Advertisement
Published: November 28th 2008
Sydney
Erm, the Opera House and Harbour Bridge in case you didn't knowWe arrived into Sydney on the night the local rugby team - Manly, beat their arch rivals Melbourne for the first time in many years with a score of 40 - 0, also it being a bank holiday weekend everyone was very drunk. The streets were awash with football fans and party goers. We found a room in a massive party style hostel (which was terrible). We got out as fast as we could the following day to find something better. We probably only spent about three days in Sydney. Straight away we realised that we were going to run out of money pretty quickly unless we really started to budget properly. First thing we did was re work our budget... no more fancy meals for us... cheapo noodles and baked beans for a while. We took in the typical sights of Sydney, the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, did a little shopping, and met up with some friends for drinks in the evening. We also visited the Hyde Park Barracks, which is where the original convicts went to after the prison boats (hulks) were too full to hold any more. It was very interesting, and in the museum there
Byron Bay
We pretty much had the beach to ourselves. was a computer where you could type in your surname to see if any of your relatives were shipped out to Aus. Steve found a few Cooks, a John Cook from London and there was one William Dewhirst originally from Yorkshire, who was sent to the colonies for robbing a warehouse. Looks like crimes been in our families for years!
Our plan was to drive from Sydney to Cairns and we had a little over a month to do it, so we picked up the car and first drove to Bondi beach (as all English tourists do). Only about 15 mins out of the city centre. It is to say the least a little overrated, so seeing as we both were a bit hung over anyway we left and headed up the coast. We made a few stops off on the way, one was in Coffs Harbour where we went to a Koala hospital, a place where they rescue koala’s that have been injured and can’t look after themselves in the wild. Byron Bay was the first place we spent any real time in as the guest house we stayed in was really plush and the beach was pretty
Brisbane - Lone Pine Sanctuary
Obligatory 'Cuddle a Koala' photo good too. From Byron Bay we took a drive out to Nimbin, which is a small town stuck in the 60’s. The place is full of hippies wearing multicoloured clothing and smoking dope, it only took about 20 seconds after we’d parked the car before young children were trying to sell it to us!!! It was actually quite off putting so we left after about 30 minutes or so.
We headed on up the coast and south of Brisbane we went to the Lone Pine Koala sanctuary as I couldn’t come home without the obligatory cuddle a koala photo, we also got to feed loads of Kangaroos as well.
So far we had done a lot of driving and not much of anything else so, one rainy day we spent all day in a tourist office and we got round to emptying out our bank account and booked a few tours. Our first was a trip over to Fraser Island - the largest sand island in the world. After deliberating whether to do a guided trip or a self drive we opted to go for guided to avoid getting stuck with a load of idiots and being accused of
Fraser Island
Kelly outside our power bus that took us around the island. Boy that thing was fast! ruining the hire car - which is quite a common scam their. Turns out we made the right choice because we had a great time and our guide was brilliant and it turned out we saw a lot more of the ‘hidden’ parts of the island as well - well more than anyone else did we spoke to.
Fraser Island is made up completely from sand so you need a 4x4 to get round it. Our guide was a well experienced driver and we dodged all the other vehicles stuck in the sand we headed along 75 mile beach (the actual length this time) to our beach house and home for the next couple of nights.
On day one we went swimming in Eli Creek and up to Indian Heads, a look out where we could actually see sharks, turtles and eagle rays swimming in the sea below. The Fraser coast is teeming with bull sharks and tiger sharks at this time of year so it is definitely not safe to go into the water.
On the second day everyone was nursing a hangover so we went to the nearest tea-tree infused billabong for a morning dip which we were
all grateful for. Then we headed to lake Boomanjin, a red lake which was like swimming in warm tea but we were mainly all waiting for the next one lake Birrabeam which our tour guide told us is better and emptier than the famous Lake Mckensie that all the other tours go too - and he was right. It had crystal clear fresh water and white sand. We set up for lunch and then spent the rest of the day lazing about in the water.
On the third day we hiked through the Hammerstone Sandblows and made our way towards lake Wabby for some sand surfing and general dossing around. The tour guide gave us a body board to use to slide down the massive sand dune into the lake below. It was quite daunting at first as the slope was very steep and it was pretty long too. But after one go everyone was hooked. After a few test runs we decided to build a small ramp at the bottom of the run to throw you into the lake. Kelly was the first to try it, but we didn’t build the run up too well and Kelly’s board stopped
Whitsundays
Our boat, the Southern Cross. A racing yacht don't you know. short of the water but Kelly carried on leaving the board on dry land! We sorted the jump out and did it again. Success, so a few of us tried doing the best jumps into the water. There literally was no control what so ever so it was a bit of a waste of time. After that a few of us decided to stand and properly sand board down. Again, absolutely no control what so ever, but it was fun.
We returned from Fraser Island and stayed one night in Rainbow beach (the closest town to the island). We planned to drive up to Airlie beach the day after to make our Whisundays boat tour. Not really looking into it, we thought looking at a map that is wasn’t that far a drive and would probably only take us four or five hours. When mentioning this to other people at the hostel they all laughed and told us it will take at least a full day to drive there. This is the problem with Australia - you think everything is not that far away (it looks like that on a map) but the reality is, it’s absolutely massive! We
Whitsundays
Just some of the fish that can be seen from the boat. ended up leaving the hostel at 6am the next day and didn’t get to Airlie beach till 6pm, and that was continuous driving!!
By far the highlight of the east coast for us was the sailing trip around the Whitsunday islands. Along with twelve other guests, sea sickness tablets and two crew we left the harbour in Airlie beach for a three day sailing trip on a racing yacht - The Southern Cross. The boys were all keen to muck in, so as soon as we were in the open water the big sails were hoisted up and we made our way to a great snorkelling spot called Manta Ray Bay. Alongside the famous coral were batfish, giant clams, lots of colourful reef fish the odd turtle and some huge black fish - of which we can’t remember the name of. That night we moored at a place called Black Island and sat on the beach waiting for the sun to set, before heading back to the Southern Cross for our first night on the boat.
The next day was what everyone had been waiting for a trip to Whitehaven Beach, where the sand in made from 99% silica
Whitsundays - Whitehaven beach
Huge white sands. No one on the beach. Fantastic! and is pure white and squeaks when you walk on it. We spent most of the afternoon sunbathing and playing with a Frisbee in the sea. Back aboard we headed for Haselwood Island, which would be our mooring for the night.
On the third day we headed over to Hamilton Island, holiday home to the rich and famous and we spent the afternoon using the facilities at the 5 star resort before sailing back to the harbour. To end the trip the crew put on a boat party at one of the local bars, so everyone went out and got drunk!
Back on the road, our next stop was Townsville to catch the ferry over to Magnetic Island. Magnetic Island was named by Captain Cook who thought at the time that the island interfered with his compass. It is a pretty, small island but unfortunately there was a croc on the loose and all the beaches were closed so we did a couple of hikes and saw some wild Koalas then headed back the way we came. We shot past Cairns towards Cape Tribulation, which was our final stop in the east coast before heading back to Cairns for
Cape Tribulation
There is no way to look cool in this gear. our flight over to Darwin. It is home to the oldest rainforest in the world and named so by Captain Cook who’s ship ran aground on the reef just off shore. We took to the trees and did a little ‘jungle surfing’ riding zip lines through the trees. Quite a bit like on ‘I’m a celebrity..’ or something. It was quite fun but over far too soon and not anywhere near fast enough.
Anyway after a few days avoiding bugs and sun stroke we made our way back to Cairns where we caught up with some friends and chilled in a really nice hostel for a few days before flying over to Darwin.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.159s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 23; qc: 95; dbt: 0.1002s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.5mb
Sylvia & John
non-member comment
Taste of the high life
It all sounds brilliant, we are definately putting the places on our list for when we visit Australia. We now nominate you as our official scouts!! Hope the rest of your stay in Aussieland is enjoyable.