Revised 5-Feb-03
I arrived at River Heads at 3:45, and once again my timing was impeccable. The last Ferry going to Kingfisher Bay Resort (KFBR) left at 3:30, and it was the last one of the day too. I asked how I could get to my hotel then, and the guy said that they have plenty of Ferries that go to the Island, and I'll just have to drive a little to get to KFBR. I got to the Island and parked to see if I had a map on where I needed to go. I had a map, but it didn't help me, so I decided to just follow everyone else. They all were taking the same road so I decided to follow them since they seemed to know where they were going. If they were all driving to commit suicide in some quicksand, then I'd curse them as I sunk, but for now it was better than sitting around looking like a tourist. After about 2 KM and 4 minutes I saw a sign that said that KFBR was in 20KM (12 Miles). I figured that it should take me about 40 minutes to make the trip at the current rate that I was traveling. The roads were just paths in the sand. It was like driving through a Jungle with all the trees. The island really is "all sand". Most of the road I was driving on was sand. I'm not sure how often they groom the roads, but when I was driving on them the higher part in the middle of where the tires go was from 4 to 8 Inches (10 to 20 CM) high. I know my Camero couldn't have gone anywhere. The only exceptions were some notably treacherous terrain like at where small creeks crossed the path, where they either put boards across the road or an actual wooden bridge. The 20K I had to traverse over the sand ended up taking me 75 minutes. I stopped for about 10 minutes at the Central Station which is a Ranger Station in the middle of the Island. I was hoping to find a more detailed map so I knew where I was going, but there was nothing of the sort. They had the same generalized map I already had blown up in a kiosk, but nothing I could take with me. The map I had had creeks, driving paths and walking paths, and both the walking and driving paths were dotted lines, just by varying degrees. It got confusing for me where they crossed or ran along each other. The map I had was on one flap of a pamphlet (one third of a regular sheet o paper), so there couldn't be too much detail since the island is more then 75 Miles (120KM) long. There were road signs, but besides that, the only landmark I saw was the Central Station. The road around KFBR was paved, but that was less than half a KM of my driving. I had taken some pictures of the road so I could show everyone, but they didn't turn out for some reason. My Digital camera just got white everywhere with some light gray where I know the bushes should have been.
I took the Ferry from KFBR back to the mainland rather than driving around to the other Ferry. Once back on the mainland I decided to take the other route back since there was a sign immediately as I started to drive that said the Highway was along this road. I should have done the same thing as before and kept to the roads I knew, because I got lost again. I thought I'd follow the "scenic route", but the scenic route took me to a dead end. I don't know how pretty the scenery was, because I was trying to get back to the Highway and didn't notice. I got back to the highway in about 15 minutes after being lost, so it was not too bad. I drove for a few hours to Surfer's Paradise (yes that is the name of the City). I knew I was supposed to turn towards the coast at Highway 4 and soon after I crossed the toll bridge in Brisbane I saw the exit for Highway 4. I had a map of this area so I noticed before I went 2 KM that the streets were not matching up. I made a U-Turn and got back on the highway after looking at the map and seeing that there are 2 completely different Highway 4s. One is a State Route and the other is a county road or something. I drove for another 50KM or so and turned on the other Highway 4 and got to my destination with little problems. I'm glad I like driving, or I would have never been up for this and getting lost multiple times would have pissed me off. Instead I took it all in stride and took driving on the wrong side of the road as a challenge. I only drove on the right (opposite of left) side once, and that was on a small street that I saw only one car on (See my Traveling in Brisbane page for details of this story). I'll tell you that after driving and being driven on the left for a month, I had to think a couple times before I started driving in America about which side I needed to be on.
On the way back from Surfers to the Airport it was another adventure. Whoever designed the approach for the bridge should be shot, but not lethally, so he can suffer. It is a 2 lane highway on the approach to the bridge. A third lane starts about a mile (1.5KM) from the bridge on the left side. About a half mile (3/4 KM) from the bridge, the right lane merges with the middle. A couple more lanes jut out form the left on the approach, and about 300 yards (280M) the previously known as "middle lane" merges into the PKA left lane. So *both* lanes that were originally on the highway merge in with new lanes. This backed up traffic for a couple miles. Who on Earth could design something this stupid? Why haven't they fixed it?
While I was in Melbourne, I talked to a couple people about how I feared driving on the left for the first time when I went to Queensland. They told me I'd fit right in with all the maniacs already on Queensland roads. After driving in Queensland, I talked to some people in Sydney about my exploits, and they also said that the Queenslanders are notorious for their backwards ways, especially on the freeway. Maybe all of the people I talked to were correct. Queensland is filled with road morons. Before I came over to Australia, all I heard about was how bad Tasmanians were, and Tasmania was compared with the rednecks of Texas, the hillbillies of Tennessee, and the hicks of Alabama. Could Queenslanders be far behind?
Now I must say this though: Queenslanders were very nice and any I met in person seemed intelligent and like anyone else you'd meet in a middle class neighborhood in the USA, although more friendly. And I have to wonder if someone would view the poorly named "rush-hour" traffic (which is neither full of rushing or lasting only an hour), and merging onto the freeway here in the Silicon Valley in much the same way as I view the Queensland roads. That being said, I still believe that some of the things that are done in the Queensland road system are insane.
(Corinne, I�m sooo sorry for trying to pressure you into driving in the USA. I did not realize the sheer horror I was trying to put you through, but on the other hand I at least tried it :P~ )
