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Published: March 15th 2010
The Alaica's with our Hippie
Great t-shirt to go with the van!So we flew back late from Tassie on February 22nd and as we were picking up our next Hippie camper from near the airport the next day we stayed in the Formule 1 hotel nearby (equivalent to a Travelodge in England) which actually wasn't half bad. So the next morning we got to the very busy Apollo Campers base (Hippie is Apollo's budget line of campers) and managed to finally get our Hippie after about an hour. Luckily this time we checked everything before we went and asked for our bucket and brush they'd forgotten and switched the kettle (last time we didn't check and also had a broken kettle, not very useful for 10 days).
So onto Manly where we were going to staying with the Alaica's for a few days (and yes they did find out we were staying with them from the last blog!). Unfortunately we were staying with the Alaica's during the week so we couldn't spend much time with them during the day, but we had a good few evenings out with them including to their local RSL club (Returned and Services League clubs, our first visit to one, which are
generally recreational clubs (bowls, surf club etc) with cheaper drinks and food, all supported by a load of Pokie's (slot machines)) and also a night out in Manly on the Friday night, where we were refused entry into a few pubs later on in the evening for not having ID (seriously how old do they think we are?!). We also went to the cinema to watch Shutter Island (weird film, still can't really get my head round what was real and what wasn't!) and a fantastic Italian dinner.
So we stayed a bit longer in Sydney than we thought we would but it was lovely to stay with the Alaica's and get to know them better (I had only met them once in Bermuda before they left in 2007). We mostly just pottered about for those 5 days planning our next month of travel. We did go up to Palm Beach one day (up the coast about 1.5 hours) which is the beach where Home & Away is filmed. There was no filming that day unfortunately but we saw the surf club and of course the beach and walkways where they do a lot of filming. Very cool! It
Recognise this??
The walkway down to the beach used on Home & Away was actually a very nice beach too and surrounded by some amazing houses. We also met up again with Karl (who we'd stayed with our first time in Sydney) to pick up some stuff we'd left with them (Thanks Karl!). We need to do a post back home again!
So thanks so much again Nicola, Michelle and the lovely Tatjana and Mila for letting us stay!
Onwards and upwards So we left Sydney on February 28th (Sunday) to drive up north to Brisbane where we had to be by the Friday to join Alex and Tom (a couple we met on our China tour!) on a weekend away which was going to be a bit of a push as it was about 1000kms up the road. We started heading for the Hunter Valley where Patrick wanted to visit a few wineries (as recommended to him by Chris Fearn sometime ago and also Karl and Kat) and maybe stock up for the trip north. We stopped at quite a few places including the famous Rosemont and Lindemans (which are both owned by Fosters and actually don't have their processing plants there anymore, just the visitor's centre) and the
Wyndham Estate. The Hunter Valley is Australia's best known and oldest wine regions and there must have been about 60 different wineries all in about 10 square miles area. We also went to the Drayton's winery that were having an open day with different stalls and tours etc. Patrick had a go on a Harley Davidson motorbike down the road and came back a bit windblown having been taken on a speed ride through some private roads travelling at about 180km/hour. Glad I didn't see that bit! He even lost one of his contact lenses!! From that winery we picked up a case of some nice Cabernet Merlot for $60, that would keep us going for a while! It was unfortunate that we had to get going (and a mistake given the next few days weather) as we could have spent a few days just pottering around the wineries which all have free wine tastings. So we headed up the road a bit more and stayed at a caravan park where we couldn't find anyone in the office so had a free night's stay, bonus.
There are apparently quite a few nice coastal towns heading up north. However that
night it had started raining and didn't actually stop for about 56 hours (it reduced to a drizzle a few times but seriously never stopped). So much for beautiful Aussie weather.
So instead of stopping and doing some coastal walks on the way up we just headed straight for Byron Bay (with a stop overnight at quite a nice caravan park near Iluka, unfortunately it was still raining) arriving on the Tuesday (still in rain). Byron is generally on all travellers lists of places to go to (and Grace from my work in London (an Aussie) raved about it!) and even in the rain we could see if was quite a nice little town with a bit of a hippie vibe, with a long stretch of beach (apparently nearly 30km). The first day we copied our neighbours in the caravan park and went to the local camping shop to buy a tarp, poles and rope to set up an awning over our van. We've got too much stuff in our van to consider sitting in it during the day so the awning gives us a bit more space, plus we discovered the night before that we can't have the
Mid jump in the Quiksilver surf comp
Behind is Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast windows open in the back if it's raining as water drips in, so the awning solved that issue too.
The next day the rain finally broke (well intermittently anyway) though the wind picked up so we had to dismantle the awning before it flew away! We just pottered around town that day and watched the surfers down the beach. That night we went and visited a few of the pubs including the very very cheesy Cheeky Monkeys (which was full of 18-21 year olds) where they were playing some quite amusing games and playing cheesy music. It was a good night although I paid for it the next day as I was indulging in the frozen Mojitos a bit too much. On the Thursday we were meant to drive inland to Nimbin (a true hippie town, apparently you can get high just driving through for all the alternative smokes there!) and then up to the Gold Coast but I was dying and couldn't actually move by 10am so Patrick went and sorted out another night's stay at the caravan park and I went back to bed! Not a good day as I really wanted to see Nimbin but I
haven't had a hangover like that for a while. I finally managed to drag myself out of bed for some fish and chips at lunchtime and we spent a while down the beach.
On the Friday we had to be in Brisbane so we left early and stopped in Coolangatta at the start of the Gold Coast to watch some of the Quiksilver/Roxy surf comp. Kelly Slater was the big name here but he'd been beaten in the 3rd round. We managed to be there for the women's quarter finals and then the men's semis. Each round in a surf comp is 2 surfers going head to head on the waves for about 30 minutes so there was quite a bit of downtime in between each ride as they waited for a good wave. The men were pretty impressive though doing jumps of the waves, pretty cool to see. Although the 1.5 hours we watched was probably enough. It was really hot as well down there, some of the best weather we'd actually seen that week.
At lunchtime we headed inland to meet Robin and Linda, friends of my parents from way back in Hong Kong. They'd left
in 1979 so I was only 2 but my sister Christie and their son Christopher had played together for a few years when we were living at the Peak. Robin and Linda moved out to Australia (after stints in Singapore and England) in 2001 and have a lovely house high up on a hill where we met for lunch. They also took us up to a lookout over the gold coast (lots of highrises in Surfers Paradise) and also to a quirky golf course with the most unique club house I've seen! It did start raining again (we've since heard this is the worst rain they've had for a long long time, great) but we had a lovely lunch with them, thanks very much again!!
Brisbane Later that afternoon we headed up the final 80km up the coast to Brisbane, getting lost for a little bit as our Garmin didn't recognise the new gateway motorway (and tried to send us down one of the slipways coming onto the motorway!) but eventually arrived at Alex and Tom's slightly north of the centre of Brisbane. Whilst on the China trip, Patrick started his thing of taking photos of every different
beer he drank (and reckons he has sampled over 150 different beers now), so Alex being the top host she was, had gone out and bought nearly 30 different Aussie beers for Patrick to drink and photograph!! What an amazing thing to do! Not only that but she'd planned a dinner of only Aussie food! Of the Aussies we have met, Alex and Tom probably where the most enthusiastic patriotic couple we've met, they should have a job with the tourism board! So for our few days stay with them we had the best tour guides of Brisbane we could have asked for. The first night they gave us a tour of some of the Brisbane suburbs and took us up to Mount Coot-tha where we had a fantastic night time view of the sprawling city of Brisbane. Population wise, Brisbane is the 3rd largest after Sydney and Melbourne, but in terms of size is larger than the other 2. However, throughout our stay we didn't see anywhere near the traffic problems that Sydney had making it a nice city to get around. As well as the great welcome from Alex and Tom, we also had a very excited welcome
from their 3 to 4 month old Dachshund puppy, Frank (short for Frankfurter of course). Frank was so so cute and a constant source of amusement during our stay in Brisbane, I don't think I've ever seen Patrick warm to a dog so much before either!
On the Saturday (March 6) we were supposed to go up to the Sunshine Coast hinterland (inland north of Brisbane) and stay with friends of Alex and Tom's but their plans changed which threw us 4 a bit, but given we had nothing else to do we thought we'd go up there for the day anyway. Unfortunately the rain still hadn't really stopped so we saw a very rainy Maleny (which apparently was the wettest place in the area that day!), to be fair it looked like a very nice little country village but the rain didn't help it, still lunch was very nice up there at a local pub. Poor Alex had to drive back in the fog and rain, not particularly nice. We'd planned a night out down at the South Bank area of Brisbane but the rain wasn't letting up so we got a great curry instead and watched Jerry
Maguire on TV (Sister Act 2 that me and Alex were happy to watch was vetoed by the boys)!
On Sunday we took the city cat (the fast ferry on the Brisbane river) to meet friends of Alex and Tom's for lunch at Riverside. We then walked down to the Botanic gardens and saw some of the old colonial buildings including the beautifully restored old Government House which was the official residence of Brisbane's governers from 1862 to 1910 until it was deemed too small (didn't have a ballroom which wasn't good enough apparently!). The rain actually held off for most of the time which made it a lovely amble around. On the way home, Alex had to stop in at her parents to pick up some meat for dinner (which was fantastic by the way) which turned into an invitation for us to go up and have a few drinks and cheese and biscuits! Their (big and beautiful) flat had an amazing view over the Brisbane river and into the business district and we had a lovely few drinks and conversation for a few hours. We can see where Alex's great hosting skills come from!
We spent
the Monday walking around the rest of Brisbane's centre looking at colonial buildings and the lovely South Bank Parklands, which is an area along the river even having a man made beach and swimming area! Very strange but a great idea given you can't really swim in the river. We then stocked up on food as we were leaving the next day and cooked dinner for Alex and Tom to thank them for our great stay in Brisbane. Brisbane was a lovely city we thought, quite chilled compared to Sydney and Melbourne and full of charm. We'd probably pick here over Sydney or Melbourne to live although unfortunately most of the work is probably in those cities so we'll have to see. Thank you again to Alex and Tom for being such wonderful hosts and showing us your town!
So on Tuesday March 9th we left Brisbane to head on up the coast. We were supposed to stop in at Australia zoo but we decided against it in the end. Although it's meant to be the best wildlife park in Australia we figured we'd seen most of Australia's wildlife between Featherdale Wildlife park in Sydney, and all the roos
The old Treasury building
Funnily enough now a casino and koalas on the Great Ocean Road so we gave it a miss and headed onto Noosa via Mooloolaba, a nice coastal town where we spent a couple of hours on the beach. We were going to spend a couple of days in Noosa and then travel up to Hervey Bay to take a tour to Fraser Island, but we saw a few companies that ran some tours from Noosa so on arrival there we booked a 3 day Fraser Island tour leaving the next day.
Fraser Island The next morning we got picked up at 8am (very early for us!) in a big 4x4 bus to travel up to Rainbow beach (to pick more people up) then onto the barge across to Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island, at 123km long. Arrival onto the island was straight onto 75 mile beach which runs the whole of the east coast of the island and is the main thoroughfare, hence the 4x4. Some people take a self drive 4x4 tour where you're in a vehicle with about 8 people, taking turns driving but after hearing a few horror stories of crashes and such because of
the inexperience of 4x4 driving we thought it best to take a guided tour with Trailblazer Tours and I think that was the right decision after seeing some of the tracks! Our tour group was only 13 people which was a nice size, staying at base camp consisting of dorms (incidentally our first dorm room). The first afternoon we were taken inland through some true 4x4 tracks to Lake Birrabeen, a beautiful clear blue lake which was lovely to swim in. This was followed by a walk through a sub tropical rainforest where I was bitten to shreds by mosquitos. Dinner was a bbq followed by a trip to the pub to get to know our tour group a bit better. We had 4 Swiss, 2 German lads (who didn't really speak to anyone for the entire trip), 3 young Scots (fresh faced at 19!), 2 21 year old English girls and us. Quite a good group really and a good laugh at the pub.
The next day we drove up 75 mile beach to Indian Head, which had fantastic views over the east and west coast of Fraser Island. I loved the driving on 75 mile beach. It's
just amazing driving with the sea (with crashing waves) right next to you and not seeing another vehicle for miles, I never got bored of that and we were driving for long stretches on that sometimes! We also had a swim on the way at Eli Creek, a very cold freshwater creek that apparently could supply Sydney and Melbourne with all their water needs (or so our Queenslander guide, Dan, told us, he could have been exaggerating a bit). In the afternoon we stopped at the Maheno shipwreck which was washed up on the beach in 1935, now just a rusty metal wreck, very big though so quite cool. We ended the day having another swim at one of the lakes, although by then the weather, having been very lucky for 2 days, was starting to turn. It started belting it down with rain on the way back to base camp and pretty much didn't let up all night. Although that didn't stop us going to the pub again that night where we played quite a funny drinking game (which thankfully I was quite good at so didn't have to drink too much! Patrick on the other hand was terrible,
or was that part of the ploy) and ending with the 3 Scots jumping in the pool. Oh to be young!
The next day we woke up to strong winds and more showers, so lucky we were heading off the island! We stopped at another lake for another swim. Lake Wabby was originally a creek which was cut off by a sandblow creating a lake although the sandblow is still moving so another century and it will be completely engulfed. Another cool site though. So back off the island after another drive down 75 mile beach to get to the barge. On the way back we saw a sailboat which had crashed onto the beach after getting into trouble off the coast of Brisbane. It was heartbreaking hearing the crunch of the keel as they tried to drag it up the beach, poor guy.
The whole Fraser trip was spent mostly getting to and swimming in lakes but the sites were cool to see, we had great weather and it was really relaxing, the tour group and guide were good fun, so totally a great experience. And I've managed to top up my tan!
Onwards again now
Dingo!
There used to be a lot more on Fraser Island before a boy got attacked, now few and far between after a cull north where the next big stop will be Airlie Beach for the Whitsunday Islands which Patrick will bring you next time.
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