Friday, October 31, 2003

Our canoe-tastic day

Today was a day full of activities. We started with an early morning canoe trip, starting at 5.45 am on Lake Tinaroo near Yungaburra. Steve, the guide from the hostel, normally takes big groups out on canoe trips, but he doesn’t normally take children under 10, so we presented a bit of a problem. Added to that, it was his day off. However, he bent over backwards to help us – he’d arranged a special early morning canoe trip with us, so that we could all go, and he could find out what the early morning canoeing is like (he normally takes groups in the middle of the day and at night). By going so early in the morning it increased our chances of seeing some of the wildlife, and allowed us to escape the heat of the day. In fact, it was so cool that we went down to the canoes with our fleeces on – the first time we’d worn them since arriving in Queensland.


Charlotte got to share Steve’s canoe, and Emily, Sarah and I shared another one, as we set off across the lake. The water level was very low – the lake has fallen over 50 feet from its normal level due to the drought. The lake was created in the 50’s by the construction of a huge dam, and later on the neighbouring farmers were given the right to pump unlimited irrigation water from the lake. So now, even though the lake is at 27% of its normal level, the farmers keep on pumping water out 24 hours a day to water their fields. Mind you, the water restrictions in place all over Queensland seem very lax compared to European restrictions – typically they limit garden watering to two hours a day – which hardly seems like a sacrifice! So along the shores of the lake were the familiar sights of dried and cracked mud that we see every time we start to run out of water in Britain (seemingly every summer!).


The trip took us an hour of gentle paddling, and the highlight came at the end, when we were in a creek further up the lake (well, it’s a creek now that the water is lower – its moved from being a 400m wide inlet to a 10m wide creek). As we came around a corner we saw a circle of ripples in the middle of the water, so we stopped and waited, and our patience was rewarded with the sight of a duck-billed platypus surfacing a minute later. It swam around in front of us, and each time it went under we were able to paddle a little closer until we were about 3 metres away from it. As we continued, we saw a few more, and the girls got a real treat – they were thrilled to see them, as we’d talked about them before the trip. Although they’re small animals, we’d got a really good view from close up.


By the time we got back to the hostel at 9am, we were all feeling a bit sleepy, so the rest of the morning was spent relaxing around the hostel, and catching up with laundry etc. After lunch, we went out for a walk around the rainforest and then for a swim in Lake Eacham, which is a marvellously cool volcanic lake nearby. The day had gone from 27 degrees in the morning to 41 degrees in the afternoon, so a cold lake was just the ticket!

In the evening Sarah and I went on a night canoeing trip, while the girls stayed at the hostel with Laura, one of the other hostel guests. After being with us 24 hours a day for 3 and a half months, the girls were quite excited to be left on their own, and had no intention of going to sleep while we were out. And for Sarah and I it was our first significant break away from them in all that time too! We went canoeing at 8pm, armed with huge spotlights, and spent 3 hours paddling across the lake by moonlight, making our way up tiny creeks, and dragging our canoes across mud banks. This time there were more of us in the group, with 5 canoes, so we weren’t in any danger of getting lost. In fact, the pair of Australian girls in one of the canoes even showed us where not to stand in the mud, as they sank knee deep and lost their shoes in the black yuck! The idea of canoeing at night is to see wildlife in the trees along the banks, but unfortunately the water had dropped so low that the trees were quite away from the shoreline, and we couldn’t get into any of the areas with thick tree cover. Our sightings for the night were one pair of orange eyeballs (possum) and one pair of red eyeballs (tree kangaroo), and lots of frogs!

When we got back to the hostel at 11pm, the girls were still wide awake, and poor old Laura had been made to sit through a puppet show, a game of battleships, and listen to every story that they could think up. She looked exhausted, which was the wrong way round, as the girls had been up for 18 hours at this point!

Wednesday, October 29, 2003

Tuesday, October 28, 2003

Cruising the Daintree River

We’re staying in the Pinnacle caravan park, in Wonga Beach (yes, really, there is a village called Wonga Beach), where we arrived on Sunday 26th. Its been a chance to catch up again, for the girls to spend a lazy day recovering from their exertions at Green Island (especially Charlotte, who probably swam over half a mile), and for us to sort out the van a bit, after nearly a month living in it. In such a small space things had started to get into a state of disarray, and we’d accumulated all kinds of brochures, flyers and newspapers as we’d travelled. Everything came out, onto a big sheet on the ground, and then most of it was put back in, but this time with the right things accessible easily (not much call for fleeces here, so why did we pack them at the top of the clothes pile?). While this was going on, we took turns supervising the girls while they swam and lounged around the pool – easily done when its so luxurious. Many of the pools here are impressive, but few have been as quiet as this one – we had it to ourselves most of the day, and as well as this one there are two children’s pools with waterslides.

This afternoon we went on a Daintree Wildlife River Cruise, on an open decked boat. There are half a dozen companies which run these trips, but we opted for a short trip, because of the attention span of the girls. We’d been advised to go at low tide, as that was the best time to spot crocs, but obviously nobody else had followed that advice, as were the only people on a boat built for 60! It meant that we had a really good chance to talk to the guide, Lex, who’d lived on the river his whole life. His 85 year old mum came on the trip too, so she was telling us stories of yesteryear in Daintree, as well as the 9 foot python that had tried to catch her cat last week on her back porch! We got to see lots of different birds, very close, as they were used to the boats.

But it wasn’t until three quarters of the way through the trip that we spotted a croc, under a dense tree on the mud at the bank side. Everything else was good, but spotting crocodiles was the real point of the trip (and not ‘log-odiles’, which Charlotte and Emily had spotted every 2 minutes since we’d left the jetty). After we’d spotted our second crocodile, we then started to hear the story of the last person killed by a croc on the river, in 1985. It was a woman who’d been standing on the jetty, watching Lex’s brother swim in the river one evening. Pretty scary stuff, and one which meant that Emily didn’t go anywhere near the edge of the boat!

When we got back to the jetty, the girls spent half an hour torturing the Archer fish with bits of bread. They shoot a jet of water out of their mouths up 4 feet, to knock down insects from branches. Charlotte kept holding out small bits of bread for them to shoot down from the boat side, and then when that ran out, kept them shooting at her empty fingers!

We had been worried that they would get bored on a one hour boat trip, but in fact we were on the boat for an hour and three quarters, and they
wouldn’t leave the boat at the end, and then left with a real buzz. (See Charlotte’s diary for her view on it)

Monday, October 27, 2003

Sunday, October 26, 2003

A day trip to the reef

We’ve now driven 2,800 kilometres, and arrived in Cairns, nearly the most northerly point of our journey – with a combination of long driving days and quite a few stops, its not been to bad a journey for us all. Cairns is the starting point for trips to the Great Barrier Reef, and other things for thrill-seekers to get up to (bungy jumping, white water rafting, crocodile safaris, helicopter trips etc). Our time in Cairns is a good example of how things are different for us travelling as a family, rather than just 2 adults. Last time in Cairns we learnt to dive, and spent 4 days on a live aboard boat diving on the outer reef. This time we wanted to find a one day trip that didn’t involve a long transfer time, and where the girls had plenty to do rather than just sitting on a boat watching Sarah and me snorkel. So we opted for the day trip to Green Island, just an hour and a quarter out of Cairns, and we also went for the ‘full tour’ options, with glass bottom boat, semi-submersible, BBQ lunch etc, rather than the cheapest option. It meant that we had a packed day and one which the girls really enjoyed.

We boarded the catamaran just before 9am, to find all the seats occupied by a Chinese, Japanese or Taiwanese tourist. Good start – we sat there amongst the early morning sounds of Asia – lots of phlegmy coughs and the smell of green tea. But still, travel broadens the mind, doesn’t it? Anyway, we arrived at Green Island an hour later, to take part in the disembarking process (the Chinese must play good rugby, because they can certainly form a good scrum in a queue!), and then the general rush down the jetty to the beach.

Fortunately, most of the others turned left at the end, to the swimming beach, while we turned right to go snorkelling. Charlotte has become steadily more comfortable with her snorkel, playing with it in the pools, and so charged straight out into the water with Sarah. Within a few minutes they were a good 150 metres off the beach, amongst corals and lots of fish. Charlotte’s a really strong swimmer now, and it meant she could see so much more. She came back excited about parrot fish, clown fish, rays and wrasse. We had a couple of hours on the beach, all getting a chance to snorkel (even Emily, although of course she told us “I don’t need a mask”, and promptly swam underwater for 10 seconds before announcing she’d finished snorkelling as was going to build a sandcastle), before heading back up the jetty to get our lunch on board the catamaran.

The afternoon was a whirlwind of organised activities – first of all a trip in a semi-submersible, sitting below water level looking out sideways at the coral and fish through the big windows. Both girls loved that, as they could see lots more fish, and we saw two turtles too. And then we went onto the glass-bottom boat, which allowed us to see some of the coral more clearly, as well as more turtles. By the time we were back on the boat heading home, we were all filled full of the wonder of the reef, and the girls were keen enough to sit and watch a reef video the whole way back to Cairns.

All in all the day cost us AU$210 (about £90), which seems reasonable value for what we did and saw. When Sarah and I travelled on our own we’d have never spent that much on a single day, nor enjoyed the ‘tourist’ side to the trip, but have really learnt to appreciate the kinds of days and activities which make the trip special for the girls, and which make them keen to learn more about what they are seeing.

Friday, October 24, 2003

The Treehouse, or is it “The Beach”

For the last three days we’ve been at the Treehouse hostel, in Mission Beach. Its one of our favourite memories from last time we travelled around the world, as we spent a blissful week relaxing and just enjoying the views of rainforest from the decking. Days were spent walking on rainforest trails and the evenings were spent playing Risk and Pictionary with fellow travellers. It is always dangerous to go back to a place that you have special memories of, because often you’ll find something completely different awaiting you, but this time we found the Treehouse almost completely untouched. We abandoned our campervan for a night, to spend the night in a room in the house, and enjoyed the freedom of movement (a real, big kitchen; not having to cook/wash up/sleep/dress in the same 2.5m x 2m x 1.5m space etc).

The hostel also has a pool, an outside deck to eat on, a lounge full of comfy chairs and bean bags, and hammocks hanging from every beam that overlooks the pool. All in all it’s still a magical place, and we’d recommend it as a stop on the trip up the coast. Mission Beach itself is a laid-back, slightly hippy, town in the middle of lush rainforest – a real shock to the system after hundreds of miles of dry semi-arid landscape.

The only thing that was different about the Treehouse was the other hostellers – when we were here last time there were half a dozen of us sharing it, but this time the hostel was packed out – all the beds were full, and there were half a dozen tents belonging to 12 backpackers in the garden, and 6 backpackers sleeping in their vans & cars in the car park. It made it quite frantic at meal times, to get space in the kitchen and dining room. The other change was that it was now a definitive ‘hippy’ hostel, with lots of tie dye and braids in evidence. Many of those staying were here long term – 12 weeks or more – which meant that definite cliques had grown up. It was a relaxed place unless you wanted your own CD on instead of the one chosen by the German hippie. In all the hostels we’ve stayed in, and the places we’ve visited, it’s the one that’s reminded us most of the community in “The Beach” (it even had a few Leondardo to Caprio look-a-little-alikes). No doubt one of the tents in the garden had a Swedish backpacker in it recovering from a shark bite...

Thursday, October 23, 2003

Birthday Girl

Today was Charlotte’s 8th birthday. She’d been looking forward to it all month, and counting down the days the minute she woke up each morning. So it was no surprise when Charlotte woke up at 5 o’clock in the morning! Our plan was to make the day last, with little surprises along the way, and it meant a happy day for Charlotte. First of all she had the birthday cards from us and Emily. Then the hostel reception gave her some birthday cards that had arrived by post (we’d written home a few weeks ago with the address of the hostel we were going to be in on her birthday). And then she started on her presents, unwrapping them with glee.

Then it was down to the pool for a swim, before heading into town to pick up her ‘Happy Birthday’ emails. When she got back, Sarah had transformed the table for a birthday party, with Emily and the two other children in the hostel, complete with banners, balloons, party plates and birthday cake. And then, finally, at 5 o’clock the telephone rang and it was her best friend from home, Oliver, calling to sing Happy Birthday to her, followed by another phone call from her Nana and Opa. All in all, a pretty good day to become eight, and not a trace of home-sickness in sight!

Tuesday, October 21, 2003

Water, water everywhere...and drought

Townsville is a pretty boring town – its main attraction is the trips to the offshore islands, such as Magnetic Island, and it acts as a bit of a gateway town. Oh, and curiously its also where some of the World Cup Rugby matches are played, in the Dairy Farmers Stadium – on Thursday night Japan play Fiji. We could get a family ticket for AU$20 (£8) but unfortunately we’ll be up in Mission Beach for Charlotte’s birthday, so we can’t go, even though we think it would be a great experience.

But the girls were over the moon in Townsville, because of the Wet Park on the sea front. It’s a public facility built by the council, and consists of a huge frame of pipes, hoses, sprays, water guns and other water spouting features. As we’ve come so far north in such a short time, we’ve noticed how the weather has gone from 20° to 30° in two days – the days and nights are suddenly just a bit too warm. So the girls really enjoyed playing around in the water park – Charlotte enjoyed it non-stop for 3 hours.

Charlotte’s big thrill was the Big Bucket (oh yes, Townsville’s got its own ‘big’ thing too). This was basically a huge bucket on top of the frame, filled by two big pipes. Every couple of minutes it tipped the entire contents over whoever was standing underneath it. It was absolutely brilliant, and Charlotte didn’t seem to get out from underneath it all afternoon. With global warming perhaps we can look forward to some of these parks being built in England (mind you, I don’t suppose the council will be stumping up for them – c’mon Rick, chance to grab votes for the next Parish Council election!).

Townsville is in the middle of a pretty serious drought at the moment, caused by three very poor rainy seasons, but it doesn’t seem to stop water being used like its going out of fashion. Sprinklers seem to be used 3 hours a day on every patch of grass, and there are no outward signs that the East Coast is fast running out of water. But out in the country everything is dry as a bone – the only green you see is on the eucalyptus trees, or in irrigated fields. The rest of the landscape is just brown. I guess at some point Australia’s going to have a long hard look at its fascination with sprinklers and green grass, but there are no signs that its happening just yet. Two nights ago the campsite we stayed in was in a fairly remote area, and the water situation there was even more dire – drinking water came from rainwater, washing up water came from a heavily depleted borehole, and water for sprinklers and car washing came from recycled waste water. Maybe that’s a sign of things to come in towns – using different sources of water for different things.

Monday, October 20, 2003

Finally getting closer

We’re involved in a bit of a mad dash ‘up north’ at the moment, to get to Mission Beach in time for Charlotte’s birthday. That’s involved some long days of driving, and we’ve driven 1,300 kilometres (about 800 miles) in the last two days – which has meant most of the day in the van. The girls have been amazing – settling down in the back to make dens, colour and generally amuse each other. A sign of how well they are doing this is that last night, at 4:30pm, Charlotte asked “When are we there?” for the first time – after 10 hours of driving! And the bit we’re travelling through is pretty boring, apart from the occasional roadside treat (?) like the Big Mango. Yes, I know it’s not a great photo, but it was the only thing worth photographing for all 800 miles!

We’ve now arrived in Townsville, 120 miles short of Mission Beach, and we’re going to stay here for 2 nights before doing the last stretch on Wednesday. I think we’re all relived to have a day of not travelling – it means we don’t need to pack away/tie down/re-organise everything inside the camper van first thing in the morning,

“Monday morning blues”

It has now been 16 weeks since I stopped work to go travelling round the world. And I thought I’d mark the moment by sharing with you some of the Monday morning blues that I’ve experienced since then. (If you really want to know, then hover the mouse over a picture, and it will tell you where that blue comes from)







And you’ll notice that my Monday morning blues have been a little bit different to ‘9-5 Monday morning blues’ since we starting travelling.

Saturday, October 18, 2003

Caravan parks in Australia

Okay, there’s no avoiding it. I’m going to have to talk about Caravan Parks. What has my life come to that I’m reduced to this?

Some of the places we’ve stayed at have been pretty impressive – the park we’re in at the moment, Rainbow Beach, has lots of tropical palms as landscaping, lots of grass and good, clean toilets and showers. It’s a bit inconvenient when you have to visit the toilets in the night with one of the children, but we’ve programmed them carefully over the last three months!

The park has a pool as well, which looks like the kind of thing you’d find at a five star hotel (well, if you ignore the walk past the tents and camper vans to get to it). In the background of this photo are the cabins, which are the alternative to staying in a tent or caravan. The cabins cost about AU$80-100 a night (£40), and have kitchens, bathrooms and one or two bedrooms. Our camper van spot costs us AU$21 a night (£9), which includes a power plug for the camper van (for the lights, fridge, microwave and kettle etc), and a concrete pad alongside the van for the awning (oh yes, we’ve got the works). And every site has a number of communal barbecues with sink and picnic table, which is great for warm evenings.

Some of the other sites we’ve stayed on haven’t been so luxurious. We’ve learnt to try and avoid ‘Caravan Sites’ an instead head to ‘Tourist Parks’. The tourist parks are just used by touring families, whereas caravan parks are also used by people living there long-term. In many ways, it’s a bit similar to mobile home parks in England. We’ve found that they’re full of freshly divorced singles, and couples who’ve fallen on hard times. And because they are staying long term, they build a community on the park, and aren’t interested in the visitors to the site – although you’re in the middle of lots of people, it can be a bit lonely.

Mornings on caravan sites are a bit of a pyjama fashion parade, with people wandering off to the toilets and showers in their pj’s. We’ve seen some interesting brushed nylon ankle-length leopard print dressing gowns as we open our curtains! And there’s an amazing correlation between comb-overs and the tackiness of the caravans. No wonder each evening we settle down with a glass of wine (well, actually a plastic beaker). You may think that we’re being outrageously decadent with wine, but it does come from the wine box that cost us the equivalent of 70p a bottle (still, if we’ve got any left over we’ll be able to use it as vinegar on fish and chips).

Friday, October 17, 2003

Driving around Australia

Today we’re at Rainbow Beach, halfway up the East coast of Australia – in fact, we’re almost exactly halfway on our drive between Sydney and Cairns. We’ve driven 900 miles north in the last two weeks, plus another 200 miles around Fraser Island (the fun stuff...). And we’ve got about another 900 miles to go to get to Cairns, where we’ll start to think about turning around and heading down south. We’re going to be staying here for three nights, avoiding having to pack up and move on every morning, before doing some serious driving up the coast in order to reach Mission Beach by Wednesday night. It’s about 800 miles north, and we’ve got to get there because that’s where Charlotte’s birthday cards have been sent.

Australia is a lot larger than it looks on a map, and so driving distances tend to be pretty large too (magnified in an underpowered, high sided camper van – it’s not like driving a car the same distance). We found this postcard which illustrates it pretty well – Australia to scale overlaid onto a map of Europe. As you can see, we’re only attempting a small part of Oz, from Sydney at the bottom of the east coast, to Cairns at the top. For those people who wondered why we’re not going to Alice Springs, maybe this tells the story! (Ah, but we may still go there, after we’ve left the camper van and hired a 6 seater car instead, when Sarah’s parents come out to visit) Each day we can drive about 200 miles at the most, so it takes quite a few hops to get 2,000 miles. The roads are pretty straightforward, very like driving at home – occasional stretches of dual carriageway, but mostly single lane roads with overtaking lanes built in every few miles. It means we’re rarely stuck behind anything, and because the speed limit is pretty strictly enforced here, there are very few times when cars are queuing up behind us waiting to overtake (That’s sad – having a long line of cars behind me was one of the treats I was looking forward to when driving a ‘caravan’!).

Wednesday, October 15, 2003

Fraser Island – Day Three

Camping mornings start early, with the dawn – and tea was on at 6am. As we surfaced we realised that we were definitely in backpacker corner of the camp – surrounded by half a dozen identical 6-man tents. Fraser Island is a popular trip for backpackers, where the hostels in Harvey Bay (where they all congregate) bring together groups of 11 people, and kit them out with a 4WD and camping gear for the same trip we’re doing. Last time we travelled through Australia, when it was just the two of us, we did it that way – it costs about Au$150 per person – but this time we didn’t think that the others would appreciate two small children in the 4WD. By hiring a Land Rover ourselves, we’ve actually ended up spending less (a total of AU$450 for three days for all of us) and being able to decide when and where we go (and not having to cram 7 other people into our vehicle!). It’s worked out pretty well.

Mind you, backpacking isn’t what it used to be! When we pulled in to buy our plates, the car park was full of backpackers eating Magnums – I dunno, in my day as a backpacker we didn’t have the money for that. But most shocking was last night, when I found we’d cooked too much pasta in tomato sauce – I offered it to one of the groups, but they declined because they’d bought too much food themselves – and they offered me a veal steaks. I ask you, what’s the world coming to when budget backpackers can afford veal?

The journey for today was two halves – before 2pm inland, to see some of the lakes – Lake Birrabeen for lunch, a suntan session and a swim, followed by a trip down to the Eurong, ready for the dash down the beach when the tide started going out.


Then it was time for the long journey back down the main beach, to catch the ferry home. The girls slept almost all of the way, reflecting the exhausting time they’d had on the island, running around, climbing dunes and swimming. Without a doubt, the trip to Fraser Island was one of the highlights of our trip so far. For the lad in me, the chance to drive a Land Rover 200 miles on sandy beaches, sandy roads and lumpy-bumpy tracks was a hit; for the nature lover there we saw some great wildlife on land and sea (but not, thank goodness, a brown snake); and for the beach lover – well, the whitest beach in the world is definitely on the shore of Lake McKenzie!

Fraser Island – Day Two

We woke up to a glorious morning –the sun was shining, and the ground was dry. Although there had been some rain in the night, it hadn’t got any of us wet, so we were all cheerful as we tucked into porridge and bacon ‘n eggs (we think that must be a proper camping breakfast) before settling in to enjoy a day of touring. As the high tide was at 10 o’clock, it meant that we couldn’t drive onto the beach until 2pm, which meant a morning running around the camp, and on the nearby beach and sand dunes (the dunes here are huge, with massive 75m dunes to run down. Charlotte and Emily loved the downhill bit, but weren’t keen on the uphill side of it).

At midday we drove to India Head, on the inland road, where we had a picnic lunch and brewed a tea on the camp stove. After a short hike up the hill, we were standing out on the headland and looking down into the crystal clear ocean to see manta rays, turtles, sting rays, an enormous school of fish that suddenly were surrounded by 5 sharks who had a feeding frenzy and sent the school of fish swimming off in all directions. It was so amazing to see and the clarity of the water made it seem as if we were looking into an aquarium. We sat on the headland completely enthralled by what we were seeing. Charlotte suddenly started jumping up and screaming with delight – she’d just seen a shark eat a sting ray!! Then to cap it all off, we saw humpback whales surfacing and then breaching in front of us!! It seemed such an incredible feat considering the huge size of these creatures. It was like watching a David Attenborough film, it was so breathtaking. The whales were migrating south to Antarctica after having had their calves up north in the warmer waters around Cairns. It was an experience we’ll never forget.

Then we drove on down the beach, passing by the shipwreck of the SS Maheno. It was too good a photo opportunity to miss – how often can you sit on the bonnet of a Land Rover, driving past a shipwreck, on a 70 mile beach?

Further south, we arrived at Eli Creek, which is a crystal clear freshwater stream which runs down from the middle of the island, and hits the sea on the main beach. You can walk on a boardwalk about 100M up the creek, and then swim back down, through the tropical vegetation. It was the ideal moment for the girls to try out their lilo, one of the extras loaded into the campervan by Greg the Rental Man. The girls loved it so much they ended up doing it 5 times. Charlotte said that she thought Fraser Island was a kind of natural Disneyland, what with the water rides, the jeep driving (“Just like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”) and the shipwrecks.


Finally we turned inland as dusk approached. We wanted to camp at Lake McKenzie, which is the most beautiful, and popular, of the inland lakes on the island (all with crystal clear water and white beaches), but when we got there we discovered the campsite was full. So instead we had a 10km night time drive to Central Station, where we arrived in pitch black. Camping amateurs we may be, but within an hour we had the tent up, the dinner cooked and eaten, and the girls asleep!

Last night’s camp had a fence around it, to keep out dingoes, but Central Station doesn’t, so there were 3 or 4 dingoes roaming around the camp, looking for food. It was just like Yosemite and the bears – all the food had to go into lockers overnight. Fortunately living on campsites means that the girls don’t want to go to the toilet in the night, so it was another peaceful night!

Tuesday, October 14, 2003

Fraser Island – Day One

We’ve just returned from Fraser Island, where we’ve been camping and driving around. Fraser Island is a bit special – it’s the world’s largest sand island, and you can only drive it with a four-wheel-drive vehicle (4WD). So we weren’t going to be able to get anywhere in our campervan, so it meant that we hired a 4WD from Aussie Adventures. It was a beaten up old Land Rover, but if you want a vehicle to drive across difficult terrain, it’s got to be the right choice hasn’t it?

In the office (well, shed) of the hire company, they provided an uplifting experience – in fact, enough to make us wonder whether we should really go! The office was plastered with photographs of 4WD’s that had got bogged down in the sand, or stuck on rocks, and then inundated by the tides – plenty of shots of Land Rovers with waves pouring through the windows, one of a 4WD completely submerged, with a boat anchored to it, and one of a Land Cruiser on it’s roof, which had been overturned while driving. So a cheery view as I sat down to sign the 29-point disclaimer sheet on the rental agreement! And then the owners started to talk about what could go wrong – but don’t worry, they said, there’s a mechanic on the island who’ll come and pull you off the rocks/out of the soft sand (“Mind you”, they said, “he can be very difficult to deal with, but if he’s been off the sauce early in the day you’ll be all right!”). Then they told us not to swim off the beach because of the sharks (“Oh yea, you’ll see loads!”) and then came the dire warnings about the danger of dingoes (wild dogs) that roam the island. Last year they killed a small boy on the island, who’d been playing away from his parents, so there’s a very real threat from them.

So there we are, signing a rental agreement for the world’s oldest, rustiest Land Rover, and I can feel my stomach starting to sink...

Driving out to Fraser Island was easy – 10 miles to the ferry point, and a quick skip across the beach to the ferry itself. The sand was fine, and very soft, so it was a real fight to keep the car in a straight line. And somehow I’ve signed up for three days of this?!? As you can see, the weather wasn’t exactly on top form either – we’d dodged a big rainstorm on the way to the ferry, and as it set off another huge dump of rain dropped directly on top of us. We were all quite quiet in the car, knowing that we’ve got a tent to sleep in, a stove to cook on, and that’s it!

When the ferry dropped us at Hook Point, on the bottom of the island, the tide was still going out. The main beach, which is 70 miles long, is a highway at low tide, and impassable at high tide, and at the mid-tide you can drive towards the top of it – on the soft sand. We set off, pausing for half an hour to let the tide fall far enough to let us pass a couple of driftwood trees, and then started heading north. As we drove the tide went further and further out, letting us move further down the beach, onto flatter and more solid sand. Eventually we were whizzing up the beach at 50mph (the speed limit), slowing down for the bumps and creeks flowing into the ocean.

Half way up we remembered what we’d forgotten – plates and cups! Our camping gear was a combination of things from the hire place, and our own bedding and crockery from the camper van. And we’d forgotten the crockery half. With red faces, we drove up to the small store at Eurong, one of only three villages on the island, and bought ourselves some new plates etc. The assistant at the till told us “It’s people like you that pay my bonus”, which was a nice thought – for her. Anyway, we drove on further up the beach. On day one our plan is to get from the bottom right to the last campsite at the top, 60 miles away.

A little further up the beach we found out that although the beach is classified as a road, and normal road rules apply (drive on the left, 50mph speed limits and you must wear seat belts), there were some things that were odd about it (apart from the fact that it was a beach...). A light aircraft was flying down the beach towards us, and losing altitude all the time. When he switched on his landing lights, we realised that unless we pulled over he was going to land on our roof! Faces of grinning tourists, with camcorders glued to their eyes, flashed past us.

We carried on driving a little more cautiously, but soon got the hang of the occasional dash to the side of the beach to let a plane land (in all, we saw half a dozen landings and take-offs). Finally, we reached Indian Head, the Champagne Pools, famous for the waves breaking over the rocks into bubbly rock pools, where we stretched our legs on the beach.

At 5.30 we arrived at our campsite, at Waddy Point, on the dunes behind the beach. We had half an hour of daylight to setup camp, including putting up our hired 4-man dome tent for the first time. Fortunately the weather had cleared up, and blue skies had replaced the grey clouds. After camp setup, we settled down the make dinner – after we’d borrowed some matches from the obliging Australian family next door! We’re first-class-remember-everything, campers aren’t we?

Just before night fall, the National Parks Ranger came around, to check our camping permits, and give us a little ‘first night pep talk’. He told us about the dangers of dingoes, and how we should make sure that the children are always with us, and don’t let them wander off on their own. He told us about the camp fire ban (not a problem, we hadn’t got enough matches to light one!) and a few other handy hints. And then, just as he was wandering off, he spotted our head torch. “Ahh”, says the Ranger, “that’ll be very useful. You should always carry a torch at night, so that you can see where you’re going”. Long pause. “Especially as we’ve been seeing Brown snakes around the campsite. You don’t want to stand on one of those, as they’re the second most deadly snake in the world”. And then he left, as darkness fell suddenly all around us.

Monday, October 13, 2003

Tin Can Bay – and wild dolphins

We’ve been in Tin Can Bay for two nights. It’s a very small town on the coast, surrounded by mangrove forest and mud flats. The main reason to visit here is the wild dolphin that comes in to the marina most mornings, and which visitors can feed. We went both mornings that we’ve been here – yesterday (Sunday) and today. Both mornings there were about 30 visitors, all sitting on the dockside waiting for the dolphin to arrive, sometime between 8 and 10am – if it feels like visiting. We were lucky enough to see it both times, and we all waded knee deep in the water to watch it (along with 20 others, forming a line along the small beach). The dolphin noses around for a while, and then people are allowed to feed it with fish they buy from the café (yes, it’s a business thing, but it also means that they can control the amount it gets – in total it receives 3Kg of fish during the feeding, and it has to find the other 15Kg it needs for its diet elsewhere).


As you can imagine, the girls were very excited, and a little nervous. We waited until the feeding frenzy had died down (ie all the long line of visitors jockeying to be ‘next’ to feed the dolphin had all used up their fish), so that the girls could feed the dolphin without being pushed around, and then they both had the chance to hold a fish just under the surface, and the dolphin came right up to take it from their hands.

Unfortunately when it came around to Emily’s turn the fish slipped from her hands and dropped down into the water – which made the dolphin come in very close, as you can see on the photo. Charlotte thought that was great, but Emily seemed a little nervous to be staring at quite so many teeth coming out of the water towards her!


All in all, it was pretty magical start to the day for all of us. We even managed to avoid the ‘attack of the pelicans’ – the fish attracts quite a few pelicans, a couple of whom get into the middle of the crowd to get at the fish being held out for the dolphin. At one point a particularly aggressive pelican dived at a fish being held by a small boy, which resulted in a big scene as his Mum and Dad tried to get the fish back (no chance of course!).


On a complete tangent, Tin Can Bay dolphin feeding also gave another illustration of the way that Australians use the English language. There seems no holds barred on swearing, from simple everyday conversations, to advertising, to the radio (we listened to a programme on ABC where the author being interviewed used almost every single four letter word we knew – and so did the presenter – at 4 o’clock in the afternoon). So it was no surprise at all to see this sign out the front of the café at Tin Can Bay.

Later in our stay in Oz, I will write some more about their language, but I’ve got to work out how to do that on a public website – some of the language I’ve heard here wouldn’t be right for a ‘family oriented’ site!

Saturday, October 11, 2003

The Sunshine Coast (or is it "the Big Sunshine Coast"?)

We are now officially in ‘the Sunshine Coast’, which is the strip north of Brisbane. And this morning we woke up to blue skies and a little bit of warmth (well, actually we had woken up at 3am to close the windows because of a torrential downpour, but we’ll put that aside for the minute!). Again we decided to move on, rather than stay longer, as the site wasn’t the most homely we’ve been on (is this going to be what it’s all about – moving from place to place every day?). We drove through some back roads, along a ridgeline, with views to the left of the mountains and forests, and to the right of the ocean (and inevitable tower blocks lining the shores). From high on the hills we could appreciate just how green Queensland is at this time of the year, with lots of trees, lakes and green pastures.

We were aiming for the “Big Pineapple”, a tourist park themed around, what else but pineapples. This “BIG” theme is something that’s all the rage in Oz – as well as the Big Prawn, we’ve also driven past the ‘Big Barrel’ (winery), the ‘Big Banana’ (yes, banana-themed plantation), the ‘Big Honeypot’ (you guess!) and the ‘Big Mower’ – which was actually a Stratton Briggs lawnmower dealership getting in on the tourist game! Although it was free to get into the Big Pineapple, once you were in they charged high prices to see anything other than the gift shop and restaurant. We’d hoped for a bit of an educational experience for Charlotte, but it was disappointingly touristy, with very few people around to ask questions of (Charlotte had prepared a list of questions about pineapples in advance, and fortunately most were answered from the small display we could visit).


So then it was on, with a short, wasted, stop at the ‘Big Ginger’ (a ginger factory, where again you paid to see ginger produced). The girls were disappointed that they couldn’t buy a Gingerbread man from the shop, despite the signs for the factory featuring them. (That sums it up for them – if they’re not gripped by a place, then they end up focusing on what sweets they can buy!). And then another hour’s drive to Tin Can Bay, where we settled into another caravan site for the night.

Friday, October 10, 2003

Zooming past the Gold Coast.

Today we moved from Byron Bay, to the Glasshouse Mountains, north of Sydney. Before we left Byron Bay we drove up to the lighthouse, and had a run around at the most easterly point of Australia. Our original plan was to move 100kms north, but in the end we moved 350kms, past the Gold Coast and Surfers Paradise, through Brisbane and up the Bruce Highway further still. This was because the weather was pretty cool and changeable, and the National Park we were aiming for was cold and wet. We decided that we’d stop there on the way down, and as Emily was happily asleep in the back of the van, we carried on up the motorway. When we crossed the border from New South Wales into Queensland it was like moving to another country. Suddenly the side of the road was covered with huge out of town developments, just like in the States, and there seemed to be a McDonalds every 10 miles (to give you a comparison, we think we saw 5 McDonalds in the 600 miles from Sydney to the state line with Queensland, and then after we crossed into Queensland, 10 in the 60 miles to Brisbane. We also saw the coastline developed with lots of tall apartment blocks, again something which didn’t happen in New South Wales. So Australia is obviously very different between each of the states.

We finally stopped around 5pm at a small campsite in the Glasshouse Mountains (basically, volcanic plugs sticking up in an otherwise flat landscape). The bonus was that this site had a TV room, so we settled down to watch the opening ceremony of the Rugby World Cup with a few other backpackers on the site. A week ago they’d been advertising 10,000 surplus tickets for the game in Sydney – if we’d been impetuous we could have been there in person, rather than watching it on the box!

Thursday, October 09, 2003

Wednesday, October 08, 2003

Yamba to Byron Bay

Just one night in Yamba, waking up to the sound of the sea crashing onto the breakwater. There's something magical about sleeping near the sea - the sound of the waves all night long, and the fresh air blowing over the campsite (mind you, a bit too fresh last night!

We took a slow drive up to Byron Bay, passing The Big Prawn service stop on the way. The driving is pretty relaxing - just follow the car in front - and because of the campervan we're higher up than in a car, which allows us to see more. Yet again, the girls had a short sleep in the back while we made our way the 100km to Byron.

Tuesday, October 07, 2003

Moving up the coast

We left Bonny Hill this morning to continue our drive northwards, towards the sun and some warmth (Bonny Hill, 18 degrees and rain; Cairns 30 degrees and sunny). During the night we were woken by two terrific thunderstorms, which managed to find ways to penetrate the campervan and drip onto ‘my’ side of the duvet. So in many ways living in a campervan is like camping.

We called into the Koala Hospital at Port Macquirie, which Sarah and the girls looked around for an hour while I went to update the website and check email (so that answers a question some have asked – it takes about half an hour every 3 or 4 days to update it, plus a little bit of time every other evening to write it and select the photo’s). Back at the Koala Hospital, the girls saw Koalas rescued from forest fires and road accidents, and also, because its Koala mating season, some wild Koalas in the forest that were drawn to the sanctuary by the presence of females (a bit like young students were drawn to Nottingham University in the 80’s by the 3 girls to 1 boy ratio). Together we also looked round Roto House, a rebuilt Australian house from the days of Yore. The girls were bored by it, apart from the bedpan under the main bed, which took some explaining. Charlotte decided we should have one in the campervan, rather than having to walk to the toilet in the night!

Then it was back in the van for some more driving – this time we managed a two hour stretch while the girls slept in the back, before we turned off the road to picnic at Emerald Bay, chosen at random by the waking time of the girls. It was twenty minutes beyond Coffs Harbour, an ugly town of motels and fast-food joints, plus ‘The Big Banana’, a banana shop beside the road (Guess what giant fruit it had on the roof?). We parked with the play park on one side (treat number one for the girls) and the beach on the other (treat number 2), and made our picnic in the van. This is a tricky situation to explain – every time I’ve seen German tourists making their sandwiches in the campervans in a car park of a tourist attraction in England, I’ve thought “Why don’t they go and sit on the beach/grass/etc?”. But now we’re repeating the same behaviour – except that we at least ate our butties on the beach.

In the States and Canada, the girls got used to sitting in the car while we drove long distances, so they’re chuffed to find that in the campervan they can site at the table with their seatbelts on, and draw, colour and read. And then when they get tired they can lie down and sleep, without having to be in that twisted position that children seem to sleep in despite the massive discomfort it causes adults to even watch! And as long as we always stop for lunch by a beach or a play park, and they get to run around and hunt for crabs, or dodge the waves, then they are very happy.

I thought I’d share these two lunchtime photo’s with you, because I remember people telling us that “the girls won’t enjoy so much travel” and “they’ll be miserable all of the time”, as though somehow we were going to do what we wanted whether or not the girls wanted to. We took these two photo’s at lunchtime today, while the girls were playing around the van. Although they don’t smile all day, every day, there’s certainly much more smiling than anything else!

During the last drive of the day, beyond Grafton, it was getting late, and the light was starting to fade a little. At 5 o’clock we started to see kangaroos in the fields alongside the road, and so we knew that it was time to find a campsite and settle down for the evening. We finished the day just before sunset, at Yamba, in a campsite sitting between an estuary and the beach, and bought some fresh giant prawns from the riverside for dinner, as a reward for 4½ hours in the van. Gosh, life’s tough some days!

Monday, October 06, 2003

Bonny Hills

Last night we arrived at Bonny Hills, a small village south of Port Macquarie. We’d turned off the Pacific Highway to take a smaller coastal route, and the Lonely Planet had told us that the campsite at Bonny Hills had the ‘best views on the east coast’. This was more our kind of place – lots of grass, not too many people, and an astonishing view along a 15 mile white sand beach. As we woke up this morning at 7am, the surfers were out on the waves, making the most of the last day of their holiday weekend. The weather isn’t any better, overcast and frequent showers, but we’ve decided to stay here for 2 nights, and then head further north. It gives us all a chance to relax, get used to life in a campervan and catch up on our reading!

The girls set out to find everything hidden in the van. Greg, the chap from the campervan hire office, had told us that he’d “put a few extras in the for the girls”, and it was with huge delight that they found child-size snorkels, badminton racquets, fishing lines, a Frisbee and a pink lilo in the storage lockers. The girls enjoyed trying them all out, including snorkelling across the grass to check out the barbecue area! It was a hidden bonus for them, as they didn’t bring many toys with them, and definitely not things that take up space, so Greg has won himself a few brownie points from them!


Late in the day, after a couple of rainstorms, we saw dolphins playing in the bay, and then we wandered down to watch the surfers from the beach. The beaches here are amazing, and just being on one lifted us all.

Sunday, October 05, 2003

The Pacific Highway.

Aah, “the Pacific Highway”. What kind of image does that name evoke? I could see it in my mind – a delightfully quiet road, with the sides lined by swaying coconut palms and little shacks beside the road serving ice cold cokes in a bottle. Of course, its nothing like that – but then we already knew that, having travelled it before in a McCaffreys bus. But last time we travelled most of it overnight, so it was just a series of black stretches punctuated by small towns or service stations (I remember well “The Big Prawn” roadside restaurant, distinguished by the big prawn stuck on the roof). So what is the Pacific Highway really like? Well, from Sydney for the first 150 miles it’s a motorway, and just like motorways at home - its boring and repetitive. But then the motorway kind of runs out, and it turns into a normal road, occasionally swapping into a dual carriageway. Because it’s a holiday weekend here (Monday 6th is Labour Day, our second Labour Day of the year), the roads are devoid of lorries, and are busy with cars and utes (an Ozzie invention, a Ute, or Utility Vehicle, is a two part car – the front half is a saloon, and then the back half just isn’t there at all, and instead it has a platform, sometimes with sides like a pickup). Amazingly, since last time we visited Oz, they’ve invented the ‘posh ute’, by making the bodies really sporty, but the back half still looks like a dumper truck. Anyway...

Today, with the miserable weather, the Pacific Highway looked really special, with occasional bursts of driving rain. Just so that you too can feel in the Oz-mood, we took a photo (how sad is that?). The other feature on the photo, apart from the rain running down the windscreen, is the grill at the bottom of the windscreen. We don’t think they’re Roo Bars, because they’re not made of steel the size of scaffolding poles, which is what all the 4x4’s have on the front. So we think these are to stop stones hitting the windscreen, in which case they don’t appear to work because there are 4 huge chips already on it. Whatever they are, it means I’m going to be staring through bars for the next two months (quite right, some would say!), and Sarah’s got an excuse to leave the driving to me - she says she can’t see over them from her seat!

But it isn’t all rain and roads. For lunch we stopped beside Boomerang Beach, when the sun shone brilliantly and we felt warm and happy.



We drove a further 200 miles north today, passing into ‘Lake Country’ – on the right we kept seeing the sea, and on the left we saw a series of big and small lakes. This was another area we’d missed last time, because it was night, so it was good to drive. All the time we spotted wildlife for the first time, like kookaburras, parrots and pelicans.

Saturday, October 04, 2003

Camper Day!

This is the day that the girls have been looking forward to for the last 3 months - the day we collect our camper van. After packing everything up into our rucksacks, for the last time in 2 months, we carried them the ½ mile to the van rental place. After 45 minutes of paying, instruction, and the most detailed pre-rental inspection I’ve ever seen, we were off. We drove though the centre of Sydney, and then across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, on Highway 1, the Pacific Highway. This road will take us all the way up to Cairns, 1,500 miles away, and back. Our plan is to drive up fairly quickly, and then dawdle back – we’ve got 2 months to do the full 3,000 miles (plus, I bet, an extra thousand in side trips and diversions). This schedule is also partly influenced by the weather – as its so cold and wet here, getting 1,500 miles closer to the equator will help to warm it up (that’s the distance between England and Greece). On our first day, we decided to head just north of Newcastle (120 miles north of Sydney), and then sort out everything – a big grocery shop in Woolworth (“The home of fresh”!), unpack all of our luggage and get it put away, and work out how everything in the campervan works (mmm, looking forward to working out the awning fitting). We stayed at a big campsite on the coast, at Nelson Bay, which was not the kind of place we want to be staying at in the future. It had good facilities, like a barbeque and eating area, good toilets and showers, and easy access to the beach. But it was like a housing estate – all of the vans parked close to each other in lines, all standing on concrete blocks, and with no shrubs or anything else to hide them. So in future we’ll look for much smaller sites, with less facilities but more open space.

Those of you who know us well will wonder how Sarah ever agreed to this – 2 months in what is unarguably a caravan .

Friday, October 03, 2003

Thursday, October 02, 2003

A 41 year old committing fraud

Whoa – just before you get too excited I’m NOT 41, and I’m not committing fraud. But over the last couple of days I’ve started to wonder how people are looking at us as we travel around.

The 41 year old bit comes from a conversation one evening in Fiji, when one of the other travellers at dinner decided I must be 41 – at least. Now I’m not usually the vain type (I don’t think, but then again...), but it came as a bit of shock to me. I always thought that I looked a young 38 – for that is my real age – but obviously the past years have been wearing on me. Or maybe it was the dim lanterns we had for illumination. Or perhaps it was the fact that they were 40 and felt bad about it. Yes, that must be it. I don’t really look 41, and somebody of 40 was so jealous of me they sought to wound me in the most harmful way... ;-)

So then, the ‘fraud’ bit. Since we arrived in Sydney, and checked into our hostel (which is a ‘real’ backpackers hostel by any definition of the word) I’ve noticed other backpackers looking at us in a strange way. Almost as though they think that we don’t belong in ‘their’ world.

Here they are, doing their adventurous round the world travel thing, and reaching out to new frontiers, and then this family turn up obviously on holiday, because that’s what families do. And this family have the cheek to stay in a proper backpackers hostel, instead of staying in a hotel where holidaymakers are supposed to stay. You can almost see them thinking that we don’t belong there. And yet, we’re doing the same travelling that we did 10 years ago, staying in the same kind of places, and having the same kind of adventures and pretty much doing the same kind of things – and when we did that we were part of it all. When you get talking to other backpackers, and you get past the “You’ve flown a long way for a two week holiday” bit, then things change, and they open up more. But until then, I feel as if we’re treated as interlopers – there’s all these 23/24 year old backpackers, on their first big adventure, and then there’s somebody like their Mum and Dad, pretending to be doing the same thing. Oh well, perhaps I’ll just have to get dreadlocks and wear tie dye, and at least then they’d know that we’re not typical tourists (mind you, what on earth would they think of us!). Anyway, just to give you an idea, there’s a couple of photo’s for you – one at the airport in Fiji (do we look just like tourists or what?) and one of the minibus dropping us at Fiji airport. Now, we don’t look like proper backpackers, because the minibus driver wasn’t a Kiwi, and we didn’t have a 4 foot wooden carving hanging on our backpack – still, got time to fix that in Oz with a didgeridoo!

Wednesday, October 01, 2003

Sydney – back somewhere familiar

Arriving in Sydney was a bit of a homecoming. It’s the first part of our trip that is similar to the one we did ten years ago. So arriving at Sydney airport was very familiar, and we weren’t at all worried that we were arriving with nowhere booked to stay. Well, actually I will admit to a mild moment of panic two days ago when somebody misled us by saying that today was the day of the opening match of the Rugby World Cup in Sydney, and we’d never get a room. Fortunately they were 10 days wrong. Phew.

Anyway, we headed into Kings Cross, the same district we stayed in last time. And we ended up in a small backpackers hostel two doors away from the one that we stayed in last time. Its on a small side road off the main Kings Cross strip, which is handy because Kings Cross in Sydney is a bit of a cross between Kings Cross and Soho in London - sleazy, neon lit ‘adult entertainment’ joints alongside nice coffee shops and small eateries, and in the evenings quite a few women in mini skirts hanging around the streets. It doesn’t really bother us, because evenings are when we get the girls their dinner and to bed, so we’re not wandering the streets. It keeps the hostel room rates low though!

This hostel (Sydney Central Hostel) has got a rooftop eating area, with a few trestle tables, laundry facilities and a barbecue. And, most importantly, a view. It was quite exciting when we arrived, coming up to the roof and gazing out over the Sydney Opera House and Harbour Bridge. We’re paying $50 (Ozzie dollars) for the room, which is a 6 bed dormitory exclusively for our use. That’s about £20. I wonder how much you’d pay elsewhere for a view of the Opera House (I know there’s a hotel on the harbour front where you can get a view for $550 – mind you they probably don’t have bunk beds, a shared bathroom and a carpet that smells as if a camel sleeps on it). But we’re here, we’re feeling at home, and we’re putting some distance between us and our memories of American food.