East Coast Cruising

We left Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays still on a high and headed for a national park called Cape Hillsborough.  It is out on a peninsula surrounded by rainforest and sea.  We set off on a walk through the rainforest although it was a little scary as the path was covered in leaves and branches so we weren’t too sure what we were walking in – the most dangerous creatures in Oz apparently are spiders and snakes and this seemed like a good place for them to potentially be living and I doubted they would appreciate a big size 8 Haviana on their head through the leaves, so we were glad to be back to Vinnie unharmed! The views on the walk though were spectacular right down over the national park and the coastline.

The next morning we got up at 5am as we had been assured that Kangaroos arrive onto the beach for sunrise...we walked down quite sheepishly unsure whether we were being extremely gullible and being laughed at from afar by the campsite owners BUT when we got down onto the beach we saw 5 roos on the waters edge with the sunrising behind them – it was so surreal.  There were a few other impressionable tourists had also come along.  We took some pretty cool pictures and kept a safe distance away, then as we were heading back to the van 2 Australian kids arrived down and went straight over and started petting the roos – clearly more confident around their local wildlife than us!!

It was a pretty amazing experience and one of those moments that we were really glad we had the van rather than getting the bus as visiting here would never have been an option!  We have since discovered that the photo on the front cover of our lonely planet book of 2 Kangaroos playing on the beach was taken at Cape Hillsborough! A nice wee quirk to our trip!

We had quite a lot of kilometres to cover over the next couple of days so did a fair bit of driving and not to many adventures to report on.  Eventually we arrived at the beautiful coastal towns of Agnes Water and 1770.  These are described as sleepy seaside towns and that’s basically what we found.  We were lucky enough to find a lovely campsite right on the edge of the beach and we parked up for 2 nights feeling very pleased with ourselves. 

View from edge of the campsite

I decided I would attempt to become a true Aussie chick and went to surf school.  It is incredibly popular around this area and there were 40 in my class!  My instructors, TBone Whitey and Grum were slightly older aussie surfer dudes and not quite the drop dead gorgeous ripped beach babes I had been expecting but still they were good fun and experienced teachers. I will continue my search around Byron and Bondi for the Brads, Troys and Chads of the surfing world that we see in the movies – this may be a task for after James goes home haha!  They warned us in advance that we would likely do many nose dives, swallow large amounts of ocean and get a few bruises – I managed to tick each of these boxes multiple times!! On the plus side though I also managed to stand up a few times for at least 3-5 seconds before face planting which made me extremely chuffed!! Apparently I can now consider myself a level 1 surf chick, yippee!!

Nearly there!!

Given up!

About to topple over haha!

Standing up doesnt last long lol!

I DID IT!!!

I felt having this great title gave me the right to take some very cheesy and posy surfer chick pictures!!  It was a really good fun morning - I seriously under estimated how hard surfing really is! I came away exhausted and with every muscle in my body totally aching but it was still great!

cheesy pose!

We spent the rest of our time here basically just chilling out by the beach and van and making nice dinners.  Just a little snap to show you our cosy dinner setup – my favourite dinner can be recreated campervan style – fajitas YES!!

When we left here we headed during the day for a place called Bundaberg which is home to a famous Australian rum.  James went for a tour of the distillery which he really enjoyed – apparently they sell it at home too so we will have to look out for it.  We had been driving for a few hundred kilometres through acres and acres of sugar cane fields so it was interesting to follow the process through and see what it is eventually turned into!

We headed on in the afternoon to Hervey Bay where we spent another 2 lovely evenings.  Hervey Bay is the gateway to Frazer Island which we had decided not to bother with due to timings, finances and general lack of interest but the Bay itself is a very chilled out coastal town with nice tree lined walkways and a few wee shops.  They have exercise machines dotted along the walkways so we made use of those during our morning run – James just laughed at how weak my arms are!!   We stayed in a lovely modern campsite who offered some free wifi so I am making the best use of it to post this blog. 

Hervey Bay beach

Tomorrow we head further South to our penultimate destination with Vinnie, of Noosa.  We have heard some great things about this place so are pretty excited to get there.  We plan on staying 2 nights, then we have 2 nights in Brisbane before we sadly return Vinnie.  After that we head to the Gold Coast to stay with some uni friends who have been living here for 18months – I am very excited to see Alice as she just got engaged about 2 weeks ago so our timing could not be better to join in the celebrations!! Bring on the bubbles J

I hear the Christmas market is in full swing and Christmas tree lights seem to have been turned on all over the place already – it is so weird as it doesn’t feel Christmasy at all here.  Even though all the towns have trees and decorations and seasons greetings signs the sunshine just makes it feel like they forgot to take them down or something.  I hope all the prep and build up is going well for everyone...no doubt I will be missing lots of Christmas parties in the next few weeks but sure there is always next year J  Hope you all have great craic though and I look forward to hearing the inevitable stories that result!!

Lots of love

xxx

Paradise on the Whitsundays!

If I had come travelling with a thesaurus in my bag I still would not have enough words to describe our sailing trip on the Whitsundays...fantastic, stunning, unreal, beautiful, idyllic, picturesque, breathtaking, surreal and out of this world are just some of the words that my limited vocabulary brings to mind!!

It really was the perfect trip and will forever be a very happy memory and a definitely one of the big highlights of our overall adventure.

We travelled on a catamaran with a company called Wings who I must highly recommend – if anyone is thinking of going to the Whitsundays in the near future Wings is brilliant choice.  There were 24 passengers on board and it was all very personal, we got to know some nice people over the 2 days and 2 nights both passengers and crew – the chef was a lovely fella from Athlone who was great fun and a great chef.  We had heard in advance that the food on the boat was unreal and we were not disappointed.  After travelling campervan style for a while even having someone to cook for you was a treat, obviously we aren’t exactly starving ourselves (this would be impossible when travelling with James!) but we have been sensible and not having many luxuries – pasta and sauce and home made mince burgers are the stable diet.  We got some lovely things and the amount of food served was crazy - breakfast, morning tea, lunch, sunset snacks and then dinner!! The nachos, steak barbeque, potato bake and rocky roads were highlights for me!  Yum!!

James chilling on the deck!

Our Wings catamaran

On the first afternoon we headed to the first swimming spot.  James and I had opted to snorkel rather than scuba dive during the trip and the spots we visited were brilliant for this.  It was fantastic the fish swim so close to you and never bother with you – at first it’s a bit overwhelming as a huge fish swims past your mask as if you don’t exist but then you get used to it and we were assured they were all harmless.  The whole time all I could think of was Finding Nemo and the scuba divers invading them haha!  The number of different types of fish we saw was phenomenal and they have such a range of size and colour – James took a great interest in learning some of the names etc I was happy just marvelling at them.  We loved the first afternoon for the novelty of it but with a few hitches of a leaking mask and flippers which were too big, we were looking forward to the second day were we would no doubt be pros!!

The next morning we had a very early sunrise breakfast at 6am ready to head to Whitehaven bay during low tide.  Woah!!! This place was totally breathtaking – it is a protected beach where no one can stay and nothing can be taken on or off the island.  The sand is so thin and so white it is like no sand I have ever seen before – apparently Nasa are the only people who have ever been allowed (once) to take sand from the island to use in the making of glass for their telescopes its so thin!!  Firstly we went to the viewing point, which is where most of the postcards of the Whitsundays are taken from – it really was exactly like a postcard scene so I got snap happy trying to replicate my own version.  I could happily have stayed here all day looking out at this paradise below.  

We headed down onto the beach and wondered in and out of the sea and among the streams and rock pools.  As we were paddling through on the streams we saw a massive black stingray....I was not overly pleased with its presence so retreated to sand!! Not before a quick picture of course!

Posing!

Traditional jumping photo!

The stingray!

Stunning scenery!

James the Turtle!

We spent a few hours on the beach that morning – it was awesome being there so early (around 8am) as we had the chance to enjoy it fully before the sun made the sand too hot to stand/sit on.  We took some cool photos and basically just hung around enjoying the scenery and the serenity of it all!  Whitehaven beach is quite famous for its beauty but I had completely underestimated it!

The dingy came to collect us and take us back to the Catamaran for some mid morning tea and lamingtons.  It was so cool that we had got up so early as we still had a large part of the day to enjoy even though we had achieved so much already – that’s not to say I will be getting up at 6am from now on but it was great on this occasion as we squeezed so much into 1 day.

On the way to the afternoons dive site we saw turtles and dolphins swimming near the boat which was a great treat.  The snorkelling was again fantastic, this time we saw some pretty massive fish namely a Giant Maori Wrasse and a Trevelli fish the latter is part of the shark family and has a distinct look of a small shark with the big fin and teeth but thankfully it didn’t seem very interested in us!  We did get a wee stroke of the Wrasse which was cool!  It is so surreal yet wonderful to see these fish in their natural habitat just living their normal lives – usually we only see things like this behind sheets of glass in an aquarium!  At one stage James and I followed a school of fish who were feeding off different bits of coral and swimming from piece to piece as a group which was just so natural for them and so interesting for us to watch.

The time in between the beach and snorkelling, while the boat was moving from point to point was spent just chilling at the front of the boat admiring the scenery and taking in the rays!  The boat had big nets at the front were you could lie and relax and were you would get wet if a big wave came in, it was good fun!

The sunset from the boat was beautiful so we had plenty of Kodak moments, including James and I trying to recreate the Titanic moment – cheesy or what!!! It was good fun though and some stunning pictures of the landscape which will bring very happy memories when we look back in the future.  This really was a day where I felt like I was living the dream!!

Amazing sunset!

That evening we had the steak barbeque and some drinks with our new friends, it was good craic and included some twister, the cereal box game and a sing song with the guitar (don’t worry I sang very quietly!)  A nice chilled way to round off the perfect day!

The next morning we were due back to the port at 10am so we got up early to fit in a quick snorkel before we left.  Although the fish at this location were not as unique (probably because we had seen so many the previous 2 swims) the coral here was fascinating.  It was all different colours and shapes and sizes and because the tide was out a bit we were much closer to it – slightly too close in some cases as my flipper was able to tip it at some points!! But it was still really cool for our final swim and I guess the coral is what keep the reef alive.

We arrived back to Airlie Beach so happy and pleased to have had such a wonderful experience.  It was so nice that we got to share it together and we will no doubt reminisce lots in years to come of our 2 days in paradise!  This really would be the perfect honeymoon trip for people if it wasn’t so far away!

This may seem to be a bit OTT and soppy as a blog but the experience was simply unreal and it is quite hard to put that into words without sounding corny!! I hope the photos do it some justice to give you an idea of the beauty!

A very happy traveller J

xxooxx

Titanic moment haha!! Gay or what!

Vinnie the Van adventure - Part 1

We arrived in Cairns safely although slightly tired after a 6am flight and losing an hour as Queensland don’t have daylight savings so it was 9.30am and we were wondering the streets of Cairns putting in time until we could check in!! Cairns is OK as a town with a nice laguna and waterfront as well as a big shopping centre so we managed to put the time in although in parts its a bit like a bigger tackier Portrush so for me not somewhere I wanted to spend long in.  When we arrived at the hostel we were told of a free bbq that evening – good result!!

The next morning refreshed and pretty excited we went to pick up our campervan.  To us it was massive compared to tiny Murgatroyd the spaceship but having spent a week in it its still pretty cosy.  We have named it Vinnie the van...yes we do have too much time on our hands!!

The inside of the van during the day!

A happy traveller!

Our first day was spent driving north out of cairns along Captain Cooke Highway.  We visited Port Douglas for a few hours and had our picnic here – this is where I will spent xmas with the Jess clan so we just went for a nosey – it really is gorgeous I am excited!! That evening we basically lived out my camper vanning dream parking in a site beside the beach, cooking our dinner on the free beachside electric bbqs and spending the evening chilling out to the sound of the waves – this is definitely the life!!  The next morning we got up and went for a run along the beach front and finished it off with a nice swim – what could be better!! The pic below was a well deserved breakfast after all our exercise!

Port Douglas

Post run breakfast...the sea between the trees!

Living the dream :)

We then started our long trip South and chose to avail of a free camp in an area outside the tablelands called Babinda.  Here we took a walk round the Boulders which is a pretty cool river full of massive boulders formed by the water pressure.  This area is called the Cassowary coast after an animal – most people haven’t managed to see one of these on their trip but in the continuing trend of us being quite lucky on the local wildlife hunt there was one eating on the site of the road when we drove through – they are basically just a giant turkey with a blue face, quite strange looking!!

A cassowary!

The rest stop was perfectly adequate and we had an early morning run before leaving for our next stop which was Mission Beach.  We had heard alot about mission beach but the reality of it was slightly different.  It is a tiny town with a stunning beach and seafront.  There were maybe 3 restaurants/cafes/bars and the most expensive corner shop ever – we were expecting something slightly more lively from its reputation.  We decided to chill out and spend 2 nights here which was lovely.  The day times were spent with me sun bathing and James chasing the shade around the beach.  The sea here is not safe to swim in at this time because of the stinger jelly fish but certain areas have erected stinger nets which is brilliant so we were able to enjoy some regular swims to cool us off.

Gorgeous Mission Beach!

swit swoo!!

We had 2 bbqs in the evenings sitting near the beach in the communal area offered by the campsite, having picked up some meat deals in the reduced isle of the supermarket – it was tasty and we felt like true locals having a Barbie on the beach!

Sky diving is very popular here so we enjoyed watching them coming in to land on the beach every couple of hours.  Our only problem here was the humidity in the evening – the van got very warm even with the windows open, apparently northern Queensland is renowned for its heat and sticky climate.  We were hoping that as we got further down it would cool off a bit – just for the night times though, I was loving it during the day!!

We left Mission beach having had a lovely few days and feeling very chilled out and headed for a free camp area 26km North of Townsville called Saunders Beach.  Woah – we were so pleased when we arrived at it.  You can never be quite sure what to expect of these ‘free camps’ some are just basically rest stops on the side of a road where you are lucky to get running water but this was fantastic.  Literally a stones throw from the beach, plenty of shady campsites, an electric bbq and even a special luxury...cold showers!! 

Free cold showers!

There was such a relaxed atmosphere here not even a bar or restaurant within 10km and mostly other backpackers in the site so we decided to stay for 2 nights.  Sadly here we could not swim in the sea but the cold showers served as a useful alternative and I was able to continue to do some tanning!! In the evening the sunset into the sea was stunning so I did my best with my basic photography skills to capture this!

Sunset over the beach

Saunders during the day!

We left Saunders beach towards Ayr but stopped for the day in Townsville.  Lonely Planet described it as Australias most underrated city, at first impressions the coast line and the waterfront are stunning.  They have been through a big restoration in recent years and have a lovely esplanade the whole length of the coast and a purpose built swimming pool surrounded by grass to relax on, the place had a lovely atmosphere.  The main CBD itself was definitely not worth the visit it is very run down with very few shops and not a great vibe, we were glad we visited the waterfront for a swim anyway!

Our welcome to Townsville!!

The purpose built Laguna!

This week from Wed morning to Fri lunch we are doing a sailing cruise on the Whitsunday Islands which will involve some snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef.  I can not wait for this and the boat we are on looks really lovely - so the next blog should be quite exciting!  I will defo be on the search for Nemo and hopefully some turtles!

I have to say so far the adventure with Vinnie has lived up to all my expectations and the beaches along the East Coast of Australia, as everyone had told us, are simply stunning.  Prior to this trip some people may have laughed at my ability to read a map or navigate anywhere but I now consider myself an expert and one of our daily night-time routines is having a wee look at the map and make sure we are happy with the next days driving and sussing out where our next place to camp is – check us out!!

Until next time....

xxx

What a ‘Hopping’ great start to Australia...

 Woah – what an eventful, fun and random 2 weeks we have had in Australia.  We landed in Sydney pretty knackered from all our World Cup antics and we knew we were going to be back in Sydney in Dec so we said we would take it slightly easy for a few days......however I seem to have been infected by the Keith Jess problem of not being able to sit still as 2 days and about 12kms walked later we had seen most of the city sites!  Sydney is such an impressive city and the place has such a great vibe about it, we loved seeing all the commuters walking to and from the big companies etc.  I went back to being boring and did some Big 4 spotting – although in Sydney they are hard to miss with great locations right on the waterfront!  The weather wasn’t great so we didn’t bother with Bondi and Manly...we have those to look forward to in December.  We have ticked off Darling harbour, Sydney Harbour bridge, Sydney Opera House, Sydney Aquarium, Botanic Gardens, George Street and Pitt Street!

So we decided that rather than flying from Sydney to Melbourne we wanted to take our time and drive down what the locals call the route less travelled.  We hired a ‘campervan’ called Murgatroyd the spaceship which was basically a people carrier with the seats taken out of the back and replaced by a bed - trust me it was cosy!!  It was a great adventure and we were really pleased that we did it.  

Our chef!!

Tired chef haha!

We tried to stop in lots of little towns along the way – one of the best was a place called Eden where we saw whales off the coast.  

You will just have to trust me on this one - that is a whale tale!!

We also stopped at Lakes Entrance were we saw the biggest birds ever...storks apparently!  These were the little bonuses that we were excited for by having the independence of driving rather than flying.  We tried to free camp as much as possible along the way to keep the costs down...the downside of this is no showers so we were pretty smelly ha! 

One of the big highlights and will probably be one of the best parts of our trip so far was an overnight visit to a place called Wilsons Promontory which is a national park at the southern most point of Australia.   The place is famous for its beautiful walks in tropical rainforests and white sandy beaches.  It is so popular with locals for Christmas they have to have a ballot to see who ‘wins’ a space on the camp site a year in advance.  The scenery was absolutely breathtaking but it is also famous for its wildlife.   We spent the afternoon doing one of their recommended walks called the Lilly Pilly Gully walk which was 7kms through the rainforest and around the headland.  It was gorgeous and we were really lucky with the weather.  We saw lots of bird life and wild cockatoos and parrots, then on the way back we saw wombats which the locals consider a bit of a pest as they try to burrow through the tents to get to food. 

View from our walk - stunning!

At the highest point of our walk - we started at the bottom!!

A wombat!

One of the gorgeous beaches!

Happy travellers!

The next morning before leaving we did a recommended wildlife walk...this is where all my Australian ambitions came true!! We saw loads of Kangaroos just hopping around – it was amazing I loved it!! Also on this same walk we saw Emus.  It was fantastic to see them in the wild jus chilling with their families etc, of course I took about a million pictures so this is only a small sample!! If anyone is coming to Melbourne taking a day trip to Wilsons Prom is very worth it – we spoke to alot of locals who were so pleased we had come as they say alot of travellers miss out on it!  It has been one of my favourite things so far.

hop hop hop!!!

Mr Emu

Me being a plonker!! love it!

Me and Mr Roo

We covered a huge amount of kilometres nearly 1,800kms over 5 days but it was so worth it to see all the cool things we saw.  Our next stop for 2 days was the Great Ocean Road which was gorgeous.  We stopped at all the touristy spots for some pictures including Bells Beach, Memorial Arch, Apollo Bay, Otaways lighthouse, 12 apostles, Lough Ard Gorge and London Bridge.  Each one has a different historical tale to tell and we were quite lucky with the weather while we were there – I am lucky enough that I will be back here with my family in a couple of months so I get to enjoy all the scenery again.  It seems to have been a wildlife filled few days as on this drive we saw Koalas just hanging out in the trees along the road – of course we stopped for a touristy snap!!

Bells beach

The 12 apostles

Me practising my jumping for the wedding!!

Next stop was Melbourne for a few days flying visit.   There isn’t as much touristy stuff here as Sydney but its still a very cool cosmopolitan city.  We visited the Australian Moving image museum which is a free museum showcasing all the tv shows, films and computer games which were made here – it is surprising just how many including Sega Mega Drive, Nintendo etc!! I had to go away for a while and come back and get James later he was having such fun!! In the meantime I managed to get a free Sally Hansen manicure!! There were so many people around the city and so much advertising and promotions etc as it was Melbourne cup week while we were there – it’s a National holiday in Australia so they take it pretty seriously.  We did a city walking tour which was really interesting and told of the origins of Melbourne and took us to some of the less recognised areas of Melbourne.  We visited the MCG which is massive – holding 100,000 people.  Within the ground of the National Sports Museum which we both really enjoyed – they are so proud of their achievements over the years.

We spent 2 nice evenings with our friends from New Zealand who have set up home in Melbourne and found jobs so they had us round for a bbq one night and the second night we went out to a nice bar on the waterfront.  They are living in St Kilda which is a beachside suburb of Melbourne so we just jumped on the tram out to visit them.  It was great to catch up and we were a little jealous that they have finally managed to unpack their bags!!

St Kilda at sunset

A few drinks with our NZ pals!

Our next stop is up in Cairns were we will start the final part of our big adventure.  We collect a new campervan (slightly bigger this time) which we will have for 3 weeks to travel from Cairns (north) to Brisbane.  I cant wait to just park up on the beach and just chill...we have also booked our Whitsundays sailing trip so we have that to look forward to on the way down the coast.

We will continue to blog as much as possible – mainly availing of the McDonalds free wifi options as the campervan doesn’t come equipped with internet sadly!! These 10 days have been so filled with new and interesting things that I cant wait to see what the next few weeks hold.

I hope that everything at home is going well – it is so hard to believe that it is November already.  You will all be pleased to hear that Santa is alive and well as he arrived in Melbourne this weekend – yes you don’t have to reread that Santa arrived in central Melbourne shopping mall on the first weekend of November in 29 degrees – so strange!!!

xxx