Brisbane to Cairns

Once again we have to head out of town to pick up our campervan. We accidentally take the wrong exit out of the train station and the walk (in the boiling hot sun, with all our bags) takes roughly 4 longer. We get to the place on time, but end up sticking around for about 2 hours whilst they get the camper ready. At midday, we’re finally on the road again. What we have this time is the Hippie Drift, which is a very compact, bare bones camper. It is easier to park, though. I name her Giselle, after a character from My Dad Wrote a Porno (although we later find out she already had a name – Regina). We drive a few hours to get to Noosa and pay for quite an expensive camp site just outside of town. We have lunch, then relax in the sun before having a quick dip in their quite cold pool.

The next day is an early start as we a doing a day trip of Frasier Island – the world’s largest sand Island.  We make our way to the jetty and are picked up by the 4WD – it looks like a converted rubbish truck. We meet our guide for the day and head to 40 mile beach, which is still on the mainland. Driving on the beach is a unique experience, as our guide needs to stay close the sea to drive on the harder sand without actually touching the water, which requires a bit of weaving around the waves. Shortly after this it turns out our vehicle has a radiator leak and we have to go back a short way to get on another truck.
Following the switch we head to rainbow beach, named because of the different colours and sand and rock. Shortly after this we reach the barge. There’s a large truck that’s apparently stuck on the barge with a flat battery, so they simply reverse the barge and practically ram it into the beach, giving the truck some momentum that it can be kick started. It works, the truck is off and we get on. When we get to the Island, we have another bumpy but fun drive down the beach and we get a sense of the scale of Frasier – its huge. We’re told to look out for dingos on our left and whales on our left – we see neither (though we do see a rather large dead turtle on the beach) We eventually head inland to Lake McKenzie, the water of which is meant to have healing powers. Intrigued, I drive straight in to the freezing cold water. The sun goes in, the wind picks up and...I don’t spend much time healing. After lunch we go for a rainforest walk, following a creek. Driving out, the truck gets bogged in the sand and we have to get out and push. No, really. When we get back to the barge we finally see a single dingo mooching about. We get back later after a long, but pretty great, day on the truck.

Damn, you a sexy beach

The next day we get out of expensive Noosa and head north to a small town called Bunderberg. After 30 minutes of driving, we realise that I left various clothes on the drying line back in at the campsite. We decide to press on. Bunderberg is famous for it’s rum and ginger beer (the latter of which I had a fair few of back in New Zealand). We only have a quick wander and but a few clothes. We stay in a free campsite in a place called Sharon Gorge, which has a nice little walk to the river.

The next stop is Agnes Water and the Town of 1770. We go up to 1770 first which is a pleasant coastal place with a lookout to sea. We go up there, where we’re told by not one but two people that they’ve seen whales, dolphins and turtles from the lookout. We spend quite a bit of time staring out to sea but don’t see anything. It’s still fun clambering about the rocks though. We drive back though Agnes to get to our campsite. After parking up, a gent (possibly the manager) tells us about a family parked next to us, who have a child known round the campsite as ‘Bam-Bam’ on account of the racket he makes. We get the shuttle back to town and chill at the beach all afternoon.

The Reef 2 Beach Surf school in Agnes water prides itself on being perhaps the cheapest surf school in New Zealand. As it’s so cheap, I’ve decided to opt in for the 3 hour lesson (for $13). We start on the beach learning the basics and at this point I’m feeling relatively confident. But when we get into the water I can’t seem to get the hang of the movements. For the last 90 minutes, I just get my ass kicked by the waves. After a group photo, we’re told we all passed the class and we can pick up our certificates, but I feel doing this would make a mockery of the entire Australian certification system so I don’t bother. At least I didn’t pay $50.

I get dry and we drive through the afternoon to a pleasant campsite on Calliope River. As we head to the toilets to brush our teeth, a man walking his two pitbulls was walking the same way. Without as much as a ‘good evening’ he gestured to the animals and said in a gruff voice: “These are real fucking dogs...not like those fluffy c*nts over there. These would have them for breakfast.” And so on. Heidi and I can barely contain ourselves at this Australian who couldn’t be more proud of his ultraviolent pets.

It’s hard to put into words the experience of doing a road trip in the campervan. We (I) did a lot of driving each day, and really didn’t do much else some days. But it was still a hell of a lot of fun. We spend the next 2 days popping into places for drinks and walks that would be tedious to list (not to mention read) on this blog. We started our last full day in Mission Beach, where we got up early to watch the sunrise over the ocean (not a disappointment) and because we were so close to Cairns we were able to do a lot of driving around and exploring around the Atherton Tablelands region, checking out a number of waterfalls and Lake Echam, which has it’s own rarely-seen crocodile.

We didn't see him...what a croc!

Sunrise over Mission Beach

The day after arriving in Cairns and returning Giselle, we have our trip out to the reef. A bus picks us up and takes us to our boat where we spend roughly 2 hours getting out to the reef. We’re snorkeling at two stops and I’m doing an introductory scuba dive. As soon as I (Heidi didn’t join me at first, as she was suffering from mal de mer) jumped in the water I was surrounded by fish and coral. The colours and patterns of ocean life always amazes me, and being this up close and personal makes it even more mesmerising. Whilst filming some colourful fish, a white-tipped shark passes by. After 30 mins of snorkeling (Heidi did jump in, in the end) it’s time for my first dive. I get my gear on and submerge. I have real trouble getting my ears to pop, which we all need to do a couple of times before getting to the level at which we’ll be swimming. In truth I get more freaked out than I thought I would, I even think about bailing and returning to the surface. But I press on, and try to relax. I get more used to it after a few minutes, but really we don’t see as much as we did snorkeling. The dive lasts roughly 20 minutes.

Under the seeeea

Many fishes

I’d never heard of parrotfish before, but they were definitely the weirdest fish we saw. The algae they eat is trapped in the coral so they have developed a beak (instead of a taste for anything else) which gives them their imaginative name. On our second spot I follow a school of huge buckhead parrotfish, which is like something out of the film Avatar. Truly weird.

Sqwuak

We spend the next few days in Cairns planning the rest of our trip, and unfortunately don’t make it out to the rainforest or any further north. Our camper was more expensive than planned, so we need to save for the next 3 months!

Next time – Bali, and probably Cambodia!