For Thai trip diary go to WEB page indicated on the right.
10th Nov. Did a free guided tour of the botanical gardens. Bought a Telstra mobile phone card and a Big Pond Internet Account, so we now have and Australian mobile phone number you can call (00 61 417 48 20 36). Tried the Big Pond connection but couldn�t get the modem to work through the hotel phone system (help me Geoff).
11th Nov. Walked to Circular Key and took the ferry to Manly and walked along the beach and up the headland.
12th Nov. Hired a car for the day for the purpose of finding a car to buy, the main place to buy cars is the Parramata Road where all the dealers and used car lots are based. Initially we didn�t find what we were looking for, we test drove a couple off 1994 Mitsubishi Magna 2.6 but the suspension was shot. Finally found a garage with a few high Ford Falcons and lots of other cheap motors, I test drove a 1996 white Ford, it looked and drove OK but it had 250000kms on the clock. All the Sydney taxi�s are Ford Falcons which seemed like a good endorsement so I bought the car. It had been tested that morning and they put 6 month �Rego� on it. We went back 2 hrs later and drove the car away. We then went to the Kings Cross backpackers car market to buy some extra car insurance.
13th Nov. Meet up with Nigel Curtis a friend from work who moved to Oz in 1988 and now lived in Sydney. We had to transfer the ownership on the car to ourselves but needed a New South Wales address and Nigel very kindly obliged. After a bit of hassle we finally got the car transferred and went off for lunch near to Nigel�s. After lunch we went for a drive to the North Sydney beaches and collected some sea snails and weeds for Nigel & Alda�s tropical fish tank. The last beach we went to was Palm Beach which apparently is used as the setting for the TV series Home & Away. The evening was rounded off with a wonderful fish BBQ, Nigel had taken a course on barbequing and told me that the trick is to use a low heat and not to keep flipping the food over.
14th Nov. Got up early and left Sydney to travel north, it takes about 30 minutes to get through the suburbs and onto the motorway. We didn�t have a specific destination in mind we just thought we�d see how we felt. The speed limit is 110km of motorways and 100km on major roads with no tolerance for going over the limit. We saw large billboards with a speedo showing 130km and the message �you are now traveling at $579�. We decided to stop at Nambucca Head about 30km south of Coffs Harbour at a camping site with cabins.
15th Nov. Drove into Nambucca Head and found there was a NRMA office (like the AA or AAA) so we enrolled and took out the roadside assistance cover. Went on to Bellingen and Dorrigo where we had visited two years earlier and particularly liked (look on www.rosuz.com for early pictures). In Dorrigo we bought a G Day phone card which gives us calls back to the UK for 3.9c/min (good deal). Dorrigo is at 762m above sea level, there�s a rain forest center nearby which we visited once again. It has a skywalk which takes you our into the valley above the trees.
16th Nov. Moved on early, our objective was to get into Queensland as we�d already visited Byron Bay on this coast. We decided to give Brisbane a miss and carried on to Noosa Heads. Queensland doesn�t put it�s clock forward in summer so we had gained an hour which is pretty useful as it gets light at about 4am and dark at 6pm! We�ve decided to get up early to take advantage of the daylight in future. Noosa Head is a very busy resort town situated along the river estuary, we drove out of town along the river and found a reasonable motel for A$77 a night, our room faced the river with a patio door opening onto the gardens and riverside park & walks. Had a very nice meal at the �Noosa Boathouse on the water� Suzanne pushed the boat out and had Mahi-mahi.
17th Nov. Hired a small runabout motor boat for two hours and pottered up river. Had to negotiate the cable ferry on route to ensure I didn�t catch the cable. Saw a Sea Eagle perched in a tree and made it up to a large shallow lake where we saw pelicans on a sandbank. Afterwards we went for a drive up on Noosa Head for views of the river and coastline. In the afternoon we wanted to walk so we found the National Park and did a 6.4km walk in the woods and round the headland, we saw Banksias in bloom and caught sight of a small kangaroo. Later we came upon a large monitor lizard walking off the path , it was about 1m long.
18th Nov. Got up early and drove on for about 450km, stopping at the information center about 70 km south of Gladstone, the lady there convinced us to take a look at the towns of Agnes Water & �Town of 1770�. We decided to stay here for 3 nights having found a lovely guest house.
19/20th Nov. Spent a couple of days walking and swimming in the sea which was warm, there were no stingers or stonefish. This is the most northerly surf beach in Eastern Australia. The �Town of 1770� is really just a small village, as it�s name suggests it was discovered in 1770 by Captain James Cook. We really fell in love with this place, it was nice and quiet with stunning views.
21st Nov. Drove north for 560kms heading for Mackay, we started out early at 7am and arrive at Sarina at 1:30pm and visited the information center. As we had made good time we decided to go inland 85km through the sugar cane plantations and up into the mountain rain forest. Arrived in Eungella at 3pm and looked around for somewhere to stay, decided on the �Broken River Mountain Retreat�. This is a Ecotourist resort specializing in interpretative tours of the Eungella National Park. Across the river from the lodge is a viewing platform for the platypus so at 17:00 we went over to have a look and caught site of them. Had dinner in the restaurant and met a very nice Aussie couple who worked on Hamilton Island. They had done an extensive tour of Australia a few years earlier, I invited them back to our chalet and they gave us lots of ideas of places to visit.
22/23 Nov. Went on a guided bird spotting tour with the ranger then did a 7.5km walk in the rainforest and saw a snake! On the evening of our last day we did a night walk with the ranger, by this time it had started raining so there wasn�t much to see. We saw frogs, toads, gecko, roosting birds and platypus, the ranger collected any cane toads he found as they were infesting the region, he said he put them in his freezer for a long sleep!
24 Nov. Time to move further north but first we stopped off at Mackay to shop for provisions, we bought some stuff to stop the leeches getting on us when we next go for a forest walk. Dropped into Airlie Beach which we�d been told was nice, the bay looked good, the town was full of backpackers and looked quite small so we moved on. Stopped at the tourist information near Bowen and decided to stay here for a couple of nights. Found a lovely hotel right on the beach at Rose Bay.
26 Nov. Moved on, drove past lots of fields of sugar cane, stopped at Mission Beach and found another hotel on the beach call Castaways. There are supposed to be lots of Cassowarys living in this area.
27 Nov Did a few walks in the rainforest, saw a small kangaroo and what we thought was a Cassowary we later decided it must have been an Emu.
28 Nov Cloudy when we got up, decided to do a long walk, as we drove there we stopped at a Sunday Market, we bought some oranges and lychee. It started to pour down with rain, we sat in the car for a while waiting for it to clear but it didn�t so we decided to go back to the hotel. The rain cleared and we went for a 4 km walk up Bicton Hill.
29 Nov Drove to Cairns, on the way we stopped off at a Sugar Industry Museum. Stopped in Cairns for about an hour but moved on as we needed to find a hotel. Arrived at Palm Cove and liked it, got a really good deal at an apartment hotel. We got a free upgrade from a hotel room to a one bedroom apartment (bedroom, bathroom & kitchen/dinner) for A$99 per night, initially booked for 3 nights then extended it to a week.
See web pages for what we�ve been doing all week.
6 Dec Driving to the Atherton Tablelands.
