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Published: November 30th -0001
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Guess where this is?
yeah i know the coat is a bit bright but it isnt always sunshine in australia!! Hello again.
Well got to Airlie Beach which is not a great place apart from the fact that the trips to sail the Whitsunday Islands depart from here!
So went on a racing yacht called Condor, which in its day won all the major ocean races twice. Been kitted out now for 28 people but its still a racing yacht with all the winches and grinders and stuff, got to help out with the sailing, raising the sails and tacking and stuff which was good fun, then spend the time sitting on the high side of the boat hanging over the side as we cruise along. Went snorkelling of the boat, and visited Whitehaven Beach which is a stunning long white sand beach that appears in tourism Australia brochures and stuff. We slept on the boat and ate some great food, that the crew prepared, nachos as an afternoon snack etc. Very impresseive. Weather wasnt great with rain on 2 of the 3 days but had enough wind to do some good sailing. One evening went ashore to a resort to abuse their hot tub, can get most of the boat in one hot tub at a push!!
So after a great trip, then left for Cairns (another long bus ride, but was rushing up the east coast a bit in order to have time to take a road trip to Darwin. But that comes later.
Anyway Cairns is just a town pretty much serving the Great Barrier Reef tourism market, but ok for day or so. Met up with some people from Fraser Island so had some fun there. Then took a trip further up to Cape Tribulation which is a pretty cool area with rainforest stretching down to the beach - worth seeing. Stopped off in Port Douglas where I went scuba diving on the great barrier reef. Its a bit further north than cairns and supposed to be better diving as there are less boats visiting and less damage to the reef. Anyway the diving was stunning on the outer reefs, saw rays and reef sharks and some great coral and stuff. Really good fun. Dived on the site that the events that inspired the movie 'Open Water' took place. Basically 2 divers left behind by the dive boat.... at least they told us afterwards!
Next stop was to meet a friend from
New Zealand with a camper van and drive to Darwin. Plans had changed slightly as there was now 6 of us and one small camper van... so one guy decided to buy a car there and then and that solved that problem, we even had space to collect one more person.. so we did! The road trip was a lot of fun... its a long way to Darwin and took us about 8 days, but we werent rushing. Stopped in free camping areas at night, some really nice, some not so right by the highway with the roadtrains roaring by. The roadtrains are something else, a truck with up to 4 trailers behind it and 53m long!! They dont stop for anything and the amount of road kill around in places testifies to that - wallabies, kangaroos and cows! The outback was pretty magical, great streches of driving 100s of km and seeing no habitation at all. We all shared the driving and had a great time. Managed to break down once, tail section of the drive shaft broke.. luckily one of the guys was a mechanic and we were 10kms from a small town, with a really helpful mechanic
who got parts pretty cheap for us. The other bonus was the great national park near the town where we camped, bush walked and swam in the river! Really refreshing as it was pretty hot in the Northern Territory. A nice change from the pretty average weather and rain the east coast had been having as I travelled up it.
Arrived in Darwin which is a smallish city, but nice scenery around and a tropical feel, people quite proud to be from the northern territory. Spent a couple of days there, chilling out and sorting out stuff. Then took a tour to Kakadu National Park which is stunning. Had a great time, went on a crocodile crusie where the salt water crocodiles (salties) jump for meat hanging from the boat, they get a lot of their body out of the water and can be about 5m or more in lenght - wouldnt want to mess with them as they will eat anything they can get hold of...
Kakadu had scenery staight out of Crocodile Dundee, and filming took place around the park. Went swimming in swimming holes, can only swim in certain places as salties are common in
Outback scenery
Photos from the road trip to Darwin the park and have to be removed before sections of the park reopen after the wet season. Highlights were watching the sunset from a cave in the cliffs with aboriginal rock art in thats 1000's of years old, and swimming at Jim Jim falls which is a massive water fall in a gorge where you can swim in the plunge pool (very cold as the sun doesnt reach the water much at all) and lie on the sandy beach.. great place to visit.
Was really nice to see some real australian outback scenery and get a flavour of the more remote australian landscapes. But all to soon was time to say goodbye to the friends from the road trip and australia itself and fly to Thailand for a very different travel experience in SE Asia.
So thats all for now.
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