Weeks 38 & 39 - Sydney to Port Douglas

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We left Western Australia and caught our flight to the east coast, arriving in Sydney late evening. We checked into the hotel we would be staying at for the next few nights and headed out for some much needed grub. As we were staying within walking distance from Sydney’s Chinatown, we thought it would be rude not to pay it a visit, so that evening we ate some fantastic cuisine in one of the many food courts that littered the area. The next morning we got up early and headed down to probably Australia’s most iconic piece of architecture, the Opera House. Here we met up with one of Cerri’s university friends, Sian. After obligatory snaps of the Opera House, which to me looked more like some sort of spaceship, we decided to have a nice cup of English tea and a good catch up. A few hours later when the girls jaws were starting to ache from talking we had a stroll through the area known as “The Rocks” and walked up to Observatory Hill to see the harbour bridge and Opera House in all its glory. We then headed down to Darling Harbour for a $10 lunch special and even more of a catch up, before strolling round to the lighthouse on the Quay, I’ve actually lost count of how many lighthouses we’ve seen since we’ve been away!!! Continuing on our tour of Sydney with Sian, our next destination was Hyde Park and the St Andrews Cathedral followed by a stroll through the Botanical gardens. The gardens were a bliss of peace and quiet which was surprising considering the cities skyscrapers were only metres away. As we meandered our way through the flora and forna, we came across plenty of wildlife of the winged variety, from parrots to bats! The path lead us back down to where we’d started the day, so after a few more pictures of the Opera house with us doing the traditional jumping picture, we said our farewells to Sian and headed back to our hotel stopping at dominos for a “Cheap as Tuesday” treat.

Whilst we were in Sydney we wanted to go to a beach and also go on a boat ride, we managed to achieve both of these by catching a ferry across to Manly. Unfortunately the weather was a bit hit and miss that day, so we spent our time on the beach sunbathing whilst the sun was shining then running for cover as the heavens opened. After catching the ferry back we decided hang around until dark to get some pictures of the Opera House all lit up like a spaceship at night.

The following day we’d arranged to relocate a campervan up the east coast to Cairns for a bargain of five dollars a day, only snag being that we had merely 6 days to drive the 2700 kilometres. We caught the train out to where we were picking the campervan up from, the Camper turned out to be a good one, a Toyota Hi-Top 3 berth, so we had plenty of room for our oversized backpacks. After signing our lives away at the depot we headed out on the road, making a slight detour to Germany’s second favourite supermarket Aldi (first being Lidl’s!) for supplies for our trip. We decided to get a full days driving under our belt about eight hours worth to be precise, making one stop at the Giant Koala statue in Port Macquire before stopping for the night at a campsite just beyond Coffs Harbour.

The next day we continued north up the east coast getting to the small but funky seaside town of Byron Bay by midday. We spent the day down at the beach, sunbathing and taking dips every now and again in the cool sea water. We strolled around the town, and window shopped at all the surf clothing outlets wishing we had more room in the backpacks! We then moved on from Bryon Bay continuing our journey northward bound. We bypassed Brisbane, as we were going to head back down here at later on and spent the night at a roadside rest stop on Steve Irwin Way, guess where we were heading the next day.... Thats right Australia Zoo.

We awoke early the next morning and make the short drive down to Australia’s most famous zoo. We arrived premature to the opening time of 9am wanting to make the most of the day, little did we know that when we crossed the border that separates the states of New South Wales and Queensland we actually lost an hour, so instead of turning up at 8.30am we’d in fact arrived ridiculously early at 7.30am! It did work a little in our favour though, firstly we were first in the queue and secondly we were able to have photo’s taken in the Croc Hunter Truck. We had a great day in the Zoo feeding elephants, having our picture taken with baby crocs, watching the Crocodile show, basically revelling in the fantastic world that Steve Irwin (god rest his soul) had built up from scratch in his love for the country’s animals. We also visited the animal hospital that they have on site, here we gave a donation and saw a few poorly koala’s including one on the operating table, hopefully he made it through the op ok. After me having to drag Cerri out of the zoo, we got a good few hours under our belt and made it to Bundaberg by night fall.

We started the next day as an alcoholic probably would, with a tour of the Bundaberg Rum Distillery. Being the keeno’s we are, we were obviously there before it opened and when it did we had the place to ourselves. We strolled around the informative tour which went through the rum making process, how much rum the army boys went through during the war and how they came about having a polar bear as their mascot. After the tour it moved onto the tasting, which in hindsight on an empty stomach and before 10am wasn’t a good idea! We sampled a variety of different rums and left the place feeling a little light headed and best friends with the barman! We then headed into Bundaberg town centre to spend a bit of time catching up on emails, whilst in the town centre we also spotted “Banjos Tavern”, and if we hadn’t already consumed a huge amount of rum that morning would have stopped in for a cheeky pint but instead I settled for a comedy photo outside. We left Bundaberg and ventured further along the road to a town called Gin Gin, where we made a pit stop and cooked ourselves some lunch. That evening we spent at another night at a roadside rest stop in the middle of nowhere, going to sleep with the sound of croaking frogs all around us.

Another early start in the morning, as we set out making our way to Airlie Beach. As today was Valentine’s Day Cerri was wanting some chocolates, so what the lady wants the lady gets in the form of “buy one get one free” chocolate bars from the petrol station... I know I’m such a romantic! Arriving in Airlie Beach, we parked up and headed for the Lagoon. Despite being called Airlie Beach, the town doesn’t actually have much of a beach, just a large but pretty looking lagoon situated between the town and the sea. We managed a couple of hours sunbathing and taking dips in the lagoon before cooking up some of our campervan favourite super noodles for lunch. From Airlie Beach we carried on up the east coast arriving at a small town called Bowen or as the locals call it “Bowenwood”. They gave it this particular name after Baz Luhrmann’s 2008 Hollywood blockbuster “Australia” was filmed there. In the film, Bowen stands in for Darwin in the 1940s during the time of the Japanese air attacks early in the Pacific War. Sadly hardly any of the set is still there but the old jetty that was used in the film still stands; it was pretty cool seeing where Nicole and Hugh hung out. Bowen is also home to the Big Mango, so obviously we had a comedy photo there as well. We then got back on the road and drove for another couple of hours until we arrived at our destination for the night, the town of Townsville. The major of Townsville is a big campervan enthusiast, so we could free camp anywhere in the town. As it was Valentine’s day we’d picked up some juicy looking kangaroo steaks in the day. So as Cerri was boiling the potatoes in the campervan, I was busy cooking the roo on the beach side BBQ’s. We had a romantic Valentines dinner that evening sitting at a picnic bench underneath an age old tree which was alive with the sound of the bats!

We started the next day with no ill effects from the previous nights BBQ and a quick dip in the sea, after showering on the beach we drove up Castle Hill to get a great view of Townsville from above. The town was recently battered by Cyclone Yasi, and a lady who was also enjoying the view proceeded to point out some of the areas that were worse hit. We took plenty of pictures and got back on the road continuing our journey north to Cairns, as we had to drop the camper back there by close of business. Enroute to Cairns we witnessed more of the devastation that Cyclone Yasi had caused, the drive was quite eery at times as all the leaves had been blown out of the trees leaving them bare and halloween looking. We saw many ten metre trees up rooted, roof’s blown off houses and most notably the town of Cardwell, which looked as if a bomb had hit it as the beach was no longer there including many of the houses and shops too, it was quite a sad sight but you could see how many of the locals had clubbed together and started the long and tiring task of cleaning up. As we approached Cairns the weather became more tropical and with that the heavens opened, we dropped of the campervan and checked into our accomodation for the night, the “Bellview” right on Cairns Esplanade.

Over the next few days we explored Cairns, spending the day down by the salt water lagoon, having BBQ’s in the park, strolling around the town window shopping, having a nose at the stalls in the night market and treating ourselves to several pints at the “Rattle and Rum”.

Thanks to our good friends Rhys and Rhian they had sorted out some accommodation for us in a small town an hour north of Cairns called Port Douglas. We hopped on a bus and made our way to the hotel and apartment complex called “Pool”, named because of the large pool that flows in front of the guests rooms. We had an amazing two bedroom apartment complete with infinity pool, with a view of the surrounding tropical rainforest in the distance. We spent the next couple of days relaxing in luxury, thinking how lucky we were compared to other backpackers crammed into their dorm rooms! We took a stroll along the 4 mile beach which lead all the way to the towns one and only main street, being mind full all the time that crocodiles inhabit the streams and sea around here. We popped to the local arts and crafts market clearly not going to buy anything as we didn’t have room in the backpacks but we did treat ourselves to a sugar cane juice drink!

After spending the previous two days relaxing, we thought we’d do the complete opposite and go do some exploring. We hired a car for the day and decided to head up to Cape Tribulation. Crossing the Daintree river by ferry we were now immersed in the National Park, passing roads signs telling us to be aware of Cassowary Crossings. The Cassowary being a shy but rather large flightless bird, it is fast becoming extinct around the world. Our first stop was at the Alexandra lookout to see the river we’d just crossed before making our way as far north as we could before you’d need a 4x4 to continue, Cape Tribulation. We took some snaps of the beach and surrounding area whilst keeping our eyes out for crocs. Whilst here we also saw the biggest spider we’d seen so far on our trip, infact it was probably bigger than Cerri’s head as she nearly walked into its web! After a quick picnic lunch we walked along the Marrdja Boardwalk, through the rainforest and out over the river taking in all the nature and wildlife around us. We left the Daintree National Park and stopped off at Mossman Gorge on our way back to Port Douglas. At the gorge we had a dip in the icy cold waters that were flowing down from the surrounding hills, luckily the water here is far too cold for the crocodiles! We headed back into town stopping off at Flagstaff Hill Lookout to view Four Mile Beach, as the sun was setting we ended our first two weeks on the east coast of Australia.

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Photos

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Trio Combo, Opera House

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Jump!

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Big Koala, Port Macquarie

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Jump with Steve!

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Croc Feeding time!

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Me, Bundy the polar bear & Cerri - Cheers!

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Airlie Beach Lagoon

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Romantic Table for 2 plus bats!

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Couples Combo, Cairns

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Having a dip at Pool

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Beautiful Cape Tribulation Rainforest

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Mossman Gorge

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Botanical Gardens

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Bamboo Grafitti

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Opera House

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Rainy coming in at Manly

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Manly Beach

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Cerri at Manly

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Sydney Skyline

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Reflection

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Harbour Bridge at night

Comments

[lesley field]

Another great blog, keep up the good work!!