Cairns to Sydney (Oz Experience)

It's been a very busy couple weeks. I've flown from Sydney up to Cairns. Cairns is a tropical environment. It reminded me a lot of Florida except that there are rainforests and mountains. It is the rainy season so I didn't see sunshine at all for the 3 days i was there. I am on a package deal with a tour company called the Oz Experience. For some reason that i don't understand, everyone refers to Australia as Oz except that Aus does sound like Oz. Anyhow, this bus has many routes all over Australia and you can purchase segments of it or the entire deal if you are really ambitious. They basically transport you from city to city but there are several site-seeing stops between which is really nice instead of sitting on a bus for 6 hours and not seeing anything other than the cities. The bus stops in each location every two days generally and you can hop on and off as you wish (with a reservation nonetheless). You basically get a pass based on the package you purchase and it is good for 6 months. The most i am staying in anyplace is 3 days as i don't have as much time as many others to visit all these places. It is a really good time. The drivers and great and really educated about native Australia which makes it that much better.



26 Jan - 30 Jan
Cairns
I went on a rainforest 4x4 tour which was really nice. At a place we stopped for lunch, we got to feed some kangaroos that they had in captivity (haven't seen a wild kangaroo yet). I also went on a full-day boating trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. They had a resort island near where we docked. I did some snorkeling and also did a 30 minute dive (about 10 meters deep). The reef was really cool. The pictures i took do it no justice.



30 Jan - 31 Jan
Mission Beach
This is just a sleepy little town on a beautiful long beach. The beaches in Queensland are empty now during the summer because of the stingers (box and irugandi jellyfish are deadly) are near the shores for mating. You are advised not to go into the ocean without a stinger suit. Fortunately for people visiting Australia in the winter can use the beaches because there are not stingers in the waters.

















31 Jan - 1 Feb
Magnetic Island
This is a smallish island with a couple little towns on it. It's claim to fame is that it [supposedly] has more koalas living on the island than people. This was exciting until i never saw a single koala. I went on a bushwalk/boulder climb myself and only saw a rock wallaby. We did a full group bushwalk the day we left and guess what, no koalas anywhere to be found. Oh well, the island is really beautiful and i got some nice pictures.



1 Feb - 5 Feb
Airlie Beach /
Whitsunday Islands
Airlie Beach is just a small town that simply caters to the tourists wanting to take cruise/sailing trips around the Witsunday Islands or the Reef. This is basically at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. Airlie is just about partying. There is one road along the shore and it is full of hostels, hotels, bars, shops, and eating places. I was on a 3-day sailing trip with a total of 18 tourist people and 3 crew members. I think most of them were younger than me. It was fun, though. Sailing around groups of islands during the day, docking and swimming in the ocean at points during the day, and then sleeping on the boat.


5 Feb - 6 Feb
Kroombit
All i can say is that this was a blast. It took about an 11 hour bus ride to get there and we only stayed overnight but it was a bunch of fun. Kroomit is an area with the highest concentration of beef farms. Let me tell you that we were completely in the sticks. We slept in rooms that looked like horse stalls with 3 sets of bunk beds in them. At least we had air conditioning, though. There were two Oz bus groups there at one time (there's a bus on a south circuit and a bus on the north circuit). At night, most of the groups took a try on the mechanical bull. I lasted for 43 seconds which was the third best out of a group of about 25 people. It was funny because a few people (girls) flopped off on the first buck which let me tell you is quite strong. You have to really try hard to get through that first buck then it is ok until your legs get too weary from holding on. We spent the rest of the night doing some group games and this coin trick which i will have to show you in person cuz it is a bit freaky.

At the ass crack of dawn the next morning after this weird-sounding rooster crowed, a girl from Orange County, CA, and I paid to do a horse ride/goat mustering. We got on our horses and with our bus driver and a lady horse person we walked through some acres of land basically herding about 100 goats into a large group and then herding that group to a pen where we would use them later in the day for more fun. So after a little brekky (breakfast), the southbound Oz bus went out to goat pen and learned how to throw a lasso and how to rope a goad and do a mock branding of the goat. There were also other things we could pay extra to do such as shooting clay pigeons or taking a dirt bike ride but no one was interested.


6 Feb - 10 Feb
Hervey Bay / Fraser Island
Hervey Bay is on the mainland where we stayed the night before and the night after Fraser Island. It is a typical suburban town.

The fun part was going to Fraser Island. I believe the is the largest sand island in the world. I don't know all the details off hand. It is deceiving, though, because the island is covered with rainforest and bush forest. Even though, there is almost nil organic top soil. If you dig just a few inches, there is just sand. We were told that if a fire was to burn down everything, the entire island would be washed away by the ocean because all the tree roots are holding the sand together. I'm not so certain to believe this, though, because there are some very high sand dunes on the island. The island is gorgeous.

What we did is we were grouped into 4x4 trucks in packs ranging from 9 to 11 people. There were a total of four 4x4 groups that went from our company that went to Fraser Island at the same time. We got to drive the trucks ourselves. There was no tour guides. We got the trucks in Hervey Bay and then took a ferry over to Fraser. The company provided us with camping equipment, a map with places to visit on the island, and a base camp to return to each night around 5 pm. An no, this was not like hauling ass on sand dunes. It was basically driving down sandy tracks and along the beach. I unfortunately (or fortunately) did not try to drive. I figured that since i have only driven a manual vehicle twice in my life (and not too well) and the fact the the steering wheel and shifter is completely opposite in Australia than in the US, it was best not to test my luck of burning up a clutch. Oh well, i had a great time nonetheless cuz i don't like to drive much anyhow. My group was awesome. We got along really well and partied on the beach under a 3/4 moon on two nights. It was magnificent.


10 Feb - 14 Feb
Brisbane
I've spent a day and a half in Brisbane. I regret that i'm not spending more time. This is a really nice city. It seems to be quite modern and cosmopolitan. The first night i had a decent seafood tempura dinner and then danced my ass off at a club until 1:30 am. The second day i've spent doing computer stuff, laundry, trying to organize the next parts of my holiday, and walking around the city and taking pictures. Glamorous life, right? Yes i did do laundry prior to this but it was interspersed while doing other things.



14 Feb - 18 Feb
Byron Bay

It was all hyped-up to be at Byron Bay. I just did not like it as much as most others did. Maybe it just seemed like a little town of tourists coming and going on a daily basis. The fun part was stopping in Nimbin before reaching Byron. Nimbin is basically a really small town where a bunch of hippies gathered in the 1960's and never left. Now it is well know for elicit use of marijuana. It was quite interesting. Byron Bay is supposed to be a mix of the hippie culture and beach culture.

The area is beautiful, though, as is every other place also. The beach sand is so soft. I didn't go swimming here because there were a lot of blue bottle jellyfish in the waters. These are deadly but they will sting you and leave a very itchy hurting mark on you. I did go ocean kayaking, though. This was fun. We got to go quite a ways out. The water was crystal clear and you can see the sandy bottom about 20-30 feet down. We got to see 3 pods of dolphins swimming around too. These weren't kept or trained dolphins either. Some came pretty close to our kayaks to check us out. Two swam under my kayak. It was pretty cool. Unfortunately, I did not get any photos of this. I wasn't about to pay $23 for another underwater camera and then $10 to get the photos put on a CD-R.

Byron Bay is famous for being the eastern-most point of the mainland of Australia at Cape Byron. This is a picture of me at Cape Byron. I'm not quite all the way to the end but close enough.








18 Feb - 19 Feb
Arrawarra (1-day Surf Camp)

Surf Camp was pretty good. We arrived in the afternoon, unloaded our bags, got on swim clothes on, and headed to the beach to learn to surf for about 3 hours. It was not too hard as the waves were not massive and the water was not too deep because we were on large sand bars extending from the beach. It was definitely easier than the first time i tried with my friend Dave down in Pacifica, CA. I don't think i successfully stood up once then. Here at Arrawarra, I was getting up by the end of our session on the first day. The next morning we got up and headed for the beach. This time there wasn't extending instructions. We got in the water and went. I'd like to think that i did quite well. I had about a 95% success rate for the entire morning session. We left for Barrington by 11:00 am.










19 Feb - 20 Feb
Barrington

Barrington was another one of these places off the beaten track. It was about 4 hours inland within some nicely rolling hills/mountains. It was sort of like Kroombit but much greener and not so dusty. We stayed at a little stone structure called "The Steps" at Barrington which was right next to a river. The thing to do here is the night kayaking down the river. Supposedly, this is the only place in the world where you can raft down a river at night or at least that is what we were told. Nine people from our group went on the kayak excursion. We were give a kayak, paddle, life jacket, helmet, and head lamp. We were dropped off with two guides about 3 km upstream and then we just went down. There was talk about rapids and such but I wouldn't say they were rapids, just some shallow spots with water running over the rocks. There were two guys and seven girls so there ended up being a lot of pile-ups. Actually, the guides said that was the first time he had seen an entire group get stuck all in one spot. I was good times, though. Afterwards, we went back to base and ate homemade, wood-fire cooked pizzas, drank, and relaxed in the hot tub. I don't know if i can take much more of this vacationing stuff. Ok, maybe a bit more.