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| Sydney to Cairns |
maandag 28 januari 2008
maandag 21 januari 2008
Sydney to Cairns
The Sydney to Cairns trip wasn't completely what we had hoped it would be. It already started on the first day. We arrived nicely on time to pick up our rental car at 10am, only to be informed that because of peak season and a late hand in, the car would not be ready until 1pm. After a lot of annoyance and delays, we finally got it at 1:45, so we didn't set off for the beautiful Blue Mountains until 2pm.
After exploring the Wentworth Falls, we arrived at the campsite looking for a spot to set up our tent (which came with the rental car) and were informed that all campsites in the Blue Mountains were completely full, so we ended up in a motel for the night. The next day, the weather wasn't looking very promising, with lots of clouds, so after a quick stop at another stunning lookout, we continued further up north. We ended up spending the night at a pretty nice campsite at Lake Macquarie, a beautiful lake between Sydney and Newcastle.
And then it started to rain...and rain...and rain. Packing up a soaking tent in the rain wasn't fun, but we just threw everything into a binbag and headed further up north hoping for better weather. After checking out a couple of campsites and driving through the rain all day, we finally settled for a campsite in Port Macquarie, which was completely full as well, but the kind owner allowed us a spot on a spare piece of grass (about 3mx3m) for a slightly discounted price. Whilst making dinner in the camp kitchen (thank god for those, because our tent isn't that big and it was raining way too hard to cook outsite), we met a really nice English couple which we spent the rest of the evening chatting to, jointly complaining about the weather, the inflated prices and the business of the East Coast.
The next day we managed to get a break from the overcrowded campsites full of permanent residents and found a lovely campsite at Corindi Beach, just north of Coffs Harbour. The campsite was only open to tourists, which meant no permanent residents with their horrible contraptions and big dirty caravans. Although... judging by the amount of stuff Australians take with them when they are camping, just could easily think that they were permanent moving there: portable airconditioning units, large wooden tabels, full size matrasses for the entire family, huge tarpaulins, small motorbikes, baseball bats, surfboards, complete fridge-freezer combinations, and to top it all off: building site lights - it is amazing what these people take with them on holiday. In comparison to that, our dome tent, tiny table, 2 camp chairs and 1 pit gas cooker looked very primitive.
Fortunately, we got a break from the rain later on that afternoon, which allowed us to go for a swim in the sea in front of the campsite. Or actually, more like a dip. The waves and current were still so strong as a result of the huge storms they had had a few days earlier that it just simply looked to dangerous to go fully into the water.
The next day, thankfully, the sun was out again, and because we liked the campsite so much, we decided to stay an extra day, which allowed us to finally wash our dirty clothes. But the next day it was raining again, so we headed further up north towards the Gold Coast, which was more like the Gray Coast. After a couple of failed attempts we finally managed to find a campsite, which had three tourists spots (the rest was all for permanent residents again!), and we even managed to cook outside and have dinner before it started raining again.
The next day we decided to explore the beautiful Sprongbrook National Park, part of the World Heritage listed Queensland rainforest. Because of bad weather and landslides, certain walks, roads and viewpoints were closed, but the waterfalls were just spectacular, which made more than up for it. Armed with raincoats and walking shoes, we walked the wet, but fun 2 hour track around the Twin Falls, which was really good, until we had another encounter with our old friends from Malaysia, the leeches. We had to remove several from our boots and legs and René even found one in his loin, which must have crawled all the up his shorts. Yuk! We then headed to Brisbane, where we found an ok camp spot, in a huge holiday resort right next to the highway (nice!).
The next day we took the bus into Brisbane to sort out the rest of our trip up north and pick up a parcel from my family at the Post Office, which hadn't arrived yet (bugger!) and ended up booking a 3 day self drive tour on Fraser Island and a 3 day dive snorkling trip of the Great Barrier Reef. We then headed further up north later in the afternoon, and ended up staying at a showground, which allowed people to camp there for only $10 a night. Around 9 in the evening it started raining again, continuing all the way through the night and the next day, which again meant packing up a tent which was completely soaked. We drove to Rainbow Beach where we were staying in a hostel to leave for Fraser Island the next day, and spend the rest of the day, sorting out our stuff, drying our tent and preparing for Fraser.
Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world, was a really cool trip, with lots of exciting 4 wheel driving for the both of us. I say the both of us because, despite the fact it was a self drive trip, it turned out that, of the 10 people in our group, we were the only ones that could drive. Add to that the fact that the rest of the group was all around 20 years old, rather passive, and pretty unexperienced in camping, and we ended up getting a taste of what it would be like to be the mum and dad of 8 teenagers. We had a lot of fun though and thankfully had 2days of beautiful weather allowed us to swim in the beautiful lakes and cook and eat outside.
The last day of Fraser the rain started again and went on pretty much continuously for the next 2 days, so we just drove and drove and drove, stopping overnight in cabins in Rockhampton (or Rocky as the Ozzies call it) and Bowen, as the humidity and the rain were just too much for camping. We did camp out on Mission Beach at the YHA though, but with lots of mosquitos, all sorts of scary other junngle insects, lots and lots of horrible cane toads (which even sat in the bathroom) and a humidity of 95% at temperatures of around 35 degrees, this was no real break either. We finally arrived in Cairns on Friday 18th, after driving through beautiful green tropical scenary and stopping at a lovely waterfalls.
The 3 day live aboard diving/snorkling trip that we left on on Saturday and just returned from was simply fantastic. Although the scenery was not as good as Malaysia, we still saw a couple of turtles, a few reef sharks, plenty off fish and beautiful coral and Rene even saw a whale shark from the boat - to his huge annoyance he had just come out of the water 1 minute before and wasn't allowed back in because of headcount and safety. The group of 30 odd people we were with was really nice and relaxed, the food was fantastic, the rooms and bed comfortable (after a little seasickness in the beginning) and the staff really professional. Such a nice break from all the hassle we've had not to worry about anything, and all we had to do was get up, dive/snorkle, eat, relax and sleep. We now just have a few more days to explore the area around Cairns (although most will probably be done from an airconditioned car), before we fly to New Zealand on Sunday night.
After exploring the Wentworth Falls, we arrived at the campsite looking for a spot to set up our tent (which came with the rental car) and were informed that all campsites in the Blue Mountains were completely full, so we ended up in a motel for the night. The next day, the weather wasn't looking very promising, with lots of clouds, so after a quick stop at another stunning lookout, we continued further up north. We ended up spending the night at a pretty nice campsite at Lake Macquarie, a beautiful lake between Sydney and Newcastle.
And then it started to rain...and rain...and rain. Packing up a soaking tent in the rain wasn't fun, but we just threw everything into a binbag and headed further up north hoping for better weather. After checking out a couple of campsites and driving through the rain all day, we finally settled for a campsite in Port Macquarie, which was completely full as well, but the kind owner allowed us a spot on a spare piece of grass (about 3mx3m) for a slightly discounted price. Whilst making dinner in the camp kitchen (thank god for those, because our tent isn't that big and it was raining way too hard to cook outsite), we met a really nice English couple which we spent the rest of the evening chatting to, jointly complaining about the weather, the inflated prices and the business of the East Coast.
The next day we managed to get a break from the overcrowded campsites full of permanent residents and found a lovely campsite at Corindi Beach, just north of Coffs Harbour. The campsite was only open to tourists, which meant no permanent residents with their horrible contraptions and big dirty caravans. Although... judging by the amount of stuff Australians take with them when they are camping, just could easily think that they were permanent moving there: portable airconditioning units, large wooden tabels, full size matrasses for the entire family, huge tarpaulins, small motorbikes, baseball bats, surfboards, complete fridge-freezer combinations, and to top it all off: building site lights - it is amazing what these people take with them on holiday. In comparison to that, our dome tent, tiny table, 2 camp chairs and 1 pit gas cooker looked very primitive.
Fortunately, we got a break from the rain later on that afternoon, which allowed us to go for a swim in the sea in front of the campsite. Or actually, more like a dip. The waves and current were still so strong as a result of the huge storms they had had a few days earlier that it just simply looked to dangerous to go fully into the water.
The next day, thankfully, the sun was out again, and because we liked the campsite so much, we decided to stay an extra day, which allowed us to finally wash our dirty clothes. But the next day it was raining again, so we headed further up north towards the Gold Coast, which was more like the Gray Coast. After a couple of failed attempts we finally managed to find a campsite, which had three tourists spots (the rest was all for permanent residents again!), and we even managed to cook outside and have dinner before it started raining again.
The next day we decided to explore the beautiful Sprongbrook National Park, part of the World Heritage listed Queensland rainforest. Because of bad weather and landslides, certain walks, roads and viewpoints were closed, but the waterfalls were just spectacular, which made more than up for it. Armed with raincoats and walking shoes, we walked the wet, but fun 2 hour track around the Twin Falls, which was really good, until we had another encounter with our old friends from Malaysia, the leeches. We had to remove several from our boots and legs and René even found one in his loin, which must have crawled all the up his shorts. Yuk! We then headed to Brisbane, where we found an ok camp spot, in a huge holiday resort right next to the highway (nice!).
The next day we took the bus into Brisbane to sort out the rest of our trip up north and pick up a parcel from my family at the Post Office, which hadn't arrived yet (bugger!) and ended up booking a 3 day self drive tour on Fraser Island and a 3 day dive snorkling trip of the Great Barrier Reef. We then headed further up north later in the afternoon, and ended up staying at a showground, which allowed people to camp there for only $10 a night. Around 9 in the evening it started raining again, continuing all the way through the night and the next day, which again meant packing up a tent which was completely soaked. We drove to Rainbow Beach where we were staying in a hostel to leave for Fraser Island the next day, and spend the rest of the day, sorting out our stuff, drying our tent and preparing for Fraser.
Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world, was a really cool trip, with lots of exciting 4 wheel driving for the both of us. I say the both of us because, despite the fact it was a self drive trip, it turned out that, of the 10 people in our group, we were the only ones that could drive. Add to that the fact that the rest of the group was all around 20 years old, rather passive, and pretty unexperienced in camping, and we ended up getting a taste of what it would be like to be the mum and dad of 8 teenagers. We had a lot of fun though and thankfully had 2days of beautiful weather allowed us to swim in the beautiful lakes and cook and eat outside.
The last day of Fraser the rain started again and went on pretty much continuously for the next 2 days, so we just drove and drove and drove, stopping overnight in cabins in Rockhampton (or Rocky as the Ozzies call it) and Bowen, as the humidity and the rain were just too much for camping. We did camp out on Mission Beach at the YHA though, but with lots of mosquitos, all sorts of scary other junngle insects, lots and lots of horrible cane toads (which even sat in the bathroom) and a humidity of 95% at temperatures of around 35 degrees, this was no real break either. We finally arrived in Cairns on Friday 18th, after driving through beautiful green tropical scenary and stopping at a lovely waterfalls.
The 3 day live aboard diving/snorkling trip that we left on on Saturday and just returned from was simply fantastic. Although the scenery was not as good as Malaysia, we still saw a couple of turtles, a few reef sharks, plenty off fish and beautiful coral and Rene even saw a whale shark from the boat - to his huge annoyance he had just come out of the water 1 minute before and wasn't allowed back in because of headcount and safety. The group of 30 odd people we were with was really nice and relaxed, the food was fantastic, the rooms and bed comfortable (after a little seasickness in the beginning) and the staff really professional. Such a nice break from all the hassle we've had not to worry about anything, and all we had to do was get up, dive/snorkle, eat, relax and sleep. We now just have a few more days to explore the area around Cairns (although most will probably be done from an airconditioned car), before we fly to New Zealand on Sunday night.
woensdag 2 januari 2008
New Years Eve in Sydney
New Years Eve in Sydney is definitely one to remember, although I don’t think anything will ever come close to the excitement we used to feel when we were kids. We work up on the last day of the year at 10:30 from speaker announcements in the hostel that they would be leaving to secure a spot for the midnight fireworks in half an hour. Not wanting to spend 13 hours waiting for the big event near the Opera House, we had decided to go to a different spot, a little further from the city centre, later on in the day, which left us with a lot of time to explore the city. After a slow start we headed for the Harbour Bridge to walk across it, which offered some great views of the crowds gathering in the parks on both sides of the bridge. After getting some food and alcohol for later in the evening, we went back to the hostel to relax, whilst the TV news was showing regular updates of the shores of the Sydney Harbour getting busier and busier. At around 6pm, we left the hostel to catch a bus to Balmain, a peninsula west of the city centre, where we were meeting Garrett and Andrea (the two Canadians we also celebrate x-mas with) and their friend Becca. Having arrived a little earlier they managed to secure a pretty good spot, in a crowded little park on the shore, which offered great view of the Harbour Bridge. The atmosphere in the park was brilliant, and as the alcohol kept flowing people were getting very chatty with each other, leading to most ‘interesting’ conversations. However, it wasn’t until this morning when we were looking at the pictures that we realised we had missed the most coincidental encounter we could have had – René’s random shot of the crowds featured the South African couple we met on our wine tour in Perth! Time passed quite quickly as we were playing cards, watching the 9pm kiddies fireworks, drinking wine, eating bread & dips, queuing for the toilet and talking to each other and strangers and before long it was midnight. The fireworks display was pretty spectecular with 6 barges along the harbour that held the same display, plus special action on the bridge. After wishing everyone a happy new year, we headed back with the crowds to the buses which were packed with people. Not wanting to wait for a bus for hours, we decided to walk back into the city, which took just over an hour and turned out to be a pretty heavy exercise to start the new year with. Tired but happy, we arrived back at the hostel at 2 where we concluded the night by watching some obscure music videos (Wat is it with tv channels broadcasting weird music videos on NYE? The Belgium channels last year had lots of dodgy 80 disco stuff going on as well.)
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