On The Road Again

Sat in the front of the van, parked up in a free overnight rest area beside the Bruce Highway and with a glass of red wine in hand, nature made up for the lack of television...

Mon Repos Turtle Rookery

Just half an hour before midnight, a group of eight bodies wait silently in a half circle on Mon Repos Beach, Queensland, their backs to the crumbled dunes.  Most stand, some crouch, their heads are all tilted down towards the ground.  A full moon hangs over the ocean, hurling their shadows across the silver sand and frosting the tops of the waves with icy blue sparks.  The crashing of the surf and the chatter of a distant kookaburra are the only sounds to be heard.  Through a cloudless sky, a hundred billion stars sprinkle their ancient light over the scene.  Just a few hours ago, a loud gaggle of tourists stomped their way up and down this same beach, a one hundred strong gang of camera wielding fiends in search of nothing more than a photo to post straight to Facebook.  They soon gave up and headed back to the car park, leaving just this tiny group who now stand in awe at a sight which has been occurring on this spot for hundreds of thousands of years.

In the small circle of sand at their feet, the faintest hint of movement causes them all to look up at one another in excitement.  The movement creeps into a ripple, then to a wave of motion, then into several waves before the sand starts to boil and bubble.  To the sound of restrained yelps of glee from the onlookers, several tiny black specks appear.  With the sand dancing and spluttering like liquid, flicking in all directions, the fins of almost one hundred baby turtles pull their minute bodies to the surface.  They pour from the sand, like alien life forms, escaping from the sandy nest dug by their mother two months ago.  A young couple, stood a subtle distance from the rest of the group, wrap their arms tightly around eachother.  The delicate light of the moon reveals wide smiles on their faces.  The turtles, pulled by an invisible force, flow straight towards the sea, their flippers twirling like clockwork toys.  In a long dark stream, rolling into the darkness and edged by their tiny shadows, they cross the wide expanse of sand.  When the last hatchling emerges from the nest, the group follow it slowly and quietly, down the gentle slope of the beach, across the shells and driftwood and onto the moist sand.  A thin layer of the pulsing tide slides in and lifts this ten minute old creature from the earth.  His flippers begin to swim and he is carried off, out, and into the humbling enormity of the ocean.

The Great Barrier Reef

The sun was just beginning to burn through the morning sea mist as we boarded the power boat at Airlie Marina.  60km out to sea, one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World sits just below the surface of the Pacific Ocean - The Great Barrier Reef.  Between Airlie Beach and the Reef lies the Whitsundays - a sprawling collection  of tropical paradise islands.  These slithers of sand and rock protrude from crystal clear waters like the tops of mountains, fringed with swaying coconut trees, coated with dense rainforest, and are, for the most part completely uninhabited.  Once the captain had threaded our vessel through this maze of waterways, we began the long journey across a wide empty sea towards a hidden giant and the largest living organism on the planet.  

Covering an area the same size as Great Britain, the Barrier Reef stretches 2,600km along the east coast of Australia.  Reefworld would be our home for the day, a permanent platform moored roughly half-way along its staggering expanse.  Once we'd been kitted out with masks, snorkels and "stinger suits" (an ultra thin wetsuit designed to protect against stings during the jellyfish season) we descended into the warm turquoise waters.  Having finned our way across a short void of deep water, the reef appeared - a near vertical wall of coral and rock, rising up around 30 metres from the dark depths, glistening in the watery beams of sunlight falling down from the surface, and buzzing with all kinds of marine life.  The top of this immense structure levelled out to leave a giant plane, a sub-aquatic plateau covered with just a couple of feet of water which stretched out into the ocean as far as we could see.  To our left and right, the wall continued, to the north and south - for over one thousand kilometres in each direction.  All over, neon coloured corals covered the structure.  Some fanned out like fern leaves, skeletal palms on spindly branches, exquisitely fragile, paper thin.  Others rolled along the edge of the reef like a blanket of knotted stag antlers, jagged and rough fingers of life, growing just inches each year.  Once we'd summited the wall, fish of every colour, size and shape, swarmed, darted and cruised around us.  Foil like ribbons of shoal fish orbited around like the lights of a disco ball, dark silhouettes of gropers lurked in the distance and the saturated neons of Disney-like tropical fish continued their rounds, weaving among the coral formations and undulating tentacles of sea anemones.  Hand in hand, we drifted over this incredible, alien-like world for hours.

Tunes for driving 600km in a day

The Big Three Oh

For Rosie's big day, we decided to upgrade the campervan for the night - to a Luxury Spa Suite with whirlpool bath on the balcony, a 50 inch plasma TV with DVD player and Nintendo Wii, a full stocked kitchen plus a spacious dining area and lounge.  Not a bad way to spend your thirtieth, but moving back into the van tonight is going to be tough!

Happy Birthday Rosie!!  

A few presents for the Birthday Girl

Bubbles in the bubbles on the balcony

Birthday Ice Cream

A perfect post Birthday recovery plan

A Few Snapshots of Oz

Tin Can Bay

The local pod of dolphins arrive at the marina cafe every morning at 8 o'clock for their breakfast

Rainbow Beach

The fruit bats of Fraser Island, a bar of sand covered in rainforest approximately 1km from the main land, head back to shore every evening to feed.  A black swirling cloud erupted from the horizon and slowly crept out across the bay and over our heads.  Thousand of them, large, spindly, silken winged, poured like an inky river across the sky and into the trees behind us.

The Road

Rumbling away beneath our tyres, the hot tarmac of the Bruce Highway leads us hundreds of kilometres into the bush, over the Tropic of Capricorn towards the steamy depths of North Queensland.

Agnes Water and the Town of Seventeen Seventy

Upon arriving at our campsite in this historical area of Queensland (the site of Captain Cook's landing in 1770), the owner had to shoo away a troop of kangaroos grazing on our pitch.  As they hopped away, we noticed a kookaburra stood in the grass wrestling a huge worm from the ground like a fisherman reeling in a mammoth catch.  Watching this scene nervously from the shadows, a long, thin, bright green tree snake lay silent, its head pulled up above the tall grass.  The same group of kangaroos would come thudding through the campsite the next morning, whistling right past our breakfast table before quickly slipping into the bush.  At sunset, the entire local population of lorikeets would dart en masse from tree to tree, twisting and banking at full speed just above our heads. Their screeches and squawks filled the air, forcing us to shout at eachother to be heard, until an unknown signal sent them tearing into the sky and out of sight, leaving us with nothing but the chirps of crickets and the throaty croaks of the gang of toads who would huddle in the streaks of light beaming out of the shower block.

St Helen's Beach

A campsite all to ourselves right at the edge of the South Pacific Sea.

Australia is HUGE!

We are currently at the top of our tour of the East Coast, almost 1,300 miles from Sydney, in the tropical paradise that is Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and The Great Barrier Reef.  It is hot, it is humid and short, sharp and heavy rain showers are testing the door seals of the ageing campervan.  Free WiFi is pretty scarce in Australia, hence the lack of blog posts.  Expect a few photographs soon, along with the full run down of our long drive up here.  We've battled armies of mosquitoes, come face to face with enormous hissing beetles, gazed in awe as a large cloud of thousands of giant fruit bats swept over the beach we were camped on, and watched a troop of kangaroos bound through our camping pitch and disappear into the bush as we sat eating breakfast.

Road Tripping

On our last day in The Blue Mountains, a thick fog rolled up the valley like a dust storm and smothered the area in rain and mist.  The temperature fell as fast as the rain so we sealed ourselves inside the van with wine, music and playing cards.  The next morning, everything in the Hippie was dripping with moisture and condensation - these vans aren't built for the cold!  The cab area was filled with our wet clothes and our soaked flip-flops lay sadly on the grass outside, cold and stiff.  Despite this, we felt rather smug as our fellow campers crawled out of saturated, wind battered tents and piled them, still dripping, into the backs of their cars.  Throwing our wet gear into the back of the van, we were on the road within minutes, the heater at full blast and the engine, which sits behind the front seats, slowly warming up the rear.  The wet weather persisted as we edged north, with intermittent heavy showers meeting us as we hunted for the sun. The cold and damp of the previous evening rendered our windscreen wipers permanently on for a few hours, which, when the rain stopped, began to heave and scrape their way across the dry screen as their motors whined and cried with the strain.  We therefore had to stop and start our journey every so often, removing and replacing the fuse as the rain came and went.

A few hundred kilometres later and the van was back to normal, everything was dry and we were rolling along a dirt road towards a small campground by the beach in another National Park.  Unfortunately, the cyclone had left it's mark on the weather and the wind continued to howl and stir an immense range of grey cloud above the wild coastline which roared with pounding waves, curling several metres high before smashing into the sand.  Although beautiful and romantic, it was not the Australian beach holiday we had hoped for.

Two more days of solid driving followed as we hunted for the sun and some warmth.  So now, almost one thousand kilometres from where we started, we are just south of Brisbane and the sun has finally appeared.  We can once again smother on the sun screen and hang up our umbrellas.  We're in Ipswich, camped out in the car park of a motel (it was advertised as a campsite), to visit some old workmates of Rosie's who now run a lovely cafe in one of the town's parks.  After this, we shall head another thousand kilometres north, to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef.

Breakfast burger and milkshake at the Queen's Park Cafe, Ipswich

Campervanning in Australia

Our short stay in Sydney ended with two days of solid rainfall - the tail end of a cyclone which caused immense flooding and damage along the East coast.  Having collected our "Hippie Camper", we were soon whizzing along the motorway through torrential rain and wind, towards The Blue Mountains National Park.

A couple of hours drive inland made all the difference and we enjoyed two days of fine hot weather.  Pulling back the curtain in the morning while tucked up in bed in the back of the Mitsubishi, the cool mist soon sizzled away into a flawless blue sky.  From the small kitchen at the back of the van, we prepared a hearty breakfast each day (six Weetabix for Simon!) with  yellow crested cockatoos looking down at us from the gum trees.

When the washing up was done, using the tiny pump action tap and sink, we'd jump into the cab and head to one of the many hiking trails which criss-cross the park.

With the aid of a few small wooden signs, our boots soon carried us out into the wilderness.  Starting in a wild bush forest, which was so hot and dry, the air sapped the moisture from our mouths in minutes, we followed rocky staircases down into the "Grand Canyon" where thick rain forest began to flourish.  The path dropped further, into the shadows of steamy groves and secluded waterfalls, where rainbow blades of sunlight shone down from high above, illuminating the giant leaves of luminous green which hung over our heads.

The landscape was almost too perfect to be natural.  It felt like we were in a themepark and would any moment bump into the glass dome that surrounded us.  Parrots flashed through the trees, the kind you only ever see in cages and on the shoulders of pirates, their wings splashed with bright blues and reds.  We hopped over boulders, clambered over fallen trees and passed behind waterfalls which crashed down from overhanging rock ledges.

The thick canopy of trees made for a cool, eerie setting, and high walls of striped rock wrapped around us on all sides.  Stepping through the jagged, tiger striped shadows of fern leaves, we would send lizards and other invisible creatures scurrying into the undergrowth.  Plants and bushes towered over us and the scent of the many tropical flowers perfumed the thick air.  The path grew steep.  We pushed our tired limbs upwards, our lungs heaving, muscles throbbing, faces red and glistening with sweat.  Eventually, the sunlight slowly began to penetrate the canopy which seemed to be opening up the further we trod.  Approaching a clearing, the full power of the sun light flashed white over our eyes.  As they adjusted, we found ourselves looking out over the enormity of the valley we'd just crossed.  Filling the full 180 degree space before us, lush plains of rainforest swept up from the basin of the valley reaching towering craggy rock faces of amber and gold which scored the blue sky bluntly before falling away again at the edge of a forested plateau.  The river wound lazily through the entire landscape, wrapping itself around each layer of green stacked off into the distance.  And above all of this, like a romantic lens filter placed over the whole scene, a faint blue mist hovered in the air, the sweet haze of the slowly evaporating eucalyptus tree oil which gives the area its name.

It was one of the most beautiful place we have ever visited.