Australia – Queensland

Hello again!

I’m finishing this post whilst sitting by a pool in Java, Indonesia. It’s already so hot I’m melting and I’m not even in the sun. This post wraps up our 7 week Australian adventure in Kevvo the Camper. I hope you like it!

SURFERS PARADISE

Our first stop in Queensland was a brief visit to Surfers Paradise; a town near Gold Coast which was anything but a surfers paradise (the beach was closed?!) . It was nice enough but nothing special and you definitely couldn’t surf there. We gorged ourselves at a pancake restaurant and moved swiftly on!

BRISBANE

Brisbane on the other hand was a really nice city. Brisbane is a little more inland than the other cities but they’ve made up for this by creating a man made beach on the south bank of the river that runs through the city. It had a really chilled vibe and I loved it. Whilst there, we visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and met many of Australia’s native critters. The highlight was being able to hand feed kangaroos and wallabies in a big enclosure. Kangaroos know how to relax by the way- it was so funny to see them reclining all over the place, looking so human!

SUNSHINE COAST

Our next stop was Sunshine Coast. It rained the whole time we were there. And not just any old rain either, it was the kind of rain which makes you consider building an arc. We scraped around for things to do in the rain and decided to give wake boarding a go on a nearby lake. The idea is that you stick your feet onto a board and get dragged around the lake by a mechanical pulley thing. The tricky bit is right at the start where you get handed a bar attached to a wire and you pretty much get catapulted through the air at 30mph and are expected to stand up and off you go. Needless to say I spent two hours smashing into the lake face first and then swimming back to the jetty to try again. Rich had more luck/natural sportsmanship and was soon scooting serenely around the lake, the bastard.

After we’d done with the face smashing we tried our luck at a floating obstacle course they had on another lake. Think Total Wipeout but with more algae and pond scum floating in the bits you might fall into. It was actually hilarious. For some reason swimming in lakes freaks me out so every time I fell in I was on the brink of hysteria and pretty much exhausted myself trying to clamber back out. Rich’s favourite part was when I clambered all the way up the back of a 12ft slide, slipped right at the top and slid face first the whole way back down, hitting every foot hold on the way. It wasn’t my best day for athleticism.

NOOSA

Noosa is a posh little surf town that we dropped into. It’s a weird mix of well to-do middle aged Australians and dirty surfers but it was quite cute. The surf wasn’t great when we were there but there were plenty of people out in the water fighting in the line up. We mainly just had some frozen yoghurt and moved on.

HERVEY BAY

Hervey Bay was yet another coastal town with a glorious beach. Damn there are a lot of beaches in Australia. We stopped here to go on a tour of Fraser Island.

FRASER ISLAND

Fraser Island is Queensland’s biggest Island and is famous for its population of wild dingoes. To see the island, you have to have a 4wd car as the roads consist of insanely bumpy dirt tracks and beaches. We booked a tour whereby you tag along in jeeps behind the tour guides’ car and can have a turn at driving yourself. In our car were three Belgian lads who were really into deep trance music (and insisted it was playing loudly at all times) and a quiet German couple. The roads were awful. It was like being in a pinball machine so you pretty much had to white-knuckle it the whole time.  Anyway, the first day we visited a wreck on the beach and had a swim in crystal clear Eli creek which was pretty cool. I also had a go at driving along the beach for a bit which was much tamer than the insane dirt tracks we took to get there. Our guide for the trip was the biggest let-down. He was pretty arrogant and was a bit of a bull-sh*tter but we soon turned it into a game where we privately called him out on his outrageous claims. We had to pay an extra $25 each for food for the trip and it was difficult to see what it had been spent on. Lunch was particularly hard for me to enjoy- it was prepared by him and some of the backpackers. Nobody washed their hands and most of them openly smoked whilst slapping processed cheese onto white bread and tossing the salad with nicotine coated fingers. It was made clear in the evening that we were all expected to get drunk and party. As 90% of the other backpackers were speaking German to each other we just sat on our own and amused ourselves by watching geckos stalk insects across the ceiling and discussing future travel plans. It was one of those moments where it dawned on us that we were a little older than everyone else…

The following day we visited three of the island’s lakes. The biggest was Lake McKenzie. Our guide told us he’d taken 65000 people on this tour in four years (impossible) and not one of them had said they’d seen a more beautiful lake (ridiculous). I mean, it was a nice lake. That’s it. Compared to the likes of lake Pukaki in New Zealand….well anyway, we called bullsh*t. We unfortunately didn’t see any dingoes. I say unfortunately, but actually they can be quite dangerous. Signs all over the island warned you about approaching them as people have been attacked in the past. They are wild dogs after all. It was kind of a relief to get back on the mainland. Fraser Island is beautiful but we didn’t overly enjoy our tour and I wouldn’t be in a hurry to return. Also we got back to our camper and our fridge had given up battling the heat and was keeping our dairy produce at a steady 40C. Sad times.

AIRLIE BEACH

Airlie Beach was up there with my favourite destinations. It’s a bustling little town with a harbour filled with fancy yachts and a little beach. Airlie Beach is a great gateway to visiting the Whitsundays, a collection of 74 stunning islands just off the coast. We had already booked a yacht tour of the islands before arriving, however we were feeling pretty nervous about it after the Fraser Island fiasco. As it turns out, our trip with Freight Train tours was one of the highlights of our Queensland adventures. We stayed on a huge yacht with 15 other travellers, a no-nonsense skipper and three friendly girls who were deck hands and kept us well fed and watered with endless tea, coffee, biscuits, fruit and delicious lunches and dinner. We spent the time in between stops sunning ourselves on the deck. It couldn’t have been more chilled. Our first stop was Whitehaven Beach which is famous for the fact that it is made up completely of silica. This meant the white sand felt ridiculously soft and didn’t get hot in the sun. The beach was really beautiful. We waded out into the water in stinger suits (everything wants to kill you in Australia) and could see sting rays wafting along right next to us. We moored up that night in a harbour and watched the sun go down before munching on a delicious lasagne for dinner. Our sleeping quarters were cosy but perfectly fine and Rich was relieved to find he didn’t get seasick at all on the calm seas.

The next day was even better. We went snorkelling in three coves throughout the day. In the first of the coves, we were introduced to a gigantic Wrasse (the size of me) called George. He was a magnificent hunk of a fish and swam right up to you. I patted him a few times and he looked at me with his big gormy face. It was so amazing! Rich spent most of his time chasing huge sea turtles around trying to take photos of them with his GoPro. He appeared next to me every now and then grinning and bedraggled, “Aw man I almost drowned that time but I think I got a good picture!”. The cove itself was a turtle breeding ground so they were everywhere. When on the deck of the boat you could see them swimming up to the surface occasionally to have a gulp of air. The girls that worked on the yacht came out with us in the dinghy and fed the fish with leftover garlic bread from dinner. This meant that at times you couldn’t see the water for fish. They also took great amusement in throwing bits of bread at my head so that the fish sometimes pinged out of the water and flopped into my hair which I found hilarious. Some of the zebra fish even thought my blonde hair was a big anemone and tried to hide in it. I honestly couldn’t stop grinning..this meant I swallowed a lot of seawater because it leaked in through my snorkel but it was totally worth it!

MAGNETIC ISLAND

We left Kevvo the camper on his own again to take the ferry to Magnetic Island. Magnetic island is named for the fact that Captain Cook’s compass went haywire when he passed it, but apparently it’s not magnetic at all so maybe somebody was having him on. We stayed for two nights in a YHA which was also an animal sanctuary and one of the nicest hostels I’ve been in. Our room was a triangular cabin in the trees and came equipped with its own little fridge. We even had a gecko living inside that helped us out by nomming all the mozzies. Just wandering around the grounds we encountered so many animals. Rich particularly liked a pair of big birds that gave the impression of being terribly posh. Whenever he went near one of them it growled at him which he thought was hilarious. I nearly tripped over an echidna on the way to the toilet one evening and you could see gigantic flying foxes chomping on fruit in the trees at dusk. There were also a couple of wallabies hopping around from time to time. We paid to go on an actual tour whilst we were there which was fantastic. We both got to hold a baby crocodile, a variety of lizards, cockatoos, a beautiful big Python and a koala.

Rich surprised me by booking a horse trek along one of the beaches on one of the mornings. The highlight of this was getting to wade into the sea on the horses – such a cool experience! On the last morning we went for a walk, which was admittedly, a mistake. It was blazing hot and poorly signposted, which meant at times we wondered if we might never be seen again. Especially when I nearly stood on a snake! Anyway we made it back alive so no drama. As with all of our travelling dramas we rewarded ourselves with brunch at a nice cafe and felt much better.

PORT DOUGLAS AND THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

When on the Sunshine Coast, a really friendly Australian couple advised us to take a tour to the Great Barrier Reef from Port Douglas instead of Cairns. Port Douglas is an hour further north but is closer to the reef, meaning there is less travel time to get to the snorkel areas. On their advice, we booked a trip with Wavelength tours. The trip itself was both amazing and a little saddening too. The tour was run from a huge modern boat which wasn’t overcrowded at all. Everyone on board was a marine biologogist which was fantastic as I felt confident that they knew that they were running the tour in a way that wouldn’t damage the reef, and they were so knowledgeable too. The hardest part of the trip was enduring the rough seas for two hours out and two hours back. They’d provided us all with sea sickness pills at the beginning and their gentle encouragement for everyone to take them spoke volumes about the conditions they expected on the water. It was pretty rough. Rich and I retreated pretty sharpish to the outer deck and clung to the side of the boat as it plunged through the gigantic waves. Every other wave absolutely drenched me but it seemed to help with the sea sickness so I refused to move even after concerned staff members tried to coax me into the dry. Rich just clutched onto his biodegradable sick bag like it was a life raft. Thankfully we both made it through!

Snorkelling on the reef was amazing. There were so many beautiful things to look at. One of the marine biologists scooped us up a huge orange sea cucumber for us to touch and found things for us to look at. I particularly loved the giant clams as they looked like they were straight out of a Disney film. You could hear a chorus of parrot fish chomping whilst you were under the water. Amazingly, I didn’t feel afraid at all, despite being in the middle of the ocean. The only times were when I accidentally drifted in the current and felt like I was too close to the coral; I would never have forgiven myself if I’d broken any. Although reef sharks live out on the reef, they are small and afraid of people. Sadly we didn’t see any but we were visited by a sea turtle at one point.

We had a talk from one of the marine biologists and it made a huge impact on us both. In the last six weeks, 90% of the Great Barrier Reef has bleached. This happens when the sea temperature gets too high and the symbiotic microorganisms residing within the coral become more harmful than beneficial by producing too may reactive oxygen species. The coral respond to this threat by expelling them, thus losing their colour. Unfortunately, the coral will ultimately die without their symbiotes and this has sadly been the case with the majority of the reef. We saw firsthand the extent of the coral death and it was very sobering. The marine biologist told us (and it’s something we knew to some extent already) that the single most impactful way we can help combat the rising sea temperatures is by reducing our meat intake. I’ll not go into the details here but here is some info if you fancy reading more:

Original paper:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10584-014-1169-1

Guardian article:

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-up-beef-reduce-carbon-footprint-more-than-cars

Needless to say, seeing the damage firsthand really made an impact on us both. After the trip we talked it over and agreed we’d try and drastically reduce our meat intake. As far as most people go we rarely eat meat anyway so it hasn’t been too difficult. We haven’t eaten meat since we got off the boat and it’s easy to keep this up in Indonesia – animal welfare is not big here so I personally feel happier avoiding it altogether.

DAINTREE RAINFOREST

After our enlightening adventures on the reef we drove to a campsite in Cape Tribulation: an area where the rainforest meets the sea in huge areas of mangroves and swampland. As it turns out, the nutrients from the rainforest and the relative safety of the mangroves provide the ideal nursery for baby reef fish. Protected from larger preying fish by the crocodiles that patrol the area, these fish grow up to live on the Great Barrier Reef. We didn’t get to see a crocodile unfortunately but we were visited by a gigantic lizard as soon as we parked Kevvo the Camper on the campsite. Our pitch backed directly onto a secluded beach covered in palm trees. There were coconuts everywhere and we whiled away a good 40 minutes breaking into a coconut that we found on the shore. In the end an Australian took pity on our pathetic attempts and used a hand drill to open it for us. It was so much fun though!

CAIRNS

Cairns was our last stop in Australia. It’s known for being a party town and a base from which to access the Great Barrier Reef. As we’d already seen the reef and weren’t too interested in partying, there wasn’t much else for us to do here. We spent our time cleaning out Kevvo the Camper and enjoying cooking our last meals on his little gas hob. We also bought malaria tablets here, which was expensive to say the least as you need to pay for two separate doctors appointments at $74 each before you can even get a prescription. As I am too fair skinned for doxycycline (it makes you sun sensitive) we also had to pay extortionate amounts of money for branded Malarone which is still on patent in Australia and thus incredibly overpriced. It was either that or Malaria though so I think we picked wisely. We were kicking ourselves that we didn’t buy it off prescription back in the UK though.

Australia has been amazing and we definitely have a new appreciation for how ridiculously huge it is after driving through miles and miles of endless sugar cane fields. The highlight for both of us has been the animals here – they are just so different from what we are used to seeing. I fell in love with George the Wrasse and the cute little geckos that scampered along the walls. Rich loved the posh birds and chasing turtles with his GoPro. We were both amazed and saddened to see the Great Barrier Reef up close but we’ve left Australia with a resolve to do more to help protect what’s left of it.

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading about our adventures so far. The next blog will be on Indonesia, where I currently sit sweating, typing furiously on my phone! See you laterz alligatorz!

Jess and Rich xxx

• Australia
• Bundaberg
• cairns
• eastcoastaustralia
• fraserisland
• freighttrain
• greatbarrierreef
• herveybay
• lonepinekoalasanctuary
• magneticisland
• noosa
• portdouglas
• Queensland
• snorkelling
• sunshinecoast
• surfersparadise
• Townsville
• wavelength
• whitsundays