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Published: March 19th 2007
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Hello from Australia!!
Sorry its been a while, we have been so busy, stay tuned and you will find out more..........
We finished our trip in Hong Kong with a visit to Ngong Ping skyrail, a 5.7 km cable car trip, that hoisted you up, giving you a birds-eye view of the airport, which is in fact on an island of its own. Taking you to the village of Ngong Ping. Ngong Ping consisted of many eating places and in the shadow of a large sitting Buddah, worshipped heavily by the locals with bundles of incense bringing back many memories of Thailand! That was our last stop in Hong Kong before our flight to Cairns in Australia, via Brisbane.
Cairns is a fairly small city and very much geard towards the tourists, with a backpack/student vibe. North Queensland at this time of year your are unable to swim in the sea, mainly due to the stingers (jellyfish), so many of the places down the coast offer an alternative, such as outdoor swimming pools known as the local lagoon. The main highlight of our stay in Cairns was our trip out to the Great Barrier Reef! Having many trips to
choose from we finally choose a catameran by the name of Passion. Once on board after our first course of cake and tea, we set sail for our 2 hour journey to the reef. After arriving at our first stop we were carted over to the island of a billion birds known as Micalmus Cay (not sure on the spelling here!!) Dressed up in our attractive lycra "stinger" suits, flippers that were a bit small and eye sucking masks and snorkells, we waddled out into the coral sea. The instant we placed our heads underwater all the above disappeared!! THe sights beneath the water you can only begin to imagine. After a wicked lunch we moved to our second stop, this time we dived off the back of the boat, directly in to a shallower reef fueled by the knowledge that we might find Nemo......and yes we did! Photographic evidence to follow when we get home! The trip concluded with a sighting of a reef shark as we sailed back to the harbour whilst we enjoyed afternoon tea!
We then embarked on our first Greyhound (coach) trip, to the sleepy town of Townsville, its main highlight was the "Strand"
which was a beach front walk with a lagoon and free water play park. We were drawn to the popular island offshore known as Magnetic island. Staying in Picnic bay we took to exploring the vacinity by bike, with some of the "roads" being closer to a dirt track than anything else. This proved quite a challenge, epsecially in the mid-day sun. A rather un-nerving, high pitched sound track that can only be described as the buzz of power lines, that we later discovered to be an Australian locust. But after all that the view was definately worth it.
The next stop was Airlie Beach, arriving later in the evening gave the impression of a busy nightlife. During the day, Airlie seemed to consist of a main strip of shops, eateries and hostels, with a of course a fantastic lagoon! It seemed very much the place to be, and the place to go to access the Whitsunday Islands. We booked ourselves on a backpacker special deal, sailing around a number of the 74 Whitsunday Islands, aboard a $4 million catameran known as the Camira.... yes life is hard, especially when this trip was all inclusive!! We stopped of at
the national park island Whitehaven Beach, which consisted of a 7km pure white sand beach, which was so fine it sounded like snow under our feet. We actaully spent the night on one of the islands, Long Island at the Barefoot Lodge. This was a resort built on the island which contained numerous animals, including its own colony of wallabies roaming around the resort. We arrived back on the main land, after a long using the resort facilities in order to catch the 13 hour over night bus to Hervey Bay.
Arriving early the next day gave us a chance to explore the town, and to our delight a sea that was safe to swim in, and warm at that. We booked ourselves on a 2 day safari on Fraser Island, the world largest sand island. We were collected by our guide Captain Kirk, in a 4wd bus known to the army as a uni mog! After a very rough ferry ride, we drove straight off the boat onto the beach. We were instructed by Captain Kirk many times to belt up and hold on, and he wasn't lying!! We spent the morning bouncing along from the west to
the east part of the island, through all the varying types of rainforest. After lunch we blasted down the islands main "highway" known as 75 mile beach, and yes it is exactly as it sounds, with the number of lanes being defined by the tide at that particular time! We stopped to walk across a 1.8 km sandblow, known to us lot as a sanddune. Its as close as we will ever get to walking across the Sahara dessert! We were rewarded by a dip in one of the islands fresh water lakes, Lake Wabby. We ended our day by arriving at Cathedral Beach, our home for the night where we "camped"!! It was more like a hotel room under canvas! Captain Krik cooked everyone a feast, the deal being that we washed the dishes.....and putting them in the dishwasher was really hard! After a good nights sleep we woke to find the resident lizard in our camp, however he kept himself to himself. Shortly after we continued back up the highway to Indian Head, the only actual rock on the island, which created a high view point over the sea. We were lucky enough to see a family of
Manta Ray's having a swim. On the way to our next cooling down spot, Champagne pools we nearly got stuck in the soft sand and all had to wiggle from side to side to keep the bus in motion! Champagne pools were 2 huge rock pools fed by the waves, being fed by the sea meant that they contained many fish and other sea creatures. After lunch our next stop was the Maheno shipwreck, which was beached around the 1930's and all that remains is the front third of the vessel. It was the adding touch to create the feeling of a castaway island. Our final stop was Lake Alom, another fresh water lake, it could be known as "The Fraser Island Spa" due to its 4.5 pH level.....great for the skin! Not only a skin treatment, but full of turtles too, which was fasinating.
As your can see we have been really busy, so we appologise for the lack of updates! We will update soon....we promise.
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Dad
non-member comment
Enjoyment -That's what it's all about!
Seems like you're having a fabulous time since you've arrived in Oz! The Reef and Fraser Island sound absolutely brilliant, quite a contrast from a $4m catamaran to a $? 4wd utility 'bus' but each with their own particular exciting qualities. I hope you have many more 'adventures' and look forward to hearing about them during your travels. Dad XXX.