Sunday 19th December 2010

Friday ended up being a driving day- we made our way from Yeppoon, through Rockhampton all the way to Bundaberg, going the long way round so that we could stop at Agnes Water. A very pretty beach and near where Captain Cook first stopped in Queensland. We stopped at a free camp site at ‘Sharon Nature Reserve’ in the village of Sharon! You’ve had a town named after you mum!

The next day we got up and headed to Bundaberg, hopeful of doing some shopping only to find that the town is pretty dead. But we went to the tourist information and booked on to a turtle watching tour for the evening. Then headed to the nearest beach town of Bargara. It was a nice beach although was covered in large black rocks. We bought a portion of chips to share whilst sitting in the park and reading. I bought Chocalat at the book exchange in Bundaberg. I really liked the film so thought the book is probably going to be even better. So far I am finding it hard to put down! In the afternoon we then headed to Mon Repos Beach where we would be doing the turtle watching later. We had a bit more of a read and then Ryan taught me a beach game involving moving your feet to wherever the other person throws a stone to, within a square. I ended up absolutely covered in sand! Whilst we were playing Ryan suddenly shouted that he could see a turtle. So we rushed up the beach to watch her going back into the sea. Strangely we saw 2 girls digging up the nest so worried that something was wrong we went to see what they were doing. It turned out that they were doing Turtle Conservation Work and were moving the nest further up the beach to somewhere where it won’t get flooded and will be safe from cyclones. They passed us one of the eggs to feel –it was soft and about the size and shape of a ping pong ball. Not at all like a chicken’s egg. They’re designed to drop from a distance into the nest without breaking so have more of a leathery shell. I then got to help putting all the eggs into a bucket to move them to the hole further up the beach. It was all very exciting and pretty unusual for a turtle to be laying her eggs in the daytime.

Then later in the evening we came back to go on the tour. We were put into groups of 60 to go and see the turtles. Not quite the same experience as earlier! We were in group 2 so got to see the second turtle that came up the beach. We all had to slowly walk onto the dune behind her where she can’t see us whilst she was digging the nest. The turtle couldn’t actually hear us as they hear at a lower frequency so do not hear our voices. Once she had begun to lay her eggs we were allowed to move around her as she now wouldn’t be disturbed. We watched her lay her eggs and then fill the hole back in with her flippers. This was quite amusing as she often ended up hitting herself in the face with her flippers as they rebounded! She moved around as she filled her nest in so if it had not been marked we would not have been able to find it! She then made her way back to the sea and as she had laid her eggs to low again we moved them to a nest further up the sandbank. It was amazing to see turtles nesting in the wild but oddly strange to see how oblivious she was to our presence. Apparently everything they do is on instinct so once they have started laying their eggs they will not stop for anything.

So we have now seen loads of wildlife! Kangaroo, Emus, Platypus, Wallabies, Cockatoos and Turtles! Koala is next on my list! xxx

Friday 17th December

On Tuesday we headed from the rest stop on to Airlie Beach, stopping at a beach at Bowen en route. It was a nice beach with white and black sand (which really burned). We just had a little stop at the beach before continuing onto Airlie Beach. Although we somehow managed to find ourselves on a golf course. After walking along the beach we thought it might be nice to walk back through the park but turned out people were playing golf there. Hmmm better go back to the beach and not get hit by a golf ball. We drove onto Airlie Beach where the water is ridiculously blue. The nicest colour sea I have ever seen! We treated ourselves to fish and chips and managed to get given a huge box of prawns by some people who’d been having some sort of team meeting by the beach and couldn’t finish them. I did try one but I didn’t like the way it was looking at me so didn’t have any more. We managed to pass them on to some travellers having a BBQ who seemed pretty shocked at the amount of prawns we were giving them. I wonder now how many people those prawns got passed along to! After lunch we did a little shopping and I bought 2 pairs of sunglasses to replace those I’d lost in the swimming pool at Townsville. Ryan’s remaining 2 pairs both popped their lenses whilst at Airlie Beach so he also had to buy some more. They were from Primark though so it’s not too surprising they can’t survive the Ozzy heat! We then headed toward Mackay but the squeaking fan belt was back! We were driving towards Eungella and had to call out the RACQ again. It took hours for them to come and then once they had there was no difference in the screeching so we had to call them back. I wondered whether the mechanic was actually a real mechanic as he didn’t seem to know what he was talking about and then proceeded to tie the engine up with cable ties. On his second visit he did manage to work out that it was an issue with the bolt though which no one previously had done. In the morning we took it to the mechanics who told us we had a cracked bolt and replaced it for us. Since then nothing has gone wrong –touch wood!

So after we’d been to the mechanics we drove back to Eungella as the guidebook said it was pretty much guaranteed that we would see a platypus. It was a steep climb up a mountain to get there but the views were beautiful. There is a platypus viewing platform at a place up in the mountain called Broken River. We parked up and went to see if we could spot a platypus. We had no luck at first, but we did see a lot of turtles. We had got there around lunchtime but it was said that the best times to spot a platypus are dawn and dusk so I was worried that we’d driven all the way and would not manage to see one. But when we’d been waiting for about 10 minutes a little platypus did pop up to say hello! He was so cute! He dove down again but then came back again a few minutes later and I managed to take a photo! He didn’t come back after that so we were very lucky to have seen him. It was so exciting! We then drove back towards Mackay where we picked up some sausages to BBQ for lunch but ended up getting completely lost, not even finding the sea and heading back to the highway and driving about 100km to a free campsite at Clairview. They spelt my name wrong. We finally had our hot dogs for dinner! The campsite was right by the beach in a quiet village. In the morning I even drove the van back to the highway (before Ryan took over for the ‘proper driving’.

We had got up early and drove nearly all the way to Rockhampton. We went to the Capricorn Caverns –a dry limestone cave system. When we got there we saw 2 kangaroos just out in the garden. I think they were semi-tame as they were not fenced in but there seemed to be food and water put out for them. I’m not sure if it counts as seeing actual wild kangaroos.... Anyway, I was interested in doing an adventure tour but with the extra cost at $70 I wasn’t sure if it would be worth it. So we decided to go on the summer solstice tour at 11am instead and go caving in Wales when we go home. We were lucky as the summer solstice only occurs for 6 weeks of the year. It is when sunlight comes through a hole in one of the caverns roofs between 11-12 from November to January time. We were lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The tour was very interesting; we saw rock formations in different shapes that resembled other things such as a rhino, Australia, and angels amongst other things. We learnt that we were actually all stood on bat guano and that when the caves were first discovered it was waist deep and has only been compressed so much because the tours have been going on for hundreds of years. In one of the caverns the cathedral cavern they have weddings and opera there! At the end of the tour the guide left us to go through a less ‘spacious’ part of the cave so we had to creep through a narrow corridor in the cave ending up with rope bridges to cross. They don’t do that at Wookey Hole! We were shown one of the entrances for the adventure tour and it was just a small hole that you had to climb in feet first then make your way down but it simply looked like a vertical drop!

After visiting the caves we headed to the Capricorn Coast to find a campsite for the night. They are some very beautiful beaches there and we managed to find a campsite right on the beachfront. While we were looking we saw 2 wild emus just walking along in a field! I had never actually expected to see any Emus as I thought they lived in the desert. I should perhaps have been enlightened when the name of the nearest village was Emu Park though... It was all very exciting! At the campsite we finally got a chance to do some washing and have a bit of a sort out. It was nice to have got all the travelling out of the way early in the day so that we could relax a bit in the afternoon. Yeppoon where we stayed is a nice little town but there’s not much about apart from the beach. I’m not sure what the plan is for today but I’m sure we’ll end up somewhere!

xxx

Tuesday 14th December

I've been writing blogs as I go but not had anywhere to upload them. So now that I've got back to Brisbane a few have built up... I've named them as when I wrote them x

It’s been a week since we left Cairns and already we have been to Palm Cove, Mossman Gorge, Cape Tribulation, Port Douglas, The Boulders, Josephine Falls, Mission Beach and Townsville.

On the day we got our van it seemed like we had so much still to do. We had to get our rego, sort out insurance and roadside assistance, and then buy everything we were going to need for living out of a van. It took such a long time getting everything sorted. The walk to get our rego took so long –we didn’t realise how far it was and ended up walking in flip flops in the midday sun. I ended up with blisters but we did manage to sort everything out and get our number plates! It’s really quite exciting –you only get number plates once the vehicle has a rego so we ended up walking around town with them and taking pictures by the lagoon! We then headed to Peter Pan where you can use the internet cheaply and sorted out the insurance and roadside assistance. This took a lot longer than expected so we didn’t end up finishing in time to go to the shops. We decided to just get the van and pick our stuff up from the hostel before finding somewhere to sleep. So we fitted the number plates and drove off, only to find that the van was making the most awful screeching noise. We tried to ring the man who sold it to us but he wasn’t picking up and I started to panic that we had been conned. This was a horrible time and felt like all our plans were going to go wrong. We were able to get hold of the seller who was rather helpful telling us it was probably the fan belt and could be easily and cheaply fixed and told us where we could find some garages. In the morning we drove to the garage only to find that the noise had completely disappeared. We asked them about it and they said that the fan belt can screech while it warms up if it hasn’t been driven in a while. So we went off to buy all our goodies that we were going to need but in that time the screeching came back. We went back to the garage and they tightened the fan belt up and we both felt a lot better and headed up to Palm Cove where we would spend our first night.

It was very exciting driving the van for the first time, especially after all the trauma we’d had trying to sort it all out. We only went a little way up the coast to Palm Cove, a little beach side town, with mostly only restaurants and a few souvenir shops. We booked into the campsite and set up for the night and cooked our first meal of pasta with Moroccan tuna. We bought lots of little tins of different flavours of tuna so have been living off those with pasta quite a lot. When we were at the campsite I was walking back from the toilets to see Ryan waving and signalling to me. I was very confused as to what he was doing but managed to figure out that he wanted me to see something. I was so excited to find a wallaby sitting in the grass by the track! He jumped off when I came closer but he was so cute! We saw him later once it got dark as well. We also saw some yellow-crested cockatoos.

The next day we drove up to Mossman Gorge. The highway follows the coast here so it was really beautiful and the sea looked so, so blue. At Mossman Gorge we went on a walk through the rainforest and then for a swim in a river that was so chilly I thought I must be back at home. It was Ryan’s first experience of the rainforest and our first proper trip so was all quite exciting! It started raining when we were swimming but it just added to the experience of swimming in a rainforest in the rain! We then drove towards Cape Tribulation taking the ferry across the river. Once on the other side of the river we looked for somewhere to camp, but the campsites were really quite expensive. We eventually found a rest stop to pull in at and started to sort all our stuff out. But by this time it had gotten dark and there were a million bugs about that were all attracted to our lights. Whilst cooking we ended up surrounded by bugs and eventually ran away to sit in the van as a huge 3inch bug decided to join us. We then went straight to bed to get away from all the bugs but were woken up by torrential rain and storms. It was so scary –the lightning and thunder seemed relentless and at some points seemed to be right over us. It eventually died down a bit and we managed to get a bit of sleep only to be woken up by more. This was not an enjoyable night and I can say that I definitely do not recommend camping in the rainforest –you will be eaten and the storms are ridiculous!

The next day a tired Ryan and Claire finished the journey to Cape Tribulation which is the tiniest of places. There seems to be a shop, a cafe, a hostel and a bat house. We booked in to go Jungle Surfing at 9.45am. This is where you zip wire through the canopy of the rainforest. Ryan got a little nervous but it was a lot of fun. We got given helmets with our new names on them- I got Cookie Monster and Ryan- Tinkerbell. They seemed quite appropriate. We then went through the rainforest to the first platform where we went uphill along a zip wire to the 2^nd platform. Purely man powered by one of the guides. I was feeling very sorry for him by the time it got to the last person! We were able to go along the next 2 zip wires in pairs and were able to take some good photos from above. For the last 2 lines we went firstly with no hands and then the last one upside down! Jungle surfing was really good and the beach at Cape Tribulation was nice but there wasn’t much else there for us so we decided to head back after lunch and a shower. Once you have seen the rainforest once it seems to all look the same to be honest. We ate lunch on the beach although managed to undercook the pasta and pick a fairly awful flavour of tuna –tomato and rosemary. It was really quite awful. So we bought ice lollies and I managed to win a free one (instant win a bit like McDonalds monopoly), which I had yesterday and won another one! I’m hopeful that this is going to continue and provide me with ice creams for the entire trip!

So we drove back down to Port Douglas, stopping off at the cutest little tea shop. It was at the Daintree tea plantation and was just a chest of tea with a money box beside it and a couple of visitor books. There seem to be quite a lot of these honesty stalls around as there are fruit stalls at all the banana plantations, and other fruit farms. We bought a couple of bananas from one and I definitely thought that they were even more delicious for being so fresh.

Port Douglas is a lovely little town so we decided to stop the night and spend the day there the next day. It’s what I imagined most towns would be like here. We went off to look for somewhere to stay but the screeching fan belt had come back. We called out the RACQ and they said the fan belt would probably need replacing but they could tighten it to work just for now. We had it sorted at a garage in Port Douglas the next day while we lazed on the beach. I managed to get burnt whilst Ryan went off to the shops thoughL. When he got back we went for a swim in the 30˚C water which was so lovely, and as warm as a bath in places. The beach there was really beautiful and I wanted to stay longer but we figured there would be plenty more beautiful places to see. We went on the internet before leaving where I booked flight to New Zealand! I will be going on the 26^th January and coming back on the 8^th of February ready for Jamie to arrive! Ryan won’t be coming so I think I’m going to try and find a tour to book myself on to. I decided to go to the North Island as I want to go to the geothermic hot mud pools! It still seems a long way off now but I bet it will fly by. We then drove back to the campsite at Palm Cove to sleep, although ended up hanging around for ages in the morning as we put a wash on in the evening and then the washroom had been locked up. Whilst we were there we opened all our Christmas cards on the beach. It was 2 weeks before Christmas so seemed like a good day to do it. It seemed so strange opening Christmas cards and still doesn’t feel like Christmas here. I’m not sure it ever will. I got very homesick opening Christmas cards and started to wish I was coming back. I think Christmas day will be even sadder –but at least I’ll be having a BBQ on the beach!

From Palm Cove we headed to the boulders where there is a really nice free campsite. We had a bit of a chilled out day then went for a walk along the river and then a swim. It wasn’t quite as cold this time so was a bit more pleasant. The next morning we got up early and went to Josephine Falls. These are really beautiful waterfalls with a pool where you can swim, including natural water slides! We climbed up on to the rock and carefully made our way across the top to the place where you can slide down. It was a lot of fun and a little bit scary! So we went a few more times and took some videos! Josephine falls has been my favourite place so far –the waterfalls were amazing and the slides were so much fun! From there we drove to Mission Beach which we thought was going to be a huge tourist hub but turns out to be an extremely quiet town where the main activity seems to be sky diving. As we walked along the beach we saw 2 people setting a flag up and then looking up. Wondering what was going on we stopped to watch and suddenly started to see people falling out of the clouds! We watched as their parachutes opened and they slowly made their way down to land on the beach. All except the one who seemed to be the videographer who came flying down and tumbled on to the beach. It looked like so much fun and something which I thought I would never want to do has now become something I think I really want to do!

From Mission Beach we drove towards Townsville and stopped at a roadside rest area to sleep. We then drove the remainder to Townsville the next day only to find that the screeching fan belt had returned! We called out the RACQ who tightened it and said it wasn’t dangerous to drive with it and that we could call them out as many times as we like. I am ever hopeful that it won’t happen again but it does seem to have started a trend that seems set to continue. I am so pleased we decided to take out roadside assistance though as we seem to be making full use of it.

At Townsville we went for a swim in the lagoon area although stupidly I jumped in with my sunglasses on my head and they now seem to be lost forever. The lagoon was filled with sea water and the visibility was so poor you couldn’t even see your feet when stood up. We then went to Reef HQ an aquarium with a turtle hospital. The aquarium was quite good and we went on a feeding tour but the Turtle hospital was what really made it. You get to go behind the scenes to see where all the poorly turtles are looked after and the stories of them all. They had so many turtles there that they were taking over the rest of the aquariums pools as well! It was really interesting to see, although sad to know how long some of the turtles have to stay there for –one of them had been there for 4 months and only just started to eat anything. After that we headed south to camp at Home Hill comfort stop, where I am now. It is really just a back street where a facilities building has been built.

And today? Well I actually have no idea what the plan is for today. We will be going somewhere south –probably.

MISS YOU ALL LOTS

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I am now a diver!!

I wrote this blog previously and am just uploading it now that I have internet access. Since I wrote this we have travelled up to Cape Tribulation and we're now in Port Douglas. But I will write another blog to update you on all that soon hopefully. Miss you all and

Happy Christmas!

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Sunday 5^th December 2010

We have finally found a campervan! Travel starts TOMORROW! We’ve spent this last week in Cairns and I’ve had a nice time but I am definitely feeling it’s time to move on. Our arrival was met with ridiculous amounts of rain and a complete failure to find any suitable campervans. By the end of the day we were feeling pretty disheartened as we’d been expecting to get everything sorted out pretty quickly. So the next day we decided to book ourselves onto a dive course. Now this is something I always planned to do while I was in Australia but as it came closer I felt myself chickening out and not wanting to do it at all! I was worried about the breathing; if I’d be able to swim up to the surface and if I would even pass the swimming test. On Sunday we arrived at the dive shop to commence the course with a ridiculous amount of nerves. These were only exaggerated by our first morning of theory classes where we were told everything and anything that could possibly go wrong. Overexpansion injuries, the Bends, running out of oxygen....everything! I was getting more and more fearful and even starting to consider dropping out it was so scary!

After lunch we had our 200m swimming test and 10m water tread. Which I am fairly surprised to say I was able to do! We then got in the water and went under to learn skills such as taking the regulator out of our mouth and retrieving it and cleaning and clearing our masks. This was all too much for one girl who put her head under and immediately had to get out. We were only just kneeling under the water so we knew that we were perfectly safe but the breathing does take some getting used to. At first it felt like I could just not get as much breath out of the cylinder as I would in the air but apparently this is all psychological. I was feeling a bit less nervous after we’d been in the water but still apprehensive about the next few days.

Our next day of pool training seemed to naturally progress to us ending up on the bottom of the pool 3m down without it being the scary prospect it had been the day before. We practised the same skills as well as complete mask removals, taking our SCUBAs off on the surface and putting them back on, towing our buddies on the surface and sharing air with our buddies. After all this I was feeling a lot more comfortable, but still not ready to head out to the open water! We then had our theory exams which everyone passed. I got 98% and Ryan, the swot, got 100%. But our instructor was telling us the answers directly before we sat the exam so it would be pretty hard to fail. We were then taken to the shop and “encouraged” to buy our own equipment. This is the only bad thing I can say about the course. Our instructor put a lot of pressure on us to purchase our own equipment as it would make the experience so much better. He even said that the course costs were kept low to allow us to buy our own equipment. At over $500 for the course this seemed pretty ridiculous, especially as everyone on the course was either travelling or a student. Obviously we did not buy anything, but I can still say it was an amazing experience –despite a few tiny blisters caused by not spending $100s on my own fins. At least once we were out at sea there was no shop so we could no longer be pressured!

On the Tuesday we took a boat out to the Kangaroo Explorer, a liveaboard boat permanently out on the reef. The boat and cabins were surprisingly nice! Me and Ryan had our own ensuite room that was perfectly nice and surprisingly roomy! We started our time on the boat with a tour, then lunch, then straight into the water. We started off just snorkelling and free diving down a couple of metres, before going back to the boat to get our SCUBA gear on. We then followed a rope down to the bottom of the reef about 10m down. Now I hadn’t realised that I needed to clean my mask between snorkelling and diving so my mask completely steamed up and couples with poor visibility I could not see a thing. I did not enjoy this dive! We kneeled in a circle on the floor but I could barely see what the instructor was telling me to do and could not see the people on the other side of the circle at all. Bear in mind that there were only 7 of us –it shouldn’t be that hard. This was our first dive in the sea so I was feeling really nervous anyway. I managed to stay calm though and thankfully we were only down for about 20mins! We then had a debrief while the boat moved reef locations. This unfortunately led to Ryan feeling a bit ill...but he was alrightJ. We then went diving again at 4pm. The visibility was so good at this location and my mask did not steam up at all! This dive was a lot better –we even got to hold a sea cucumber! Although the dive was mainly based on us performing the necessary skills, as in the pool. We had an early night because we were getting up at 5.30am ready to dive at 6am!

The early dive started with us flipping into the water –it went surprisingly well! We practised our air sharing ascents from 5m down and then went down to 18m where we swam around for a bit but then didn’t have time for our final assessed activity the Caesar –I’m not sure what it stands for but this is where you make an emergency ascent due to running out of air and your buddy not being around. You have to breathe out constantly making an aaaahh sound. It is horrible! We ended up doing this on the next dive as people were getting low on air. Once we got to the surface we had to do our surface skills though. These include the buddy tows, weight belt removal and replacement and SCUBA removal and replacement. Somehow I ended up towing Ryan about 3 times as far as he towed me and then going straight in to a 100m swim. I think I drew the short straw there! We then had breakfast and moved out of our rooms before diving again at 8am. The only skill we had to perform was the Caesar –I managed to do it but it is such a horrible feeling! We had time to swim about a bit –our instructor got attacked by a Trigger Fish which was pretty funny afterwards when it doesn’t happen to you. When we were on the boat after we saw the result of another girls encounter with a trigger fish –a split forehead! I was surprised that there were such horrible fish down there! After this dive we had now completed all our certification dives so were all awarded our open water certificates. Very proud moment! With all my worried I wouldn’t have been surprised if I didn’t get through the course but I am so happy that I did!

We then went on one final dive at 11am as certified divers. Unfortunately Ryan had problems equalizing his ears so had to go back to the boat. I buddied with one of the dive leaders instead. It was so nice to dive for fun and not have to perform any skills! We saw a lot more of the reef on this dive- loads of fish, coral, a giant clam! I held some starfish –a large blue one and a tiny red one as well as being able to touch some of the corals. This dive made me realise how much fun diving is and made me want to go back so much more. Certified diving is alot more fun than training dives! I didn’t get to see a turtle underwater this time so I definitely want to go back to see one! We did see one on the surface though. I am very excited to go diving again but I imagine that I’m still going to get nervous each time. I’d be interested in doing my marine identification speciality but diving is definitely a very expensive sport so it may be a while until I get to do much more of it. I’m hopeful though! And I would very highly recommend Cairns Dive Centre for anyone wanting to do a dive course!

In other news we have a campervan sorted out! We saw it yesterday it is a little Toyota liteace with 6 seats, 3 of which fold down to get the bed in, plenty of storage under the bed and it’s white so shouldn’t get too hot. The man selling it to us seems very genuine and seems to do this as a hobby/job –he does 1 or 2 a week. It’s got its roadworthy certificate which will be picked up on Monday then we can pay our $3500, get the rego and head off on an adventure! Cairns is a good base for the reef and other activities but it’s not a town I want to stay much longer in. Apart from the lagoon it’s a bit of a disappointment with not a lot to interest me here. I am excited to head up north to Mossman Gorge, Daintree Rainforest, Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation though!

Love from down under xxxxxxxxxxxxxx