Australia 2003-4

G'Day Mates! (pronounced G'die Mites)

We made it! Three long flights totaling 26.5 hours and we were in Sydney two days after we left Ottawa. We took Air Canada overnight to London England, then two hours later boarded a Malaysia Airlines 12.5 hour flight for Kuala Lumpur. We had asked in London if there was a chance for an upgrade, but had been told they were sorry but the plane was full. We lucked out when we presented ourselves for the last flight to Sydney. We got upgraded to Business Class. That was the best eight hour flight we have ever had. I must admit that I like to be pampered every now and then.

It was dark by the time we landed in Sydney, so once we took the shuttle to our hotel in King's Cross, we headed for bed to try to get over some of the jet lag.

The next day we discovered we were in a foreign country. Everybody speaks with a funny accent and as we found out the Aussies of Oz are masters of abbreviations. For instance, breakfast is 'brekkie', rugby football, all the rage here with the world cup in progress, is 'footie'. If that isn't bad enough they use British expressions for everything. Our first day here we were directed to see 'the man in the green jumper'. There wasn't anyone wearing green overalls, just a green sweater. Another time we went into a bookstore to inquire if they sold second hand books. The manager was perplexed until I pointed out the sign in the window advertising 'trading hours'. It was explained to us that that was their hours of business, they did not trade books. Oh.

Our first order of business in Sydney was to buy a second hand car. Langley Muir had recommended the do-it-yourself sales area in the underground car park in King's Cross, where we were staying. To sell your car, you pay $65 AUS for one week's parking and drive down to the second parking level where you display your car advertising the price and all the car's selling points. Ray had been told that a Ford Falcon station wagon was the car to buy as it was reliable and every mechanic in Oz knows how to fix it. There were a number of camper vans offered for sale that looked very tempting to me but Ray was more interested in a more comfortable and economical station wagon. We missed out on one hot number the first day but the second day we were waiting when a 1989 Toyota Camry wagon drove in. It didn't take long to take a test drive and strike a bargain and Priscilla was ours. Her full name is Queen Bee Priscilla (Licence number QBP 174) but to us she is simply Priscilla, and still Queen of Oz roads at a mere 217,000 Kms.

A word about the complications of buying a car in Oz; to transfer ownership in New Zealand, all we had to do was fill in a form at the post office and pay $7. In Australia, we needed copies of our passports and Driver's licences, a 'pink slip' indicating the car had passed a roadworthy test recently, $69 plus pay a tax based on the selling price of the car, somewhat reduced for officialdom.

Like New Zealand, cars must be re-registered each year (the 'rego'), but it is a bit more complicated and expensive here. Each state has different rules. The rego on Priscilla expired in Dec 2003 and since we planned to leave NSW before than, we decided to renew the rego as soon as possible. That was a bit of a hassle. We had to get new insurance on the car and that could add up to big bucks, depending on the address you used in Oz. As tourists we didn't have an address of where we regularly 'garage the car' (their term), so we used the Canberra address of the Jones, who lived next door to us in Ottawa several years ago. That worked well as the insurance costs for their suburban home were considerably less than many other places. A mere $450 later, Priscilla was fit to drive until Dec 2004. That will make it a lot easier to resell her when we leave next March.

Priscilla came equipped with a 6 person tent, an 'Eskie' (cooler) and ice packs, two camp chairs and various other items for camping. Ray had told me we were going to camp most of the time to save money, but we haven't yet. We have been experiencing afternoon or evening rain showers so it has been a lot easier to stay at hostels or cabins in Caravan Parks. I am not complaining. There has been lots of choice in our budget range but the prices are higher than New Zealand and a lot more than South East Asia, India or South America. Still, we get away with paying between $40 - $60 AUS per night and that includes kitchen facilities to make our own meals. That Eskie is well used. Food prices in Oz are quite a bit higher than we are used to paying in Canada and restaurant meals are no bargain. Gas is also a bit more expensive than Ottawa. We have paid anywhere from 0.79 - 0.96 per liter. Still, I appreciate the fact that the GST has already been factored into the price so what is advertised is what you pay, no extra tax surprises.

I complained a bit about the weather, but once we left the chilly weather we found in Sydney and headed north, things improved. In fact, our trip so far has been rather like an extended resort holiday and our tans are improving. (Eat your hearts out!)

A bit about that strange game, Footie: Observations of an uninitiated viewer:

This masochistic version of football is played with a ball shaped like a football but the teams play with no protective padding at all and it looks like a no holds barred game. The favourite play is to bury the ball carrier with every member of the opposing team. The ball carrier often manages to sneak the ball back into play by throwing it out from under the piled up bodies to a team mate. That player runs with the ball, kicks it or throws it to someone else, whatever he wishes. To score points, they can kick the ball between the goal posts or they can incur extreme grass burns by flinging themselves in the air while carrying the ball and slide over the goal line. To catch a ball thrown by an opposing team, they love to hoist one player in the air to gain extra height. Naturally injuries occur all the time but hey, this is a rough and tough game! The spectators love it.

But back to our travels, we only spent one full day sightseeing in Sydney before heading north. We fly home from Sydney so we figure we will have time to see more then. Besides, we prefer the countryside to cities.

Just north of Sydney is the Hunter Valley, one of the biggest wine districts in Oz. We couldn't pass up a chance to sample some of their great wines, so we spent a day touring several of the wineries. There are lots of them so it was hard picking and choosing and there were all those 'don't drink and drive' signs to make us feel guilty. We did manage to visit five wineries, all a bit different, but Jeanne had to sacrifice and do most of the tasting. We bought a few whites to drink with our dinners as well as a whole case of Lindeman Cabernet-Shiraz blend that was a great price. There is another wine district north of Adelaide, so we will have to do a comparison when we are there.

Ray thought the Hunter Valley area would lend itself very well to a bicycle tour. The roads were nice and quiet and the countryside was gently rolling, plus there are all those enticing stops along the way. Towns are often too far apart or roads are too busy in other areas we have visited to make bicycling practical.

We stayed at a YHA hostel in the countryside outside Scone on the northern fringe of the Hunter Valley. This area is the 'stud center' of Oz. Dozens of very attractive horse farms specializing in breeding the Australian Stock horse are found here. They claim that it rivals Kentucky for horse breeding. There was a small group of students from a girl's private school staying at the hostel. They were spending a week working on various stud farms as part of their practicum for a vocational course they were taking. They were up shortly after 5 AM to prepare for their day of working with the horses, so they were too tired at night to cause any disturbance.

Dorringo forest

Bush tukey

We hoped to do a little hiking in Oz and the Dorrigo National Park in NSW sounded interesting. It was an easy morning's walk but was most interesting. The area is a botanists and birders paradise and there were lots of signs identifying trees and birds. We even saw our first live wallaby in the park. Up until then all we had seen was road kill on the highway.  

We had bought a good Oz Bird Book in Sydney so we were keen to see, as rank amateurs, if we could sight all the Australian birds that are new and exotic to us. We got all excited at one point when we realized a bush turkey was routing around in the brush right next to the path through Dorrigo. We crept as close as we could trying to get a good photo. We heard and saw lots of Riflebirds; in fact you can't miss them, they are a loud as a real rifle shot.

It was lunch time by the time we finished our walk so we spread our lunch out on a picnic bench, only to have to fight off bush turkeys. They were not rare at all, they are pests that have become tame with people feeding them. Ray got a stick to scare them off the top of our picnic bench so we could eat our sandwiches.

Leaving Dorrigo, we headed for the coastal beaches. We stopped first at the small resort town of Lennox Head to watch the surfers. It was still a bit cool and rain threatened so we didn't stay. A bit farther north we stopped at Fisherman's Lookout at Byron Bay. Stairs led to the top of a small hill right beside the beach where we could watch all the surfers ride the waves into shore. We were lucky as a little offshore we saw a few small whales making their way north along the coast.

Dickie Beach

We crossed from New South Wales into Queensland but decided not to stop on the very commercial Gold Coast and to bypass Brisbane. Instead, we stayed at Dicky Beach, outside the resort town of Caloundra on the southern end of the Sunshine coast, just north of Brisbane. We had fun playing in the surf and watching children gathered for their Sunday morning surfing lessons. They all had on matching swimsuits and the Aussie version of a swim cap, a small colour coordinated fabric cap tied on under their chin. A little farther up the beach we watched about 10 parachutes descend and land on the beach. It must have been a class as several were tandem riders, strapped on in front of an instructor.

Our next stop was another small resort town, Rainbow Beach, where we booked a day tour of Fraser Island, the longest sand island in the world. It is 120 km long and up to 10 km wide, but there are no paved (bitumen or sealed) roads. This is strictly 4WD country. Priscilla didn't qualify so we joined other tourists for a 4WD bus tour. You can camp or stay in a resort on the island but we opted for a day tour. We took a short ferry ride across to the island and proceeded to drive about 25 km up the beach. You can't swim in the ocean at all because of rip tides and sharks that come to prey on the baby whales born offshore every spring.

We passed a private vehicle towing a camper trailer that was stuck in the sand. It had chosen to avoid driving through the surf by passing on the bush side of a fallen tree. Bad move. He was going to need some assistance moving the tree before getting free. We couldn't stop to help. We saw some sea hawks on our drive up the beach but no animals. Our driver kept up a continual patter, telling us all about the origin of the island and other snippets of information. He kept talking about the dingoes, wild dogs, on the island but we didn't see any. After a young boy was killed by one a few years ago, the Conservation people have been killing any that strayed into areas where tourists congregate.

Fraser Island Beach

Fraser Island Lake Mackenzie

We drove inland to swim at Lake Mackenzie, one of several 'perched' lakes on the island. They form in pockets in the higher areas, resting on an accumulated layer of decayed leaves and other organic material. They are filled solely by rainwater so the water is crystal clear and good for the skin and hair. We had a lovely swim and sunned ourselves on the white sand surrounding the lake.

Next came a short walk through the rainforest where we did see a 4 foot long python and some small lizards, then we had a lunch provided at one of the resorts before returning down the beach. The tide had come in while we were on the island so it was more difficult driving back. A second vehicle with us fell victim to the damage caused by the sand and sea salt. The air conditioning conked out, then it lost its exhaust system and finally the fan belt broke, but it was able to limp back to town. Our driver cautioned us to drive someone else's 4WD rather than your own on the island.

python on the path

Agnes Waters surf beach

We headed north again to the small towns of Agnes Waters and next to it, the Town of 1770, named for the date that Captain Cook first landed in Queensland. Agnes Waters is the most northerly surf beach, as the Great Barrier Reef protects the coast north of there. Just before we left Dicky Beach we went to a second hand shop and bought cloth covered foam boards, about half the length of a surfboard. These are called 'body boards' or 'boogie boards' and they looked like great fun. You don't stand up on them, you lie on them and try to catch the perfect wave into shore. The beach at Agnes Waters proved to be the perfect place to try them out. We got quite good at riding the relatively gentle waves into shore. I wish we had bought them earlier but we will now be on the lookout for more surf beaches.

snorkeling on Lady Musgrave Island

The main reason for our stop at 1770 was to join a tour boat to try snorkeling on one of the southernmost island of the Great Barrier Reef, just 1 1/2 hours offshore. We had a great day on Lady Musgrave Island. It is a small island surrounded on one side by a coral cay almost larger than the island itself. We anchored just outside the cay and were ferried into shore on a glass bottom boat. We could see lots of colourful fish and even a few turtles swimming in the clear waters. Our first swim was right offshore. It was great, the corals were lovely and the fish were plentiful. We had lunch back on the boat and then moved closed to the outer reef for a second swim. That was even more fun. We swam above a turtle resting on rocks below us and we saw one of Nemo's cousins swimming around an anemone. We even frightened a large, ugly, but harmless, rock cod from his lair in a coral crevice. The finale for the day was a little fishing off the side of the tour boat. Thirty lines dropped off the side at once and a few lucky people caught dinner, but not me. I just lost my bait twice and Ray lost his sinker. Oh well, it was fun anyway and we didn't have to try to clean our catch.

After talking to fellow tourists on our snorkeling expedition, we headed north again to Rockhampton where we caught a ferry to Great Keppel Island. We stayed for three days at the YHA tent village, enjoying the sand beaches and forest walks. The permanent tents are quite comfortable, with double or twin beds and a shaded area outside the door to sit and relax. We keep being told there are lots of Canadians travelling in Oz, and some of them, like Vancouver born Russ, the manager of the YHA, have married Aussies and stayed on. We had planned to do a little snorkeling on Keppel, but the winds that cooled us nicely also stirred up the sands making visibility poor. The swimming was good anyway.

our home in YHA tent village on Great Keppel Island

Possum

The possums that live on the island know a good thing when they see it. The kitchen area of the hostel was open to air, in typical tropical fashion and every evening, one or two possums would come sauntering in to see what they could cadge. They weren't at all shy.

On our last day, we decided to have lunch at the local restaurant before taking the ferry back to the mainland. We were greeted by a receiving line of eight or nine Rainbow Lorikeets perched on the railing of the restaurant. There was a sign prominently displayed admonishing people to not feed the lorikeets, possums or Kookaburras, but this didn't deter several people and the lorikeets knew it. Soon several of them were gathered around a few people who were feeding them French Fries. A Kookaburra flew down from a tree and managed to get one fry before being chased off by the noisy lorikeets. Ray and I were watching all this, just having a drink of water after our meal when two lorikeets descended on us. One sat on my hand and drank thirstily from my cup while the other perched on the table and drank from Ray's cup. When they had their fill, they wiped the leftover French Fries off their beaks on the side of the wooden table and flew back to the trees to await the next visitors.

We are currently in Airlie Beach, the biggest resort town so far, just north of Mackay. Today is laundry and internet day but tomorrow, if the weather is good, we will take another day excursion out to the corals to do some more snorkelling. It should be fun. Our plan is to make it as far north as Cairns, then head inland through the desert outback to Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayer's Rock), then head south towards Adelaide, so stay tuned.