hello from the whitsunday islands
hello fellows!
sorry that it took me so long to bring up the first travel update to this blog. The last two weeks we did a lot of driving and didn't have much time to surf the internet. At the moment I am in Airlie Beach at the famous Whitsunday Islands which offer a paradise for sailing and reef snorkeling trips. But before I let you know how it all started...
We drove almost 3000 km with our campervan, all along the australian eastcoast. We visited the giant 30km wide sand dune at port stevens on the first day and hired some quads there. These are little jeeps that can go up to 60km per hour. we had a lot of fun cruising through the sanddunes and I almost broke my neck when I drove too fast past a steep dune which descended very steep on the other side. During all the two weeks we slept somewhere beneath the road, never visited a camping site, since it was too expensive and sleeping offroad has a thrill. It can get pricey if the ranger finds you.
We then drove off to Byron Bay and met Hardi and Leif, two fellows from Germany who are also cruising up the eastcoast with a campervan. Byron Bay is a nice little laid back comunity, where McDonalds and Burger King are not allowed to trade. That already shows a bit of the alternative spirit, that the town has. We had a good party night there in a backpacker party place called "Cheeky Monkey". Since we stayed in Byron Bay for a couple of days we even had time for a surf. We hired a board for sebastian and I used my own board and I instructed him a little bit how to surf. Since Sebastian was already experienced in wind surfing the lesson only lasted for 15 minuted until he was already able to stand on the board. We then surfed at a beautiful landscape together with other surfers until the sun set. The beach was white and the water pretty shallow. It was almost like paradise.
Then we drove off to the so called "Hinterland", a german expression that means exactly what you think it means, and visited Nimbin, a weird town. It hosted a hippie festival in 1972 and afterwards most of the shops and gastronomy in town was sold for little money because the economy was in a crisis. It were the hippies that bought the shops since it was so cheap to do so and stayed in the town. Since then it is a place where love and peace are the biggest values and smoking of mariuhana is a common daily thing you can see and smell everywhere in the streets. Since we are no smokers we didn't buy anything but where asked to do so very often. We even talked to an aboriginal woman that name was Monica and who had only a couple of teeth remaining in her mouth. We introduced ourselves to her but a normal conversation was impossible since she was high. :-)
We then talked to the locals in the pub while having a beer and heard some interesting and amusing stories from overaged hippies in their sixtees.
On the next days we went for a hike on the Mount Warning, a steep and rough ascending Mountain also in the "Hinterland" of Byron Bay. It was rainy and the way was long, steep and didn't have a lot of grip. It took us 2 hours to get up there and on the way we met to nice guys from the Netherlands who told us about a cave north of Mount Warning where we can see Glowworms (Gluehwuermchen). Fascinated by that idea we climbed up the Mount Warning, which also required some hiking close to the peak where it ascended almost vertical to the height. When we were on the top clouds completely covered the peak and didn't allow for a view through it. When we made our way down it was already getting dark and we were happy after we had finally made our way down again to the car. In the late evening we then took a look at the glowworms which was marvellous and looked like the stars in the sky.
On the next day we drove across the state border of new south wales (the federal state in which Sydney lays) to Queensland (Surfers Paradise and Brisbane) and made our way to Brisbane, with 1.7 million people the third largest city after Sydney and Melbourne. We spent a day in town, visited some historic buildings and made a nice walk along the southside of the Brisbane river, enjoying a marvellous view over the skyline and just relaxed, which is what Brisbane is so famous for. Although it also has a central business district (CBD) with skyscrapers like Sydney and Melbourne, it has still preserved its laid back character.
In the evening we checked into a hostel for the first time because we urgently had to take a shower since travelling with a camper does not always allow you to take one, and to charge the battery of my mobile phone and the camera.
There were some german girls in the hostel, but since their evening activity consisted in playing pool within the hostel lounge area we made a party appointment with some dutch guys and first had 3 huge glasses of our own pre-bought wine in the campervan outside while listening to chillout music. We got really drunk and short before we left we saw the police chasing a young guy down the street which unfortunately was a dead end street. After they had caught him he started crying like a little boy which was very sad, but he certainly had been in the possession of drugs. Then we headed off and joined the steaming Brisbane nightlife. On the way into town we met many people, mostly other travellers from all countries across europe and some real aussie guys that showed us the casino as the best place for party in the night. Since we wantet to spend our money for party and not for roulette or black jack this night we left the casino and danced the night away in a backpacker place called "down under", where we pretty much stayed all night and made some new friends :-)
The next day we had some trouble with getting up since we had a massive hangover from the day before. Around noon we managed to depart from Brisbane and to organise a 1 day tour for Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world just 3 hours north of Brisbane. In the evening we came across Noosa which is famous for its good waves among the surfer crowd and also offers pretty much the last occasion to sell my own board since the climate is becoming more tropical up north and the beaches are crowded with hazardous animals like jellyfish and sharks. I was successful with selling my board and after we had enjoyed another spectecular sunset at the bay we sat in the van again and drove up to Hervey Bay, the entrance port to Fraser Island.
The next morning we took a ferry to the Island and got to know out bus driver and guide for the day. The tour was pretty much a tourist trip with fixed destinations for hopping off to take photos but since our guide had so much useful information about flora and fauna and the island itself the whole day wasn't boring at all. We again got to know some german people and some funny englishmen and -women, who really are the party and drinking nation number one. :-) Since the weather was a little bit poor on that day the best thing we could do was a scenic flight across the island which showed the enormous dimensions of it. It streches about 120 km from north to south and has an avarage of 13 km in western to eastern direction.In the evening we still made a lot of km and arrived in Rockhampton in the night where we stayed at an abanoned carpark.
On the next morning we were waken up by several birds that were climbing around on the cars mirrors without any noticible reason. There was nothing special left in the front of the car but they made enough noise to wake us up.
We then went to an aboriginal cultural centre which was really worth it because we had the possibility to take part in a didjeridoo and boomerang throwing lesson, which was held by an expert and at least on the didjeridoo he showed us some tones I had never thought to be possible generating with this instrument. After that we were able to have a chat with an old grandma from the so called torres strait islands, a group of islands in the north of australia which are administrated by the Queenslands government. It was quite interesting talking to her since she herself was still raised like an indigenous on the islands, but her sons and daughters are already living on the australian mainland, having problems with the modern civilized life since their indigenous life on the islands consisted of fishing and raising children.
After this interesting experience we spent the next day driving through the hinterland to some remote areas where we came across a mining town called Mt Morgan, which had the largest open cut mine before it was closed a couple of years ago. The cut is about 300 m deep. We then drove through endless landscapes and from time to time passed a so called road train. They are oversize trucks that are much longer than normal trucks and thunder over the streets. The number of dead kangoroos on the side of the road dramatically increased the further we went into the remote areas. But since we had a quite strict schedule and had to drop our car in Mackay in the afternoon we made our way out of that semi-desert and finally arrived in the more green and humid areas of Mackay. We then sadly returned our campervan, which had helped us a lot in the last 2 weeks and had given us some quite good experiences.
In the evening we stood on the streets of Mackay with too much luggage for each of us and waited for the greyhound bus to take us further up to Airlie Beach where we had booked one of the famous 3 day sailing trips among the whitsunday islands. When we arrived there we noticed that Airlie Beach was incredibly touristic and had more young people and especially good looking women than any other place I have been so far in Australia. We stayed in the koalas beach resort which was a nice place since every dormitory was located in a small house. The only disadvantage was that there was a disco around the corner that played loud music until the early morning hours.
After a short night we woke up early and made our way to the "Anaconda II", a former racing yacht that is now serving to take people to the whitsunday islands. Our group consisted of more than 50% english people, some american girls and some finnish guys and a few people from sweden, not to forget Ben, who was from Germany as well. It was a great fun just to stay on that boat and relax while cruising up and down through the islands. In the first evening we were dropped at a resort on South Molle Islands where we had a free dinner and a vivid party together with many people from other boats. We partied our heads of for a second time and still had to wake up around sunrise on the next morning to be able to participate on the breakfast. During these 3 days we did a lot of snorkeling at the reefs in front of the islands which offered an amazing look at the marine life, corals and fishes in all colours in particular.
After that experience that was quite interesting because of all the nice backpacker people we talked to we got on the greyhound bus another time and spent the night on it to arrive in Cairns very early in the morning.
There were already some shuttle buses waiting for people who haven't yet booked an accomodation and offered accomodation in hostels. We decided for a hostel which seemed to be a little quieter since we were a little burned out of so many party nights before.
Not the best decision since the hostel seems to be managed by two guys in their mid-fortees, that seem to be mentally influenced by an old and grey grandma, which is always around and keeps an eye on everything the guest does. The light on the toilets is to be turned of and the footmats on the ground have to be aligned parallelly to the stairway. The list of prohibitions is long and somebody who stayes in the public kitchen after it has already closed will be evicted from the hostel immediately. Checkout time is 10am sharp, printed in bold and underlined letters. Usually nobody cares if somebody is checking out a little later but in this hostel I believe it's different. And this is only a brief example of what's on in the hostel.
We have also already started our diving course at the Cairns Diving Centre, which is an awesome and interesting experience since we already spent some hours in the pool today but had some theory lessons as well of course.
So folks, thats the story so far. I know that its not quite short and we should take much more time to spent on the internet letting you guys know how its going down here in the north of Australia.
Alright, I wish you a warm and nice end of spring in Germany and all the best.
I will try to talk to you soon.
Hi people.
