Blogs from Hervey Bay, Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 12

On arrival at Hervey Bay we didn’t have anything planned for the first (half) day we were there - thank god because after the terrible bus ride we ended up sleeping for a good few hours, I know afternoon knaps are sooo unlike us!! We were sharing a 4 bed dorm, made up of 2 bunk beds. Pre afternoon snooze we noticed the other 2 beds had already been spoken for and wondered what they would be like. After our snooze we headed out for some grub, we had some dinner in an Irish pub just around the corner. After which we headed back to the Palace hostel - it wasnt exactly a palace, but if stayed in worse places! Our ‘roomys’ were two American girls, I asked where they were from (i didn’t want to ... read more

October 9, 2008 Thursday (in Australia) We got up early to enjoy the morning in Byron Bay. We drove straight to Brisbane with only one stop at Surfers Paradise on the famous Gold Coast. That area reminded us a lot of Miami…big hotels along the beach. There is also every kind of amusement park, animal park, water park, etc. It’s kid heaven. Nothing there seemed to interest us too much. We got lost in Brisbane for about a half hour, oh we really miss our Garmin! We tried to get an Australian card for it before we left, but had no luck. Now we are “relocating” a little Jucy Camper Van (a Toyota) to Cairns. That means we get five days free and $100 in gas. We have this silly vehicle for the next ten days ... read more

The International Whaling Commission introduced a ban on commercial humpback whaling in 1966, which is still in force. The exception is a few taken off the Caribbean island Bequia in the nation of St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Estimates are that at least 200 000 humpbacks were killed during the 20th Century, reducing the global population by more than 90%. Japan had planned to restart hunting in 2007, but the IWC talked them out of it...temporarily. Happily, there is no moratorium on hunting them with a camera, so I went to Hervey Bay armed with a Nikon D-SLR and a JVC camcorder. Early in the morning I boarded the Blue Dolphin catamaran with about 20 others and we sailed out along the eastern coast of Fraser Island to look for them. A catamaran has advantages and ... read more

Another couple of coach journeys with grumpy drivers and even worse videos brings us up the coast from Surfer's Paradise to Hervey Bay where we join fellow travellers, although much younger, to take a 2 night camping trip over to the largest sand island in the world - Fraser Island. The key part to this trip is the ability to drive yourself in a 4x4 along the beaches, to group cook at the campsite and to see Dingos. The 9 in our group contributed A$20 to the food kitty and then let a 20 year old go shopping (her first ever effort!). Probably not the best of ideas as she really did not cater for the 2 vegetarians that we had on our group, although the mixture of condiments that she bought was exceptional. Not to ... read more

I can't believe how fast time is flying. I am falling behind on my projected weekly updates!!! But not to worry, we are well, we've just been busy seeing Queensland. When I last wrote, we had arrived in Cairns. Greg and I went our separate ways that day so that Greg could go diving. He had a fantastic time with the Cairns Diving Centre. They went out to one of the outer reefs, which was apparently a pretty rough 2 hours trip, but it was well worth it. On the boat were about 20 people, but all but Greg and another guy were snorkelling, so the diving was definitely not crowded! He did 2 dives, both guided so they saw a lot of great things. He was most impressed with the number of colourful fish that ... read more