Southbound Day 3

We headed to Brisbane today.  It was mostly a long day of driving, so not much to write about.  However, we did find out that there is no way to hook up the water hoses on our camper, or even open the water tank.  So much for spaghetti (the only food we had that didn’t freeze). *sigh.

Australia 1: Nancy 0

To get to our camping spot tonight we had to travel through an area that was 4-wheel drive only.  I figured this wouldn’t be a problem, as we had a 4-wheel drive vehicle.  I was wrong.  After bouncing through the forest for about 20 minutes, we reached a sandy area and promptly got stuck.  We spent the next half hour digging ourselves out.  We spent the night at a hotel.  But on a good note, we did see two Kangaroos hopping along the side of the road during the drive.  We just had to be in the middle of nowhere to do it.

Southbound Day 2

We’re at the beginning of our second day of the drive, and I’m trying to catch up a little bit on the blogging I’ve been slacking off on.  It turns out that throughout most of the Australian countryside you are lucky if you can get one radio station.  I actually pressed the seek button and had it go all the way around twice before settling on a station.  Driving through this country is completely different from the driving I’ve done throughout the US.  There are hours long stretches of nothing but wilderness and dry creekbeds, and when you do come to a town, you’re out of it again almost before you realize you are in it.  There’s just you and a single stretch of long, winding road surrounded by untouched countryside.  Where in the US it feels as if nature is in the way of our roads, here it is the opposite.  Just a lonely bit of human presence pushing its’ way through, trying desperately to hold back the nature which is fast encroaching on either side. It’s beautiful, and desolate; empty and full of life, wide and claustrophobic, all at the same time.  Mostly, it’s awe inspiring.

At lunchtime we stopped at a roadside park by the beach.  The tide was very far out, and we walked down to the water.  Joe was convinced he would find a sharks tooth, but alas, did not.

Southbound Adventure-Day 1

We picked our campervan up today.  Unfortunately we weren’t able to get it until after 10, so we got on the road a little late, and to our campground even later.  Note: do not try to set up your camper in the dark.  It was a very pretty drive though, through scenic countryside.  I find it a little crazy to think that the main arterial highway through the Australia coast is a small, two lane road.  Joe is convinced that we will see a kangaroo hopping through the brush.  I’m of the belief that the only way we’re going to see one in the wild is if we hit it with the camper.

I scoffed when the campervan people advised us not to drive at night.  However, once the sun went down, there was very little light.  There are no lights on the highway, and the only light we encountered came from an entire burning field of sugar cane.  Without the light pollution of nearby towns, the sky becomes a never-ending expanse of star spangled loveliness, although it is rather disconcerting to have the constellations be in the wrong place.

We saw a good deal of wildlife in our campground (more than we actually saw on our day hikes), including a possum, some parrots, and some other beautiful birds that hissed at us when we got too close.  We also found out that the fridge in our camper was broken, and had frozen all of our food solid. Fabulous. After packing up, we were on our way.

Cape Tribulation and our nightwalk

After returning from our dive trip (not nearly long enough) we rented a car and headed up the mountains to the rainforest.  A few hours drive north landed us right in the middle of the Daintree rainforest.  We stopped at the Daintree Conservation center, in the hopes of seeing a cassowary.  It was unfortunately not worth the money we spent, although we did get to see the Gympie Gympie (stinging tree) that I mentioned in my first post.  After the center we drove up the road to another hiking spot, which was free, where we saw a good deal more wildlife (still no cassowarys, alas) and had an all around good time hiking through the rainforest.  We checked into our hostel and got ready for our night hike.

The hike started with a small talk about the area we are in, and the fact that the Daintree is still to this day mostly untouched by humans.  Even the aboriginal people didn’t travel into the rainforest, as it was too hard to eke out a living in that area.  We were given our torches and Joe strapped on his headlamp (thanks Rich!) and we headed out.  We saw several very large spiders, two sleeping Boyd’s tree dragons, a small frog, a large cricket, and a very beautiful strangler fig.  I also licked the backside of a green ant.  The green ant secretes ascorbic acid (vitamin C) out of its’ abdomen.  After biting you, it turns around and squirts the acid into the bite.  Jerk ants. The aborigines used to take nests of the ants and make a tea out of them for the vitamins.  Mmmm…ant tea.  That concluded our night walk, and all tuckered out Joe and I fell promptly to sleep.

The next day we headed back to Cairns, stopping off at the small town of Kuranda on the way back.  We wandered around the shops there for a while, and headed into the “Venom Zoo”.  There we got to see 5 of Australia’s most venomous snakes, as well as a good deal of spiders and scorpions.  I even got to hold a giant cockroach. Then back to Cairns to pack up and rest before our south-ward bound adventure.

The Great Barrier Reef

The bus picked us up for the dive trip this morning at 7am.  After a harrowing ride to the shop, we boarded the boat to head out to our living accommodations for the next two days.  The views heading out to the reef were absolutely beautiful, and both Joe and I were super excited to be there.  Joe expressed his excitement by promptly falling asleep and getting a sunburn on his face.  The rest of the trip people called him the panda. 

We reached the liveaboard two hours later, got to our berth, had lunch and proceeded to dive.  It was gorgeous.  The reef stretched for miles. It was almost unbelievable to realize that there were miles and miles of living animals right below our feet.

We managed 5 dives, including one night dive.  The night dive was spectacular.  I realized my lifelong dream of cuddling a cuttlefish on this dive.  There was a foot long cuttlefish that we found that tried to eat our guides’ torch (flashlight), then let me touch it.  It sat right in my hand.  It has probably been one of the high points of my life.  The next day on our last dive we came right up to a sea turtle, just chilling on the reef.  Joe thought it was funny that we found a sea turtle in the East Australian Current. 

Botanical Gardens

Yesterday was the wedding.  It was held at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Sydney, which was absolutely beautiful.  So enjoy the pictures of the flowers, even though I don't know what most of them are.