| Frank & Lisa's Amazing Cross-Australia Adventures |
| The Queensland Coast (2) |
| We arrived back at the tourist park exhausted but quite happy with our day. I had suffered only mild seasickness on the return trip and we were both definitely ready for dinner! A quick dip in the hotel pool, dinner & packing up for the next morning's departure, and we were off to bed! |
| on to more Queensland Coast ...or |
| Townsville |
| Townsville saw our only foray into backpacker accomodation. A good thing to have done, but not something I would anxiously repeat. However, we didn't spend much time there, so that was good! We checked in and then walked over to the aquarium: Reef HQ. It gets quite good reviews as one of the best in Qld and it didn't disappoint. We found Nemo again - that little dude gets around (pic top left), watched them feed the sharks & turtles (pic top right), and spent endless amounts of time photographing the other fish, although I was still totally unable to get a decent one of those wiley seahorses... Here are a few samples. A baby stonefish: lethal if stepped on and much cuter than it extremely ugly adult counterpart (pic top middle). A nautilus: a fish that has not evolved in millions of years that made Frank question his desire to ever go diving again (pic bottom left). A jellyfish: though not the dangerous box jelly (pic bottom middle left). The crown of thorns starfish: believed to be a primary cause of the reef's slow death (pic bottom middle right). And finally me petting a sea cucumber (pic bottom right)! FYI, starfish are quite hard, but sea cucumbers are definitely squishy... |
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| After we finished up at the aquarium we ventured down The Strand. It is a park stretching for kilometers down the beachfront. It has a waterpark, sports fields, swimming beaches (stinger season permitting), and most importantly, as hotel/motel strip on the other side of the street at one point. So we I found a nice little budget motel to book into for our return trip! No more backpackers' for us! Then it was over to The Brewery (pic below). A find from my first trip up with Kelli, I was very excited to go back with someone who likes beer! There aren't many |
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| brewpubs in Australia, and this is a fine example! They serve 6 brews on tap and only bottle one for takeaway. We started with a sampler tray, and then stayed on to eat dinner and watch one of the Rugby World Cup matches over a few more pints of our favourites. Mine is Burdekin Gold Wheat Beer. I think Frank liked the Ned's Red Irish Ale (after Ned Kelly) and their multi-award-winning Flanagan's Dry Irish Stout. |
| Cairns |
| After a 5 hour drive we arrived in Cairns. We checked into what would be home for the next 4 nights and then strolled into town. We booked a trip out the the reef for the next day and then went grocery shopping. The next morning we walked to the pier to board the Osprey V for our day's outing to the Great Barrier Reef with Down Under Dives. To be honest, I am not much of a snorkeller and I was anticipating getting bored with a full day of it. I had come because Frank obviously wanted to dive the reef, but was keen to go on a trip together. As soon as we got on board, Frank was whisked away upstairs for his dive briefing, while I was relegated below with the mass of snorkellers. It became clear quite quickly that Frank & I were not going to spend much time together and I was pretty much on my own for the day. I didn't take it as a good sign that the first thing they did was hand out ginger tablets for seasickness, especially because I know I am prone to it and had already taken 2 before boarding! I had prior experience on these huge tourist boats full of snorkellers, so I thought that I could create the perfect action plan. We were going to be going to 2 reef locations: 1 in the morning, 1 in the afternoon. My trip with Kelli told me that people would tire themselves out at the first place and only about 2/3 would actually snorkel that afternoon. My plan was to sunbake on the front deck of the boat at the first location and save my snorkelling for the afternoon spot where I'd have less clueless people running into me and giving me flippers in the face... So at our first location, Frank went off diving and the mass of snorkellers poured into the water. I had the deck entirely to myself until lunchtime when Frank joined me along with a standing room only crowd who decided it was a good place to eat. When we left our mooring and headed to the next site, I could see a few people feeling queasy and some heads nodding. So far so good... We arrived at the second mooring and Frank went off for his next dive. My plan was intact until I went to get my snorkelling equipment. At that point, the winds picked up, the clouds rolled in, it started to rain, and the seas got correspondingly rough. Big waves and strong currents are not prime snorkelling conditions, so I ended up bailing on the plan. Instead I got to sit with a bunch of sweaty, salty people in a mustly little damp cabin waiting for Frank to finish his dive. My one saving grace is that I was somehow in the minority of people not now feeling seasick. Apparently the crew forgot to tell people at the start of the day that you have to keep taking ginger tabs every 3-4 hours for them to keep working! So I spent $145 to go to the reef and didn't even hit the water. The topper was that the glass-bottomed boat tour was even cancelled due to the weather. Fortunately, Frank was positively beaming after his dives! He had a great time with his assigned diving partners, and was clearly happy that I was there when he got out, so I can't call the trip a total waste of my time and money. Here are a couple of pictures from Frank's diving adventures taken by the on-board underwater photographer. The first is his typical tourist picture (pic below left) and the second is of a huge wrasse he saw that puts my little one to shame - Frank is the diver behind it if you want a sizing comparison (pic below right).The last pic is one Frank took of the same fish. |
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| On the way back to the docks I got to sit with the diving crowd up on the top deck and hear them talk about all the cool stuff they saw. Some queasiness hit at a particularly rough stretch of sea where the currents intersect. Both Frank & I were happy that there was only 15 minutes left before we hit terra firma and could walk home. It took us both a while to get our land legs back and that rocking sensation under our feet! |
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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 |