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Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Hervey Bay » Fraser Island
November 30th 2006
Published: November 30th 2006
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BrisbaneBrisbaneBrisbane

The man-made lagoon, the river and the city!

Brisbane


We left Stanthorpe and headed towards Brisbane, a journey of 250km. We were both very excited to get back to the ocean, which we hadn't seen for 5 weeks! The drive to the coast was a lot easier than the drive from the coast had been because it was mostly downhill as we decended the 922m above sea level that we had been working in. Time to get rid of these farmer tans!

We got into Brisbane in the late afternoon and went for a walk around the Queensland University of Technology campus. This brought back memories of being in school and campus life. Carolyn read the Lonely planet book a bit and I had a snooze in the shade in the Botanic Gardens that are adjacent to the university. We also walked around a boardwalk that is built into the river groves. The river is tidal, and the flora that grows on the banks is is quite unique. The roots of the trees all spread out in the ground and grow up above the surface of the muck. Apparently this is how the tree manages to thrive in the salt water environment. Very strange.

We checked into
O Christmas TreeO Christmas TreeO Christmas Tree

Kind of strange to see a big tree, with no snow in sight, and everyone in summer clothes!
a caravan park that evening as we both still needed to shower regularly to ensure that this bacterial infection doesn't decide to again surface! The next day we rode our bikes into the city centre. We throught that this would be an easy enough ride, as it is not very far (4km), but there was no mention of the 2km of up and down riding! Phewf.

We checked out a few museums - one on the origin and development of the 'Miss Australia Pagent', and all of the winners dating back to 1922 were on display. It was funny to see the differences in style and perceived beauty through the decades. It had video clips of different pagents and full life size models of some of the contestants.

We then did a bit of Christmas shopping in some of the shops in the city centre. Have to get these in the mail so that Santa can deliver these on time! (Thanks Sarah and Wendy). There was a 10m Christmas tree at one end that looked very well done.

Redcliff


From Brisbane we drove north to a small costal town called Redcliff. We only stayed here long enough to do a 14km bike ride and have lunch. There we a very long path along the river, so we took advantage to stretch our legs and feel some of that salty breeze. The town gets its name from the reddish hue of the sandstone cliffs along the beach front.

Australian Zoo


Nov 23: We left Redcliff in the late afternoon and headed North, back onto the Bruce Highway. The sun was starting to recede into the horizon when we spotted a sign stating that the Australian Zoo (Steve Irwin's) was on the next exit. We hadn't had any idea that the zoo was there, but quickly decided that we couldn't miss it. We found a rest stop not far off the highway and camped there for the night so we could get to the zoo first thing in the morning.

The Australian Zoo was started by Steve Irwin's parents, and Steve and his wife took it over in 1992, expanding it from a reptile facility to a full blown zoo. This is where Steve developed his affinity for reptiles, and ultimately became known as the Crocodile Hunter. It was quite expensive to get in ($47 pp), but was worth the money. The Lonely Planet book listed the entry price as $29, so we suspect that the rates have increased since Steve's passing. There was a whole memorial for him with many signed 'zoo' shirts and memorabilia. All of the different animal cages had a description from Steve, and gave everything a bit more meaning. He really was a huge animal advocate and was involved in many projects all over the world dealing with saving animals from extinction and preserving their natural habitats.

The zoo itself was not as big as the Toronto Zoo, but was very well maintained and we were able to see countless poisonous snakes, crocodiles, alligators, kamodo dragons, tigers, elephants, tortoises, kangaroos, wombats, birds, and koalas. Carolyn even got to feed the elephants by hand. We spent the whole day walking around the grounds, and got to watch a crocodile show in the crocoseum (huge stadium with seating for 5000, where they do all sorts of shows. Many of the shows deal with public safety and show you how to avoid getting yourself into trouble by showing you how the different animals sense you and what their capabilities are. We also saw a tiger show where three sumatran tigers were coaxed to play with a beach ball, climb trees, and leap into a pool. One even attacked the girl trainer, but it was only in play and knocked her over. Not sure I would be interested in playing with them as they are between 300-400kgs! We were exhausted at the end of the afternoon as it was quite warm (30°C).

Noosa


We continued North up the Bruce later that same afternoon and arrived into a small town called Noosa. This is a very nice town and is very fancy with its small cafes and shops all along the street just behind the beach. We went for a walk along the beach, and saw a couple wedding parties. Apparently this is a very popular place to tie the knot. No worries though, Carolyn and I managed to fight the urge. We checked our email and then drove out onto the highway to the next rest stop where we quickly fell asleep. Being in the hot sun takes all of your energy. The temperature doesn't fall in the evening here anymore, now that we are down at sea level, and stays about 25°. It is often much warmer in the van late into the evening however, as the engine retains a lot of its heat, and acts more like a furnace. It then becomes a balance between the heat and all the bugs that swarm into the light with the doors and windows open.

Hervey Bay


Nov 25: We started off towards Hervey Bay, a popular place to take the ferry over to Fraser Island, the next adventure we planned on taking. Our gas tank was rather low, and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to try a test. Our gas needle seemed to fall rather fast, and when filling up the tank with the needle on empty, we could only ever put in 40L. The owner's manual said that the tank had a 58L capacity, so unless Betsy didn't have the OEM tank, we should still have gas. I filled up our 10L jerry can, and we kept driving with the needle dropping more and more below the big E. I have never run out of gas before in my life, and here we were heading towards it with certainty. Carolyn was a willing partner, as we've both heard that petrol stations in the middle of the outback are rather sparse, some as far as 500km from each other, so we needed to know how far we could go. We managed to drive 140km past the E, which in Betsy translates to about 12L, before the engine started to cut out. We stopped on the side of the road and I put in the 10L auxilary as Carolyn took a picture. We continued the 20kms on to Hervey Bay, where we headed to Koala adventures after picking up a phamplet from the information centre.

Fraser Island!


There are a number of different ways that you can do Fraser Island (a 112km long and 15km wide sand island, the worlds biggest!), so we first had to choose which way we wanted to do it. There is only 4WD access on the island, so Betsy wasn't allowed - and wouldn't have hardly made it off the barge before becoming hopelessly mired. You can hire your own 4WD vehical, but this is probably the most expensive option. You can take a tour bus, but don't get to pick your own itinerary, and most importantly - you do not get to drive. We both wanted to drive, so we decided to go with one of the tours that put you in groups of 10 or so, and gives you all the camping equipment and a late model landcruiser, that you all take turns driving. We had heard some stories of others getting terrible groups, so we were very hopeful when we signed up with Koala - and got on the next day after being put on the standby list.

We had to sit through a video that tries to scare you by showing you tons of pictures of jeeps that have rolled over, or lost control and drove into the ocean. We were then put into groups and we had a fantastic one! It couldn't have worked out better for us. Three English girls, two German girls, 2 Danish guys, one French Canadian from Montreal, and us. We ordered one of the group meat packages and then did some grocery and alcohol shopping, and divided it all by 10. Some of the other groups all bought their food seperately which would make it very difficult to cook everything because there was only one camping stove.

The next morning, Carolyn, Chris (Dane), and
In the back of the Land CruiserIn the back of the Land CruiserIn the back of the Land Cruiser

8 of us sat along benches in the back, which made for quite a bumpy ride!
Julian (F. Can), and I signed up as drivers. Chris and Julian, and Carolyn were hesitant to drive, so I drove us all out to the ferry with all of our gear packed into the top. Landcruisers are awesome! We had a big 4.2L manual diesel, the bench seat in the front and two bench seats along each side in the back (4 people on either side). As it turned out, Julian had never driven manual, and while Chris could, he was nervous to drive in the bush trails. Carolyn liked to drive, but was more cautious than me, meaning slower, and the bush trails took long enough as they were. This meant that I got to do the majority of the driving - and it was awesome! The sand is so loose that it is very easy to get stuck and even in 4WD you are barely crawling along at times. I encouraged the others to drive though - because it is almost as much fun in the back, bumping and rolling along with everyone being thrown on top of each other.

The first day we drove to Lake Mckenzie, a fresh water lake in the middle of
Us at Lake McKenzieUs at Lake McKenzieUs at Lake McKenzie

The most amazing lake I've ever seen! So clear! I kept expecting to taste the salt water, but nope! It's fresh water!
the island. It was phenomenal. None of us had ever seen such clean water - there is no algea growing in the water at all, and the sand is crystaline white. You would swear that it must be salt water the way the beach looks, but I bet you could drink it, it is so pure. We swam and played frisbee here for hours. From here we drove out to the east beach, which is a highway with speed limits and everything (nothing more than a beach though, and high tides prevent driving during certain parts of the day). We didn't have a very big window to get to the Northerly part of the island (Indian Head) before the tide came in, so we drove up there as quick as we could. There were a couple of creeks that we had to cross, and we had to send someone out to wade to to make sure that it wasn't too deep in parts. We set up camp 7km south of Indian Head and cooked our steaks and hamburgers. The whole day was spent laughing and joking with each other and everyone got to know each other pretty well. It is always interesting to get so many people together from all over because everyone does things differently. We had brought 3 cases of beer and 12L of wine with us, just to make sleeping on the sand a little easier.

We got up early the next morning, both because we wanted to get moving and because it quickly became a sauna in the tents when the sun came up! Indian head is a large rock cliff that overlooks shallow waters of the pacific ocean. From here we were able to spot dolphins, sea turtles, many different fish, and maybe sharks (these can look a lot like dolphins). We were told not to swim in the ocean because the east side of the island is a breeding area for tiger sharks and that it is very unsafe. Then we hiked 3km's up to Champange pools, salt water pools that form behind a rock breakwall that the waves crash over and make it very fun to play in, as it is very foamy. We spent most of the day here waiting for the tide to go out so we could drive south. I convinced Julian that he had to give driving a shot on the beach, and that driving the manual really wasn't that hard. With such a stiff clutch, and so much power it was very difficult to stall. He got going and drove us about 30kms south up over some of the sand dunes because the tide was still a bit high. We had left before we were supposed to because we were getting sick of waiting for it - uh oh! Everyone in the back was terrified the whole time he was driving though, as it kept feeling like the landcruiser was going to tip right over! The way that they make us pack them, with all the gear piled in the top, makes them extremely top heavy, and it doesn't help that the tires are set really soft (25psi) for more traction. Julian was later voted the scariest driver.

There was an old shipwreck midway down the beach that we stopped to check out for a few minutes. It used to be a luxery liner in the tasman sea, but was mired there in 1935 after the tow line broke when it was being hauled to Japan for scrap steel. After this, Chris drove us down to
Whee!Whee!Whee!

Joe taking a break from our bike ride in Redcliff
Eurong (no, you're wrong!), where we set up camp with a number of other groups and formed a bit of a tent city. We cooked a montrous pasta dinner that ended up being quite delicious. We made it a bit of a challenge to see if we could finish it all, which ended up with me polishing off 5 plates. It was sooo good, but we could hardly move after.

Carolyn drove us the next morning the rest of the way down the beach and started into the bush trails. She was doing really well until she hit a turn that was on a rather steep hill and got bogged down a little, so that the cruiser kept stalling. She passed the controls over to me and I drove the rest of the way inland (Julian and Chris kept saying that they would rather not), back to Lake Mckenzie after stopping at a few of the other lakes that weren't quite as nice. We spent another couple hours here, made lunch and then headed back out to the Barge. We were all quite tired by this point as we hadn't been able to sleep very well, and with the heat and the amount of sliding the jeep does in the soft sand were all a little nauseous.

We got back to the Koala Adventures Hostel, had a shower, then met everyone for final farewell drinks in the bar. It is alway hard to say goodbye to new found friends, but four were leaving on the night bus, so we all went our separate ways. We offered to drive the Danes back to their hostel across town, and ended up inviting them to have dinner with us down by the beach. We had mashed potatoes, fried chicken, and frozen vegetables. Henrick was very excited to have potatoes, saying that he hadn't had them since he left home two months before. It made us appreciate how easy it was for us to have good meals, and also not having to live out of a suit case.

After dinner we drove them back to their hostel then parked on the street behind the hostel. We had been warned twice by security while parking down by the beach that we would be ticketed if we attempted to sleep there. Nobody bothered us on the street though.

Nov 29: We wrapped our Christmas presents and sent them home via airmail. We were told 7-14 days, so our fingers are crossed that they will reach there in time. From here we are heading north up to WhitSunday and expect to get up there for around the weekend. There is a chance that we will be able to meet up with Perri and Maggie, who are also planning to be up there soon. We are noticing that the weather is getting warmer, and if it gets too much warmer it is going to be quite unbearable. There are a lot of Christmas songs being played in all the stores, and it is making it seem very close. It will be very sad not to be able to spend this year with our families, but we'll make do.


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Crazy, lazy koalasCrazy, lazy koalas
Crazy, lazy koalas

We got to pet one here too, it was SO soft!
ElephantsElephants
Elephants

Our animal sightings were nothing compared to the real thing Dawn & Paul!


30th November 2006

Koala Bears
C- At least you did not get peed on a cute and sweet Koala bear!!!
30th November 2006

you will just have to "make do" spending Christmas with Cara and I in NZ!!
30th November 2006

Cruisin'
John L. would be proud of the Land Cruiser exploits! Awesome.
4th December 2006

Joe, I am little late in catching up with Australian experiences. I just read through your fascinating Stanthorpe farm stories. It is very nice to hear that you had such a great time there. May be one day I will ask for your expertise for the farm that we are trying to build in India (of course you would get paid for your consultancy services). I see by this time you have moved from farm to sea beaches. What are are doing there? Can we expect you in the coming episodes of "Baywatch"! Keep sharing your fantastic experiences. With best wishes to you and Carolyn. Also my belated congratulation on your getting engaged. Mrinal
5th December 2006

Hi guys!!just read your blog and wanted to say again, that i loved being in a group with u 2, it was so much fun!!!! Hav fun on the rest of ur trip!!i hope its gonna be porno!!! xxx german sophie
5th December 2006

Tiger show!
I'm so Jealous!! The trip continues to sound awesome of course,,,but I would have loved to see the tiger show!

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