Well we are about to start the final leg of our circumnavigation of Australia, I must first apologise for the late publishing of this edition, our usual end of the month up load has slipped back into the following month partly due to leaving Australia on the 15th October and partly because of the lax lazy editorial staff not getting into the office early enough to put the work in! Anyway we leave Cairns in the pouring rain, not ideal but we are certainly trying out all the variations in the Australian weather, who said this was the country of sunshine & heat! Heading down the coast we find Bingil Bay just above Mission Beach, which has a small campsite with only ten sites, we end up under the Palm trees fronting the beach, swimming and sunbathing coupled with cleaning the camper ready for selling later this month, our overnight stay turns into three as we struggle to leave (perhaps you can now see why the blog has slipped a bit). Finally leaving, we make our way down to Airlie Beach to sort out our sailing trip on the Whitsundays. All the cruise boats leave from here and we follow the Lonely planets suggestion of speaking with Tina from Whitsunday bookings who knows what’s what about the boats. We get a deal on a tall ship called the Whitsunday Magic, sailing on the Friday for three nights around the islands and out to the Great Barrier Reef. We leave the camper in the secure parking area at the campsite and settle into our luxury cabin on board. A few days of pampering and en-suite facilities, with some lovely food, a million miles away from the camping lifestyle that we are used too, the weathers perfect, the only drawback with tall ships is the tall bar bill at the end of the trip! We set sail, well motored actually as there’s not a lot of wind about until our second day when the sails are hoisted and we make a fine sight cutting through the water with an escort of dolphins happily diving beneath the bow.
It’s a good crowd on board mainly American and Canadians but with a few Irish, Sandra & Gerry, so we are not alone at the bar in the evenings. I get to dive on the reef, my first dive since Bali almost a year ago now, unfortunately the spot we dive on was not that colourful, but the four Bronze Whaler Sharks that swam past us soon had my undivided attention. We managed to get a couple of snorkelling sessions in, even getting Jan into the water at one point but not for long as the 26 degree water temperature was still too cold for her, oh the English climate is going to be fun when we get back home! A walk up to Hill inlet lookout, overlooking Whitehaven beach, for us the best beach in the world so far. We visited it a couple of years ago with our daughters, squeaky white sand dropping into crystal clear water, the only disappointment being this time we didn’t actually get on to Whitehaven beach, we had to make do with Betty’s beach on this side of the inlet instead, nice but not as good. Our last night is spent anchored in the Bay of South Molle Island. Our daughter Stephanie worked here for several months a few years ago, we got the impression at the time, that it was a bit run down, and they had to join in with the games at night to make the guest numbers up. But the place didn’t look very shabby when we went ashore to walk to the lookout the next day, passing through the resort with its golf course, large pool, private beach and water sports, thinking just how much of a struggle it must have been, working here for three months! Back on land our feet are firmly brought back down to earth as we swap our luxury life style for the camper life, mind you it could be worse, I could still be working!!!!! We continue down the coast arriving in Bundaberg where Trish & Graham, the couple that we have made good friends with during our travels live. We arrive and so does the rain for the next two days, they’ve had no rain in Bundaberg for months, we arrive and they get 32mm in one night, perhaps we could rent ourselves out to drought ridden countries, that could be one way of supplementing the pension! We take the opportunity of getting the camper serviced and checked out so that we can get it advertised before arriving in Sydney towards the end of the month. Unfortunately the service reveals that the rear suspension bushes are completely shot, well we have been giving it a bit of hammering on our way round Oz and Jan’s not getting any lighter so something’s got to give! A repair figure of $1800 is quoted, so I opt to carry out the repairs myself after Graham kindly allows me to use his back garden as a workshop, two days later and the new rear suspension bushes are fitted with only small amounts of skin missing from my fingers, and only $350 missing from my bank account so a result all round. Bundaberg is the home of the Jabiru plane, this company specialises in producing small two or four seater aircraft which can either be purchased in kit form and then built at home, or brought ready made from the factory. They are a common sight in Australia, with the huge distances that you have to travel in the outback, people use them like the rest of us would use the family car back home. Well it turns out that Graham owns one of the two seater models and his son owns a four seater. Graham offers us a flight up over the coast with a landing on the beach to do a spot of fishing, now as much as my wife loves fishing as you probably know flying is not one of her favourite pastimes so she opts to keep her feet firmly on the ground and forgo the fishing trip with a difference. We take off and head up over the coast towards Busted Heads beach where we hope to land and spend a few hours fishing. Graham bravely lets me have a go with the stick and after a few minutes of rollercoaster flight I manage to relax enough to keep it at least level, nothing to this flying lark apart from the landing and taking off!!!!! Graham then takes back the controls and we land on the little strip of beach safely, just a little bit unnerving as the sea comes rushing up to you. We have a couple of hours to fish before the tide comes back in and starts removing the runway, no pressure there then! No fish to bring home though but certainly a great experience. As we leave Bundaberg the weather returns to its normal warm dry self and we say goodbye to good friends that we have made while here in Oz. We have only a couple of weeks left on the road, hard to believe that the time has gone so quickly, driving down to Brisbane to meet up with one of my relations, I hear from Mandy that Ray Soames one of the people I used to work with in the fire service, has just arrived in Noosa to visit his family. We take a small detour and meet up by the waterfront for a spot of lunch and to catch up with the news from home. Ray travels over here a couple of times each year to meet up with his daughter and family, it was just fortunate that we happened to be driving by this part of Australia when he was here. Brisbane is another place that we have already visited and so catching up with Midge one of my relatives and trying to get the camper advertised out there on the web is the order of the day. We are going to advertise the camper on Trading Post the only problem being, as we discover, after putting the ad together, is that you have to have an Australian credit card to be able to pay, international cards are not accepted and as we do not have an Australian bank account this is a big problem. Fortunately a phone call to my friendly money lender here in Oz (Mandy) and she very kindly pays for the ad with her card, allowing us to get the ad online later that day, now all we need is somebody to buy it. Ipswich is our next lighting stop (no not home quite yet) and on our arrival we discover that it’s a city over here with a population of 155,000 compared to the town of Ipswich back home that wants to be a city but with only a population of 138,000 still a few thousand short, mind you Ipswich in Australia doesn’t have a football club, unlike the mighty town that I notice are sitting quite comfortably at the bottom of the championship table at the moment!!!!! In our quest to touch the four points of Australia only the easterly point is left and that is Byron Bay, definitely the easiest one to access with a simple drive up to the lighthouse car park from the town, mind you it’s also the most expensive with a $7 parking fee for the privilege. We’re now back in New South Wales the state that we started our travels from nine months earlier, travelling back across the waterfall way to Armidale it turns quite chilly as we climb to heights of 1500 metres with a few scary sights on the way see belohey’ve had a very dry winter and spring here so the waterfalls are not at their best. From here it’s down the New England highway to Muswellbrook where we meet up with Jacko and Jane the group leaders on our trip from the UK. They have been back to the UK since we last saw them, but are now settled back in Australia after finding the recession back in the UK has been a lot more severe than here in Australia. Good news for them both with Jane expecting their first baby in February, we also have our fingers crossed that Jackos final scan later this month gives him the all clear after his chemotherapy treatment for Non Hodgkins lymphoma, keep us posted you two on the family developments. Wednesday was going to be our last day on the road as we head back into Sydney but as we rise in the morning an eerie glow is coming through the windows as the red dust storm is passing over us, the taste of dust sticks in the back of your throat, so we decide to spend another day in Muswellbrook as there is very little to see outside. We fortunately didn’t get it as bad as Sydney, but our clean camper is going to need yet another clean. We arrive back at Chris & Mandy’s on Thursday with just three weeks left here in Australia, our most pressing issue is the selling of the camper so far we have had just two calls and those from people several hundred kilometres away. We are beginning to wonder if a drastic price reduction is needed to get some interest going, but on Sunday Ralph from Adelaide rings and sounds very interested saying he will probably drive up mid week to have a look. I am amazed that someone is prepared to drive 1400 km’s to have a look at a vehicle, but when you live in a country that’s as big as Australia everything’s a long drive away, the next nearest camper for sale like ours is in Tasmania which would also involve a flight. But good to his word Ralph turns up on Wednesday with his brother after a 16 hour drive, we do the deal that night because he’s looking to sleep in it before driving back to Adelaide the next day. Our hostess with the mostess (Mandy also part time money lender) offers them the use of the spare bedroom for the night rather than have to use the camper, and we all retire to bed happy with the day’s events. We have driven some 36,919 km’s around Australia in our camper with only one puncture in the whole trip which is amazing considering some of the roads we have been travelling on or through! Buying a camper is certainly the way to go, we sold it for $2,000 less than what we paid for it, but fortunately due to the pound falling through the floor on the currency markets at the moment, we actually made £1,200 once I got the money back into my English bank account. This profit covers the road tax, insurance, rego slip, and first service, so all in all a cheap years motoring my first ever!! A year in Australia, wow, just where has it gone, we have had an amazing time and seen some amazing sights. Bushwalking, swimming with whale sharks, climbing mountains, or just simply strolling along the beach, this country certainly has it all, including the dangerous animals which Jan will be pleased to leave even if she has scratched a sharks nose! We have made some great new friends and been reunited with some great old ones, which gives us even more of a reason to return at some point in the future. Although the east coast leg of our trip has turned out to be more of a sprint than a cruise, we have been pleased to spend more time in the north and west exploring the great outdoors with its rugged scenery. The east coast is much more heavily populated than the west, but that also means having much more selection with everything, from shopping and fresh provisions, to entertainment. If we did decide to settle here, then Queensland would probably be the place, with its milder climate. But as yet we still have another three countries to sample before our return to the UK so who knows what lies in store before us. We’ve now said goodbye to all our friends here in Sydney. Christine & Mick, hope you finish the house soon. John & Garth, great travelling with you John and Garth if you end up in England please look us up. Bob & Deidre, thanks for the meal with the whale watching bonus & good luck with the travelling, keep us posted. And finally Chris & Mandy for your great hospitality, money laundering, car rental, great room rates and good advice, we wish you all the best for your travels around Oz in a few years time you never know we might even meet up on the road one day!! We leave for Fiji and the island of Vanua Levu on the 15th October for two weeks of rest & relaxation in a beach cottage which has its own private beach, our cottage is some 200 metres up the hillside so great views, and hopefully above any wayward tsunamis. I’ll sign off from a fantastic year in Australia with this saying that I spotted in a bar the other day “It’s not the amount of years in your life, it’s the amount of life in your years that counts”. So get out there and do it today!!!!!
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WHITSUNDAYS, WHITEHAVEN BEACH
