This entire trip through Oz has been moving so fast. We have made it up to Cairns and are now on our way back down and over to Melbourne, no easy feat, it will be 3500 km to get there which entails about 40 hours of driving. We started out on Sat and ended up going back to Magnetic Island to stay overnight as we were determined to see Koalas. Luckily, we got our wish and found a lazy critter hanging out in the trees, he was just waking up and taking a bathroom break, probably didn't appreciate T and I snapping pics while he was trying to do his business, but hey, we travelled a long way to hang out with him! This morning, we tried to snorkel in Arthur bay and although the water was pretty rough, we gave it a try until Tony got whipped and stung by a jellyfish tentacle...that did it for him. Maggie Island is one of my favorites and I can't wait to come back in style someday. Tonight we are back at Airlie with another sailing trip booked for tomorrow (we couldn't help ourselves). We were lucky enough to be here for a great fireworks show tonight and will be really pushing ourselves to get to Melbourne in 3 days. If you want to know where we will be for the rest of the week, it will be in a small, white corolla driving down Highway 1.
11/05/01 (commentary from Tony)
Gid'day everyone! Here's my quick recap of highlights of the past several weeks in Australia.
* Western Australia - probably the most overlooked place that has a lot of offer from all sorts of animals to the city life of Perth that has got to be the cleanest mini metropolitan city we've seen.
* Sydney - our top event was the checking out the opera. The design of the place is so incredible that the music is crystal clear in the last several rows of the Opera House. We know because sat in one of the last several rows (hey, we're traveling on a budget okay).
* The Great Barrier Reef - an incredible place that has some of the most varied aquatic life so far on this trip. Recently a snorkel guide took us snorkeling around and picked up some live sea urchins and a huge clam shell for us to feel and handle. We've swam with fishes of all colors, a reef shark, and a huge turtle.
* Campervan - no matter how 'ghetto' this sounds, its sort of fun to rent and drive to your destination in a self contained mobile unit and to stay in caravan parks (yes, like a trailer park)... even though it did take a little time to get used to it. What's worse than sleeping in a campervan in a caravan park? Well, try sleeping in your campervan parked in the parking lot (of a hostel), because we drove so late that all the caravan parks closed their doors on us.
The best part about Australia so far are the little beach towns up and down the coast of the Great Barrier Reef. You are still within a reasonable distance of major cities, but have perfect weather, great snorkeling or diving, hiking trails, good food, and friendly people.
11/5-11/10/01 Road trip to Melbourne (from Lyn)
Hey folks! Since I last wrote, we where getting ready for our 3500 km road trip, given this, we decided on one last snorkel trip out on the Great Barrier and doing a crazy 30 hour straight drive to Melbourne instead of breaking it up into 3 days...why dilly dally all the way down when we can have one last GREAT, sunny day in the water instead? We headed out on a catamaran to South Molle Island where Tony once again thought he was a skipper and put us on a mini sailing catatamaran, the winds were a little zigzagging so we floated mostly with short sudden bursts of movement. We also snorkelled for 2 hours at Hook Island knowing that it will be the last time in a long while before our next trip out in the water and last, we spent a couple of hours on Whitehaven Beach, the sands were white and felt like silica, it squeaked when you walked on this powder, it was gorgeous! It was a great day and we were mentally ready for our drive, we took turns and drove in 5 hour shifts...Yep, I drove on the left side of the road...god, it was Scary! Everytime a big rig came I swerved to the left and made Tony yelp or jolt from his snooze! I was scared of oncoming traffic, other crazy american drivers, and mostly, kangaroos that hop out from no where! At last count...dead roos- 119, live roos-30.
Blood shot and weary we saw our first signs for Melbourne around 5am, excited and a very dizzy from the lack of sleep we decided to head to Phillip Island, 2 hours south of Melbourne...famous for the Little Penguins, which Tony calls Penwings...cause he can't say Penguins...This was one of the most amazing things we saw- at dusk, about 150 of us gathered on the beach and waited for the Little Penguins to come out of the water and waddle across the beach to the bushes to their little burrow homes...although we were nearly frozen by the time they made their appearance, we were not disappointed, little gangs of 5-20 started coming in from the water...they were so tiny and scared, it took most of them a good 30 minutes to consult with one another to decide how they were going to get home without running into any of us. They came in and ran back into the water and back in again before the first kamikaze groups decided to just go for it. They waddle fast! Once they went they shot out and waddled as fast as their little legs could go. The conservation center built a boardwalk so that we could walk around and not disturb them running home, there must have been over 200 that came out tonight, we were able to get inches away from them, some were already sleeping when we spotted them, some were fighting over who's home their were at, some were just wondering around looking from their home and then there were the few brave ones who were just a curious of us and stared at us staring at them! The next morning we decided to pay a visit to the Koalas, these sleeping guys are as cute and cuddly as we imagined, we were able to see them in their natural habitat and as respectful as we tried to be, we couldn't help trying to throw things that them to wake them up...aren't we ugly americans? I swear we don't normally do these things...