Aussie East Coast Hippie Extravaganza!!

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Well how much have I seen and done in the last month! Here we are at the middle of november and merely 6 weeks till Christmas...yet it couldn't feel less like Christmas to me as I sit in the tropical north of Australia. Yet the Christmas decorations are coming out and it all seems rather strange. However Ryan's visit here continued my immense love of this country as we travelled north from Melbourne up the eastern coast.

When Ryan arrived in mid-oct we first headed down to visit Jan and Andre who I had gone wwoofing with in early sept and we had a great time with them. Ryan and I even left them a painting behind. Jan and Andre like to have their wwoofers paint something and since I didn't really do it when I was first there, Ryan and I did a collaborative effort of a swirling gum tree...I must say I rather was proud of our work and Jan & Andre said they liked it too. Although I am keeping an eye out in flea markets for it....hehehe!

So after our visit there back to Melbourne again and the next day picked up our purple flower bespeckled hippie camper van (awesome..couldn't scream TOURIST louder than if we pasted a sign on the top of it and Ryan thought it was oh-so-manly) and we were off!!! Well...not really. It was a manual tranmission and it had been a while for me and even longer for Ryan so I did the first stint and Ryan was navigator and alas the first turn out of the depot was the wrong way. Nice going navigator...this is going to be a longggg trip. LOL. So gears grinding, van lurching we managed our way out of Melbourne after several more wrong turns (remember folks we are still driving on the left side of the road). I was rather impressed with myself that I didn't stall the entire first day...go carla! Although it was not the most smooth of rides the first night we stopped about 2 hours out of the capital Canberra. We fired up our single burner camp stove and made ourselves some rather tasty spaghetti. It was a bit of an enigma to try and figure what order to cook things in since we only had one cooking surface, and to minimize dishes, since well we didn't have all that much stuff to use. We sure got creative at times and were proud of our ingenuity.

We visited the Australian capital city of Canberra the next day including the impressive war memorial. This was after freezing our tootsies off during the night as our sleeping bags were only good to +12 degrees AND Becky and Kim may agree that I tend to hog blankets, sorry Ry. It was neat to see a planned city (it was purposefully picked for the capital so they didn't have to choose between Sydney and Mebourne and thus it was planned) kinda like Washington DC, and therefore was quite symmetrical and pretty. We carried on towards Sydney but made a 2-night stop in Shell Harbour and our first real view of the east coast. This was the hardest place to find, with a lot of road construction apparently the state gov't doesn't think they have to tell you where to detour. But we made it with some directions from more awesome Aussies although unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate and our van battery died so had to deal with that (turns out it was a dud battery and in the end after it died a second time we had it replaced). But we played a lot of crib and cards (kicked Ryan's ASS...hey I'm writing this thing...of COURSE I won!) and enjoyed it and congratulated ourselves that we hadn't yet fought...not bad...4 days in...

Onwards and we were in Sydney. In the end a highlight but on the outset....a rather frustrating place to navigate. We first looked all over for a tourist info center that was on our new map, but somehow it had vanished just in time for our arrival. But it was ok because we went to the one at Sydney Olympic Park which was a rather impressive place and neat to see. So armed with lots of tourist brochures and what looked like a really easy campground to get to we braved the streets of the largest city in Australia. BIG MISTAKE. So the entire country has abyssmal signage but the award must go to Sydney for the cream of the crop (worst that is). Seriously, no signs until WHAM turn NOW. Thanks...missed our turn. Crap we are on an electronic toll way...you must have an electronic chip in your car to go on it. Crap, exit now. Shit where are we now. ARGGG! We drove in circles for nearly 1 and half hours, and after 2 phone calls to the campground for directions we arrived desperately in need of a double. But the sunny side, we stayed there for 5 nights so didn't have to drive anywhere! It was great, a national park in the city (suburbs) and an easy 25 minute bus ride into the city centre. We saw a ton of stuff in Sydney and none of it disappointed. You could easily fill a week there and not even have to drive out of the city centre. We of course saw the Opera house and did a tour, went to the aquarium, wildlife park, a jet boat ride of the harbour, on a ferry to Manly (ferries are part of the regular commuter traffic since there is so much water), went up the Sydney Tower for spectacular views of the city and the magnificient harbour, and oodles of other things too numerous to name. We had a plethora of wildlife visit our campsite in Sydney including Charlie the kookaburra, Chippie & Willie the bandicoots, and the awesome possums Cyril, Sydney, Mabel, and Ralph (yes we named them, well Ryan kept feeding the damn things so they wouldn't leave us alone...nearly eating right off our plates). But we really loved it there. I even met up with an old friend from St. Albert who I used to play soccer with and now lives in Sydney.

We didn't make it much further up the road until we stopped again in the Hunter Valley Wine Region. A very large and old wine region where we went on a tour of a winery and of course had samples. Then Ryan HAD to drive as I had a few to many samples. So gears grinding, van lurching, and maybe just a few stalls...ahem...we also stopped at a cheese factory and after indulging in a very nice assortment of lovely cheese, crackers, chutney, and wine for dinner Ryan gave me a new nickname. Little stinker. Nice hey, but hey he wanted all that cheese. Sorry again Ry :o).

But it was lovely and we again trudged on to Lennox Head where we had hoped to take surfing lessons but again the wind prevented us. So we went for a walk on the beach. Ryan had the van keys attached to his shorts and over an hour later after walking probably 3 km on the beach we discovered the keys were gone. So luckily we had walked mostly on the hard sand but also in the water so who knows where they were. So we walked it again but when were just about back to where we had left our shoes and stuff we still didn't have them. Then Ryan looked down, just a few feet from our things and just barely poking out of the sand, there they were. We had lost them just after we left. Whew! We celebrated with ice cream!

Tea Trees (from which Tea Tree Oil comes) are abundent in this region and we swam in a lake that was stained with the tannin from the trees so it looked like it was a lake of beer! No quite as tasty though. We stopped at the Thursday Tea Tree Plantation (we have this brand in Canada) which was really interesting place to visit. We also stopped at Cape Byron (the eastern most point on the Aussie mainland).

A note about Australian caravan parks (that's what they are called, trailers are caravans to them): they have a nice camp kitchen at each where you can pay 20 cents for 10 minutes of cooking time on the BBQ. Although they are not BBQ's as we know them, but a smooth surface so luckily we had tinfoil to use to prevent stickage. But some camp kitchens even have fridges for tenters. Although we really missed having fires (not allowed because of the drought we think, although there were no firepits even so maybe not a norm).

We travelled to Tweed Heads/Coolangatta which is on the border between the states of New South Wales and Queensland. A border city like Lloydminster although it has 2 different names, and 1/2 the year is in 2 different time zones. Queensland (like Saskatchewan) doesn't do daylight savings with the rest of the country so ya, that must be fun if you live on one side and work on the other (b/c unlike Lloyd they don't do one timezone or one name for the city...crazy Aussies). The tourist info centre suggested we go inland into the hinterland region and the subtropical rainforest where there is a free canopy walk. So they told us it was a really windy road the last 40 km or so but wow, it was Groat Road on steroids. S-c-a-r-y. Most of it was only wide enough for 1 car but it was 2-day traffic. I white-knuckled it the whole way with cliffs on one side, with Ryan telling me when I got his side of the car too close to the cliff edge. But it was worth it. We did a great 4 hour hike including a great canopy walk with towers which we climbed up to over 30m above the rainforest. The drive back down was much easier since we were used to it, and we headed towards Brisbane.

We hadn't read up on Brisbane and didn't really plan on staying there long but saw on the map there was a place called "Movie World" and Ryan being the movie fanatic wanted to stop and check it out. It was nearly 4 pm when we got there and to our astonishment we discovered it was a huge themepark akin to a small Disneyland with movie themed rides, live movie scenes, characters to take a photo with, etc. So we thought it would be good and stayed there to do it the next day. So off we went like little kids and had an absolute blast! The Shrek ride, 2 Batman rides, a live Batman fight in the street, a water ride something akin to Splash Mountain, 2 nausea inducing rollercoasters (man I am getting too old for some of this I think). One called the Superman Escape is designed to be like a subway called Metrolpolis Rapid Transport and the beginning of it is like in a subway then they announce that there has been an earthquake, and, dun-de-dun-de-da Superman saves the day! The ride stops right before it exits the building and a bone-shattering 4.2 G-forces shoot us out of a hole in the "subway" (Ryan actually felt the force push his chest down and the air right out). Holy f*#@, my throat was hoarse from screaming the entire 90 seconds of the ride. Did I mention the negative 1.0 G-force at the end. My poor insides had been shaken and stirred. I couldn't really walk all that straight after. But it was a blast and the gigantic waterslide complex next door especially piqued my interest in more extreme adventure days and we stayed another day to do the waterslides. Well we were not disappointed, some very thrilling slides, most of which are on double tubes which saves the seat of your swimmers and you can ride together, although the weather was not too great. We spent nearly 4 days on the Sunshine Coast, a place that raves about having 300 days of sunshine a year, and it was cloudy all 4 days. What are the odds, seriously. But we made the most of it and decided we needed to get a move on and make some miles.

Another side note: The names of places in this country...serioulsy...I am not sure who the hell named some of them but they are impossible to pronounce. For example: Gundungai, Wooloomooloo, Wollongong, Ulladulla, Merimbula, Warrnambool, Wangaratta (imagine saying you are from Wang-a-ratta...lol), Biloela, Calliope, Yeppoon...the list could go on for miles...you get the picture.

We stopped in Gympie (pronounced gimpy...crazy aussies) but it was the town that saved Queensland in that gold was discovered there when the state was nearly bankrupt in the 18-somethings. Then we headed to Rainbow Beach, a jumping off point for Fraser Island which is famous because it is made entirely of sand. An absolutely gigantic sand island (takes over 4 hours to drive the length) where you can only use 4WD vehicles and we soon found out why. We took a day tour over and my aching-arse and back after that. We sat in the back of the bus and so felt every bump. There was a washed up shipwreck with an intriguing history but the highlight was Mackenzie Lake; the most beautiful freshwater lake....completely clear water, white silica sand, no plants or fish because of the low pH of the water. Indescribable. We even saw 2 wild dingoes (a relative of the wolf which looks a lot like a dog with a big head).

The next morning we drove to Tin Can Bay (at least we could pronounce that one ok) to feed the wild dolphins. One dolphin was injured by a shark attack years ago and was in the bay and the locals came everyday to feed it while it healed and ever since a small pod come in at 8am every day to feed (just a little bit so they are not dependent). There are usually 3 dolphins and you cannot touch them, but can make a donation and get a fish and feed one. It was a very cool experience to see them so up close. The sweetest part was watching the kids feed them, they were mesmorized, very adorable.

Our next stop was Airlie Beach a jumping off point for the Whitsunday Islands, a groud of 74 islands that used to be a volcanic mountain ranges millions of years ago and just the tips of the mountains are now islands after the sea level raised when one of the polar ice caps melted. We did a day tour again saw the without a doubt, most beautiful beach EVER. Whitehaven beach on the large and uninhabited Whitsunday Island, water so clear you can see the dozens of stingrays feeding on the small crabs. We had to be careful though because in Queensland in the summer the waters are inhabited by the deadly box jellyfish so you have to be pretty careful where you go. But a incredibly romantic spot!

We headed up through Cairns and stayed the night there at the lovely beachside town or Port Douglas and then went back to Cairns where we did the Skyrail (a gondolla over the tropical rainforest), a few hours at the Aboriginal town of Kuranda, and a scenic train ride back down the mountain. We returned our Hippie Van which both of us were pretty happy to say g-bye to, and booked into a motel for a few nights. We did a day of scuba diving and snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef...spectacular to say the least. Our last day together we just chilled and I saw Ryan off to the airport. He had quite the hard time getting back though with delayed flights, aircraft problems, broken wine bottle in luggage, 3 hours of standing in line trying to find an alternate flight home, and a detour to Denver he finally arrived in Calgary 48 hours after he had left Cairns. yuck...but at least there wasn't any snow to greet him!

In summary an amazing trip where we did oodles of incredible things. The theme of our road trip has to be "backtracking", although after 4613 km each one was worth it. Thanks Ryan for an amazing month, it was truly incredible! And some may not believe this...but I don't think we really fought, just a few raised voices! Pick your travel companions carefully...it can make or break a trip.

Now I am on my own for 2 months until mid-january when my parents arrive. I am heading over to Western Australia (Perth) to escape the ever increasing temperature and humidity of the tropical north. I feel kinda like I am back in Asia...sweating all day....ugh. It will be hot there but dry like our temps so more bearable. Well....another chapter completed....stay tuned....Carla

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Photos

Hippie Camper
Our sweet ride around Australia

Me and Estaurine Croc...eeek
Glad he's behind glass