Campervan Adventures
1st June 2009
This was the day we flew to Cairns and picked up our campervan. We were so lucky, when we arrived we were told we had been upgraded. Our van was lovely. It was quite new and shiny, it made me a bit nervous about driving it. It was bigger than anything I had ever driven and tall, El could stand up in it, with room to spare. So El did the first bit of driving. We stocked up in the supermarket and drove to a campsite called Ellis Beach. We were parked right on the beach. It was lovely.
2nd June
We found the van very comfy to sleep in, so it was a good nights sleep ready for a drive. I drove us north to Port Douglas, it was so easy to drive. Port Douglas has a 4mile long beach. We sat on the beach for a while, then had noodles, cooked in the van, for lunch. Nice and nutritious. We then drove up to Mossman Gorge. It was a beautiful rainforest and we discovered once in there we could have swam in the river. Might have been a bit cold though. We drove further up to the Daintree River. Here we went on a croc river tour. We saw some massive crocs and because of the winter weather they laze about on the banks trying to warm up. That night we had burgers for dinner. All the camps and parks in Oz have free bbqs you can use.
3rd June
We drove back down past Cairns today. We went up to Kuranda. Its a village up in the mountains with a lovely steam train. We walked through a bit of rainforest and Elliott got us lost from the van. I was not happy, I was really hot and bothered, he should have listened to me! Later on that day we had had a long drive to Innesfail and El suggested we went to one campsite whereas I suggested another, I was wrong this time, and didn’t I know it. A bit of a touchy evening!
We had steak for dinner. We couldn’t believe how cheap meat is. Steak costs about $20 for 4rump steaks. That would cost about 50pound back home. Mince is $3.50, so 1pound 75!
4th June
We woke up to rain today. We drove down to Mission Beach. Another lovely beach again, with no one on it! If you had a beach like that back home you’d be struggling to find a square of sand to plant your backside! We found a council run campsite right on the beach. As it was council run it was cheaper but the toilets and showers weren’t as nice. You get what you pay for basically. We spent most of the day on the beach. A german man camping next to us opened a fresh coconut, I’m not sure it was that fresh but Elliott liked it.
That night we sat with a few people, 2Germans, an Englishman and a Japenese man. The German girl showed us some fruit she had picked up from the Northern Territory that the Abbos eat from a Baboa Tree. You have to break the shell, which is the size on an aubergine. Then inside is lots of little shells that you crack again to get an edible nut. These nuts are smaller than peanuts and taste like walnuts. A lot of hard work for a nut! She was an intriguing girl, she had told us she had tried eating green ants as they are full of vitamin C and taste sour. Interesting.
5th June
We drove down to Murray Falls, a natural waterfall which we had been told about. The waterfall was amazing and at the bottom there were little swimming holes. We got in, well it took me about 30mins to get in! It was freezing! Elliott loved it, sliding down the little falls, he could have had hours of fun in there. We were gutted we hadn’t planned to stay there the night as it was a beautiful spot. Instead we drove for hours to Saunders Beach.
Saunders Beach was a free camp. It was on the beach, lovely. Thats all that was lovely about it. There were tons of sand flies that ate me alive, it was pitch black, a cold outside shower and frogs in the toilet! To start the evening off we stupidly decided on cooking a curry for dinner. What idiots! Where do we sleep? In the same place we cook the smelly curry. Needless to say we didn’t cook any smelly food again! We weren’t prepared for the darkness, we didn’t have a torch. Luckily the toilet had the worst light ever in it. As I went into the toilet there was a tree frog sitting on the wall beside my head! Oh dear, the fuss I made of that!
6th June
Elliott woke up energetic and went for a run, me I stayed in bed! We then drove into Townsville and got a ferry over to Magnetic Island for the day. The sea was warm enough to swim in and the sun was out, a lovely day sitting on the beach. El even found $20 on the floor! When we got back to mainland we drove back to Saunders Beach. Tonight the frog was sitting in the toilet bowl waiting for me, a kind German lady remove him for me, what a whimp!
7th June
Airlie Beach was our destination. About 2 1/2 hours from Townsville. It was alot more touristy than anywhere else we’d been. It’s the gateway to the Whitsundays, so we booked out tour. 3days 2nights on a tall sail boat.
8th June
The boat departed at 8.30am, we ended up dumping the van on the side of the road, as there was nowhere to park due to a boat show. I was convinced it would’ve been towed by the time we got back. The ship had 3 crew members and space for 18 guests, luckily for us there were only 9! So double the amount of food! Yay. We sailed out to our first island, Hook Island and had a snorkel there. We were given stinger suits to wear. It wasn’t stinger season but as it’s winter and the water temp is slightly cooler we wore them. The snorkels weren’t great and I was holding Elliott back as I was getting frustrated with them. Also did you know that coral can’t live in water temps below 18C so the water never drops below that! Before we snorkelled we were given lunch and after tea, biscuits and cake. We then had another snorkel, loads of friendly fish, that might have had something to do with the guide feeding them above us! We moored for the night at Marcona Inlet, one of the crew members saw a “splash of a shark” but he was always telling tall stories so we weren’t sure whether to believe him. For dinner we had our favourite…steamed fish and veggies! It was actually ok, not that I like it still but it was either eat it or go hungry.
Our little cabin was really warm at night and the bed wasn’t even long enough for Elliott so he spent a few hours in the middle of the night sleeping on the deck.
9th June
We were woken up by the engine at 7.15, we had breakfast and stopped at Tounge Bay. We got in the little dingy and went over to the island. We walked through the bush up to the lookout over Whitehaven Beach. It was amazing! I’ve never seen anything so beautiful, the colour of the sea was rich blues and turquoise and the sand was white. You could even see the sting rays in the water. We walked back through the bush to the beach. There were a few people on the beach but they soon disappeared and we had the beach to ourselves, which our guide said has never happened before, we were very lucky. We spent some time in the water looking for sting rays which wasn’t hard. Then we sun bathed on the beach. It was fairly windy and we both got a bit of wind burn as well as sun burn! On the way back to the ship our guide showed us an ants nest. He then picked an ant with a green bum and licked it. Everyone tried it but me, that grossed me out abit!
When we got back on the boat we were told that the turtles that live in the bay were swimming round the boat. We saw a couple and they were massive, about a meter long, we were told they could live up to 200yrs old! We had lunch then another snorkel. I was really struggling with the snorkels so I decided to skip this one. Instead I went in the dingy and the guide gave me an out of water snorkel, which is basically a big magnifying glass. Very cool. Elliott disappeared for ages. We then had more food and moored up for the night. We were fed some more then we went to bed and Elliott did the classic snoring all night! Great.
10th June
We had a wake up call at 7.15am again and had breakfast while sailing to another snorkel site, Dumbell Island. The water was a lot deeper and all I could imagine was a shark appearing so I chickened out and Elliott did it alone. Apparently there are alot of turtles here but we didn’t see any. We then sailed back to Airlie Beach. The van was still there luckily! We had a few drinks with the other guests. We decided to stay at the same campsite as another couple, Rhona and Chris. We snuck in after the office was closed so we didn’t have to pay. That night we met some of the crew in a bar in Airlie and we all played some drinking games.
11th June
We woke up feeling hungover today and we had to sneak out of the site early so we didn’t get caught. We sat by Airlie Lagoon for a couple of hours and had some lunch and decided to make a move. We had only been on the road for 5mins and we witnessed a car accident. Elliott was driving and I saw a car ahead of us swerve across the road. The next thing we knew it had spun and landed on its side on the cane railway! We were the first people to stop. In the car were 2 old ladies one 83yrs old! Neither of them were wearing seat belts and Elliott and another man had to pull them out of the car, the only injury was a split lip, lucky! We had to stay to give a statement. We carried on and found a hill billy campsite. We had a little nap and when we woke up the field opposite us was on fire! It wasn’t our day! We were soon told that it was a controoled burn to burn off the old sugar cane, smoked us out though!
12th June
We did quite a bit of driving today after looking round the shops in Mackay. We stayed just north of Rockhampton at a free spot right on the highway.
13th June
The nights are SO cold now. We are sleeping fully clothed and in sleeping bags. We had to get up early as it was so cold and make a move with the heater on. We stopped at Rockhamptons Botanical Gardens and free zoo. We had a wonder round there and looked at the animals, koalas, kangaroos, crocs, emus, etc… We also went to a heritage village in Rocky that was quite interesting. We carried on driving to Gladstone, nothing there!
14th June
Drove into Bundaberg. Where they make Bundaberg rum and ginger beer.
15th June
After a nice but chilly night in Bundaberg we drove to Elliott Heads. It was another lovely beach with no one on it. A few days a go El got a fishing rod. So he fished while I sunbathed. After lunch we made our way down again. We had planned to stay at Lenthall Dam, a free camp. It was about 7kms down a dirt track and when we got there it was closed to campers! So we carried on a little bit further down to the national park camp site, Wongi. It was completley out of the way. There were 2 other vans there and one of the couples made a camp fire, our first one. It started to rain though, just our luck! Again we weren’t prepared and there weren’t any lights there. A trip to the toilet required the light from the mobile! It rained all night and we were parked under a tree, a sleepless night!