The Wizard of Aus

AUSTRALIA EAST COAST

November 30^th – December 21^st

To summarize our plans for travelling in Australia briefly, we started out in Melbourne, where we rented a campervan, and drove up the east coast all the way up to Cairns. With only three weeks to cover that distance (about 5000km) and lots to do and see along the way, we didn’t have much time to keep up with the blog. But, we didn’t want to leave our Aussie adventures out completely, so here are the highlights.

Melbourne

After arriving in Melbourne, we had a day before we were picking up our campervan, so we were able to see some of the city. Melbourne is a busy busy place, not all that surprising since it has a population of about 4 million people. And considering that we just spent 5 months in a country that has a total population of about 4 million, we were not used to the big city anymore.

Melbourne City Center

Bustling with people and traffic

The next day we picked up the campervan and spent some time getting all geared up to go in what we would call home for the next three weeks. We can finally present to you...

Waldo (aka Wally).

As you can see, Waldo is a bit different than Bertie was. Waldo has a pop up tent on the top where we slept, a kitchen in the back trunk, and a dining/living room in the inside.

Kitchen

Our first meal in Waldo

The weather was not as we expected when we first arrived. It was a little chilly for our first week (chilly for Australia of course) and we ended up having to dig out a sweater from deep down in our suitcases. The last two weeks we had much warmer and nicer weather, and even a couple days where we were dreaming of the cooler weather we had earlier. The first couple really hot days were tough, but we did get used to it a little bit.

Anyways, here are some of our highlights...

Hiking in Wilsons Prom National Park

Tree Tunnel

Squeaky Beach

This is where we had our first wild Kangaroo sighting. We were walking through a grassy field and there were Kangaroos hopping about and emus strolling all around us.

One popped out of the grass and was within 10 feet of us.

Boating in Croajingalong National Park

Stopped at our own private beach for lunch

Jervis Bay. We were hoping to have a beach/snorkelling day here, but it was rainy and cold.

Claims to have the whitest sand in the world. Maybe on a sunny day it looks whiter.

Driving through Kangaroo Valley

Hiking in the Blue Mountains

The mountains actually look blue because of the oil that is released from the trees here.

Crazy rock formations and cliffs

Hiking through the rainforest in the Blue Mountains

Walking under the waterfall

 The Three Sisters

We were going to stay overnight in the Blue Mountain area, but it was really cold (we could see our breath while we were hiking). We decided to make our way into Sydney that night instead.

We were lucky to have met a guy a couple months back that travelled Austalia extensively. He gave us a bunch of tips, the most useful one being where to stay in a campervan in Sydney. He told us to park at the end of Glebe Point Road (a residential area just outside of the city center, right on the train line and by a beautiful park). We found it and ended up staying there for two nights. No one cared we were there.

We spent a day touring around Sydney by foot, train, and ferry.

Sydney Fish Market

Kissy Kissy

 View of the Opera House from the ferry to Manly Beach

Sydney

We walked by it for a closer look

Sydney Harbour Bridge

When we left Sydney and kept going up the coast. Our next stop was a Reptile Park where we saw a whole bunch of Aussie animals.

Look at the little Joey in the pouch!

Petting the Roo!

Koalas

Alligators (so creepy)

While we were watching the alligators, we actually saw one jump up to a tree and catch a bird. Then all the other alligators started chasing him down, as he swam away from them still with the bird hanging from his mouth.

Great Big Crocodile (luckily this was our only encounter with one of these)

Scuba Diving in South West Rocks

Nikki had the chance to go out for an introductory dive (unfortunately Scott was really really seasick by the time we got out there and couldn’t dive). She dove to 15m and was down for 45 minutes exploring the underwater world.

Grey Nurse Sharks were everywhere.

They would swim right up to you, have a look, and then swim away. Surprisingly she wasn’t as scared as we both expected. Apparently these sharks are not known to attack humans. Luckily Nikki still has all 4 limbs and all 20 digits.

The one shark we encountered that was a little scary was this wierd looking shark. It was blended into the bottom and Nikki almost stepped on it. Luckily the guide quickly pointed it out to her and she avoided that disaster.

That could have resulted in a loss of a limb. Eeeeekkk!

Where’s Waldo?

Surfing at Byron Bay 

Brisbane (aka. Brizzy)

This was our first experience of the excruciating heat. We woke up in our tent at about 6am because it was already too hot.

We figured out why when we saw this was the forecast for the day. Eeeekk!

Biking around Brizzy in the early morning heat

Kangaroo Point Cliffs in Brizzy

Swimming at Hervey Bay (Our last swimmable beach... too many jellyfish from here north)

Two things that Australia has a lot of are floods and fires. All in one day of driving, we experienced both of these things.

Floodway

Bush Fire on the side of the highway

Beautiful scenery to the Hunter Valley

Then came our biggest highlight of the trip... Kroombit Station.

This was our one and only opportunity to experience the Australian outback. We drove inland to this ranch (here they call it station), where we were trained to be true Aussie cowboys!

Don’t mess with these cowboys

We went horseback riding.

But not just a regular gallop through the ranch... we did some goat mustering on horseback.

We gathered about 300 goats from a few different paddocks and put them all into one.

The rest of the afternoon there we cooled off in the pool and went for a walk at sunset

Luckily we didn’t run into any snakes along the way.

After dinner with the station crew, we learned how to crack a whip.

Lion tamer in training

Bull riding. Lesson learned: Don’t quit your day job.

The next morning we did a cowboy rodeo where we learned how to lasso. The cowboys were shocked that we had to be taught how to do this when they learned we live in Calgary.

Practicing our new skill

When they thought we were ready for it, one at a time we entered the pin and had to lasso our very own goat. There were four goats in the pen, and at the start we had to call which goat we were after. Then the timer started and we started lassoing.

Nikki got her goat in 1 minute 14 seconds. Natural.

Scott chose a goat that was good at dodging him, but was lassoed in 5 minutes 10 seconds.

Then we had a skeet shooting competition, firing a shotgun at clay frisbees. Scott won this competition, hitting 3 out of 5. Nikki was happy to have just hit 1.

At the end of the rodeo, we drove ourselves back in their old Land Cruiser.

Driving a Land Cruiser in the Outback. Now we are really cowboys.

Then they took us out on a 4x4 quad tour of the station. They have 10,000 acres of land to explore.

Hot and Dusty

After showering off all the dirt, we left the station with lots of great memories and feeling a little more like we could belong back home in Calgary.

Next stop: Cape Hillsborough National Park

A lot of the Australia’s coastline is full of surf beaches that are crowded with people. But this beach was a beautiful, more rugged, and peaceful stretch of coastline.

This is also where we saw the big bats flying above us at dusk. And by big, I mean HUGE! They had a wingspan of maybe about 1m.

Australian Sugar Cane (and lots of it)

Hanging out in Airlie Beach

Swimming in the lagoon. You can’t swim in the ocean cuz it’s jellyfish season.

Cairns and The Great Barrier Reef

After finally arriving at our final destination, Cairns, we spent a day out on a catamaran sail boat snorkelling the Great Barrier Reef.

After a 2 and a half hour cruise out, we jumped in the hot water. 

No really... the water temperature was 29 degrees

But not without our stinger suits. Man those Jelly fish are a nuisance. 

Giant Clams

Coral

Bright fishy

More Fish

Colorful Coral 

Another Giant Clam (a dead one)

Looking for Nemo

Swimming with a turtle. We thought it was appropriate to name him Crush 

Awesome!

We dropped off Waldo back at his home the next morning. We sure made good use of him in the last 3 weeks.

With the added 150km that is missing from this, our grand total is 5091km

And now we are making our way back home.

What can you say about 6 months of travel...

New Zealand is an amazing country. So many incredible places to see.

Australia is a wild and beautiful place as well.

The kindness of strangers is a powerful thing.

You learn to live simply when all you have is a van down by the river.

And most of all, you appreciate home.

With all our great experiences, fond memories, and all the wonderful people we met along the way, we are very grateful that we were able to have an opportinity to travel to New Zealand and Australia. And we are very happy to have been able to share our experiences with all of you along the way.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!