Australia – The Journey Before You

The Grampians National Park, Australia

This park was so amazing I have to give it its own blog post. It’s west of Melbourne and we liked it so much we stayed for a couple of days to explore more of it. When we arrived it was cool and misty. Dave found some great hikes online before we got there and we decided to tackle one of the longer ones first.

It was about 4k each way. We weaved through an area called the Grand Canyon. It was definitely grand and beautiful, but not anything like the Grand Canyon of the States. We eventually weaved through a very narrow area between the rock walls before continuing upward.

The off and on rain made the hike that much more interesting, beautiful and tricky to navigate as most of it was walking up rocks.

The rocks and boulders were incredible artwork themselves. I couldn’t stop taking pictures of them. The mist and overcast skies made them that much more dramatic. They had the most interesting shapes and kind of looked like they melted into each other. They also looked like striated cells if you know about microbiology.

We stopped a couple of times and sat under an overhanging rock to wait for harder rain to pass. There were only a handful of other people on the hike that day too.

We went through another narrow area called Silent Way and you could hear water rushing beneath the rocks. Kind of unnerving thinking if the rocks gave way you might get swept away.

We eventually made it to the top for an amazing 360 degree view.

Towards the end we walked through another gorgeous eucalyptus forest. Great hike and I’d definitely do it again. We rewarded ourselves with some delicious ice cream in the super cute town of Halls Gap at the base of the mountains.

We were going to do another hike closer to sunset because that was supposed to be one of the best times to go, but when we started a very thick fog rolled in and we couldn’t see anything so we saved it for the morning.

We found a pretty awesome and quiet campsite and the next morning after our usual breakfast we headed back out. We did two shorter hikes the second day.

The first was good, but nothing exceptional.

The second was Makenzie Falls and it was amazing. Very steep, lots of steps. Straight down to the bottom of the falls.

We got some hilarious photos. Dave had the idea that we should climb up on a rock and get some self timer pictures of us standing on this huge boulder. I set the camera up and climbed on up the rock. Dave then pressed the shutter and tried to race up it. It took three attempts for us to almost get the shot. Each attempt the camera fired 10 photos off! So we have 30 photos of the attempt. It was totally worth the laugh and the hike. And the falls were gorgeous! Some of the best we’ve seen in Australia!

So if you’re in Melbourne, head a few hours west to check out Grampians. You won’t be disappointed.

Townsville and Magnetic Island, Australia

Townsville was a great little town to crash in for a few days. The first night we stayed at an awful hostel. I had booked it online for a pretty great deal for 8 nights once I realized that we were not going to be freedom camping while in hot humid Queensland. We quickly found out why it was a good deal and cancelled the rest of our reservation. Then we found this awesome hostel called the Orchid Guest House which felt more like a B&B. Honestly, how could anything with the name Orchid not be delightful? Anyway, we ended up staying there for 3 nights. The owner was the sweetest most helpful lady.

Townsville has two large swimming lagoons and a 2 kilometer beach front stretch called The Strand where you can walk, rest, bbq, play, sunbathe or whatever. One of the pools was used by the Olympic teams to practice back in the 50s and 60s.

One day we took the ferry to Magnetic Island. Dave has been wanting to rent a motorcycle since we started travelling and he got his chance while on the island. We rode all over the island and had the best time. First, we went to Horseshoe Bay where we swam and ate gelato. We swam in the netted in area and found a floating seed of some sort. We made a game of throwing it back and forth and then attempted to play paddle ball using our hands as the paddles. Ha! It actually worked, not near as well as paddles, but hey, it was fun.

Then we hiked the Forts trail where we saw four koala bears!! This was absolutely the highlight for me. First we saw three that were high up on trees. Then we came upon a teeny tiny baby that was just a couple of feet above us. I was enamoured. Supposedly Magnetic Island is known as the Koala capital of Australia. I’ll post the rest of the photos on FB so you can see all their cuteness!

Then we rode out to the West Point which was a bit of a crazy ride, but Dave got to get some of his extreme adventuring out of his system so it was worth it; and fun too, if a bit on the scary side. Last we rode to Geoffrey Bay where we saw several rock wallabies with babies in their pouches! Holy cow, cuteness overload people. I was completely wiped out after our day there. We both were. We got back to our place, ate leftovers and crashed by 9pm!

Australia so far…

I LOVE it. Dave hates it. Hahaha!

I was so excited to get to hot weather and to go swimming that I welcomed the 90+ degree heat and humidity. I felt like my body was thawing out the first few days here.

Where New Zealand felt like more work than vacation, Australia has felt like pure relaxation! Since it is so very hot, Dave is adamant that we will not sleep in a tent at night because he is certain we won’t be able to sleep. I don’t 100% agree with that, but hey, who am I to argue? We have been in A/C every night which means we have slept in a bed every night. No breaking down or setting up our tent home for the last week and a half. Yes, it has been a nice break and I welcome it.

Two days after arriving we went on a 3 day 2 night liveaboard dive boat which catered food and beverages after each dive. We have stayed in hostels the other nights, but they all have swimming pools so it feels more like a nicer hotel. We have had a kitchen to cook in. Some of the rooms we’ve stayed in have even had tvs and one felt more like a quaint B&B. I loved it.

Our well organized efficient car in NZ has become a place we throw our stuff in any random spot here in AU. Initially we thought we might camp and started to organize our car like we had it in NZ, but realized quickly this would not happen. We actually bought a large 5 liter water container and have yet to use it! We would have used that in a couple of days in NZ!

However, as much as I welcome the comfort of staying in a room each night, the extra cost concerned me a bit. Thankfully, gas is half the price here than NZ and food is good bit cheaper. That helps, but may not fully compensate. We think it will be cool enough in Perth to camp at night so we’ll probably be back into our NZ nomad routine when we arrive there- which Dave is soooo looking forward to! 😉

Let’s see, here are some observations on Australia, some good and some definitely very terrible things.

From October to April is what is known here as “stinger season”. This means that there is a very high risk that if you swim in the ocean you could get stung by a box jellyfish and quite literally die within 3-4 minutes. It is apparently the most lethal sea creature. The sting is supposed to be excruciating pain. Or you could get stung by a smaller type which causes paralysis. AND you can’t see them because they are clear. So there are certain beaches which have a netted area where you can swim during that time of year. When we went diving we had to wear stinger suits which is basically a thin layer of lycra. Apparently the stingers are so tiny that they can’t penetrate even thin material. The dive master noted that it is unlikely the jelly fish were out by the reef since they prefer to be closer to shore, but we had to wear them as a safety precaution anyway. No arguments there buddy.

Since stinger season is such a big deal, most major coastal cities have built very large saltwater swimming pools near the sea so it’s the next best thing to swimming in the ocean. Me personally, give me some sunshine and some water to get in and I’m happy. Dave hates that we can’t get in the ocean, but we’ll be able to once we get out of Queensland.

We are in the beautiful tropical state of Queensland and crocodiles are very prevalent here. Dave will not fish any of the rivers (thank you God) whereas in NZ I probably saw every river in the country because he fished every one of them he could get to! We went on a nature treetop walk thing and watched a video on croc migration and that pretty much sealed the deal that we would not be getting near any rivers here. We haven’t seen one yet, but we’re perfectly okay with that. They also have warnings out for Mosquitoes (or “mozzies”) which spread Dengue Fever— great. I have lots of bites, but no fever yet, thank God.

Some things they say here that are different:

They say: We say:

It’s alright You’re welcome or no problem

Lagoon swimming pool

Eskie Cooler

AirCon A/C

I think if you were to flip USA over so that Texas and Florida were pointing north and then moved it to the southern hemisphere it would be Australia. And likewise if you did the same to the UK, it would be New Zealand. The United States and UK of the southern hemisphere. NZ seemed to have a strong British influence to me, and AU seems very much like the states. And Queensland feels very much like hot humid southern Florida, except they get cyclones here instead of hurricanes, and crocs instead of gators- nearly 100,000 of them. Yikes!

Update:

We attempted to camp last night. That lasted approximately 30 minutes before we broke camp and drove back to the Orchid Guest House for the night. Too muggy. We are headed to Perth in two days!

Daintree Rainforest, Queensland AU

It was so exciting hiking through the Daintree Rainforest. We started by going to the Daintree Village, but there did not seem to be much to see there so then we caught the ferry across the crocodile infested river. We went to Daintree Discovery Center and did a treetop walk through. They provided an audio tour handset which was very informative. I love those things.

We learned about what foods aboriginals ate to survive in the rainforest. Then at the end we ordered a sample platter of those items. It was delicious and very cool. I’m sure the foods were very different, but it was neat to taste some of the items. Then one of the ladies there told us about some free walks so we drove on and did two more.

We had our eyes peeled looking for cassowaries or any other rainforest creature, and we were hiking very quietly. On the last hike I didn’t even bring my camera because we had kind of given up on the idea that we would see a cassowary. I said to Dave “We’ll probably see one since we left the camera in the car.” And a few minutes later there one was! I stayed there and Dave ran back to the car to get the camera.

Male cassowary. Large bill on top of head.

They are endangered and we overheard a tour guide say there are maybe only 1000 left and that it’s uncommon to spot one. He said they are growing in numbers since the rainforest became a UNESCO world heritage site and are more protected.

This is a female Cassowary, which are larger than the males. It has a small bill on its head.

A large group of tourists arrived, but the bird wasn’t scared off. We got several photos and then we we got back to the car, there was another one crossing the road! We saw both a male and a female. It was awesome and we felt like our day was made. We celebrated by getting some delicious chocolate hazelnut ice cream at Floravilla before leaving.

Dave posing with the most dangerous bird. They are supposedly very aggressive and territorial.

I wish I could say the remainder of the day was as awesome, but we spent the next 5-6 hours driving in torrential rainfall to get to our next destination. The important thing is we arrived safely. Overall, a great day.