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Published: October 10th 2008
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This was the photo of Byron Bay I meant to send. It's a better shot than the one I sent before. October 9, 2008 Thursday (in Australia)
We got up early to enjoy the morning in Byron Bay. We drove straight to Brisbane with only one stop at Surfers Paradise on the famous Gold Coast. That area reminded us a lot of Miami…big hotels along the beach. There is also every kind of amusement park, animal park, water park, etc. It’s kid heaven. Nothing there seemed to interest us too much. We got lost in Brisbane for about a half hour, oh we really miss our Garmin! We tried to get an Australian card for it before we left, but had no luck.
Now we are “relocating” a little Jucy Camper Van (a Toyota) to Cairns. That means we get five days free and $100 in gas. We have this silly vehicle for the next ten days whether we like it or not. People in other Jucy Campers honk at us while we’re driving, so I think we’re in a pretty special little club. The van is tiny and Joe has lost all self-respect driving a neon green and purple vehicle. It has a sink, refrigerator, stove and the benches turn into a double bed, not without some effort.
Surfers Paradise
Best seen from a distance, we think. So here we are on Rainbow Beach in a caravan park near the Great Sandy NP, one of the “must sees” on our list. I think the worst part will be crawling out of this thing to get to the john. We got here too late to do much except eat some pizza with a bunch of young backpackers. After I write this I will probably watch a movie on the little DVD player that came with the van. The Jucy people gave us several Australian made movies. Joe’s out wandering around, probably trying to see the southern cross through the clouds.
October 10, 2008
We’re at South 25 degrees, 17.274 Minutes East 152 degrees, 52.493 Minutes. That’s what the GPS says. We are in the state of Queensland now in the town of Hervey Bay in another Caravan Park for the next two nights. Our little Jucy Camper was comfortable last night and these parks are nice with good bathrooms with hot showers and swimming pools and barbeque areas where people get together and trade travel stories. (Thanks, Joe and Caroline Evans, for the Big 4 tip.)
This morning was cloudy, but not raining, so
Jucy Camper
Home, sweet, home. we took a three mile walk along Rainbow Beach. There are supposed to be about 85 colors of sand there, but we saw only about 22. There are huge dunes and we had fun climbing up and sliding down them. (Never too old for this sort of thing.)
Joe has a few new birds, including the remarkable rainbow bee eater which is on the cover of the Australian bird book. (Thanks, Bob Barbee, for the book.)
We stopped in Maryborough, a town dedicated to Mary Poppins, since it is the author’s birthplace. I’m betting you can figure out whether or not we spent time looking at all the Mary Poppins’ stuff. But, we did run into the world’s slowest travel agent in that town who helped us book a flight from Cairns to Darwin. I think we learned his life history, the history of Maryborough and the adventures of every tourist who ever booked with him.
We are supposed to go to Fraser Island tomorrow (Great Sandy NP). We are hoping it doesn’t rain. If it does rain, we will say, “Bugger this weather, eh?”
Just swatted a mosquito, haven’t seen one of those things in
a long time.
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Connie
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I'm still trying to figure out how all of that stuff (including both of you) fits into a Toyota Sienna... Great pictures, as usual. Keep having fun-