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After nearly going insane from working at the call centre I decided it was time to leave Surfers Paradise and start exploring. I saved a bit of cash from telemarketing and it was enough to get me to my next place in Australia and see a bit of the country at the same time. I meet up with two lovely girls, Tess and Tay who were planning a road trip up north and hopped on as a tag along.
We were definitely cruising in style when they told me the car would a brand new Range Rover. I got my taste of driving on the other side of the road I ended up seeing more dead kangaroos then live ones on the drive. The roads are pretty dangerous out here just because of the massive distances between towns, the amount of sleep deprived backpackers driving through the night, and kangaroos all over the road.
The first few days we just travelled up the coast from Surfers Paradise to Tin Can Bay and Rainbow Bay. Both of these places were just small little beach towns but a popular spot for anyone heading up the coast, we did the
usual- sit on the beach and read all day. The famous thing about Tin Can bay is the wild dolphins that you can find. These dolphins come to beach every day at 8am on their own will and just float around and get fed. They looked a little different than dolphins you see at the zoo, mainly just all the wounds and scratches they had.
Our next stop was the famous Fraser Island. It’s a huge island that is completely sand, the biggest sand bank in the world. We took the ferry over and expected to walk around the island and hopefully see some of the dingoes there, but we soon realized that the island was way bigger than we thought and we decided to hitch hike. All the vehicles on the island are land cruisers with 4wd because there are no roads; it’s all just sand paths. We got extremely lucky and got picked up by a family and got the full experience of four wheeling on Fraser Island. With the car being packed full I got the luxury of sitting in the trunk on the ground and feeling every bump.
We made it across
the whole island and did some beach driving as well. It felt like we were on a highway on the beach with all the cars just speeding along. You had to be real careful of waves coming up high and aware of the tides so you wouldn’t get stuck out there. We checked out an old shipwreck, saw some pretty cool sand dunes and then called it a day.
Sticking true to the backpacker lifestyle we stuck to a strict diet of canned tuna, apples, and nutella sandwiches. We also didn’t bother staying in hostels, we decided to save a bit of money and cram into the back of the Ranger Rover every night, and after a few days of back aches it wasn’t that hard to fall asleep.
The next stop on the way was Airlie Beach, it’s one of Queensland’s nicest beaches and the starting point for the famous Whitsunday islands of Australia. We had to splurge a little and ended up booking a 3 day catamaran tour of the Whitsunday islands and on the Great Barrier Reef. The Catamaran was full of 20 other backpackers and being trapped on a boat together for
a few days it didn’t take long for us to all become good friends. During the days we would cruise the islands and do some snorkelling along the reef. I didn’t get any pictures of the snorkelling but it was amazing to see the all the fish and coral on the reef. We also stopped at West Haven Beach for a while and were in awe of the pure white sandy beaches and the surrounding islands. At night on the boat the crew made sure everyone had some fun, suppling some of the craziest drinking games I’ve seen, and dressing up in some bizarre costumes. Some people forgot that they were on a boat and felt the drinking in the morning when the swells picked up. All in all, the boat trip was an incredible treat for us and definitely the best way to see the Great Barrier Reef.
Once we got off the boat we spent a hard day’s work on the beach and said bye to all our new friends we made. We kept heading north and Stopped in Townsville to get to catch a ferry over to Magnetic Island. We spent a day walking around
the island there. We fed some rock wallabies, saw some old war bunkers and sipped margaritas before calling it another night in the car. Anyone who has backpacked Australia will cringe at the word “goon” just because of the memories behind it. For those that haven’t had the privilege of drinking this stuff it is what all backpackers drink because it’s the only cheap drink in Australia. It is boxed wine nicknamed goon and it was essential in putting us to sleep basically sitting upright in the car at night.
Our final destination was Cairns. It’s a major tourist city on the northern end of Australia. There was a festival happening when we got there, so we spent our last few days just walking around the town listening to music and sitting on the Beach Esplanade. We also drove into the interior a bit and went to the Kuranda Markets. It took us a little while to get there as you have to drive through the mountains and through the rainforest to get to them, but it was interesting to see. They were just all little markets built right into the rainforest in the mountains. The whole place
had a hippie feel to it and had all organic/ healthy shops.
At the end of the trip we had spent 2 weeks driving up the east coast of Australia and seeing some incredible things along the way and we had managed not to kill each other.
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