Byron Bay, Nimbin and Port Macquarie...

After saying our goodbyes to the guys in Brisbane, we hit the road again, this time for the short hop over the border into NSW, and the delights of Byron Bay. Byron is a full-on backpacker city, with loads of hostels, backpacker bars and clubs, and more adventure trip-booking places than you could reasonably expect in a town of a mere 5,000 people.

Having said that, we both really enjoyed our time there. I marched Clare around Cape Byron on our first day there, but I'm pretty sure she ended up loving it as we spotted a load of dolphins which were either hunting fish or just having fun mucking about in the surf. We also went to Cape Byron lighthouse, which is Australia's most easterly point, geographical extremity fans.

That night we decided to go for a few pints to belatedly celebrate Clare's birthday. We found a suitably 'local' looking place, a bar close to the railway station (aptly named 'The Rails'). Great place, bad idea. Poor Clarey had about 4 beers and felt decidedly unwell. She has vowed from now on never to drink again, blaming some king of hereditary condition for her vicious illness after drinking. I think she just needs to find something new to drink! (cider, maybe?).

The next day we caught the 'Happy Bus' to Nimbin. Some of you may have heard of Nimbin. For those that haven't, it's like the stoner capital of Oz, full of hippie shops and people offering you pot and pot-based confectionaries. As ex-President Clinton would have said, we visited but we didn't inhale. Nimbin is in a beautiful location, next to the Nimbin Rocks, a sacred aboriginal site, where young aboriginal guys scaled the impossibly steep rocks to prove they were 'clever', only to be promptly circumcised by two sharp rocks if they got back to terra firma in one piece. Ouch.

After leaving the delights of Nimbin and Byron behind, we headed off down the coast to Port Macquarie, home of Australia's only Koala Hospital. We did a tour of the 'ward', watching the various patients happily chewing on gum leaves with little bandages over their paws or whatever else was hurt. All very cute. One Koala had even 'self admitted' itself with a broken leg when it had got hit by a car in town. It's now well on the way to a full recovery, you'll be happy to hear.

That evening, we boarded the bus for our final leg of our journey down the east coast, back to Sydney. It took us in total just twenty days to do the entire 2500-odd km from Cairns to Sydney, and we're now having a well deserved (yeah, right you're probably thinking!) rest at Clare's friend Mel's house in Sydney before the flight to NZ early next week.

More from NZ!

-Si

Brisbane...

Last Friday we finally made it to the capital of Queensland, Brisbane (AKA Brissie, or BrisVegas). We stayed a long weekend there with Kate and Brett, my friends from back in Shrewsbury. Thankyou so much guys for your kindness and generosity in putting us up for a few days!

Friday night we went out for a Mexican with Kate and Brett, meeting up with loads of other ex-Shrewsbury crew: Sharon, Keith, Anj and Justin. Cue loads of beers, wine and reminiscing about the Shrewsbury days and tales of travelling!! It was really great to see them all, and kind of bizarre with it being here on the other side of the world.

After a bit of a lie in in Sat, we popped into Brissie city centre for a spot of sight-seeing:

Highlights of Brissie city centre include the Southbank, with loads of market stalls selling all those crafty things that Clare adores, as well as an inland beach, which seems really popular!

On Sunday, me and Brett hit Daisy Hill, a local mountain biking hotspot for a couple of hours of biking. Brett even lent me his very nice bike for a couple of hours, which I managed not to break thankfully! It was really great to do a bit of biking again, especially on a 'proper' bike in such a great location. Thanks again Brett, here's a pic of him tackling one of the local jumps:

Sunday afternoon we headed up to Mt Coot-tha, the oddly-named local mountain, with a great view over the city. There we met Phill, AKA Blue, who we originally met in Denver (remember him, long-term blog fans?) It was great to catch up, and he kindly offered to take us out for a bit of a road trip the next day while Kate and Brett were working. Cool.

So on Monday morning we headed out to the Ettamogah Pub, a bizarrely-shaped cartoon pub for a drink, and the giant pineapple, a 15m-high plastic pineapple with a museum inside. They love their big things in Oz! Phill, thanks again for a great day out and hopefully see you again when you visit the UK!

After a great barbie (with some impressive flame-grilled calamari!) round at Anj and Justins 'luxury' pad on Monday night, we headed out on Tuesday to Byron Bay. More from there!

-Si

Fraser Island...

Ahh, Fraser Island. The largest sand island in the world, with (allegedly) more sand in it than all of the Sahara. It certainly is a very, very sandy place. Me and Clare decided on a one-day tour, due to cash and time-based constraints, which proved an interesting choice. This is because all the backpackers go on the overnight tours, staying in large permanant tents leaving me and Clare with.....the elderly!

Yes, that's right, me and Clare and a load of pensioners loaded up on our special 4 wheel drive bus for a tour of the island, with plenty of 'mind the step, it can get a bit slippy' or 'this is the last toilet stop for a while, you might want to go and try' type reminders as we set off.

We did actually have a fantastic day there, taking in lots of lakes, rainforests, the wreck of the Maheno, a knackered old luxury cruise ship accidentally washed up on shore by some shoddy Japanese sailing in the 1940's as well as some pretty coloured sands and a freshwater creek or twenty to swim in.

Anyways, here's a few piccies, including Clare's 'arty' number and 'Elderly in the forest - a study by Simon Howard':

































































Our trip to Fraser co-incided with Clare's birthday. Now, I'd really gone to town this year, even buying her a card that didn't insult her and/or mention flatulence. However, the girls in the hostel we were staying in totally outdid me by getting her a cake with candles, a present, balloons, and even colourful 'happy birthday' banners!
































-Si

Sailing the Whitsundays...

Sailing the Whitsundays has to be one of the best things we've done during our travels. We opted for a 2 day, 1 night trip on the 'Siska', an 80-foot ex-racing yacht now done-out to accomodate 20-odd guests and a crew of 4.

We set off on Monday from Airlie Beach, and after getting out of port, we (or actually I!) hoisted the main sail and we got going. I'm telling you now, hefting a 350kg sail up a 60 foot mast with only a bit of rope and a few pulleys is a real work-out!

Anyways, we spent the next couple of days sailing around the beautiful (and mainly untouched by man) Whitsunday Islands, stopping now and again for a spot of snorkelling on the reefs fringing most islands, or a trip out to one of the remote and totally unspoilt beaches. One of them, Whitehaven Beach, has sand that is so pure that NASA mined it a few years ago for a few tonnes of sand to make the lense (or maybe mirror?) of the Hubble Telescope. Cool.

Our cabin was brilliant too, right at the front of the boat so it was kind of pointy-shaped! Sleeping on a boat is weird though, with the sound of water sploshing around you and that constant rocking motion that made Clare really sleepy most the time!

Anyways, here's a few of pics for you:




















































































The crew were really great, as were the other guests, especially Tony, our young Canadian friend, wearing possibly the coolest t-shirt we've seen on the trip so far.

Next stop Hervey Bay and the delights of Fraser Island. Only a 13 hour bus journey to get there!

-Si

Mission Beach

I must admit our first impression of Mission beach was that of disaster. As I watched the Greyhound sailing by, I was struck with a sinking feeling. My ruck sack was still on the bus, and was now heading to Brisbane without me. Nothing too important in the bag, just camera memory cards, my travel journal, and some bank cards (obviously I withheld this information from Si!!!)

After ALOT of stressing, and sweet talking some Greyhound worker, a mere 5 hours later my poor bag was returned to me, cradled in the arms of a angry bus driver. I was so excited I offered the driver a kiss, which he decline with a grunt and a furrowed brow.

Now I know you guys might scoff as you are sitting at work reading this, but travelling is really knackering. After weeks of long days and early starts, we decided to have a bit of a chill day. Our hostel provided us with a constanse sourse of entertainment. Including a kamikaze poodle, that kept jumping in the pool, to discover it couldn't get out. And drunken backpackers would have to dive in fully clothed to save the drowning pooch.

We also got introduced to drink of Goon. Now I am no wine connoisseur, but this 'wine' contains fish eggs and fish bones, and is also served in a foil bag. For a mere $9, the hardest of drinkers can get ruined by this stuff. I say introduce to the drink, we were only introduced to the aftermath as me and Si didn't even have a sip. Not only because of the fish egg description but also me and Si are abstaining for alcohol of any kind. After a few months of the dirty booze in Mebourne, our beer bellies were bigger and our wallets smaller (why can it not be the other way around!) So we are now on our 3rd week of soft drink and such like. The people who have done the East coast here will know what an amazing feat that is!!

Clare
x

Cairns

Well bloggers, we have made it to Queensland. The sunshine state. North Queensland to be precise, smack in the middle of the tropics, so lots of palm trees and rainforests, 'muggy' weather and LOTS of rain. Compared to a sun-parched WA, Cairns is a very wet place.

Still, we've managed to dodge the spots enough to do a couple of quality trips. First up was the beautiful Cape Tribulation. This is a tiny little village in the middle of the rainforest, and the only way to get to it is a ferry crossing over the croc-infested Daintree River. Our cheery bus driver, Brad, showed as all sorts of interesting stuff during the day and seemed to be some kind of expert on plant n' animals and stuff. Our guide on the boat trip we did down the Daintree river, Rik, told us plenty of tales of how the crocs (or 'salties' as they're know round here) have bitten lumps out of people over the years. All very scary stuff.

Here's Cape Trib (and it's rainforests) anyways:

Next day we got a boat trip out to Green Island, part of the Great Barrier Reef National Park, and very lovely it is too. I did a load of snorkelling (I even swam with 3 sea turtles, very exciting) while Clare went on a semi-submersible boat that allowed her to see the reef without getting wet. Here's a pic of the place:

Next stop is Mission Beach. Cool sounding name, I like it.

-Si

WA (Part 2)...

OK, so after Dongara we headed north to Geraldton. A boring name but a lovely place. It's yet another port town (you may see a bit of a pattern forming here) but lovely nonetheless. The highlight of Geralton is the HMAS Sydney II memorial, built in honour of the 645 sailors who died after the sinking of the ship during World War II. A lovely lady called Di showed us round. Here it is:

Other cool stuff in Geraldton includes the gloriously O.T.T. St Francis Xavier church, a massive cathedral that looks slightly out of place in a small town, especially with it's gaudy orange-striped interior, but cool nonetheless:

After a couple of days in Geraldton, it was time to swing the car back round and head back to Perth. On the way back we found this really impressive tree, bent over by the ravages on living in WA but still very much alive:

We're both really glad we made the trip over to WA, it really is a long way from anywhere with lots of wide-open, but beautiful, nothingness. You feel like you have the entire place to yourself, which is so different to most the places we've been so far. Next stop is the hustle-and-bustle of the east coast, and the adventure capital of North Queensland, Cairns. More soon.

-Si

WA (Part 1)...

After Perth, we decided to see as much of Western Australia as possible (allowing for money and time contraints!) within a couple of weeks. Given the size of the place, this is a bit of a mission to say the least.

First stop after Perth was Bunbury. Bunbury is a lovely little port town, the highlight being the bottlenose dolphins that regularly cruise about in the harbour. On our second day there, we had a trip down to the beach, and within 5 minutes of being there we had already seen half a dozen dolphins! At the Dolphin Centre, we waded out into the sea for a bit of a closeup:
















Pretty cool eh? This photo is a bit of a cheat as it's only a picture of a photo we bought there, but we did see quite a few dolphins, including these pair, a big male and a mother and brand-new calf that had only been spotted for the first time that day!

We set off later that day for the surfing and wine-growing mecca that is Margaret River, nearly as far down in the south-west corner of Oz as you can go. The hostel there was top quality, with mud walled rooms, a 'peace garden', and a friendly owner called Jules who even came to pick us up from the bus stop. Me and Clare hired a couple of bikes the next day and headed down to the coast, 10km away, to check out the beaches:































After a brief return to Perth to pick up a hire car, we headed north, following the coast as we went. First stop was Yanchep National Park, with it's very-gaelic-sounding-but-very-aussie-looking Loch McNess:
















After this we headed to Lancelin (or should that be very rainy and windy Lancelin), home to one of the finest windsurfing spots in the world, and many surly european windsurfers to go with it. Can't say that it's a particularly friendly place to be honest. Out the back of Lancelin is basically desert, with massive sandunes that provide a playground for sandboarders and 4x4's alike. Here's me on top of one of the great beasts:
















After Lancelin, we headed up the coast to Cervantes, home of Pinnacles Desert National Park. This is basically a desert full of limestone pinnacles, but looks a lot better than it sounds. Eerily beautiful was Clare's (very fitting) description:
















After a night in a lovely local hostel, and meeting Jo, a British nurse travelling Oz who Clare spent a very enjoyable night 'talking shop' with, we headed out to Dongara, another nice little town by the sea. The hostel we stayed at there was legendary. Our 'room' was an entire converted 1906 luxury rail carriage, complete with about 4 bedrooms, bathroom, a cute little kitchen and a wicked porch to sit out on in the evening and watch the world go by. Marty, your place is amazing mate. Check out the pics:































More to come from WA soon!

-Si