Queensland

Ladies and Gentleman--the long awaited post!  We are very sorry for the long delay...can we say we took a Christmas holiday???  But the fun didn't stop and we are going to update you in a very interesting (but long!!) blog. Lots of pictures included, so shouldn't be too difficult to get through!  We hope everyone had a very safe and Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Years!!  And congrats to Alison and James for their New Years gift!

Rainbow Beach

When we last wrote, we were leaving Brisbane to head up the Coast.  We rented a car and set out to Rainbow Beach, a town about three hours north of Brisbane.  This is a town of about 1000 people, known for its "rainbow" coloured sand dunes surrounding the beach (not so much rainbow, as more different hues of gold/red....)  We based ourselves in Rainbow Beach for the night, as we were to take off on our Fraser Island adventure the next day.  The beach was quite nice in Rainbow Beach, however, the large amounts of blue bottle jelly fish on the beach deterred us from enjoying the water!

blue bottle jelly fish; apparently they wrap their long tail around you, and it feels like a burning sensation, like having hot water poured on you, but they aren't deadly...

Rainbow Beach at sunset

not so "rainbow" sand dunes!

Fraser Island


On the morning of the 21st we met up with our 4x4 tour bus to head over to Fraser Island.  Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world--yes, other than a piece of lava from a far off volcano, the entire island is made of sand.  Its about 125km long by 15km wide and has a number of fresh water lakes, rivers and rainforest all on the sand.  We went on a three day, two night tour of the island which we really enjoyed.

This picture lets you see the mainland, just outside of Rainbow Beach, as well as the edge of Fraser Island.  There is really only a kilometer or so between the two, and it is believed that years ago the water level might have been low enough that you could walk between the two.

The ferry over to Fraser Island: The Manta Ray!

Our 4x4 tour bus

Us in the rainforest

panoramic shot of Lake Birabeen--a perched lake of fresh water on top of the sand

The compound we stayed in had a fence around it to keep the dingoes out.  Fraser Island is home to lots of dingoes, which are a native species to Australia, but can be quite dangerous to humans (and babies!).  The pedestrians walk through this gate, but the cars drive over an electric fence that the dingoes can't cross.

Maheno Shipwreck; this ship washed ashore during the 1930s and has become part of the island

We walked through one of the many beautiful sand blows on the island.  This one is full of native artifacts that our guide was able to show to us and explain their significance.

This island is full of 4x4s!  This is at Eli Creek, one of the fresh water creeks on the island.  It moves so fast that you can float through it like a lazy river!

Rockhampton


As we finished off our sandy adventure, we set off on another--driving 12hrs north to Airlie Beach, to the Whitsunday Islands where we were set to sail for Christmas.  This is when we realized that Australia is a massive country!!  There was no way we could do the drive in one chunk based on the time our Fraser Island tour ended and the fact that your advised to not drive after dark due to kangaroos on the road.  We took off from Rainbow Beach and drove to the halfway point--Rockhampton, the Australian Beef Capital!  Rockhampton is a nice town on the river, but we didn't do much more than stop over to the next leg of our journey.  On Christmas Eve we awoke (after spending the night with some geckos in our room!!) and made the second leg of our long journey up to Airlie Beach.  Now, the drive from Rainbow Beach to Rockhampton has lots of cute little towns and nice places to stop, if you didn't have a driving deadline, but the drive north of Rockhampton was LONG!!  There are even signs on the road about this--kids asking their parents how much longer, and driver trivia to keep you awake while driving! (Apparently we didn't snap a picture of the trivia...sorry!)

Rockhampton river; if you look really closely you can see the little treat we got while driving into town--a double rainbow!

We drove through a town called Sarina, but kept reminding us of Sarnia!

lots of funny signs to make the long drive a bit more bearable!

Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands


We arrived into Airlie on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, with plenty of time before we set sail at 7pm on the Solway Lass.  Airlie Beach is a small town that is full of tourists enjoying the turquoise blue waters.  We had a nice afternoon exploring the town--lots of little shops, big open air bars and waterfront paths to enjoy.

A bus picked us up from town and took us out to the marina where we were to board our tallship.  Solway Lass was built in the early 1900s and was used in a few different battles before being turned into a pleasure ship.  There is room for 32 people as well as 7 crew members.  Our first night was a nice way to spend Christmas Eve--the sun had already set when we set sail, but the night air was quite warm so we were able to enjoy the stars while we cruised through the Whitsundays.

We awoke on Christmas morning ready to head to the beach!  Our Christmas day destination was to anchor near Whitehaven beach, one of the most beautiful beaches in the world and one of many white silica sand beaches throughout the Whitsundays.  The way it works to get you to shore, is that the boat anchors near your destination and then they take you across in a little dingy.  Whitehaven beach was really quite nice--shallow turquouise waters, squeaky silica sand and lots of wildlife to enjoy--we saw a few sand sharks and rays swing in this bay.

Our boat, Solway Lass

Whitehaven Beach

Christmas has come to Whitehaven!!

Where the boat was docked near Whitehaven is a popular spot for turtles to feed--we got to see them pop up to breathe all around the boat!

A panoramic of the views from the look out above Whitehaven beach

Boxing day was a day in the water.  They were taking us to two different areas of reef to snorkel in.  The Whitsunday Islands are one of the Southern areas of the Great Barrier Reef that is close to the main land, making for some really nice snorkeling.  The fish were great, but the coral was unbelievable--we have never seen such vibrant colours and life from a reef during our other snorkeling adventures.  Sorry no pictures of the fish/coral--our underwater cameras is acting up, but we are going to try and get some pics from a friend on the boat, so cross your fingers those come through!!

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We're ready to snorkel!!  You have to wear "stinger suits" during their summer cause the risk of getting stung by jelly fish is so high--and these jelly fish don't just hurt, apparently they are neurotoxic...

Our final day on the boat was supposed to be a third snorkel site, but the weather was taking a turn for the worse, meaning the visibility wasn't good and we weren't able to see any fish.  There had been a cyclone off the coast of Australia (Southern hemisphere speak for hurricane!) since Christmas Day, but it hadn't bothered us at all until the 27th--and we still had a beautiful day, just a bit more choppy water.  We took the opportunity to spend time on the beach and sun on the boat.  As we pulled into the harbour, though, this cyclone reared his ugly head--the rain came down like we've never seen before and didn't stop all night!  It was so bad, that the next group set to go out on Solway Lass that evening had to sleep in the harbour--it wasn't safe to sail!

     

Us on the rope seat at the bow of the boat

After our sailing trip we had two days in Airlie Beach.  We spent our time enjoying the waterfront and spending time with the friends we had met on our sailing trip.

East Coast Beaches

After Airlie Beach, we were driving back down the coast to Brisbane, to spend a few more days at Mike and Kellys place before we fly off to Melbourne and Sydney.  

Our first day of driving was a long one--over 8 hours!  We drove down to Agnes Water, a very tiny town on the coast that is known for having a few different islands off shore that have really nice access to the Great Barrier Reef.  We enjoyed ourselves on the beach for the day, and then headed a bit further south to explore Hervey Bay.  Again, another nice beach to spend our time at!  We arrived back in Brisbane for New Year's Eve and saw some wonderful choreographed fireworks.  They had at least 6 classical songs and the fireworks were perfectly in time with the songs.  Our New Years Eve was complete with a river cruise--a very nice way to start off 2012!!

January 1st saw us heading a bit south, down to explore the Gold Coast and Surfer's Paradise.  Surfer's Paradise is a long, long stretch of beach that has become quite touristy and commercial.  However, we were able to find a small beach just outside of town and really enjoyed ourselves on the beach.  We rung in the New Year with some time in the rip curl--you've got to be strong to beat those waves!!  We went into Surfer's Paradise to explore, finding lots of highrises, shops, and ofcourse--another beautiful beach!!

This gives you an idea of how the Australian beaches work--there are these lifeguard stations set up along the beach, and it is recommended for you to swim between the flags because otherwise it isn't necessarily safe.  This whole lifeguard thing is pretty big business--they have little boats to go patrol, and helicopters looking for sharks overhead!

January 2nd took us back North to a small beach town called Noosa.  This is a much smaller scale than Surfer's Paradise, but again, a great way to spend our day on the beach!

Our sunrise in the Noosa National Park

January 3rd was a day around Brisbane to get our final housekeeping things done before heading off to other Australian cities--we got our passports back and have our Indian Visas, so we are officially going to India (eventually--more of Australia and Southeast Asia first!!).  Tomorrow we head off to Melbourne and to explore the Great Ocean Road.  We do promise not to have another two week lag in blog posts, but hope you've enjoyed all the pictures from our last few weeks!