Blogs from Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 24

“Adventure may hurt you but monotony will kill you.” Easing out of Bowen on Monday 29th April, it was time for a little moment of reflection. This was day 14 of our 42-day sojourn down the Australian East Coast. Distance covered thus far; 1309km of an estimated total distance of 2500km. Brutey is a thirsty beast guzzling a litre of diesel for every 9.2kms travelled. Not going to cause a financial crisis as diesel at R15/litre is cheaper than in SA. At this point we still had not seen a single fender bender. Now, here’s the thing! According to Wikipedia, Australia has less than 5 road related deaths per 100,000 inhabitants and as always, perspective is needed. South Africa has 30-35 road related deaths per 100,000 inhabitants. Australia had total road deaths of 1416 ... read more

"Our happiest moments as tourists always seem to come when we stumble upon one thing while in pursuit of something else." - Lawrence Block After a delightful four day stay in Cairns, it was time to move on and Cyril duly obliged pointing us on an inland routing to Yungaburra.This looked far more interesting than the A1 down to Townsville which did not hug the coast and probably traversed endless sugar cane fields. Talking of sugar. SA produces about 2 million tons in a good year whilst the Aussies are more than double at 4.5 million tons. Almost 95 percent is grown in Queensland and with all the rain, heat and sunshine, the cane stalks are impressive in height. The routing meant that we had to once again work our way through the Rain Forest mountainous ... read more

" Once you have travelled, the voyage never ends, but is played out over and over again in the quietest chambers. The mind can never break off from the journey." Pat Conroy Travel involves time. In Australia allow for LOTS of time. It’s a very BIG country and to prove the point, here are some boring statistics. It is a country of 7.69 million square kms. That’s just a number but herein lies the relevance. SA boasts an area of 1.22 million square kms which means that Oz is 6 times bigger than our little piece of turf. So, what’s the point you may ask? Our flight from Perth at midnight took just over five hours to get us to Brisbane. A distance of 4315 kms. The upshot of this was that we were stuffed by ... read more

This will be our last Blog before returning home on April 1st (no fooling). Our niece Victoria and her daughter Olivia have been with us for the past 3 weeks returning home on March 21st. They took a side trip to Sydney for a few days which they really enjoyed. While they were in Noosa Heads there was a surfing competition with competitors from around the world. One unusual event was dog surfing which was quite entertaining and included numerous breeds such as an English Bull Dog. At least in this area, there appears to be a greater level of home services available. Our car, which is included in the house rental. is serviced and maintained by a mechanic who makes house calls. The same is true of the golf cart. There is even a “doggie ... read more

Outside our house in Noosa Springs there is an abundance of birds, some of which provide a melodic symphony of songs in the morning (around 5:30 am) and in the evening at sunset. One species in particular has a very unique sound. The Kookaburra sounds like a tree full of laughing monkies! If you go to Wikipedia ( website attached) you can hear the sound. Australia has such a broad array of birds that are unique, colourful and interesting so it’s understandable the attraction by amateur birders and professional ornithologists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kookaburra Also in the ponds around the golf course there is a family of Black Swans. These are a rare species (i.e therefore the meaning of a Black Swan event). At the Dragon Fire Golf Course in Carlisle (just north of Burlington, Ontario), they imported a ... read more