| Frank & Lisa's Amazing Cross-Australia Adventures |
| The Queensland Coast |
| It has now been so long since we did this trip that I am only hoping my memory will be able to manage this! Instead of having a different page for each region, I will just be doing a full chronology. That's because everything is very far apart here. Half of our trip was easily spent driving from place to place. As a result, some places don't actually warrant their own pages because we just weren't there long enough. Some we visited twice (to balance our activities up the coast and back). And so we begin with Frank & Lisa's Amazing Cross-Queensland Adventure! |
| on to more Queensland Coast ...or |
| Rockhampton |
| Our first example of a place not requiring a whole page! Our first day of vacation involved 10 hours of driving. This brought us to Rockhampton, still several hours away from our first desired destination of the Whitsunday Islands. We arrived at our pub-style accomodation just in time to |
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| have dinner and go to bed so that we were ready for the next day's drive! The one interesting thing here is that frieght trains run through the middle (literally) of this town constantly. This is a picture of the main street during "rush hour"... |
| Whitsundays |
| Undoubtedly one of the most beautiful vacation spots in the world! Whitehaven beach is rated in the top 10 best beaches in the world. Hayman Island is one of the island resorts of the rich & famous, with Bill Gates being a regular visitor. Hamilton Island is home to some of the most famous yachts in the world. The multitude of other islands are also beautiful, and the gateway to this magical island paradise is known as Airlie Beach... We arrived at Airlie Beach mid-afternoon and checked in at our accommodation. This time we had a small cottage at a campground tourist park. We attempted to book ourselves into a sunset sailing cruise, but there were none running that day as the boats had been hired for private charters... (Airlie Beach is a contradictory little town with heaps of money along side a huge backpacking population.) So that evening we booked in for our activities for the next day as well as upon our return about 10 days later. We also booked another night's accommodation with this holiday park for the second night of our return trip. Then we took a short drive up to the local shopping center to buy some groceries & other essentials, took a swim at the campground pool, and packed up our gear for our next day's trip. Our hotel pick-up the next day came at 7:30am and then we were off to the marina to meet The Mantaray for our trip out to the islands. We spent the morning at Hill Inlet, a beautiful bay on the magnificent Whitsunday Island (not far from Whitehaven beach, |
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| which we would visit on our return stop). We were dropped off at Turtle Bay at the other side of the island and walked over the hill. The bigger boats can't enter the inlet because it is too shallow. The bay provided a good example fo the ambiance of the Whitsundays. Big tree-filled islands and majestic sailboats moored in every bay (pic right). |
| During our walk across the island we saw a few monitors (pic below left) and birds, but not much other wildlife. A good thing, because last time I visited my sister & I were fortunate enough to walk over a snake... While here, I did get Frank to try licking a tree ant's bum. These ants build their nests in trees by binding leaves together (this pic courtesy of Kelli from our trip - pic below right). Kelli gave one a taste last time we were here, and I kept assuring him they taste like lemon. I'd been goading him since we were in Litchfield, so finally we both gave it a go. And they really do taste strongly of yummy lemons! You just have to manage to grab 'em by the head and not get bitten to enjoy it! |
| The lookout at Hill Inlet allows for some of the most beautiful views I have ever seen! no picture can truly do it justice, but here is a sample (pic right). Frank & I actually went to the lookout twice during our morning. This picture is from on the way back to the boat as the tide was going out... |
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| Frank did a bit of swimming at the beach (pic right), but I did not want to be bothered getting into my stinger suit twice. I wanted to wait until we went snorkelling because they are so much harder to get into once they're already wet. What is a stinger suit you ask? It is a full length lycra bodysuit not as heavy as a wetsuit that will keep the deadly box jellyfish (also called stingers) from sending you to hospital for 4 days should you be unfortunate enough to find one. The caveats for even swimming are that they don't usually get too close to the coral reefs and thus the likelihood of encountering one, let alone having them hit your head, hands or feets while you swim is apparently very slim... |
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| After we got back to the boat we were off to snorkel & dive respectively. Frank had a nice time diving with a young couple from the Rockhampton area (pic of him suiting up |
| below right) while I amused myself at the top of the water. We were right off of the shore of Hill Island, so there was no need for depth to enjoy the beautiful coral and abundance of fish. This is a wrasse I came across that day (pic below left) - Remember - no zoom lens on the cheap underwater cams! it is very small compared to the one Frank saw later on off of Cairns! |
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| Northern Territory: Red Centre , 2 / Top End , 2 NSW & ACT: Hunter Valley / Sydney / Canberra , 2 Queensland Coast: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 South Australia: Barossa Valley / Kangaroo Island / McLaren Vale & Coonawarra Victoria: Great Ocean Road , 2 , 3 / Melbourne New Zealand (North Island): Aukland / Rotorua / Tongariro / Wellington (South Island): Nelson / Westland / Queenstown / Milford / Dunedin / Mt Cook / Christchurch |
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