Surfers Paradise to Ellis Beach
Surfers Paradise: Been
there. Done that. Well, all the celebrations are over
and we are once again on our way north. We had a great week in
Surfers but frankly ran out of time to do every thing we wanted to do.
Liz was sick for a few days, others were spent shopping, walking, car service,
fishing (no fish) and the usual catching up with relatives. Friday
was the big day. 
Breakfast at the Sheraton Mirage with Pam (Rob's step sister) & Ruth
(friend of Pam's) Leanne, Paul, Emma and us, then on to Sea World with Leanne,
Paul and Emma (Paul's Daughter). We had a great day and acted like
a kids again. Water Slides, Cork
Screw, Bermuda Triangle, Ski Show, Dolphin
Show, Shark Show, Flume Ride & the 3D Pirates Adventure. All in all a
great day with family. Friday evening was the big 80th celebration
for dad with his extended family. The function was held at the Tudor Rose
Restaurant in
Merrimac. Great food and good company. This is a
bring your own restaurant and if you ever go there I strongly recommend that
you do just that. Saturday morning we packed up in the rain and departed
for Hervey Bay. Who says Surfer's has
perfect weather, that's just a publicity gimmick.
Fraser Island:
If You Don't Like Sand Give This Place a Miss: After arrival
in Hervey Bay
we decided to spend two nights on Fraser
Island. Fraser Island
is the largest island off Australia's
eastern coast land and the world's largest sand island. It is classified
a world heritage area - one of less than 400 world wide. All that lives
and grows on Fraser
Island grows on
sand. We crossed over on the barge to Fraser Island
from River Heads taking approximately 30 minutes, arriving at Wanggoolba
Creek. From there we travelled to Central Station through thick
undergrowth along a sandy 4 WD track. The scenery is unbelievable.
We arrived at Central Station around 11.15 AM and walked the rain forest area
of Wanggoolba Creek to Pile
Valley. The walking
track took you along a boardwalk which followed the creek with 60m tall satinay
trees and dwarf palms everywhere. The water in the creek is crystal clear
with a white sandy bottom. 
Our first night was at Lake
McKenzie, a large fresh
water lake ringed with pure white sand. The lake is a beautiful shade of
light blue which changes to a deep dark bottomless blue. Once again the
water is crystal clear and quite warm. It is amazing to see a lake
in the middle of a sand island that has crystal clear fresh
water. The next day we travelled up the Eastern Beach, called the 75 mile beach which is
really 58 miles long. We travelled at low tide which is the only way to
go, and arrived at Dundubara Camping Area, a quiet camping area much different
than Lake McKenzie which was quite busy. A
walk to Wungul Sand Blow, a massive sand dune in the middle of nowhere took
approx. 30 minutes, and quite spectacular. If you thought the
bunkers at Huntingdale were big then think again, this bunker is 350 acres of
pure white sand.
The next day saw us travel back along the beach approximately 45 kms, stopping
at Rainbow Gorge, a 1 hr walking circuit from the beach through a cypress
forest to the breathtaking gorge of red, yellow, white and brown sands and the
Kirrar Sandblow (above). A stop point was at the Maheno Wreck on the beach,
used as a hospital ship in World War 1, but unfortunately when sold to the
Japanese for scrap metal, it lost rudder control in cyclonic conditions
in 1935 and ended up ashore and was irrecoverable. It ended up being used
as a practice bombing target during World War 11. Photo attached is the
wreck of the Maheno.
We made our way back to the barge embarkation point and set sail back to Hervey Bay
for a night in "our comfy home away from home". A character
building adventure for me (Liz).
To Airlie Beach:
via Rockhamton and Mackay. We left Hervey Bay
and moved on to Airley
Beach via Rockhampton and
Mackay. We stopped overnight in Rockhampton and spent our day drying out
our camping gear and doing our laundry, so we were all back to normal when we
left the next morning to travel on to Mackay. Our caravan park at Mackay
was set right on the foreshore and quite close to the city centre which we
visited briefly. A typical north Queensland
sugarcane town. Mackay has numerous beaches all reasonably close to the
city's centre. We visited one of these beaches on north of the city
called Eimeo Beach. This place has a famous
hotel called the Eimeo Hotel with spectacular views. This was a definite
stop to take in the fantastic view and of course have a beer.
The next morning we had a fairly early start to travel on to Airley Beach
via Proserpine. Airlie Beach is a real resort town and the gateway to Whitsunday Islands. 
It
is very much a young people's place with lots of backpackers enjoying
themselves. Our caravan park was in a really good location on the way to Shute Harbour.
This is where all the pleasure craft leave for the island resorts. We
decided to visit South Molle Island
for two days, so we set out the next day and boarded our boat along with 66 primary
school children who were all going to South Molle
Island. It is an
island for families and a place to go to if you want to relax for a week.
Our days were spent swimming and using the resorts water facilities. We
also went for a walk through the islands rainforest and had some spectacular
views of the other islands. The water is so blue and clear and with the
clear blue skies, it really makes a picture postcard. Each morning at
10.00 am the tropical fish gather at the pier and are fed by the guests.
The fish know when it is 10.00 am each day - they are very clever fish.
You are able to snorkel with them whilst they are being fed. We
spent our days at Airley
Beach relaxing and doing
some sightseeing of the surrounding area.
Fighting the Midgees and Mossies
- We are winning the battle with the midgees and mossies. The
midgees are the tiny little sandflies and the mossies are the annoying
mosquitoes that can drive you crazy. They bite without you knowing and
then you itch on and off for days. Well, after many different people
giving their advice on potions and lotions, for preventing bites or treating
bites we have found the following: Forget about
anything from a chemist. Put simply they don't work. Old
wives remedies (OWR) seem to be the answer. No.1, Vitamin B.
We are not sure about this but it does seem to reduce mossie bites but the only
problem is your wee goes bright flourescent yellow, you almost glow in the
dark. OWR No. 2, A mixture of dettol, baby oil and citronella
oil. Stinks like all hell, forget about perfume, but it does
work. The midgee and mossie balm given to us as parting gifts
before we left also seems to work. Once you are bitten: OWR
No. 3, Scalding bites with very hot water was pretty successful but you end
up with third degree burns. OWR No. 4, The most successful remedy seems
to be pure teatree oil. This is an antiseptic and for some reason
seems to kill off whatever is causing the itching.
To Mission Beach:with
an overnight stay in Townsville. 
It
was time to move on with our next short stop at Townsville which is a more
interesting town than Rocky (as the locals call it) and Mackay. The
caravan park we stayed at was really good because it had ensuites attached to
each caravan site. It felt like Christmas. A drive to the Castle
Hill Lookout gave us a 360 degrees view of Townsville. A visit to the town
centre saw some interesting architecture - some very old buildings and
some beautiful old "Queenslander" homes all built above the ground
for relief from the hot weather. We ended up going to their Omnimax
Theatre - the first of its type in the southern hemisphere. The photo is
of one of the Townsville hotels in the main street.
We arrived at Mission
Beach the next day, and
what a lovely place this is to spend some time. We stayed at a caravan
park which was just across the road from a most beautiful beach. The
beach is lined with coconut palms and is so clean and wide. We walked
this beach a number of times over the period we were there. 
Six
kilometres down the road is South Mission and here along the esplanade are some
very expensive homes with magic views across to Dunk Island.
It is such a shame that during the months from October to May the stingers are
prevalent in the sea and swimming is impossible unless the beaches have stinger
nets in position. Again the water is crystal clear and very warm.
There are some great little restaurants - more restaurants than actual
shops. We had a few nights out tasting the different foods. Our
next door neighbours were an English couple, Sue and David Jones from Falmouth. They
enjoyed a laugh and a drink or two so we had an evening out with them at an
Italian restaurant - run by a mad Frenchman and then a happy hour the next
night at the local Greek Restaurant - run by a German. Very
interesting. A barbeque back at our caravan ended a great little break at
Mission Beach.
Cairns and nearly time for our Cape York Adventure. After five
nights at Mission Beach we left for a fairly short drive to Cairns. The scenery
is one of mountain backdrops, sugar cane fields and rainforest areas with
cloudless blue skies and lush green everywhere. The saying is "where
rainforest meets the reef ". The city of Cairns is a real go ahead FNQ city with lots
of development taking place. It is getting warmer and more humid - about
27 degrees. Our caravan park is out of Cairns city and on the edge of a
rainforest. We went for a walk to Crystal Falls
just up the road from where we are staying. Just a short walk led us to a
spectacular view of these falls. We managed to climb right down to the
edge and took some great photos looking up to them.
Another
real highlight of our trip was the trip by scenic railway to Kuranda, a village
in the rainforest. We returned by the Skyrail, a cableway above the
rainforest back to Cairns.
The train trip runs 34 kms along original track constructed in 1882 and rises
from sea level to 328 metres. The train passes through dense tropical
rainforest across spectacular waterfalls, and travels through 15 hand carved
tunnels. It takes 100 minutes and brings you to a village, Kuranda, well
set up for tourists like us. The return travel by Skyrail took you across
the top of the rainforest with some fantastic views of waterfalls and rivers.
It would have to be one of the best tourist attractions anywhere in the world.
We leave in the morning
(24/6) for a short trip to Ellis Beach where we will meet up with the Ballarat
group that we are travelling to Cape York
with.
Liz & Rob
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