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Published: September 10th 2007
Q. What's worse than 11 hours on a bus?
A.
13 hours on a bus!
...and that's how long it takes to get from Sydney to Byron Bay up on the East Coast. Again we travelled overnight which saved on a night's accommodation and also allowed us to collect some spectacular bruises trying to use the seats as beds. Damn those armrests...
Paul would like to pass on his thanks to everyone who attended Paulstonbury that same evening back in England. (For the uninitiated, 'Paulstonbury' is his yearly birthday do in England). We're just sorry we couldn't be there, because we'd have probably had a better night's sleep despite the drunken revellry! We are aware people were trying to call us but as our fellow bus passengers were sleeping around us and due to the prohibitive cost of English mobiles in Australia, we couldn't answer. In the morning we managed to get a quick call through to Simon but unfortunately we were rendered unintelligible through lack of sleep and discomfort, while Simon had been savaged by alcohol. Nevertheless it was wonderful to hear that everyone was having a night they wouldn't remember!
Byron Bay Within minutes
of arriving at Byron Bay it became clear that our state of vacuous semi-consciousness suited the location perfectly. There are clearly some hippies who arrived there in the 60's and remain to this day. Our hostel was just around the corner from the bus-stop and we spent the afternoon catching up on some sleep and saving ourselves for a full day of exploration the next day. Bike hire was free at the hostel, so we set off in the morning on a bike ride taking in the beautiful beaches and climbing to the Byron Bay lighthouse. Next to this was the most Easterly point in Australia from which we could look down into the Pacific Ocean and see pods of dolphins in the surf. On the hillside behind there were wallabies running around, although we thought they were little kangaroos until a local lady put us right. In the evening we made burgers and barbequed them - do as the locals do. Then it was time for a walk into town to drink in the chilled-out atmosphere. There's not an awful lot to do unless you want to totally chill-out (akin to Fiji) or surf. To this end we were
happy only spending 48 hours there - we had another bus trip the next morning to Brisbane, although mercifully this one was only 2½ hours.
Brisbane During the bus journey, Imogen read up on what the city had to offer (Paul can't read on buses without feeling a bit sick - or is it just that he can't read?!). The Lonely Planet guide contained a recommended walking tour of the city, although reading through it we struggled to identify anything particularly interesting to see whilst on it. Once settled in our hostel we thought we'd just go for a wander ourselves and picked up some tour leaflets. It was only then that we realised Steve Irwin's 'Australia Zoo' is only a few miles North of Brisbane. We decided to spend the rest of the day taking in Brisbane's limited sites and devote the whole of the following day to shouting
Crikey!
at various animals. It was suggested by the tourist info people that a great way to see Brisbane is from one of the many river taxis. Apparently the locals call Brisbane 'The River City' - although in our experience that title could apply to most major cities around
the world... But to give Brisbane some credit, viewed from the CityCat ferry at sunset it really is a great looking place - quite modern but with some charming old buildings thrown into the mix. The CityCat is also a very efficient way of traversing the city, evident from the volume of commuters using the service to get home from work.
And get this - to celebrate our visit they laid on a total eclipse of the moon that evening! The next one isn't due until 2011. The full moon slowly became a shadow before turning a deep red colour - sadly this is extremely hard to capture on a compact camera without a tripod but take our word for it, it looks pretty spectacular. And at full eclipse it also a bit like a Malteser, albeit a very small one that can float in the sky.
We returned to the hostel for a cheeky drink in the on-site 'Irish Party Pub'. At about this time a peculiar thing began to happen. Rather than thinking,
Wow, loud music, cheap beer and it's open late, let's party!
, our thoughts turned to the 07:30am pick-up for the zoo trip the next morning. It was clear that the already drunk 20 year-old patrons
were going to keep us awake. We.... felt....
A BIT OLD. And our worse fears were realised as we were woken up time and time again by 20 year-old girls, high on Bacardi Breezers shrieking to their friends down our corridor that they'd just snogged Gary from Grimsby
again.
Somehow we did manage to make it onto the bus the next morning and an hour or so later were at Australia Zoo. The first thing that hits you as you walk in is that, at least here in the zoo, Mr Irwin is far from dead. He's EVERYWHERE - on posters, billboards, signs and merchandise. At the live shows the staff get the crowd shouting Crocodile Hunter-isms like 'Crikey!' and 'What a beauty!'. It all seems a bit sick at first but as you spend time there you begin to realise that the whole idea of the place is to preserve and promote his conservation message. There is a live-show in the 'Crocoseum' where zoo staff (in the traditional Irwin khaki garb) hand feed the crocs he caught. In another live show handlers were playing and hand-feeding full-size Bengal Tigers. You can walk through an area called 'Kangaroo Heaven' and
actually pet the kangaroos - we were a bit dubious about this at first. The whole place is a bit like driving through a safari park without a car. Imogen hand fed an elephant and petted a koala. We saw dingos, wallabies, cassowaries and a wombat being taken for a walk on a lead. There was even a Tasmanian Devil, although we were disappointed that it didn't spin round like its cartoon namesake. It is a fantastic place, and unlike some zoos all the animals have been rescued or bred on site and are clearly well treated and dearly loved by the staff. After a great day out the only downer was the film of Steve Irwin's life and tragic death which our coach driver showed on the way home. Nearly everyone had tears in their eyes. If you ever go to the Gold Coast, the zoo is a must see.
Cairns Woo hoo, an aeroplane! It still takes over 2 hours to fly from Brisbane to Cairns, but at least we were still fairly awake when we landed. Our hostel was a place called the Beach House, which is an interesting name as Cairns doesn't really have a
Imogen pets a koala
Isn't that Toadfish from Neighbours holding it?!beach and even if it did, the hostel is about 2 miles inland. The town of Cairns is not a particularly interesting place, but it acts as a hub for the many activities available along the Great Barrier Reef and North Queensland. We settled in and the next morning, sat down with the hostel travel lady to organise some trips whilst there.
Great Barrier grief First up was a trip to see the reef itself. We are convinced that whenever we book any trip involving boats and the high sea, someone immediately calls Poseidon (Greek God of the sea) requesting him to make things interesting. From the strength of the wind the next morning it was clear that our 45 minute catamaran ride to Green Island (a coral island on the reef) was going to be pretty choppy. As you're probably aware by now, a sailor Paul is not and he spent another boring 45 minutes staring out of the window at the horizon to successfully prevent nausea. The boat pitched wildly and some passengers made it clear what they'd had for breakfast. But there in the midst of the chaos was Imogen, unflappable as ever quietly reading her
book.
Imagine our joy as we finally disembarked at the island, snorkel gear in hand and ready for a swim, to be greeted by dark clouds and even stronger off-shore winds. Add staggering numbers of Japanese tourists with their unique ability to take photos at the inconvenience of everyone else and inherent inability to queue and it was pure hell. The choppy water and lack of sunlight meant almost zero visibility below the surface (our underwater camera pictures are testament to this), which was the whole point of being there. We couldn't be arsed with the glass bottomed boat tour we'd booked as we knew we wouldn't see anything, it was full of Japanese people who had gridlocked themselves on the boarding ramp and even if we had managed to get on it, it was rocking perilously on the 3-4m swell. You can recreate the experience yourself - simply pick a fight with some Japanese people on Bognor Regis beach in November and then jump up and down with your eyes shut until you are sick.
We had a nice relaxed afternoon to get over it.
Cape Tribulation From Cairns you can head North to experience the vast rainforest
areas of Queensland. After a couple of hours, at a place called Cape Tribulation the tarmac runs out and gravel roads will carry you still further. Eventually the gravel runs out but with the right vehicle, equipment and inclination you can make it all the way up to Cape York, the most Northerly point in Australia. We decided to hire a car and drive up as far as Cape Trib, stay the night and then return to Cairns the following evening as we had more activities booked for the following day. As you can imagine, our choice of vehicle was critical, especially for Paul, the dedicated car nut. We had to negotiate rough terrain, potential collisions with large wild animals, the changing weather in the rainforest and carry all our gear. After much deliberation a unanimous decision was reached - a 0.7 litre Smart car convertible (cue cheers from Carrie and Nugget!).
We slapped on the sun cream, ditched the roof and cruised up the coast with some obligatory jungle playing. Paul tried to blag 50% off at the car-ferry across the Daintree River (we only had half a car?!) but they weren't having any of it. Less than 3
hours later we were at Cape Tribulation. Our hire agreement made it clear we couldn't drive on gravel, so we had a look at the beautiful beach. That's about all there is. Back-tracking a few kilometres we found a nature walk through the mangroves, so we went for a wander. After a while Imogen mentioned that her legs were itching, as were Paul's. We then realised there were tiny black lines all over us. We'd become lunch for the sand-flies. At time of writing, there are still traces of blotches on our legs... After a frenzy of spraying Jungle Formula repellant all over ourselves we sprinted the rest of the nature walk back to the safety of the car. Time to head for 'home'!
We had pre-booked a night's accommodation at a place in Cow Bay, a few kilometres back along the road from Cape Trib. It is a Youth Hostel place called Crocodylus Village. All the dorms are mesh tents scattered through the rainforest sitting on stilts. This means at night the local wildlife (of which there is a lot) can run right below your bed. But you will be aware by now that we are not people to
do things by halves. We wanted to be
in the rainforest at night
with the animals. Or at least that must have been what was going through Imogen's head when she booked us on the JUNGLE NIGHT WALK!
Before we set off Paul had to convince Imogen to leave her handbag behind and that she wouldn't need it in the jungle at night (reminiscent of the 'Margo' incident in Cornwall). At 8pm, reeking of Jungle Formula and wearing most of the clothes we could find to ensure minimal skin exposure, we met up with our guide for the evening who was called Possum. We were soon to discover that, unlike some of our previous tour guides, this one definitely deserved his animal name! The plan was to explore the rainforest in the dark with powerful torches for the next 3 hours. However Paul believed there was a more diverse range of wildlife living in Possum's beard, which would take far longer than 3 hours to explore. Nevertheless, the three of us set out in search of snakes, spiders and interesting plants. And a very strange thing happened. Imogen may say she's scared of spiders, but it was she who spotted
a large Huntsman spider sitting on the back of a leaf and dived forward to get a good close up photo. Most of the pictures that night were taken by Imogen - of various beetles, more spiders, big dragon lizards, birds and various plants. The only thing that eluded us all night was a snake. To say how nervous we were as we set off, 4 hours later we were David Bellamy in the making!!
Next morning we had a hearty breakfast and started the journey back towards Cairns wishing we had more time at Crocodylus - another adventure we strongly recommend!
Port Douglas was our lunchtime stop and in the afternoon we called in at the Mossman Gorge which offered up a 3km nature walk. With Possum's teachings fresh in our minds, we explored the rainforest by daylight with great excitement and towards the end, were rewarded with a sighting of a real snake directly across our path, although in fairness it wasn't a big one. Again it was Imogen who spotted it diving forward with her camera for a photograph. So with all boxes ticked in our 'Eye Spy Book of the Rainforest' we headed back to Cairns.
Our balloon pilot JJ and passengers
The collective noun for Japanese tourists is 'a hamper' Full of hot air When you're on holiday, the last thing you want is to have to get up at 3:45am. But if you want to see the sunrise, that's what you have to do. We're not normally that fussed for seeing the sunrise, but when you get the opportunity to see the sunrise from a hot air balloon, your attitude changes, right?! Erm, no. Don't ever attempt to wake either of us up at that time ever again!
Somehow we managed to stagger into the bus and were driven for about an hour up to an area North West of Cairns called the Atherton Tablelands, essentially a big flat area surrounded by mountains. It was here that we were joined by about two-thirds of the population of Tokyo for our balloon ride. After watching the balloons being inflated (they are
massive!), half our bus group flew for about 30mins while we chased it in the bus. Once it had landed, we jumped into the basket with our pilot JJ who had hairiness to match Possum's beard (what is it about pilots and facial hair?!). Then all of a sudden we were airborne, rising in silence into the early
morning light. The experience makes you feel free as a bird as there is no noise, or at least not until JJ pulled a handle and released two enormous bellowing jets of ignited gas about a foot from our ears!! Again Paul's watch with its built in altimeter proved its worth (you know you want one) and surprisingly quickly it was indicating that we had risen to 750 metres, about 2,500ft. It is important to point out that they really do use wicker baskets and it is pretty strange to think that all that separates you and a 750m fall is a picnic hamper. You're not strapped in either, so you can peer over the edge and look straight down - not possible in a 747! Then there's the prospect of landing - JJ had great fun explaining to us that he had no idea where we were going to land (there is no steering) and just hoped it wouldn't involve an electricity pylon or a field of bulls. As it turned out, JJ's landing was a damn site more gentle than the plane we landed in at Cairns!
After all the excitement we were given bacon, eggs and champagne
for breakfast and by 10am were back in bed asleep. This was important as we had one more adventure to squeeze in that day...
White water rafting We woke up for the second time that day both thinking of slacking off the whole white-water rafting due to tiredness (although didn't vocalise it at the time). We were glad we didn't though as it was great, if a little scary fun! After a short bus ride to the Barron river, we collected helmets and paddles and split into groups of 7. Our instructor Mick gave us a few quick pointers (such as 'try not to fall in!) aboard our raft on a quiet section of the river, then we were off on a rapid experience of a life time! There were hairy moments when paddling went out the window and the main aim was to simply cling on for dear life (see photo!), but we also got a chance to disembark our boat and float gently down the river - having checked there were no crocs in the water first of course!
Once home we chilled with a few quiet beers and prepared ourselves for our trip to Singapore the next day...
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Chelle
non-member comment
Flammin Mongruel
Hiya Paul, thanks once again for brightening up my Monday morning, I have enjoyed reading your's (and Im's) blog. Can't believe you are on your way to Singapore already, your trip seems to be picking up the pace. Be sure to have a Singapore Sling in Raffles - alchohol is ridiculously expensive but this is definitely worth it, tastes so good ... + you get all the fresh peanuts you can eat! Where to next? Happy and safe travels! Chelle x PS: We really have had the shittest Summer ever!!!