Lonely Planet City Guide

Here at last! Feeling paralysed after a 24-hour flight we staggered outside to find a taxi.

Although we had seats at the emergency exit, i.e. more space for our legs, we did as usually enjoy a hot shower. Our hotel room is small but clean.

After a good, but short night’s sleep and a light breakfast in the hotel’s cafeteria we took the bus to „The Rocks“, Sydney’s historic quarter. Weather’s great: 19°C, sunshine, blue skies. The first thing we saw at The Rocks was historic Cadman’s Cottage „where it all began“, next to the statue of Governor William Bligh. We ambled along the harbour’s edge to the replica of the Bounty, anchored right next to Harbour Bridge and took some pictures of Bridge and Opera on our way. We spontaneously booked the 2-hour lunch cruise on the Bounty at AUD 55/person. It was great! We had lots of fun! The crew was dressed in historic costumes. „Captain Red“, „Fletcher“ and the quartermaster in particular did a good job and gave us a great show!

The Bounty is the only vessel of her kind under full sail and still sailing – she has crossed all oceans – was put to commercial use and is in private hands. She was built in 1979 in New Zealand for the remake of „Mutiny on the Bounty“, starring Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins. She also was Captain Ahab’s „Piquod“ in a remake of the famous „Moby Dick“.

Her full name is  HMAV = „His Majesty’s Armed Vessel“ Bounty, and not HMS, as usually stated.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t that much wind, but the trip around Sydney and Darling Harbours was still great.

After returning to solid ground we took a closer look at The Rocks. Did you know that the Suez Canal is in Sydney?? Just kidding – there’s a narrow lane by that name J.

We walked back to the hotel, took a nap and walked to the Hard Rock Café for dinner. Our Canadian waiter, Mike from New Brunswick, served us tasty Aussie burgers, i.e.: the lot!! We relocated to the bar for a digestive cigarette, bought a couple of T-shirts and walked back along well-lit Hyde Park to our hotel.

Tomorrow we’ll visit Darling Harbour and Sydney Aquarium.

Today’s sightseeing was definitely maritime. We spent the whole day at Darling Harbour.

Our first station was Sydney Aquarium, displaying many Australian animals and plants that need a humidity of 100% to survive J.

The Aquarium consists of numerous tanks of different sizes and a number of walk-through tanks. You can see different kinds of fish from different habitats, seals, sharks, a salty…. It’s great! A must to see!!

Second stop was the National Maritime Museum, just across the Aquarium. We didn’t go inside, but visited the replicas of sailing vessels, namely Captain Cook’s Endeavour (by the way, did you know that Cook wasn’t a Captain yet when he ‚discovered‘ Australia?) and the Batavia, a Dutch East-Indies-sailing boat. If you have ever been on such a boat, you can well understand why many sailors had to be shanghaied at the time – just the thought of having to spend months on a cramped boat, enduring malnutrition and non-existing hygiene is disgusting.

Submarines weren’t much better, as we could see for ourselves on the „Onslow“ lying next to the Endeavour. Claudia had to fight a claustrophobic attack and left the boat as fast as she entered it!

We took the Monorail back to the centre and spent far too much money in the Olympic Store….

We had dinner at the HRC once again, but had to wait quite a while for a table, for our food and for the bill, as it was crammed.

We did not get our pre-booked Britz Elite Campervan, as they didn’t have any available. Instead, we had to contend ourselves with a larger, better equipped Explorer (at their cost, of course!)…. J. The Elite is designed for 2, the Explorer for 4 persons.

It took us an hour to leave Sydney, not because of heavy traffic, but because of the town‘s size. For most of the time the highway had two lanes in each direction, but there were lots of construction sites. The landscape was surprisingly hilly, but not too exciting or spectacular. We saw four grazing kangaroos and a (laughing) kookaburra (see wildlife gallery). Our main goal for today was to arrive at Port Macquarie before dark. From what we could see on our arrival, P.M. is a nice small town.

We had a late start (9 p.m.), as Torsten had to repair the lock on our camper van's living quarters‘ door.

Our first stop for the day was Crescent Head, a beautiful village on a rough, but nevertheless beautiful coast which with its sheer cliffs reminded us of Wales or Ireland. On the way there we saw several (laughing) kookaburras. To get to Nobby’s Head, a hill offering a wonderful view over the ocean, the coast and the village, we had no choice but to cross the golf course.

On our way to Trial Bay Gaol we finally managed to get a picture of a kookaburra perched on a street lamp – he was interested in the action beneath him and watched Torsten with unveiled curiosity.

Next stop was Smoky Cape Lighthouse. You have to climb a steep hill to get there, but it‘s worth the effort, as the view is marvellous.  We had the additional benefit and thrill of sighting a passing humpback whale and watching a school of dolphins fishing in the shallow waters close to the beach far below.

The landscape was quite diversified today, we saw everything from mountains to ocean. There are many sugar cane fields in the north of NSW.

We arrived at Lakeside Caravan Park (beautiful!) in Ballina at 6.30 p.m. – sundown’s at 5 p.m…..

Because of kangaroos, you have to be very careful when driving after dark. We didn’t see any, which might have to do with the fact that there was a lot of traffic on the highway.

Northern NSW presented itself in all its beauty; mountains, coffee and banana plantations and sugar cane fields reminded us of the tropics.

At Byron Bay, we visited Cape Byron, the most easterly point of Australia. The lighthouse offers a magnificent view, we enjoyed the sun and blue skies and summer temperatures – what else could you possibly want?

„Downtown“ we each acquired a delicious, huge, freshly made hamburger (and we only had the basic model!) on an also freshly made bun.

With a tinge of regret we left the comfy town. Our regret reached immense heights when we arrived in  Surfers Paradise (what an irony!) on the (in)famous Gold Coast, which should be re-named „Concrete Coast“. In the spur of a moment, we changed our plans and decided not to spent the night there. After all, we hadn’t travelled that far to sleep in what looks like a replica of  Spain’s Benidorm or the worst part of Mallorca!

In Brisbane we missed the exit to the campsite we had picked out from the brochure and drove on to Caboolture, a small town along the highway.

We started sightseeing on small roads through the Glasshouse Mountains – a number of tablelands, beautiful to look at, but unfortunately mostly shrouded in clouds. For a short distance we travelled on the Pacific Highway, but mainly took small highways to have a chance to look at the countryside.

That finally gave us that well-known „Oz feeling“ – hardly any traffic and time to look around!

Pine woods, coffee and sugar cane plantations dominated the scenery.

We reached Hervey Bay, a nice town, at 2.30 p.m., which gave us plenty of time to check in on an en-suite site on Fraser Caravan Park (to be recommended!) and to fill up our fridge at Woolies.

At the campsite’s reception we booked a guided tour to Fraser Island for tomorrow. They’ll drive us around in 4WD buses (there are no sealed roads on Fraser I.).

We had the GREATEST of days. Weather was as fine as could be. At 8 a.m. a bus picked us up at the caravan park. At the harbour in Urangan, the ferry „Fraser Dawn“ was already waiting for us. Our party consisted of about 40 people (2 buses of 20 each). We left the buses behind, as there would be two waiting for us on the island. The only vehicle on board was a 12-seater Landcruiser for the 2-day-camping-tour. We enjoyed the 50-minute trip to the island on the ferry’s sundeck and made the acquaintance of one of the tour’s drivers, who happens to be a German immigrant of about our age, Uwe. We spotted 2 dolphins, but they submerged quickly – no pic L.

There is no harbour or pier at Fraser Island, the ferry goes right up to the beach. We hopped on Uwe’s bus. The whole tour was in English, and Uwe suggested that anybody who couldn’t pronounce his German name call him „Jim“.

Uwe did a great job: without drawing a single breath (or so it seemed), he explained, pointed out interesting sights, told us stories about the island and its history, while driving the bus over narrow sand tracks. Well done, mate!

Some facts on Fraser Island:

The world’s largest sand island / World Heritage Area / large freshwater deposits /  large forests including a rainforest with trees up to 70 m in height / more than 600 different plant species and more than 300 different animal species.

In Yidney Scrub, the rainforest, Uwe let us out to take a short walk through the forest to fully appreciate its beauty. Simon, the driver of the 2-day-tour, then had to help us start our old bus.

Next we had a delicious buffet-lunch at Fraser Island Retreat.

Uwe then drove us not only to but on the beach – standard traffic regulations apply here. If there were a police station on Fraser Island, you could be fined for any infringement!

First stop: the wreck of the „Maheno“, a former cruiser thrown on land in 1935 by a cyclone.

Very beautiful: the coloured sands where we also saw one of the islands dingoes!!! Fraser Island’s dingo population is the most pure-bred in the whole of Australia, as there are no domestic dogs who could mingle with them. The dingo seemed to be quite bored by all those tourists jumping around in front of it equipped with photo and video cameras.

We went for a walk at idyllic Eli Creek and then drove on to Lake Garawongera. This is what Paradise must have looked like….. You can go for a swim in the lake, but you should clean your skin of any insect repellent, body lotion, sun lotion, perfume etc. Lake Garawongera’s water is so pristine that even the slightest amount of chemicals would disturb its natural balance. Nobody went in.

And then, after tea/coffee break, they took us back to Moon Point to wait for the Fraser Dawn L.

A visit to Fraser Island is an absolute MUST!

Yesterday we had met a duck with a crippled foot, who seemed to do quite well despite its handicap. With our well-known ingenuity we called him  „Ahab“ and sort of had breakfast together with Ahab and some of his mates.

This morning we drove in fog for the first time ever in Australia. It soon cleared up, though, the sun came out, it was nice and warm, we used small highways and enjoyed the drive, passing the odd termite mound.

Bundaberg, the „Tidiest Town in Queensland“ truly is beautiful. Of course we did visit the famous rum distillery …. that is, it’s not known in Europe, mainly because the Aussies drink 95% of the distillery’s output themselves J J , which doesn’t leave much for exporting!

The guided tour was very interesting. The molasses look like, let’s say, pre-digested food (tour guide’s comment: „In there are 3 million headache babies waiting to be born“), but the so-called ‚impurities‘ they filter out afterwards are even more disgusting. These ‚impurities‘ are „anything crawling or flying in the sugar cane fields during harvesting“….. yuk…. is this where that special Bundy taste comes from? – Just kidding!!!!!!!!!!!!! J J (No offence!). Smoking and the use of any electric device (mobile phones, cameras, pagers etc.) is strictly prohibited in the warehouse with the huge barrels, for the very simple reason that due to the enormous quantities of rum stored in there, the air is also saturated with alcohol, and a tiny spark would blow it all up.

Included in the entry fee of AUD 5 is a drink at the end of the tour. Claudia had the „Fantasy“ – Bundy coffee/chocolate liqueur with Fanta and a splash of cream (sounds weird, but tastes great), Torsten had a „Dark & Stormy“ – Bundy rum and Bundy ginger beer, very yummy, too.

We left the distillery with a bottle of black Bundy rum (10 years old, only one barrel per year) and a bottle of Bundy liqueur.

Once again we left an Australian town with a tinge of regret. Today’s drive led us to Mystery Craters a bit north of Bundaberg. So far, geologists have no explanation for the existence of these craters, which gave them their name. They are quite interesting to look at, but as there’s just a taped explanation and nothing else, we considered the 4 AUD entry fee a fair bit too high.

Bruce Highway, with a short scenic loop via Gladstone led us to Rockhampton.

An Eastern grey kangaroo grazed next to the highway. No chance to stop, though L. Later on, we passed cactuses, something we had never expected to see in Australia. The day passed without any great events, but also without any stress.

According to our road map, we should have crossed the Tropic of Capricorn before arriving in Rockhampton, but couldn’t detect any sign of it. Tomorrow morning, we’ll see if it’s north of Rockhampton.

Note: Australian winters are hard. Torsten somehow caught a cold (with an average of 20°C????). Alright, for someone living in the tropics, this might be rather chilly, but for someone from Western Europe? Supermarkets are prepared for coughs and colds and flues ….. medication and tissues are strategically placed at the entrances…

Didn’t find the Tropic of Capricorn today, either, although there should be a monument. Maybe they relocated it… L

The landscape was mainly hilly, dotted with sugar cane fields sometimes reaching to the horizon. Much of the cane was in blossom, a beautiful sight!

We stopped at a tourist information centre before turning off to Airlie Beach. A group of people was cleaning  (the exterior of) any passing car for free – we can’t exactly remember the reason why, but they needed a certain number of cars (you had to sign that they did wash yours, too) to get money from the local businessmen for a good cause. Not only did our camper enjoy a good cleaning, but we were offered coffee, sandwiches and pastries – for free, too!

Airlie Beach is a beautiful small town situated on an also beautiful bay with a view to the Whitsunday Islands. Our Caravan Park is right across the beach and only a 2-minute walk away from the Hog’s Breath Café – the very first of all Hog’s Breath’s!

On the campsite we met a very nice couple, a German immigrant and his Australian wife. We had a nice chat, they told us that they were waiting for their house to be finished and had already been living on the campsite for a couple of months. Each day, she feeds 3 kookaburras, Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum and their adolescent chick (unnamed) J.

We were lucky enough to watch the feeding of the kookaburras in the morning. Kookaburras are carnivores and hunt for fish, small rodents, snakes… Therefore, they had minced meat for breakfast.

These birds are so beautiful, it was great to be able to get that close – after all, these 3 are wild animals!

The bus took us to Airlie Beach’s „Barefoot bushman’s wildlife park“, owned by Rob Bredl. It features all kinds of animals: snakes (we finally saw a living Western Taipan, the most venomous snake on earth), ducks, pelicans, swans, lorikeets, cockatoos and other native birds, guinea pigs … ?? (we hoped they weren’t kept as snake food L), dingoes, salties, freshies and koalas.

Rob Bredl’s salty and koala shows were very interesting – you have to see it for yourself, it’s amazing but sent a shiver down our spines to see Rob walking into the crocs‘ dens – barefoot (as you might have guessed from the park’s name). Did you know that crocs might be ticklish? Well, salty „Brian“ is!

Koalas live in south eastern and eastern Australia and, according to Rob, eat 200 of 800 existing gum tree species. And – they stink, but are cute nonetheless.

Tonight our newly-found Australian mates invited us down to the marina for a sun downer. A perfect closing of a perfect day in perfect surroundings.

The kookaburras bade us farewell this morning. After exchanging addresses with our Aussie neighbours we hit the road to Mission Beach. We had initially planned to spend one night in Townsville, but the two told us that there was nothing much to see and that we would surely like M.B. much better.

We drove through vast stretches of hills, rainforest, banana and sugar cane plantations.

Mission Beach is a tiny village in a beautiful location – situated between the rainforest and a perfect, 14 km long, palm-fringed beach.

We vainly hoped to see a cassowary, those big, flightless birds of the northern rainforest (endangered).

The region around Mission Beach and Tully has the largest annual amount of rainfall in Australia, 4,500 mm.

Still on the road, we filmed a Jabiru (Australia's only stork) and burning sugar cane fields.

The campsite in M.B. is nicely designed, and we could have enjoyed it much more despite the rain if it hadn’t been for a solo singer carrying on for 2 hours or so, and unfortunately not  playing our kind of music.

Before breakfast we hurried down to the beach to see it at sunrise.

In the town of Mourilyan we visited to Sugar Museum. They first show you a movie about the history, cultivating, harvesting and selling of Aussie sugar (cane). After that, you are left to explore the small, but neat exhibition. In the museum’s shop you do not only get the usual souvenirs, but also Aussie sugar, Aussie coffee and Aussie rainforest honey (we bought the latter), as well as Aussie pepper (grown in the north of Queensland).

The skies over Cairns greeted us in the same fashion as the skies over Mission Beach bade us farewell this morning: grey and rainy. The caravan park we had picked from the brochure was full. We didn’t like the others we saw close to town and thus drove 12 km to Crystal Cascades Caravan Park. This park is definitely one of the best we saw Down Under. It’s very beautiful, sparkling clean, has very nice owners and is nestled into hills overgrown with rainforest. It’s great!

Seems like we’re the only non-Australians on the site.

As it was raining, we strolled through Cairns Central Shopping Centre, a huge mall with more than 180 shops.

We scrambled up the winding road to Kuranda, the former hippie village in the rainforest above Cairns, famous for its markets. What started as a hippie-market is now a commercial one, but you can still find the odd hippie selling crafts.

The main attraction for us was „Bird World“, an immense walk-through aviary for over 50 native and foreign different bird species, mostly parrots and parakeets. Cost: AUD 10/person. A male eclectus parrot soon decided to follow us around, first landing on Claudia’s head , and then on Torsten’s shoulder. But when he tried to take off Torsten’s glasses, Torsten set him down, leaving a disappointed parrot behind! That is, disappointed until the next tourists passed by J. A cute chap!

You can go to Kuranda by Skyrail, but as it was raining and the view to Cairns and the ocean was shrouded by rain clouds, we didn’t think it worth bothering.

Today’s the day – we took back our campervan and picked up a Britz Bushcamper (Toyota Landcruiser, remodelled as a 2-person-mini-camper, 4X4 of course). Our way led us along the beautiful coastline and Cairns‘ wonderful beaches into the denser and denser Daintree rainforest, probably the oldest rainforest on earth (and another World Heritage Area!), to Cape Tribulation (short: Cape Trib). To get there you have to take the ferry across Daintree River, known for its salties. We didn’t see any, though L.

Canopy Tower is an interesting stop, with its shop and museum downstairs and the view it offers from the top platform, 25 m above ground.

At Cape Trib, there is only one backpacker’s offering a few unpowered sites  for campervans, PK’s Village, which we accidentally passed at first.

Next to our site starts a boardwalk, leading through mangroves to the beautiful beach and the cape.

The „Four Wheel Drive Only“ Bloomfield River Track starts a few km behind PK’s Village. Torsten and our Bushcamper faithfully and unfalteringly carried us across gravel and through mud, up and down hills, across creeks and some narrow, steep parts up to Bloomfield River Crossing with its bitumen causeway. The track became much easier from that point.

The track offered breathtaking vistas, the most breathtaking one was probably Black Mountain (close to Cooktown), consisting of huge black granite blocks.

Historic Lion’s Den Hotel offers a good, welcome and comfy possibility for a pit-stop.

We didn’t stay in Cooktown for the night after all, mainly because of the strong wind and the overcast sky, and took the „inland route“ (still unpaved) in direction of Mareeba, Atherton Tablelands, leading us through the gumtree-dotted bushland we love so much. The unpaved part of the road ended at Lakeland Roadhouse, where we had a break, a burger and Aussie (!) coffee and finally spotted our last year’s friends, galahs, and sulphur-crested cockatoos.

Two bands of laughing kookaburras woke us to a chilly morning in the tablelands. Several birds tried to chase 2 possums down a tree. Morning mist rose from the river (see gallery).

The way west led us through Ravenshoe, the highest town in Queensland, on the highest road in Queensland. We then returned to bushland and took Kennedy Highway. For quite a distance, this highway has two lanes, but only 1 lane, or rather: half of each lane is paved, leaving you with a band of bitumen in the middle of the road. With oncoming traffic, you have to hit the bulldust with your vehicle’s left-hand tyres.

At Undarra, a natural reserve and cosy resort, we booked a guided tour to the world-famous lava tubes. Those tubes were born a loooong time ago, when the upper crust of magma streams cooled off while the hot magma inside kept flowing. Time, erosion and weather have hollowed these tubes over the millennia. Our guide, Kay, explained a lot not only about the tubes themselves, but also about the surrounding land and its native fauna and flora. There are 164 extinct volcanoes in the vicinity. Amazing. A US geologist from Hawaii once called these tubes the „jewel in the crown of lava tubes“.

At 5.30 p.m. we left the resort to Mount Surprise, a village some 30 km away. There wasn’t much daylight left, and we drove the last few km in the dark. In Undarra resort we had seen two Eastern grey kangaroos and a rock wallaby. On our way to Mount Surprise, we saw another four „hoppers“ on the highway: number one sat on a mound at some distance from the highway. Number 2 sat on the shoulder, but luckily decided to hop back into the bush. Number 3 (it was pitch black by now) sat in the middle of our lane and only survived thanks to the fact that Torsten was driving slow, carefully and calmly veered around it, and that the roo also decided to turn around and hop back. Now comes number 4: we were slowly (about 30-40 km/h) driving along, the wallaby suddenly jumped out of the bush from the right-hand side of the street, right under our camper, must have cowered there until we passed it and then jumped into the bush on our side of the road. Swear to God that this story is true!!! Another camper, a family who had been on the Undarra tour together with us, was following us and saw the roo, fortunately unharmed. Whew!

Boy, we were never that happy to reach a campsite!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This morning offered us the most beautiful of sunrises - there are no words for the beauty of a sunrise in the bush, with no sounds around but the first songs of birds….

We had breakfast in the sun and then set off to Atherton. To our enjoyment, we had another possibility to drive a few km off-road to Herberton, a small town where we had a well-deserved snack J, meat pies for us, diesel for our Bushcamper.

We could not drive the unpaved road from Herberton to Atherton – at the turn-off from the highway was a sign saying that you need to apply for a permit. Darn!

A quick change in plans: we drove south again to Millstream Falls, the ‚widest waterfalls in Australia‘. Claudia drove her first (100) meters off-road from  the parking lot of those falls and also the couple of unpaved meters to Tully Falls in Tully Gorge. The (paved) road leading there winds through rainforest and is quite narrow. We only met one car.

We then turned back to Atherton, stopping at Windy Hill, the construction site of a wind park (‚stormy‘ would be more adequate J).

Woodlands Caravan Park in Atherton is very good, its owners very nice and friendly, and you can buy yummy home-made mango chips at the reception.

An embarrassing post scriptum: it took us 5 days to discover that the shutter of the dishes compartment also serves as a table….

We drove the few km to Lake Tinarro, as a part of the road around it is unsealed. We were disappointed to find out that this very part of the street was closed for maintenance reasons L.

Next stop was the 500 year old, broad, impressing, beautiful Curtain Fig Tree near Yungabarra.

At Lake Barrine, a 120m deep crater lake (800 m altitude) you have the chance to look at two of the extremely rare Bull Kauri Pines (50m tall, 1,000 years old, don’t have needles but small leaves, but are pines nonetheless).

We left the Atherton Tablelands and descended on a very winding road to Cairns, arriving at Lake Placid Tourist Park at 4 p.m. Crystal Cascades was fully booked, but Lake Placid is also very nice and clean. We had booked a cabin for the last 2 nights Down Under.

The campsite is on the river, and two large wood fires are burning in the hills on the far side – we definitely hope they’ll stay over there! (They did)

We spent our last day (half sunny/half rainy) shopping, walking around town and dreading tomorrow….