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Published: April 13th 2009
So after a great tour on the great ocean road Nadja (from Switzerland) and Andy (from Austria) decided to join me in hiring a car and starting an international tour of the rest of the East coast in our lovely Toyota Carolla - a proper family car!!!. I am just going to summarise it for you here because if i did it in detail it would take me all night, you would get very bored and i just cant be bothered!!
Melbourne - a really attractive city with great nightlife and food!! After checking out some of the cities attractions - the casino, the botanical gardens, the imigration museum and the bars we embarked on our first challenge in the car, getting out of the city!! Now Andy and Nadja had never driven on the left hand side of the road before, i hadn't driven for some time and was never that good anyway, we didn't have a map and none of us completely understood the 'give way to traffic turning right' rule (and i have to admit i still dont get it despite nearly 4months driving in Oz and NZ so answers on a postcard anyone who can explain
it!!!) still somehow we managed to leave the city and headed north.
Lakes Entrance - our first stop, not actually planned but as seemed to happen a lot throughout our trip we got talking to a man in a petrol station and he recommended we stay here. The australians are so friendly and at almost every opportunity they will give you travel advice and often offer you a place to stay even if you have only met them for 5minutes, it was great! So we settled into a lovely campsite and headed into the town to enjoy a pizzza and a movie under the stars by the lake. The movie being shown on the outdoor screen that night was Mamma Mia and much to the embarassment of the other two i was singing and dancing along!!
The next day saw me heading back into town to invest in a proper sleeping bag, well actually a childs proper sleeping bag because i was too tight to pay for an adults one, as it was so cold in the tent. And i thought Australia was a hot country!!
Snowy River National Park - this was one of my favorite places
as it was just soooooo vast and you felt as if you really were completely in the middle of nowhere. On the way we stopped at Buchan and walked along the creek and were scared half to death when a huge lizzard jumped out right under my feet. We also visited perhaps the strangest petrol station ever in a place called Seldom Seen!! The property had been destroyed in a bush fire some years ago and the rather eccentric owner (David) had taken to collecting absolutely everything since. I really can't describe the place because it was just too strange (however, we still managed to get chatting to some other people there who offered us their house to stay in in Cairns!!) as was the English owner. David insisted that we stayed there in his caravan and came out on the motorbikes to hunt kangaroos and then we could all have a bbq, however, we all got the sense that if we stayed we might never leave if you know what i mean!! I could feel the script for the next Australian horror movie developing! So we made our excuses and left having been told that we would be through
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Cooking for the first time in ages and i just about managed to make ......... pasta!!! the park and out the other side in 3hours. Well i dont know how David drives but we had been driving for nearly five hours and the map suggested we were still nowhere near the edge so we decided to stop for the night. We pulled up in a department of conservation campsite which was about as isolated as you could get. We collected firewood to cook our dinner and had to get water from the river to drink - not quite as romantic as it sounds as we weren't sure if the there were crocs in the river and there was a small army of animals living in the toilet (i use the word toilet lightly as it was really a hole in the ground and nothing more) any one of which could have been deadly given number of poisonous creatures in the country!! Anyway we survived seeing nothing more than a couple of wallabies and later found out much to the amusement of the locals that there are no crocs till you get much futher north (there are still several deadly snakes and spiders to watch out for!), if only they had seen us nervously washing in the
river thinking that every moment may be our last!!
Mimosa Rocks National Park - another great campsite right by the beach. On the way into the campsite we saw a massive balck snake and both Nadja and I jumped out of the car to try and get pictures, Andy remained in the car screaming at us to close the doors as he is very scared of snakes!!
Mollymouk Beach - we decided it was time to stay at a proper campsite, one with showers at least as we were starting to smell, and we also fancied checking out the beach. However, that was not meant to be as it rained the entire time we were there so i cant really say much about the beach but the campsite was great and we now knew that the tent didn't leak!!
Kiama - we camped on the showground here and enjoyed a freezing cold early morning swimming session, or should that be an attempting not to drown in the massive surf session! We went to Kiama blow hole but it wasnt blowing! You need to go in high tide apparently, yet another example of our brilliant research into the
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For grandma area!
Sydney - we stayed with my friend Nicci (we met in thailand) at her parents house in Illawong which is just outside Sydney. The house was great with a pool!! In the evening we went into Sydney for the start of the Sydney festival and the city was packed. We tried to go out afterwards but the bars were too busy so we ended up calling it a night and heading home. The next day Nicci took us on a sightseeing trip. Of course we worked down the list of things to do in Sydney - photo infront of both the bridge and the opera house and a photo with an aboriginal band!! Then we took the ferry to Manly beach and spent the afternoon enjoying the scenery!! lol! I really liked Sydney it is definately somewhere i would like to go back to and spend some more time in.
Palm Beach - just for Gavin we headed out to Plam beach, the beach where Home and Away is filmed for those of you who don't watch soap operas religiously!! I had my picture taken infront of the surf shop and then tried to body surf resulting
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And again for grandma in me dissapearing under the water for a lengthy period before appearing a long distance from where i started with absolutely no idea how i got there!!
Crowdy Head National Park - we left Nicci's and met up with a couple from the Great Ocean Road tour and headed to the back to the beach. We stayed in the department of conservation campsite again which cost only $6 each and was on the most gorgeous stretch of beach i had seen yet, and the best bit was we had it all to ourselves! Which even inspired me to go running in the morning! Unbelievable i know, almost as unlikely as me being quiet for 10days but i did it!! We also attempted swimming but that didn't last long after coming across a box jelly fish, yet another of Australias poisonous creatures!!
Dorrigo - UNESCO world heritage site. On the way through here we encountered our second snake of the trip, a 2m long diamond adder (not poisonous) just going down the road. The park itself was really nice and we did the 6km loop throught the park and saw a huge iguana and several skink lizards.
Nimbin
- a hippy town which is brightly coloured just as you would imagine a town to be where drugs are practically legal. It was a really nice place to visit, very laid back friendly people and an extrememly interesting and peculiar museum.
Byron Bay - this was another really nice town with a great beach but it was absolutely packed with tourists, mostly of the Ken and Barbie variety (Gavin would love it!!) so we didn't stay that long.
Brisbane - i slept through Brisbane so can't really tell you much!! Except that we stopped on the way in a place called Ipswich which is very similar to the one back home except with better weather!!
Noosa Heads - another very nice place but also very busy with tourists and unfortunately we couldnt find anywhere to stay. Instead we drove out to Tewantin and stayed in a campsite which was overun with huge lizards, very stange seeing them running around everywhere.
Rainbow beach - we didn't see much of the beach as it was raining, we did however go to Tin Can Bay and see the dolphins. It was really amazing as they came in to
be feed and would swim right up to you.
Fraser Island - it was time to say goodbye to the Toyota for a while and upgrade for something with a bit more power (but not much as we found out later!!) and embark on a self drive 3 day 4by4 tour of Fraser island with Koala backpackers and what fun we had. The highlights being - swimming across lake mckensie, visiting the shipwreck, swimming in the beautiful clear Eli Creek, driving in heavy sand, watching the boys push the cars up the hills when they got stuck, being surrounded by dingos whilst trying to go to the loo in the middle of the night, cooking too much food, trying to understand the Irish!!, playing and winning the cereal box game, jumpstarting the car on the sand, staying up all night on the beach and finally walking for 5hours to get to Lake Wabby when it was only supposed to take half an hour!! Overall it was great fun, Koala cars are not the best but they are certainly not the worst and we had a great laugh and met some great people.
1770 - yes a town that
is called 1770 and there is nothing there!! Apparently it is great for surfing but i dont surf unfortunately so i cant comment. On route we did stop at an excellent crocodile and snake centre and i got to hold both a snake and a baby crocodile which was amazingly strong despite its small size. We also got to watch the zoo keeping narrowly avoid being eaten by the female crocodiel which was amusing!!!
Airlie Beach - not my finest day as i got stopped for speeding by perhaps the grumpiest police officer ever and i was only 5km over the limit. But Airlie beach was great and we stayed for Australia day and had a great night out. Most people were here to do a Whitsundays tour but we decided not to do it as the weather was not very nice and so we didnt see the point in going out on a boat to sit in the rain.
Townsville - camped just outside the town in a gorgeous campsite which was absolutely full of wallabies. The old man running the place was so nice and really worried about us staying in the tent when there was
rain on the way so he made us put the tent under the shelter of the kitchen barn!! We didnt stay in Townsville long as we were running out of days!
Mission Beach - no cassowary but plenty of rain!! We went in search of the famous casowary bird but unfortunately didnt manage to see one, although perhaps that was a good thing as they can be aggressive and they are very fast runners and as i have gained a lot of weight since being in oz i doubt very much i could have out run one!! In the evening it rained like nothing i have ever seen before and now i understand why when buying the tent the salesman said to me 'anyway if it rains in the north it wont matter if your tent is waterproof cos you will be washed away!!' I am pleased to say we weren't washed away and the tent was waterproof.
Cape Tribulation and the spider attack!!! - on the way to cape trib Nadja says to me 'wow look!' so thinking that she has seen a snake on the roadside i push my face to the window trying to spot
it. Next thing i know an absolutely huge and i mean huge orange hairy spider comes crawling across the window. Well as you all know i am scared of spiders at the best of times, especially ones as big as my hand which are remarkably close to my face! So i jump up from the back seat and dive into the front of the car, all the while i am screaming my head off and am very close to tears. Nadja is also screaming at this point whilst Andy is trying to drive with absolutely no idea what is going on as both of us have failed to mention what it is we are suddenly so scared of, and remember Andy is petrified of snakes and so for all he knows there is a deadly snake in the car! Finally he manages to bring the car to a stop, some achievement when i am sat completely in the way of the gear stick and refusing to move! Noticing that the spider now seems to have dissapered i return nervously to the back seat and Nadja jumps out to see where it has gone. She says she cant see it anywhere
and so she asks if its ok to open the door which she does, and next thing you know the spider is in the car coming towards me. Well as you can imagine this sparks more screaming and before you can blink i have climbed over all the camping stuff on the other seat and out the door much to the amusement of the oncomming traffic and i am running away from the car back into Cairns!! Between them Andy and Nadja manage to fight the spider off the car, and it is soooo big that fight really is the right word, i only wish we had a picture so we could prove the size of the thing. Reluctantly i return to the car and spend the rest of the journey nervously staring at the car door convinced that somehow the spider will come back!! It didnt fortunately and i have since found out that it was a hunstman spider which is harmless to people but you never know!!
Finally we arrive in Cape trib and stay at Cape Trib campsite, which proves to be a really good spot so we stayed for 3nights. And we got really lucky with
our timing and arrived jsut as one cyclone blew over and before the next one arrived so we got good weather. Whilst there we went sea kayaking which was great fun till our guide pointed out that as well as the reef sharks which we were trying to spot there were also big salt water crocs in the sea here!! Great!! But he assured this it wasnt their hunting ground so they wouldnt be interested in us, not 100% sure about that. We then spent the next day swimming in the streams just a short distance from a sign that said beware of the corocodiles, but we were assured by a local that it was safe to swim there, and anyway we thought it would only be the fresh water crocs in this stream and they weren't dangerous - WRONG! Salt water crocs live up to several miles inland from the sea in fresh water rivers!! Oh well we got lucky and didnt see any!
Cairns - final destination and end of the road trip! Unfortunately whilst the rest of the country were being hit by record breaking heat waves Cairns was being hit by cylclones!! So we booked
into a cabin in the caravan park as Andy had finally had enough of camping in the rain. In future it would pay to do a bit more research into the area and not jsut assume that it would be hot and sunny cos everywhere else was!!
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