OZ, OZ, OZ!!!

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When we were planning our journey, it was my job (Kriszti) to put together the itinery for Australia. I was struggling the 1000 pages long Lonley Planet when I finally started the work...OK, we will arrive to Sydney, at least that's easy, but then which way to go? West? North? East? Do I need to read the whole book to figure it out? No way!!

I spent most of my time finding out what would be the best ( I mean the cheepest) transportation method to get from A to B, which turned out to be a waste of time as we decided one month before out journey thet we will hire a campervan. I had most of the plan ready when we were still waiting for a visa, which arrived on the first week of January, in the last minute. It would have been a shame to switch to PLan B: hang aroung in Cook island for 2 months, doing nothing, but lay on the beach, especially that I fell in love with this country right away as I read about it more and more.

So lets see what happend with us in the last two months!

We arrived to Sydney and spent four days there, well most of it around Darling Harbour and the Opera house. The Sydney Aquarium was fantastic, we cannot choose what we liked the best: the platypus or the colourful reef displays or the predator's pool with the sharks and huge turtles swimming around us, all were amasing. The museums were also great. We visited the Maritime Museum and had the chance to go on board of a WWII submarine and a huge battle ship. In the Art Gallery we met Aboroginal art and the work of Australian artists.
Of course we could not miss to walk through the Harbour bridge enjoing the spectacular view over the Harbour and hag around the Opera House, which was actually a bit disapponting. It looks great from a distance and outside, but the plain concreat walls around the main entrance stairs did not suit such a building famous for its fine arthitecture.

Finally the DAY had come to pick up our temporarly home, the Toyote Hitop campervan!! We loved it from the first moment. It was not huge, but there is just enough space in it, has everithing you need in a cosy home: living room (the front seats), a kithen, a dining room, a bedroom and even a balcony with two chairs. And the best views you can imagine!
First destination was the Blue Mountains. We had only one sunny day, but even in the pouring rain, it was beautiful, especially the Three Sisters peaks and the National Pass trek, which are still one of our favourite Austalian scenery. We surley didn't want to skip the Great Ocean Road even if the weather is cold and miserable, so we headed to south-west, stopping at lovely Bright for a nice trek in the Buffalo National Park. We experienced real European style early winter weather as we drove through the Great Alpine Road...can you imagine, there is snow in Australia as well :-)!
When we reached the south coast we were desperate to see some wildlife so we decided to stop at the Wilsons Promontory National Park which is on a peninsula not far away from Melbourne. Oh, we had a great time there! The campground was beside the ocean and we saw lots of wildlife: we made friends with the crimson rosella parrots, watched the emus, wombats, kengurus and wallabies from very close. We skipped Malbourne and drove through the Great Ocean Road in four days. It really deserves its fame, whatever time of the year you visit Australia, you will find it beautiful. It was rainy and windy but thanks God we got a half a day window and could enjoy the amazing Twelve Apostols and the beautiful sandstone rockwalls in sunshine. We continued our journey to Adelaide to meet Chris and Keith, a wonderful couple we met in New Zealand, we stayed in there house for the weekend, enjoyed their lovely hospitality and felt really at home!
Having packed up with food stocks and Keith's advices for the Outback, we hit the road to Alice Springs on a nice Sunday afternoon. About 1700 kms to go Ayers Rock, then another 1500 kms to Darwin ,then another 1600 kms to Cairns. Are we mad?? YES! But its gonna be warm there! Isn't it Australia or what? The engine was 'spinning', the car was running, we took turns at driving ( I hope the car rental company does not read this...I was not allowed to drive :-)) and 2.5 days later we arrived at the Uluru National Park. We walked up and around Ayers Rock and really enjoyed the special athmosphere of this sacred place. But not the flys, they were awful, as the sun begun to shine, they were all on you. The other rock formation in the National pak is Kata Tjuta, meaning 'Many Heads'. as there are quite a few small hills close to each other on a deserted plain. These hills hide beautiful gorges full of blooming trees and singing birds because there is water source in the middle of this place. We walked through the Valley of the Winds in this awesome oasis, it is really unforgettable, even better then the Uluru experience. We spent two days in Alice Springs as well and learnt a lot about the different kinds of deserts in the Desert park. The flora and fauna is very rich, plants and animans develop extraordinary surviving skills answering the extrem weather conditions, amazing. We were also lucky to catch an evening Australian bushfire show, and learnt some of the most popular bush songs of the early outback pioneers (give me a home under the gum trees... :-))

We were on the road again...this time to Darwin. Two days of driving-eating-sleeping. We stopped at Katherine and could not wait to see the gorge and do a bit of swimming and kayaking in the river. Unfortunately it was not possible as the seasonal crocodile search was not finished and entering into the water was not advised. We took the advice! We could only do a short trek, as it was so hot, actually we were boiling, but that's what we wanted!
We also popped into Litchfield National Park where we could finally swim in one of the natural water pools just under a beautiful waterfall - the other pools were all closed, the reason was the crocks again. On the way to Darwin we tried several other places to swim, but there huge reptiles were everywhere. (Only the saltwater crocks are dangerous, they say that the feshwater crocodiles are rather shy, usually swim away from people, but the salties come to freshwater as well, so you never know at the end... it's better not to risk it!)

Finally we reached Darwin. As a result of the box jelly fish warnings on the beach we did not swim again (and there was nobody else in the water either!). Poor, who live here, it's so hot all year around, but they can hardly enjoy the sea and the rivers. We visited the city musems, hand fed wild fish on the beach, went to the sunset market and of course went to see the crocodiles in real action. Up to this point we have not seen a single one.
First we went to a crocodile farm, where crocodiles are moved if they get too close to public places. Here we watched these big predators fed...tearing chickens into pieces with just a few head movements, thankfully the chickens were not alive. Then we went on a boat trip to see crocodiles jumping out of the water to catch food. They have no enemy in the water, that's for sure. We spent 3 days in the Kakadu National Park, but trekking again was not an option, the temperature reminded us of our time in Africa. We visited what was reachable with our campervan, watched the birdlife of the Yellow River and enjoyed ancient aboriginal rock paintings.

Spending a week around Darwin was a great way to relax and get prepared to our third big drive...another 1600 kms from the Northern Territory (Darwin) to the East Cost (Townsville then Cairns). At this time we were deserate to jump into the sea and stopped only to sleep and eat. As we approached the coast, more and more clouds were developing, so we arrived to a cloudy and extremly windy Townsville. Is this the tropics? In the leaflets it's always sunny and clear! But we had to face the reality: it was almost raining!!

And it did rain but not a lot and the sun always managed to clear up the clouds. There is a heck of a lot to do on the east coast provided you come with a thick vallet. Snorkelling, diving, sailing and whale watching are just a few either on the coast or among numerous islands offshore. There is a charming little island just off Townsville called Magnetic Island, that became a destination point for us. We wanted to do some snorkelling at the nearby reefs off the island, but recent stormy weather made the water a bit murky so we relaxed on the beach instead for two days before heading back to Townsville. Once back we visited the famous Billabong Sanctuary for a very close encounter with the Koalas. This park was truly amazing. Immediately at the park entrance, wallabies and kangooros greeted us, of course they were after the pet food we were throwing them but they didn't mind being petted. Then we had the chance to a hold a little koala, a very kind and fragile animal with absolutely no sense of danger. The rangers at the park have done an outstanding job to entertrain us all day long, we went 'home' tired.

No one should leave Australia without going out with a boat and visiting the Great Barrier Reefs. We headed up to Cairns and signed for a full day journey to Michealmas cay. Being about 120km off the shore, this cay is not an island but rather a 60m x 200m sand dune rising out off the coral reefs with exceptional seabird life. It took 2 hours to reach the cay with a big and fast catamaran with about 60 people on board. The sea was rough due to high winds, needless to say motion sickness took a high toll. Upon dropping anchors near the cay, small boats appeared and began their ferry service between the catamaran and the island. We could come and go as we liked. Gabor has signed up for an introductory scuba diving and after a short but professional tutoring 5 of them including the guide have submerged only to appear 30min later a bit cold but without any limbs bitten off by sharks. They were diving at 6m deep and the water was not as clear as he has expected - this again due to rough seas - but it was clear enough to discover the little clone fish for the famous Walt disney cartoon Nemo hiding behind the corals. It is too bad I could not come on this dive but at that time I was still recovering from the bumpy voyage to the cay. After 4 hours of fun at this paradise we headed back to harbor this time on much calmer seas. A memorable day ineed!

Time goes quickly when you are having fun and we slowly we had to start our descent along the east coast back towards Sydney. We have been already 7 weeks on the road with lot of rice and tuna down our throat to make expenses cheaper😊 A bit south of Townsville are the magnificent Withsundays islands, some say the beaches of these islands are heaven itself and are the best in the world. Well, the ferry prices have reflected this, this coupled with bad weather - every since reaching the east coast good weather has evaded us - we opted not to go, just stare from a distance. " We have to come back here one day" - said Gabor, I could only agree.
Our next stop was Fraser Islands which is a big island about 45min boat ride from the coast. It is a rainforest with the most beautiful blue lakes we have ever seen. It is also known for the large dingo population, sometimes attacking humans. Swimming along the beaches are not safe due to very strong currents and big sharks.
With 2 days food portions in our bag we hit the trail towards Lake McKenzie. We have met nobody on this 4 hour long trail to the lake and luckily no dingos either. (We did have large sticks in our hands). After a relaxing afternoon at the lake and great dinner at our rainforest campsite darkness fell, still no dingoes anywhere to bee seen. The birdlife here but also across the whole Australia is very rich and noisy! Numerous times we woke with the parrots or the Kookaburras....we didn't mind they are lovely animals.
The following day we trekked out the forest and caught a ferry back to mainland....with NOT a single dingo sighteeing 😊

Back in Hervey Bay, we visited a sharkshow of famous guy called Vic Hislop who used to cacth maneater sharks for 30 years until they become protected. There is a display of a real 1.5 tonnes great white shark in the museum caught by him and basically kept refrigirated at -25C degrees. Vic has fought hard to remove these sharks (4 species only) from the protected list as he claims by leaving the top of the food chain and taking out all the fish by overfishing will increase human fatalities. He did not succeed....

Whales have always fascinated Gabor and as I had enough of the rough seas I urged him to go alone. But the weather was good this time and near Brisbane along the gold coast both of us went out with a small boat to see humpback whales migrating north from Antartica. Well, we did see whales but the closest we got was 300m and all we saw was their back, no jumping out no spy hopping, nothing. A bit disappointing but you can't have it always your way. We still enjoyed the view of the gold coast from far out.

Now Sydney was really close. " This is our last Wendesday here, can you beleive it?! " - remarked Gabor. As much as we could we drove and walked along the beaches but already we were starting to prepare for our next adventure in our mind.

After 14000kms and 55 days our little campervan came to a halt at the Britz station in Sydney. The car did good we thanked him for it. Not a single glitch, no complaining on rough roads and a comfortable bed.

Two days later we left this magnificent country, a country with exceptional wildlife, friendly and happy people...all happy and proud to live here. Now we fully understand why.

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Comments

[Babuchili Sherpa]

Hajrá!
Örülök, hogy jól vagytok, további jó utat, Gábornak Boldog Születésnapot! B.Sh