buying a lovely dress, which was rather a bargain! The town of Eumundi itself was
fairly typical of the little towns that comprise the Sunshine Coast Hinterland - very quaint, with some lovely little shops for both tourists and locals to enjoy. I really liked the laidback charm of the area, and another local town, Montville, had a similar feel to it.
The next day Keith and Heather kindly loaned me their car, so that I could drive to Noosa and explore the coast for the day. I liked Noosa, although not as much as I'd liked the inland towns, as there is LOTS of money there and at times the shops, restaurants and people seemed a little overwhelmingly pretentious. But it was a lovely place to explore and have some lunch, and I then walked a little way on the coastal walk, seeing some of the stunning coastline that I had come to expect from this part of the world, and also managing to catch sight of a koala sleeping in a tree that bordered the pathway. I was hoping to do a walk inland into the rainforest, but I was advised against doing it alone and, after waiting unsuccessfully for half an hour to see if someone else was walking my way,
I gave up! I drove back via the coastal road, stopping at various points along the way to see beaches such as Sunshine Beach, and driving through towns with names like Mooloolabah. It was a beautiful drive, and by late afternoon I was ready for a swim so I stopped at one of the many beaches along the way. Unfortunately I couldn't actually swim as the tide was so strong I knew that if I lifted my feet off the ground I would be swept out to sea in a rip. However, just to stand in the water, feeling it wash over me was enough to cool me off sufficiently.
During my stay I also visited the Australia Zoo, home of the late Steve Irwin. I don't normally go to places like zoos as I really don't like seeing animals in captivity, however I had heard good things about this one and I wanted to see for myself what all the fuss was about. I must admit I had a great time and all the animals I saw seemed very happy, quite content and not at all distressed. While I was there I saw what felt like hundreds of
koalas (and I have totally fallen in love with them), fed an elephant and, a highlight of my day, fed the kangaroos. They are so adorable! I really wanted to take one home with me. So I found myself getting totally sucked in to the whole zoo experience. It was also very moving at times, since the death of Steve Irwin is still obviously at the forefront of everyone's minds here in Australia, and particularly at the zoo itself. I felt an unexpected sadness seeing the messages that staff and visitors had left him, and I admit to not really having that much respect for him as a person or as a conservationalist until I visited the zoo and saw first-hand some of the things he achieved.
So, the next day it was time for me to move on again. My wonderful time with Keith and Heather had once again proved to me that it is the people that are making (or unfortunately in some cases, breaking) this trip for me more than anything else and I am so grateful to them for being the great hosts they were!
Townsville From the Sunshine Coast, I embarked
on a 21-hour train journey north to Townsville. The journey itself was pleasant, with some great scenery to see along the way, however I didn't get an enormous amount of sleep and so arrived in Townsville early in the morning feeling fairly bleary-eyed. The first thing that hit me as I got off the train was that it was a LOT hotter than I had experienced further south, and it was extremely humid. The second thing that hit me was that Townsville is horrible and had been incredibly over-sold in the Lonely Planet (not the first time I have been left thinking 'huh?' at something they have recommended). Walking the streets in the middle of the day, the place was absolutely deserted and it felt very eerie. I ducked into the local cinema to escape the heat and humidity and ended up watching the rather abysmal 'Ghost Rider' out of sheer desperation, it being the only film they were showing that I hadn't seen. Similarly to the town, the cinema was also completely deserted and I had the place to myself. Thankfully, I only had to spend one hot and sticky night in a below-par hostel before boarding another train
to the Outback town of Mt Isa the next morning . . .
Mt Isa The train journey to the mining town of Mt Isa (another 21 hours) was very long and VERY slow, as the extreme heat apparently warps the train tracks! However, I really enjoyed the journey and spent a lot of it in the Club Car drinking wine and making friends with some of the other people on the train - the lady who served in the car, a couple from Utah who were going to visit the mines that her grandfather had helped to construct, and a Kiwi guy heading to the town for a job interview at the mines. We passed through some stunning Outback scenery on the way, including seeing the deep red earth and lots of wild kangaroos and camels. It highlights my complete ignorance of this country when I admit that I didn't even realise that there
were any camels in Australia.
We arrived in Mt Isa at 10am and opened the train doors to be greeted with a 40 degree heat. It was like stepping out of a fridge into an oven. I never did get properly
used to the heat while I was there. After commenting on the lack of people on the train on the way there, I was told that 'Nobody comes here this time of year, it's too bloody hot! You have to be an idiot to visit Mt Isa at this time.' Well, that told me then. I wondered why the train had been so empty.
I stayed at the only hostel in the whole town, called Traveller's Haven. It was mostly full of male mine workers and others who were looking for work. There was a tiny handful of backpackers there, and luckily I was sharing a room with a German girl called Claudia who was my age, and we got on really well. She told me she has been working on cattle stations, doing such enviable jobs as branding and castrating the cattle as well as other pretty nasty things. Respect to her, as I certainly couldn't do it! We ended up hanging out together for the rest of my time in Isa, which can only be described as a very strange town indeed. It has a population of around 20,000, a vast proportion of which are miners and
their families (if they have one), and a huge proportion of the population is male. For all these people there are hardly any restaurants, and there are only 2 bars/clubs. Claudia and I spent our Friday and Saturday nights at one of these places, the Mt Isa Irish Bar and Club, a place that runs its own courtesy bus as it is situated 2km out of town. We had great fun there, but it was a little odd. You would think that the residents hadn't seen a woman for years, the way they were buzzing round us like flies. Within 10 minutes of walking into the club, I had men literally sniffing me and stroking my hair. We were, apparently, fresh meat. It was like regressing back to the time of the Neanderthal man. I guess not much has changed! Out of all the oddballs, I did manage to find a nice, relatively normal male to speak to. He was a PE teacher at the local school (not spending 12 hours of every day stuck underground undoubtedly helped his social skills) and had only been working in the town for 5 weeks (another reason why he was normal), and after
talking to him for a while I discovered that he has also travelled extensively, and there is definitely something different about Australians that have travelled and those that haven't. From my experience I think that this is a rule you can generally apply to someone from anywhere. Travel has definitely opened my mind enormously, and I don't doubt that it has a similar effect on others.
Mt Isa being a mining town, I decided it would be wrong of me not to do a mine tour while I was there, so on one afternoon that was exactly what I did. It ended up being much more fun than I thought it would be, thanks in part to the tour guide called Eddie, a Scottish ex-miner who had lived in Mt Isa for around 40 years. He was great fun, and rather impressively had still retained his thick Glaswegian accent after all these years. There were also some fun people on the tour with me, and we had a good laugh taking pictures of each other in the ridiculous overalls or overcoats they got us to wear (and yes, I have added one of me to this entry!). After being
20m underground for 3 hours, I have absolutely no idea how on earth these people can do the same job over and over again for
12 hours a day, up to
2km underground! You would think that it would be cooler being that far underground, away from the sun, but these people regularly work in temperatures of 45-50 degrees. So why do they do it? For the money, which is apparently excellent. However, for me, no amount of money is worth putting yourself through that, I don't care what anyone says.
On our last night in Mt Isa, there was a huge tropical storm that had been building up all day, with rain like I have rarely seen. It didn't last long but it was wonderful and really helped to clear the air, albeit temporarily. The downside of this was that I was planning on walking up to a viewpoint that evening to take pictures of the sunset, as Outback sunsets are truly spectacular. However, it decided to storm right at that point, so at the time when the sun was going down the clouds were rolling in thick and fast, so I couldn't see anything. Never mind. You'll
have to take my word for how lovely they were.
And on to Cairns . . . After Mt Isa it was time to hop back on to the train for the 21 hour return trip to Townsville, followed by a further 7 hours to Cairns. By this point I was getting rather sick of trains, and unfortunately sick I did get. Having eaten something dodgy on the train for dinner, I spent the night feeling decidedly horrible. The only upside of it was that I managed to persuade the staff to give me a free upgrade to a sleeper compartment, so that I would have some privacy and not disturb the other passengers. I still felt awful, but at least I could do it laying down rather than scrunched up in a seat. And the 7 hour trip from Townsville to Cairns was not too bad, as it was on the much posher and faster Tilt Train, which also had a built in TV screen that I could watch films on, so the time went by quickly despite the fact that I was still feeling rough.
I only had one day in Cairns and had
planned to do a reef trip while I was there, but because I wasn't feeling 100% I really didn't fancy spending the day on a boat, no matter how great the scenery, so spent the day relaxing and wandering around the town, which I quite liked and ended up wishing I had more time to spend there. And it was great to get out of the Outback heat as well. Everyone told me how I would suffer when I got up to Cairns, but the 30 degree temperatures there felt like nothing compared to the 40 degree ones I had when I was in Mt Isa. There was also a lovely cooling ocean breeze, which felt like absolute bliss. I never thought I would hear myself saying that 30 degrees felt cool! But it's all good preparation for the Philippines and indeed the rest of SE Asia, which should be rather hot and sticky as well, so it's good that I'm acclimatizing now.
*****
So there we go. I am back in Sydney now, spending one more night here with Paul and Bruce before I catch my flight to Manila tomorrow. All in all, my time in
Australia has been a mixed bag, spending it in places and with people that I have both liked and disliked. I think my major problem with being here is that I am just not a 'sun, sea and sand' kind of girl, and that kind of culture and mentality is central to a lot of the life here, certainly in a lot of the places I chose to see. I have had a better time in the Australian cities I have visited, because I think the people are more like me. However, the Outback and the coast have some undeniably beautiful scenery, but I am beginning to realise that this alone is not enough for me - I need to be able to talk to like-minded souls about all this beauty, and if they are not to be found (and in some places they haven't) then I think a lot of what Australia has to offer (and indeed, there is an awful lot) has been somewhat sadly lost on me.
It is strange to think that I have been away for 6 months now. Sometimes it seems like a much longer time ago that I landed in Rio, other
times those memories seem so fresh. I am extremely excited about the final, SE Asian chapter of my trip and I am really hoping I can immerse myself in new, fantastic and interesting people and cultures again, as I did in South America.
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Mum
non-member comment
Another chapter comes to an end
Lovely to get the update. I can't believe sometimes too that you have been away for six months - same as you, sometimes a lifetime ago, sometimes it seems so fresh. Good luck for Asia, and I am soooo looking forward to seeing you in May. xxxxx