The Oz Adventure Begins -
Queensland, Australia
September 8 - October 1
Written by
KarenG'day mates from Down Under!
Our Flexible Itinerary
Here's a rough guide to our Australian travels both actual and planned:- Start in Brisbane - north to Bundaberg then Townsville then Cairns then Port Douglas
- Port Douglas - south on the same route back to Townsville
- Townsville west into the Outback
- Three Ways south to Alice Springs - Ayers Rock - Kings Canyon - Cooper Pedy (the end of the Outback) - Adelaide (this is where we are now!)
- Adelaide to Kangaroos Island then back to the mainland
- Adelaide - Melbourne - Canberra - Blue Mountains - Sydney
Some Info about Oz
Oz is roughly the size of the continental US. It is comprised of six states - Queensland, New South Wales, South Australia, Tasmania, Western Australia, and Victoria - and two "territories" - Northern Territory and Australian Capital Territory. The population is 18 million from 165 countries. The guidebook states that Oz is more multicultural than the US.Aussie-isms
The Australians have some unusual words and a habit of shorting many words and adding "ie" or "y" to the end. It appears that they don't like to say long words if they don't have to. Our dive master from Bundaberg would wake us up on the dive boat by saying, "Wakie, wakie, it's time for breakie, breakie." It was funny. I guess it's easier to say breakie rather than breakfast. They call shocks, shockies; a carburetor is a carbie. They call Australia, Oz. Kangaroos, of course are just roos. Here's some more:- Pokies - slot machines which are everywhere by the way
- Stubby - small bottle of beer
- Tinnie - can of beer
- Bushwalking - hiking
- Mozzies - mosquitoes
- Ta - thanks
- Uni - university
- Ute - utility or pickup truck
- Veggies - vegetables
- Good on ya - well done
- G'day - good day
- No worries - don't mention it, that's OK (we hear this expression all the time)
- Servo - service station or gas station
Australian Animals
Australia is full of unique flora and
fauna. After we left Brisbane, we stopped at "The Big Pineapple", this really
cheesy tourist destination. It is a working pineapple and macadamia nut
plantation. They also have a petting zoo. This was the first time that we saw
kangaroos, koalas, emus, ostriches and dingos. The kangaroos were in a large
fenced area that we could walk in. We went right up to a kangaroo and pet it.
Oz actually has over 45 different kinds of kangaroos and wallabies ranging in
size from a small rat to the man-sized Red kangaroo. The koalas were in a
fenced off area so we could see them but not get too close.
A
worker went into the koala pen and picked up one of the koalas. He told us a
little about the koalas then let us pet it. It was so cute and cuddly. The
interesting thing about koalas is they sleep 20 hours a day and the eucalyptus
leaves they eat are poisonous to them but they build up immunity over
time.
Oz has forty different types of parrots. It is strange to hear
dozens of birds every morning chirping away only to find out they are parrots.
I didn't know parrots could live in this climate. I thought it was too cold.
When we were in Bundaberg, we stayed at a caravan park that was located right
on the beach. Every afternoon at 4:30 PM the owner would put food (water, honey
& bread mixture) out for the birds. We got to the bird feeding spot about
4:20 PM. Dozens of rainbow lorikeets were there already chirping away. Pete put
some of the food on his hands and forearms and the birds landed on him and ate
the food. At one point he had seven birds on him; one was even on his
head.There are three other birds that look very similar to the ostrich here. The emu is mainly in the outback. The bustard and cassowary are in the rain forests of Queensland. The cassowary is endangered. We were driving in Eungella National Park early in the morning and a cassowary walked out on the road in front of us. It was about 6 feet tall and has a bright blue knob on its head.
In Townsville, we took a tour of the Great Barrier Reef aquarium,
which was excellent. One of the talks was about dangerous creatures in the
ocean. We found out about the box jellyfish, which appears in the beach waters
between November and April. The tentacles on the jellyfish can reach up to 10
feet long. They actually have emergency treatment kits on the beaches. The kit
consists of a bottle of vinegar. If you are stung the first thing you should do
is pour vinegar all over the stinger. Seventy people have died from box
jellyfish stings since 1900. Most of the people stopped breathing after being
stung. We were told that if you give the person CPR for about 30 minutes the
body has enough time to deal with the poison and recover. Strange.
They
also said that people were buying fish and chips and then using the vinegar for
their food so now they dye the vinegar different bright colours (red and blue)
in the emergency kits to try to keep people from using it in non-emergency
situations.As we were driving in the interior of Queensland we kept seeing large mounds of mud alongside the road. We found out they are termite mounds and the tunnels that the termites dig can be up to 50 yards long and 30 yards deep!
Brisbane and the End of the Goodwill Games
We arrived in Brisbane from Fiji on September 8. It was an excellent time to be in the city because the Goodwill Games were scheduled to end on September 9 with an outdoor concert and fireworks display. We went to the South Bank, a large park on the river where the festivities were being held. INXS (you know that famous Aussie band from 10-15 years ago) played right before the fireworks began. There were thousands of people. The fireworks were the best I've ever seen. No kidding, even better than DC on the 4th of July. The fireworks were set off from three barges that were anchored in the river so there was a wide area of fireworks. Fireworks were even set off from the tall office buildings across the river. The buildings had neon lights on them that changed color to coordinate with the fireworks. The only down side to the whole event was the weather. It is springtime here in the Southern Hemisphere and it is cold. We wore long pants, long sleeve shirts and jackets and we were still cold. After being in the South Pacific for six months it will take us awhile to adjust to this weather.The Damn Van
It sounded like a great idea and many backpackers do
it. Buy a campervan; drive it around to see the country then sell it. We
checked out the for sale signs on the bulletin board in the youth hostel in
Brisbane and selected 3 that sounded good. Called and only was able to make an
appointment with one. Saw the van and rode around the block in it. The British
couple wanted $4000 (about $2000 USD) for it. They owned it 10 months and said
they put in a new engine and did many other repairs. We offered them $3600 and
the van was ours.The van is a 1981 Hiace Toyota. It has a two burner stove, small frig like most of us had in our college dorm rooms, a sink, 4 cabinets for storage, a small fold up table, and 2 small couches that convert into a bed. We have seen numerous other vans like this in our trip around Oz. It seems that half of Oz owns a campervan or a camper that is pulled behind a vehicle. The whole country is geared to people who travel this way. Every city and small town has at least one caravan park. These parks have powered or unpowered sites for vans. The frig will run off the van battery or we can plug in to an outlet and run it that way. The parks also have bathrooms and laundry facilities. Most of the parks also have communal kitchens, BBQ sites, pool and small convenience stores.
I've learned one thing from this event. Never buy a motor vehicle without having a mechanic check it out first. After we bought it, we took it to a mechanic so the van could be inspected so we could get a "road worthiness cert". Once we have the cert then we could get it registered in our names. The mechanic listed about 15 items that needed to be done before he would pass the van in Queensland. The list included: engine only running on 3 of 4 pistons, rust on driver's door hinge, cracked tail light, rust on muffler, oil leak in engine, exhaust leak, nick in windscreen (windshield). I think you get the picture. To say we were depressed about this list is an understatement. The mechanic suggested that we don't fix anything, don't register the van in our names, drive it around and then sell it. We decided to leave Brisbane, go to a small city and get the engine fixed (hoping it would be less expensive). Then go to the Northern Territory where we heard it was less strict, get the van reinspected, hope it passes and register it in our names. After discussing our situation for awhile, I remembered the previous owners mentioning how they kept getting the van inspected in every state they went to. (Actually it had a Northern Territory inspection sticker on it.) Now I know why! It seems it won't pass anywhere. Visiting the Northern Territory was not part of our original plans. It includes the Outback, which has Alice Springs and Ayers Rock. Oh well, now we will really see Oz.
We drove north to Bundaberg, a city we were planning to visit because it is the start of the Great Barrier Reef. A mechanic there said they would need a day to take the engine out, a day to do the valve work and a day to reinstall the engine. Since the van is our home, we asked the owner if we could live in the van during the repair time. He said fine. They parked the van outside the shop and did the work from there so we could live in it. I've never felt so close to being a homeless person in my life. I have a much better understanding of how a person could end up on the street and have a hard time ever recovering. We faired quite well. We wandered the streets during the day; stopping in the library to read the paper and use the Internet, used the local bus station showers, and used the mechanic's bathroom and kitchen during the day. The repair cost $A1400 (about $US700). The old owners used unleaded gas, which did the damage. Apparently the rebuilt engine requires lead replacement petroleum (LRP), some crazy thing we've never heard of but all engines older that 1986 need it here.
The van was ready on a Friday afternoon at 4 PM. We drove about an 1-hour out of town before the van started to jump, spit and sputter. It was like the engine wouldn't take the fuel. Pete thought it was a carburetor problem. He was correct. We turned around and limped back to Bundaberg, but our mechanic's shop was already closed. We spent another night in front of the shop for nostalgia to see if they were open on Saturday. Unfortunately they aren't so we found another shop. The mechanic cleaned out the "carbie" and made a few adjustments. It only set us back a few hours and $A100 (about $US50).
The van ran fine for about 2 weeks. We were never happier. Before we left Townsville for the Outback, we decided to get new front shocks and the tires aligned and balanced because the steering wheel shook so much when we drove that my arms would get tried. The mechanic suggested we buy new tires for the front because the current retread tires were very worn and he didn't think it was wise to travel in the Outback on them so we got two new tires. Now the van rides extremely smoothly, takes bumps with no problem and the steering wheel doesn't shake any more. I feel like we are rebuilding this van from the ground up. Whoever buys this van from us won't have any problems because we have taken care of all of them.
One other small problem involved the small compartment on the driver's side that houses the cooking gas container. A fiberglass door conceals the compartment. The door at one time was riveted to the side of the van but the rivets are gone and the bottom hinge was just glued to the van while the top has a latch on it. Well, we were driving on the highway (one lane up and one lane down) on an extremely windy day, when a road train (a tractor-trailer with up to four trailers) went speeding by us. The vacuum that was created between the vehicles sucked the door off the van. Luckily we were able to stop and get the door before a car ran over it. From then on when we passed a road train we would slow down and go half way onto the shoulder. That night, Pete super glued the door hinges back on the van. The glue was suppose to set for 24 hours to cure. The next day we were back on the highway, being very careful every time we passed someone until right before Townsville. A road train pasted us and Pete didn't slow down or move into the shoulder. Oops! Wham! The door was sucked off again. This time we weren't so lucky. A car ran over the door and mutilated it. We bring the poor wounded door into the van and kept it in hopes of getting it repaired. We went to a few caravan shops but no one had any spare doors that fit our van. Pete suggested that we go to a marine shop and have them fix the door by fiberglassing it again. We went to a marina and they wanted $200 to fix the door. We said forget it. Now we just have to drive with the cooking gas bottle in the back of the van. When we want to cook we just set it in its compartment and connect it. We still have the mutilated door, which Pete may fix himself in Sydney or we may just have to discount the price of the van. Oh well. Let's hope with all these repairs that the van will pass inspection in Alice Springs. Even if it is missing a small door in its side.
Rhum Punch Reunion
While we were in Bundaberg, famous for Oz's Bundaberg Rum, we checked our email and found a message from Duane, one of the crewmembers from Rhum Punch. He had read Mike Davis' email message to all our friends and family that mentioned we had made it to Oz. Guess what? It turns out that Duane, Alan and the rest of their family would be in Bundaberg in two days time. What a coincidence! This was during the time we were living in front of the mechanic's shop. One night just as we were settling down for the evening there was a knock on the van. It was Duane, his brother (Jay), sister and a friend. We stayed up until midnight drinking the last of Pete's Fijian rum and trading sailing stories. The next day the whole family came by (the same four from last night plus Alan and his wife, Yvonne) and we all went to the marina where Rhum Punch was and had a barbecue lunch. Of course, Pete and I went on board Rhum Punch for old time's sake. It seems like just yesterday we were leaving the boat in Raitaea, French Polynesia. It was great to see Alan and Duane again, meet the rest of their family and find out about the rest of their trip to Oz. Duane is planning on living onboard and working in Bundaberg for awhile.Diving the Great Barrier Reef
We dove the Great Barrier
Reef from Bundaberg, the most southern part of the reef, and from Port Douglas,
the northern part of the reef. The reef is 1200 miles long and home to about
400 different types of coral, 1500 species of fish and about 4000 mollusks. It
was unbelievable especially all the different types of corals and the amount of
coral. The soft and hard corals I saw were white, green, red, purple, and blue.
I saw turtles, manta rays, and hundreds of fish underwater.Bundaberg Diving
We took a three-day trip on a dive boat from Bundaberg. My first four dives were my certification dives. I ended up doing seven dives during the trip. Pete did 10 dives including two night dives. We signed up for the trip on Thursday afternoon. The boat was leaving Friday night at 9 PM. When I mentioned that I would be getting certified on the trip, the guy asked me if I wanted to come by the shop on Friday afternoon and join the class in the pool. What a great idea! I'm glad I joined them on Friday. The instructor, Justin, was great and he was also my instructor on the dive boat. Being in the pool gave me a chance to get use to the dive gear again and we did some skills.The group on the boat consisted of the following people: 5 people getting certified including me; 4 certified divers including Pete; Justin, the dive master responsible for us; 2 Japanese woman, who did not speak one work of English; a Japanese dive master, who served as their personal guide; a lookout, the captain and the cook. We dove at Lady Musgrave Island on Saturday then Hoskyns Island on Sunday. The water was very cold (about 68°F). We had 5MM full dive suits on and booties but I was still shaking uncontrollably after our first dive. Justin gave me a hooded vest to wear underneath my suit, which helped tremendously.
On Sunday morning, we did our fourth dive for the certification. There was an extremely strong current. We had to hold on to the anchor chain to get to the bottom otherwise we would have been carried away. When we came up from our dive, Justin immediately told us to quickly swim to the boat. Turns out the two Japanese women and their dive master were 30 minutes late. Everyone was looking for them from the boat. Finally their sausage (a bright orange rubber cylinder you fill up with air) was sighted about a mile away down current. Justin quickly drove the dinghy to them. It turns out they had gotten sweep away by the current. Wow! They were fine, but a little cold. A few more minutes and we would have had to call out a search plane for them. Very scary moments while we were searching the horizon.
When we were moving the boat on Sunday morning from Lady Musgrave Island to Hoskyns Island we saw whales. One of them breached - completing out of the water then crashing down. It was amazing! We also saw dolphins in the bow wake of the boat, but by now we've seen our share of that. Who would have thought that dolphins jumping out of the water in front of our boat would not excite us any more. We've gotten spoiled by the amount of sea life we have seen so far on our trip.
Among some new friends on the boat we met a nice couple, Stu and Diane, from Melbourne. They invited us to stay with them while we are visiting in Melbourne. Like most of you land-dwelling people they have a real bed and a bathroom under the same roof for us to use. After living in the van this will be a special treat for us. We look forward to seeing them again.
Port Douglas Diving
The boat we took diving in Port Douglas was much less intimate than the one in Bundaberg and was just a day trip. Port Douglas is a huge tourist town for the reef. There are at least a dozen very large boats that take people to snorkel and dive the reef every day. We went on one of the small boats - only 50 passengers! Luckily there were only 10 divers and two dive masters. Everyone else was snorkeling. So we did three dives with a group of 5 and 1 master to show us around. The water is much warmer up here. I wore a hooded vest and a shortie (long sleeves but short pants) and was warm. I saw the largest fish on this trip so far - a 3-foot bullhead parrotfish. They gnaw coral. He was so big I could hear him gnawing from about 20 feet away. We also saw two reef sharks. We were exhausted by the end of the day, but it was well worth it. The Great Barrier Reef is amazing!!Eungella National Park and the Attack of the Birds
On our way north from Brisbane to Port Douglas, we detoured from the coast and went about 60 miles inland to Eungella National Park. Fiddes, a man from New Zealand who we met in a caravan park, told us this park was beautiful and an excellent spot for seeing the very elusive platypus.Eungella means land of clouds. It is a rain forest that has been cut off for about 30,000 years from other rainforests. It has six life forms that exist nowhere else. At dusk we walked down to the river to the platypus viewing spot. As we are waiting for the platypus to appear, dozens of sulphur crested cockatoos flew overhead. They were squawking and making a racket. It reminded me of the flying monkeys from the Wizard of Oz. After about 15 minutes of waiting, we spotted a platypus in the water. He kept surfacing then disappearing under the water. He was much smaller than I imagined about 1 foot long. The platypus has a duck-like bill, webbed feet and a beaver-like body. It is rather strange looking. It is a nocturnal and very shy creature so all the guidebooks state that it is extremely difficult to see them in the wild. I guess they have never been to Eungella. We get a campsite in the park and spent the night there.
The next morning we did a 6-mile circular hike through the rain forest. When we returned to the parking lot, Pete made a sandwich for lunch and I had homemade Chinese leftovers. We sat at a picnic table to eat. We were sitting next to each other but Pete was facing the table and I was facing away. Pete ate about ½ his sandwich before the coordinated attack. First a brush turkey came up under the table and made some noise to distract Pete. Pete looked under the table and wham something came swooping down and ripped the sandwich out of his hands. Pete was the only eyewitness. The only thing I saw was, "Oh shit, he stole my sandwich!" A bird swooped in and got away with a piece of bread and cheese, everything else including the tomato was on my back, the table and the ground.
When I interviewed the victim of the attack, Pete described the perpetrator. "He was very, very big! White, no maybe black. It was more like a blur of grey. I think it was a kookaburra or a crow." (The birds look nothing alike.) "It was a conspiracy. The brush turkey distracted me so the very, very big bird could attack my lunch. He took it right out of my hand."
No wonder the police have such a hard time catching criminals with descriptions like that. It was really funny. After the attack, Pete took surveillance photos of both suspects (the kookaburra and the crow) eating the evidence left behind. No one ever actually saw the brush turkey. Now whenever we eat outside I scan the sky for nearby predators before Pete emerges from the van with his food. Pete now has a paranoid fear of birds stealing his food.
As we were driving away from Eungella National Park and back to the coast, we were attacked by a bustard (a large bird about the size of an ostrich). The road was lined with sugar cane on both sides so it is easy for something to come out the field and onto the road unexpectedly, which is what happened. We were driving along when all of a sudden, this huge bird was right in front of the left corner of the van, which is the passenger side. I put the map I was holding in front of my face and braced for the impact. Pete swerved into the middle of the road. Luckily the bird quickly did an about-face and went back into the cane field. Whew! That thing could have done some damage to our already fragile van. Not to mention the bird would have perished.
Cairns/Kuranda
We took a tour of the Tjapukai aboriginal cultural center. We found out that there were originally about 600 different aboriginal tribes when the white man arrived here. They were nomads - no permanent houses, just living off the land, which is incredible because Oz has an extremely harsh climate. The center has a movie about the history of the white man and Aborigines. When the white man first arrived, he tried to kill all the Aborigines and almost succeeded. In the early 1900s the Aborigines were placed on reservations like our American Indians. In the 1940-60s babies and young children were taken from their parents and raised by white people in hopes to integrate them. These Aborigines are called the "lost generation" and many of them are just now finding their birth parents and brothers and sisters. The Aborigines didn't get the right to vote until 1967!The center had a live presentation explaining the Aborigines' beliefs in how the world was created by the "Rainbow Serpent". There was also a dance demonstration, didgeridoo demonstration and an exhibit on how the Aborigines lived off the land. We found out later that only one tribe of the Aborigines from the Northern Territory actually played the didgeridoo. The others just adopted it recently. It is very popular in all the tourist shops.
After touring the center, we took the Skyrail to Kuranda, a small village in the mountains. The Skyrail is a 4.7 mile long cable car ride over the rain forest. There are 36 towers supporting the cable. All of them were lifted into place by helicopter to avoid disturbing the rain forest. The tallest tower is 133 feet. There were two stops along the way to Kuranda. At the first stop we did a short walk though the rain forest. At the next stop was a viewing platform to see Barron River gorge and waterfall. Very beautiful view!
To return from Kuranda we took the Kuranda Scenic Railway that snaked 20 miles down the mountain and through 15 tunnels. The railway took five years to build and was opened in 1891. The train was from the same period. This was a very popular activity. There must have been a 1000 tourists on that train. We aren't use to being around that many tourists and it was a bit annoying. I guess we just need to get use to big cities and lots of people again.
Atherton Tableland
The Atherton Tableland is located just a
few miles west of Port Douglas and Cairns. It is 900 yards above sea level and
was all rain forest until the settlers cleared it for farmland. The area is
full of parks, waterfalls and lakes. It was a beautiful drive through the
country. We did "the waterfall circuit", a 10-mile unpaved road with three
waterfalls near it. All of them were pretty. Pete only went swimming in the
first one, which the coldest one he had ever been in. It took about 30 minutes
for his skin to return to its normal temperature and that was after he dried
off with a towel and sat in the sun. To say the water was cold is an
understatement. I stuck my big toe in. Burrr!
Queensland Summary
In summary, Queensland is a great place to visit with a wide variety of flora, fauna, and landscapes. There is the Great Barrier Reef, beautiful beaches and lots of rain forest and that's just near the coast. We thoroughly enjoyed it.The next part of our adventure will be vastly different as we are heading to Alice Springs and Ayers Rock, which are located in the Outback.