One month of travelling around Australia is over, two more to go. My feeling for time, weekends, weekdays and so on is gone. And then I get confused about the public holidays, like New Years. Because New Years was a Saturday the public holiday was the weekday after, on Monday. Which gets me out of my plans and be spontaneous one more time. Anyway, let’s see what I did since my last post, so you are updated.
Day Twenty-six to Twenty-nine
The day of Christmas eve. Australians’ don’t celebrate Christmas Eve, they just celebrate Christmas Day (25.12.2010). With a fake white or pink Christmas tree, presents before breakfast and enjoying the morning together with the family. But that is not the way we celebrated Christmas this year. On the 24th we went out to Fraser Island for a one day trip. Took a bath in Lake Mc Kensey, ate a lunch in Central Station, watched at coloured sand, had a look at the ship wreck, took a walk in the Elli Creek and headed back to Rainbow Beach. We decided just to eat in our apartment and going out for dinner the next day in the next city. Wrong decision, guys! Not only had we to stay one more night in Rainbow Beach, for that we were lucky we could buy some stuff for cooking our own dinner the next day. The supermarket was the only open shop on Christmas Day. Everything else had closed. Somehow we were counting on some open restaurants in the evening. I won’t do that again in such a little village. The reason we stayed one more day, was a flat tyre my father saw when I drove the packed car out from the garage. The lovely RACQ man (road side assistant of Queensland) couldn’t really help me that day, but told me he will fix that one, another one and the spare tyre the next day. So he did until around 10am on 26th. Because of that and our long way to our next main destination we decided not to drive to 1770. Instead we drove directly to Whitsunday Island with a one night stop in Rockhampton. Nothing really to talk about.. It’s like every other city, has a bit of nightlife and that’s it.
Day Thirty to Thirty-two
Our temporary home on those days was the Best Western Palm in Airlie Beach. I guess I forget to mention how the weather is over here: rainy! The day we left Rockhampton the cyclone arrived in the area between Rockhampton and Bundaberg. Which resulted in floods all over the place as well as damaged properties. Maybe you saw it in the news. We weren’t in there, luckily. You could say we run away from it.
However. we tried to make the best out of it in Airlie. One day we went for a little hiking trip to the Conway National Park, where we got a wonderful view of the Whitsunday Island. On the way we passed thousands of spiders, spider webs, butterflies and other little animals. It took us around 4 hours return, for a 4km distance. Too long for this short distance! Airlie Beach itself is pretty small, but has a lot of life going on at the streets and in the pubs. Our one day Whitsunday Island tour took us to a swim at Whitehaven Beach, little walking tour to Hill Inlet Lookout and snorkelling at Mantaray Bay. Also on this trip the weather man was nice to us. The sun came out after our first few hours on the boat and it stayed the whole day. I met two nice people at the trip – Lara from the US and Brian from Ireland, both living in Sydney. We went also out for a drink in the evening…
Because my dad wanted to stay a couple of days in Cairns, before they leave Australia, we tried to drive as far as we can on one day. So we made our lunch stop in Townsville (not worth to go) and stayed the night in Innisfail (can’t say, if it’s alright, didn’t had a closer look).
Day Thirty-three to Thirty-seven
So we arrived after a stop at the Josephine Falls in Cairns on time for New Years Eve. Which I celebrated with my (Swinburne) friends Mael and Armin, as well as with Irish-Brian and some other friends from Mael and Armin. We had a Kangaroo dinner and firework at the Lagoon in Cairns. The rest of the night we celebrated in the Irish Pub called P.J. Unfortunately I had to sleep in my car, cause the hotel I stayed in and the hostel of my friend was too far away. I’m looking forward to sleep in it again in a couple of days!
What else did we do so far in Cairns? We drove to the Crystal Cascades, a waterfall with a few swimming pools and for a walk through the Mossmann Gorge rainforest with a lot of rain at the last few hundred meters. Sure, we also did a tour to the Great Barrier Reef for snorkelling and a introductory scuba diving (only I did that one). Guess what! We had good weather at this trip, too. Only a bit of rain, flat water, a good view to the corals and fishes. Unfortunately, I didn’t see any turtles. Besides of that snorkelling and scuba diving was so much fun and a gorgeous experience! I’m so happy I did it. Watching fishes from so close and touching soft corals (just be careful which one you are touching).
My plan for the next and last days in Cairns: Finding a travel partner for my trip to the west coast, bringing my car to a mechanic for a service check and preparing some stuff for the big and long trip. Ah, also saying goodbye to my parents.