Tropical Depression

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Hi All, so we (i.e. John) haven't updated the blog in a long while and the pressure of it all is getting to John, so in a show of true partnership and support I am going to flex my literary muscles and tackle my inaugural blog (I'm about as excited as getting an English essay for homework in your last class of the day on a Friday afternoon but sure I'll give it a lash anyway). We're in New Zealand's North Island at the moment and we (well John) hasn't updated the blog since Sydney so I'll bring you up to speed on our East Coast trip and John's tapping out the South Island adventures as we speak.

First off, here'a a tip: Don't go to Cairns in Febuary. Our lack of research into to the tropics in the middle of Cyclone season has meant that we are in a nice part of the world at the wrong time of the year. Whoops. We arrived in Cairns just after Cyclone Ellie had hit, the roads heading south were flooded, the roads inland were flooded and the roads north were dirt tracks that we couldn't drive on. Anyway this didn't matter as we wouldn't be heading south for 5/6 days...

We flew into Cairns airport and noticed straight away how different the landscape is to Sydney and NSW. It's so tropical with all the palm trees, colourful plants, humidity, and mosquitos that we felt like we'd flown back to Thailand. We got a shuttle from the airport to Travellers Autobarn to collect our campervan and our new "home" for the next three weeks (think hi-ace with a mattress in the back, rather than anything luxurious like an American winnebago). We had a quick spin around Cairns (small city/large town with not a huge amount going on bar the beautiful public lagoon) and headed north to Port Douglas. "Dougie" as it's known is a pretty coastal town popular with the rich and famous and the yachties. We parked up in a very quiet campsite for our first night on the road and had a nice meal and few drinks in town. All was going well with our new life on the road until we returned to the camper and tried to sleep that night... all I'll say is 29C and 95% humidity coupled with no aircon and a tossing and turning John is not fun....

The next morning after a couple of cold showers and only a couple hours sleep we hit the road again, cranked the aircon up full blast, and headed for the Daintree and Cape Tribulation. This is where the tropical rainforests of far north Queensland meet the ocean. As the clouds didn't lift all day it wasn't exactly the blue skies and turquoise waters we'd seen in pictures but it was still very beautiful. We stayed in Port Douglas again that night and headed inland to the Atherton Tablelands the next day. As the tablelands are up in the mountains we were hoping for some respite from the heat and humidity. This route, carefully mapped out by John, should have taken us south on the back roads with a few (dozen) stops at dairy farms and cheese factories. But day 3 in the van and the rain started pouring, and pouring, and didn't show any signs of stopping. Feeling quite positive and gung-ho about it we bought an umbrella and carried on regardless, taking in the waterfall route and jumping out at each one for a two minute photo stop. The rain really was torrential though and the further south we went the worse it got, and the slower we were driving. When we met a 4WD jeep just having gone into the ditch we decided it probably was too dangerous and retreated back up north. We parked up outside a hostel that night and enjoyed a BBQ with a few other travellers and even went platypus spotting barefoot, in the pi$$ing rain on the muddy banks of the river... And the rain wasn't even dampening our spirits at that stage...I promise. The next morning after consulting websites, the Aussie AA roadwatch, and numerous locals we learned that all the roads south were flooded (by over 2m in many places) and there was no hope of getting south in the next few days. With no other choice we had to head back for Cairns and hope the highway south would open soon (we were due down to Airlie beach to do our Whitsundays trip in a couple of days). So after nearly a week we returned to Cairns having gotten nowhere and with a 1,000 kms on the clock.

Three more nights in Cairns ensued....it rained constantly....we saw every new release in the cinema, read every book we had and at one point even got so sick of it all and were at such a low ebb that we checked into a five star hotel...that's what God made credit cards, plasma screen TVs and roof top jacuzzi's for!!! It was very embarrassing pulling up to the hotel in our Blackie O'Connors-mobile though. It was too high to park in the hotel car park so they said we could leave it outside the main door under the canopy for the night. Jumping over Louise Vuitton luggage and checking out the next morning was depressing enough in itself, but climbing back into the van in full view of everyone was so cringe-worthy!!! Suitably rejuvinated though we pushed back our Whitsundays trip by a few days and once again waited for the rain to stop and the flood waters to abate...

It didn't, and they didn't, so we returned the campervan to it's shop in Cairns and jumped on a flight to Brisbane, where we collected a new campervan (note: the guys in Travellers Autobarn were really good about this and very helpful - we had heard of other people that had rented vans from more upmarket companies being charged $900 to do this. Overall our experience with Travellers Autobarn was really good and I would recommend them). So in order to get about 150kms south we had to fly to brisbane and drive about 900kms north! On a fight against the clock we were now heading north to make our Whitsundays' sailing......

PS sorry no photos with this blog...the next entry will explain why!

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