And Finally ...'

So our adventure is over 

- we have been away a total of 66 days

- slept in 39 different places

- drove over 5000 miles in the motorhome ... that's London to Dubai

- drove another 1500 miles in a coach and 500 miles driven by friends

- visited 4 states (Western Australia, Victoria, NSW and Queensland) and 1 Territory

- crossed the Tropic twice

- flew 9 hours on domestic flights 

and met many, many interesting people from over a dozen countries.

The "Poms" are very welcome in Australia, it's a huge country but it was well worth the driving to see diverse scenery and cultures ... we concentrated on the coast where 80% of the population live but one day we will be back to see the Outback

Clovely Winery - 7th & 8th June

For our last night in Aus, our friends booked a 100 year old traditionally styled house in a large vineyard about three and a half hours drive north west of Brisbane.  The drive there took us through some lovely scenery including up and down some hair-raising bends into the mountains.  We tasted some wine when we arrived and then had the house and gardens to ourselves. This was very tranquil and the stars in the clear, cold night were fabulous. A lovely end to our fantastic adventure in Aus.

Port Douglas - 5th June

As I said we are having a few days R & R in Port Douglas; the most northerly coastal town on the East.  It lays on a spit of land with the beach on one side and a marina (mainly for the reef) on the other.  It has been nicely developed with no high-rise accommodation; the resorts are out of town and most places are self catering apartments with a pool in town.  Port Douglas has a great 4-mile beach to walk along - we walked both ways only to find the cafe we were looking for closed for lunch!  We had to make do with a drink and some crisps from a 'tavern' only to be told we had to eat inside since outside was smokers only and no food (even crisps) were allowed!!! This morning we have watched various events which all finished in exactly the same place on the beach -two triathlons, a mountain bike race and a 45k canoe paddle around the coast.  Very efficient organisation.  Yesterday we went for a swim and spent a very enjoyable hour or two watching the children's surf school.  It's our last night here so we went for a sunset sail - tomorrow we fly to Brisbane leaving for home on Wednesday night.

Over the Daintree River - 2nd June

On Friday, we decided to take a trip north with a small tour group - over the Daintree River to Cape Tribulation.  When we were in Port Douglas about 18 years ago the tarmac ended at the river which is about 20 miles north but now it carries on to Cape Tribulation although there is still no bridge across the river and a chain ferry that takes about 20 cars is used. From Cape Tribulation the road is 4 wheel drive all the way to Cape York at the 'top' of Aus on the East and all the tourist trips are by plane lasting 3 days.  There is still no mains electricity or drainage north of the river. 

We are now north of Broome but south of Darwin and it is almost the winter season which means the temperature is about 27C - hotter than usual but also a bit wetter too... So today is quite cloudy as you can see from the photos.  

The trip went up the coast past the beach where the unfortunate lady was taken by a croc .. The beach is still closed and they are hunting for the crocodile which none of the locals agree with - it seems that crocs are protected provided they don't come after the tourists!   We saw only baby crocs on our trip up the Daintree River and their survival rate is only about 1% - imagine if it was more!  We finished the trip with a visit to a waterfall for a swim although - it was too cold and there were too many fish and eels for me.  The photo shows how dark the rainforest can be! 

It's time to leave the Moho - 31st May

After 25 days in the motorhome on the East coast it's time to give it back! In total - east and west Rob has driven over 5,000 miles - as far as from London to Dubai (or so Google says). We packed up on Monday night and left Palm Cove to drop the van off in Cairns on Tuesday morning.  We are now having some R & R in Port Douglas about further 50k north of Cairns.  We have direct access to a swimming pool - so no need to swim in the ocean where the stinger net has been removed since it's winter. As everyone keeps telling us - we will watch out for crocs but there are no sharks here because of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast. Australia is a dangerous place - you should hear the local news! 

Back up the hill to Karunda and back down again - 29th May

As nice as Ellis beach was, the main road ran right past the site so the night was quite disturbed - it's so hot at the mo we are sleeping with the back doors open!  We had booked to go to Karunda today (yes, that's right, the touristy village we passed yesterday!) Well this is one of the 'must dos' in the area and Rob has always wanted to do the trip.  Basically you go up the mountain on a train originally built by hand (including many tunnels) for the gold rush in the late 19th century and then come back down on the longest cable car in the world over the rain forest.   The train has one stop on the way to see Barron Falls - not that much water and the cable car has two stops on the way down to look over the gorge and walk in the rainforest on raised broadwalks as well as a stop to change to the second cable.  The trip was thoroughly worthwhile and very enjoyable.  

As the site on the beach had been so noisy we decided not to return there even though we had paid for a second night so we went to Palm Cove a beach / resort nearer Cairns - it was originally used by the USA to train Australian troops in WW2 when it was called Palm Beach! Now it's a very nice small resort and the camp site allowed us to walk to the shops, restaurants and beach! 

Down from the hills - 28th May

Back to decent internet and the blog - although have to admit to lazing around instead of writing!

On Saturday we left the Atherton Tablelands and headed for the coast again via Lake Tinaroo Reservoir which was very peaceful.  We had been warned that one of the roads from the mountains was somewhat 'hairy' in a motorhome so we chose the main road and stopped at a distillery and coffee farm on the way - tourism has definitely got better here!  Before heading down you come to a small tourist village called Karunda and then the road begins to go down! It wasn't too bad - but then I wasn't driving - and we stopped at a view point to look at Cairns from above.  Once 'down' we turned north away from Cairns to a site on Ellis Beach.  

The Lake District in Australia

Today we are still in the hills and concentrated on lakes instead of waterfalls!  The two lakes we visited are volcanic craters filled with water - there are no crocs but plenty of fish, eels and turtles.  Both are surrounded by rainforest which we saw by taking a 3km walk around one of the lakes - fascinating even for me - and luckily devoid of wildlife. We also visited this curtain fig tree which was gigantic.  Tomorrow we hope to head for the coast and some slightly warmer weather. 

Into the Hills - 26th May

The hills / mountains behind Cairns are called the Atherton Tablelands and are cooler and wetter than the coast. Some of the scenery is rainforest and lakes but much of this has been cleared to grow pasture for cows in a thriving 'tropical' dairy industry.

Today we visited several waterfalls - the most well visited is Milla Milla made famous in a shampoo (can't remember which one) advert.  Each of the falls were a bit different - judge for yourself ...  I have to say we were a little disappointed with standard of the tourist facilities - some are very quaint and old fashioned and I didn't take kindly to ants in the cookie jar at one coffee stop.  

PS - internet is poor so photos may be small / less defined?

It's time for some tourism! - 25th May

We are now within striking distance of Cairns where we give the van back next Tuesday and we are going to take advantage of the tourist areas that are within easy reach of Cairns.  The scenery has changed quite a bit - still loads of sugar cane, bananas and vegetables but now fringed by (misty) mountains which line the coast. We cross the cane railways constantly and even drove down one for a short while! There has been quite a lot of rain in the area so the rivers are in flood which will be good for the waterfalls later in the week since the winter so far has been very dry.  

We decided the visit Paronella Park today - a slightly bizarre house built by a Jose Paronella - a Spanish immigrant in the 1920's.  He built the house and pleasure grounds as entertainment for the local population and since it was right by Mena Falls - it was - and still is powered by hydroelectric.  Unfortunately after several cyclones and floods - and the early death of Jose  - the house is now in ruins - but nevertheless the gardens were lovely and it made a slightly quirky place to visit. 

Townsville 24th May

Still travelling north at quite a pace and today saw us visiting Townsville. Although this is a very large city someone had told me about a natural sea-pool on the Esplanade or Strand as it was called. I managed to navigate us around the city and we found a perfect parking spot.  The esplanade had been very well landscaped and we walked along it to the natural pool.  There were also several beaches with red flags due to the Stingers although it tends to be too cold for them in June - September and we watched a stinger net being winched in and cleaned in one place.  The decision was did we swim in the sea in a stinger net (photo 1) or in the natural pool that had a small chance of stingers (photo 2) - the Australians have more warning notices than any where I know.  I chose the natural pool and had no problems - it was quite chilly but refreshing - and we followed the swim with fish and chips (again).

Art Deco in the Tropics - 23rd May

The highlight of today was a visit to Mackay which has several Art Deco buildings that have been painted and restored as well as a lot of street art.  Several of the towns in this area have been destroyed at various times by cyclones and the rebuilt from wood in the 1920's in Art Deco style concrete.  Mackay has really promoted itself and whilst Rob was taking photos he was stopped by one of the council employees who had worked on the restorations to ask if we were enjoying his work.  A little way down the road we were stopped again by someone originally from Bradford who took our photo by one of the pieces of art (on Rob's camera).

Tonight we stayed in Bowen - a less than impressive fishing port !

Over the Tropic again - a non event - 22nd May

Not much to blog today - we covered 400k as quickly as possible passing over the Tropic of Capricorn once again.  This time - about 6 weeks later - it co-incided with a Tourist Information Point in Rockhampton;  a large city we decided to bypass and the weather is far less hot.  We had lunch at the first point in 500k in which the ocean can be seen from the A1 road - or so the PR people said.  

Rob found a lovely site at Cape Palmerston which was a short walk from a deserted beach and the owner gave us some passion fruit straight his garden for breakfast.  Unfortunately although the beaches no long have surf waves (due to the Great Barrier Reef off the coast) they do now have poisonous jelly fish (or stingers) so swimming is not encouraged. 

The sugar cane continues so see photo below - a lot of it is now made into fuel rather than rum!!  Rockhampton is also famous for beef cattle and so we have seen several trucks containing cattle on the road

Driving in Queensland - 21st May

I thought the blog should have a break from beautiful beaches - although we are staying at another at Tannum Sands!! and we did have some fab crab sandwiches for lunch from a small town called Gin Gin! 

We have headed past Bundaburg today - famous for rum and consequently we have seen lots of sugar cane fields - see photo.  Tropical fruit seems strangely lacking in the supermarkets although there are also plenty of mangoes and pineapples being grown and we stopped for a lychee ice cream today!  

What about driving in Aus??  It goes without saying that distances are huge - we are driving about 250k per day but that is tiny for an Australian!  The main A1 road is now single carriageway (in each direction) with regular overtaking lanes but traffic is light.  Driver fatigue is a big problem and so there are many graphic slogans and warnings about resting as well as free coffee provided in peak season - not that we have actually seen any open!   In addition 'fatigue zones' have trivia quizzes posted on signs - we now know that a collection of toads is a knot and that the biggest natural object on earth is the Great Barrier Reef. 

Still on a transport note, I had to take a photo of these 'sleeping turtles' on a crossing in Tannum Sands!

Noosa and meeting friends - 20th May

We left Coolum Beach early in the morning so that we could beat the rush into Noosa and this proved to be a really good move and we found somewhere to park reasonably easily within easy reach of Hastings Street which has designer shops and cafes.  I can see why Noosa is popular for holidaymakers - it has beaches and riverfront as well as shady walks through the forest that comes down to the shoreline in places. We spent a very enjoyable few hours walking around before we had a picnic lunch just yards from the motorhome.  All the photos are of Noosa!

We had a relatively short drive to our next stop in Hervey Bay where we had arranged to meet a couple we had previously met in Broome - they were still in the same van having driven across the centre of Aus via Katherine Gorge and were now driving south down the east coast towards Sydney.  It was great to catch up and swap tales / advice and we also met a couple from NZ at the same site who had relatives in Southwater and who had played cricket in Barns Green before emigrating.  

North of Brisbane - 19th May - Coolum Bay

The coast north of Brisbane is quite built up with residential and holiday dwellings and apartments although nothing more than about 2-3 storey.  There is also a motorway all the way to Noosa - the most fashionable of all the resorts which is about 150km north of Brisbane so easily achievable for a weekend.  We had heard that Noosa was very busy and so decided, on the spur of the moment to stop at Coolum Beach about 15km short.  This was a lovely council run site on the back of the beach and we were there early enough to watch the kids surfing, take a dip - but not a swim due to the surf waves and generally enjoy the beach.  Gaby had stayed on the site when relocating a van during her gap year.  I think you are probably pretty bored of seeing photos of beaches now and so have added a photo from the site into the hills. 

Brisbane - 17th & 18th May

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We drove over the Queensland border on Tuesday and learnt it is illegal to keep pet rabbits in Queensland (in case they escape) - penalty is 25,000$.  We carried on to Brisbane to stay on a site within easy reach of the city and our local friends.  For the centre of the city, the Internet access was dreadful - hence no blogging for a while.  We generally chilled out,  explored the city via the river and a catamaran and had two lovely meals out.  As you can see the centre of Brisbane is very modern and they have created a great open air swimming pool and recreation area on the South Bank. Imagine that by the Thames in London! 

Chilling out in Brunswick Heads - 16th May

Today we had a chilled out day meeting an ex-colleague and partner with his new baby for coffee in Brunswick Heads, just north of Byron.  It was very nice to catch up and meet some new faces after 10 days together in the van!  Brunswick Heads is a great small resort town on the river and beach and was certainly bustling.  There was a lovely small bay on the river where I had a quick dip since it was so calm compared to the surf although it was pretty chilly too.  After the dip it was time for lunch and siesta before returning to Byron Bay for our last evening before Brisbane. 

With the surf dudes of Byron Bay - 14th & 15th May

We're moving on up the coast towards Brisbane now and have stopped at Byron Bay for 3 nights - it is a very popular beach and surf destination for Aussies and tourists alike which is shown by the 3 day minimum stay required. We are on a council run site and have paid extra for the sea view - photograph taken from our pitch just after sun down.   The town is very much a holiday resort and I did have a dip in the sea today although I can't say I swam since the breakers were too large for me.  We spent the morning walking the 3k (uphill) to the light house and the most easterly point on the Australian mainland.  The view was spectacular and the calf muscles well exercised. Apologies for the slightly dodgy new hat - the motorhome seems to have swallowed the previous one!