Blue Mountains

Blue Mountains, Day 1:

We decided to spend our last few days in Australia in the Blue Mountains, a nice change from 3 weeks of staying along the coast. The Blue Mountains aren’t actually blue, but densely populated by Eucalyptus trees – something about when the light hits the trees, the oils and water droplets emit a blue hue. Whatever it is, it’s absolutely spectacular.

Steven took the hotel shuttle to the airport where he had to convince Hertz to let him take the car without his actual California driver’s license (he does have an international license but didn’t think to bring his CA one) and without a printed copy of the rental voucher. After some convincing and fake sob story about having his “money and license stolen,” he arrived back at the hotel in the little car just in time to check out.

We drove for about two hours to get to the Blue Mountains, all on the left side of the road…fortunately, Steven didn't kill us. There was significant traffic on the two lane highway to Katoomba, the main town where our hotel was located. Apparently, we weren't the only ones with the idea of going to the Blue Mountains over the Easter holiday.

We checked in to the 3 Sisters Motel and went into town for some lunch at Fresh, a cute little café with really good food. The town was nice, it reminded us of being stuck in the 1960s with antique and vintage shops at every turn.

We drove to Echo Point where the famous Three Sisters rock formation can be seen. There were so many people at Echo Point that we couldn’t park anywhere close by – as we were driving around, we noticed our hotel was about 3 blocks from the viewpoint, so we parked back at the hotel and just walked.

After fighting off the crowds, we soaked in the view, took some pictures, and decided to go for a hike around the area. What was supposed to be a short 30 minute walk turned into a two hour hike, but we took some more amazing pictures.

After getting back to the hotel, we had dinner and went to bed.

Blue Mountains, Day 2:

We woke up early and had our complimentary breakfast at the hotel. It is always the smallest hotels in the most obscure locations that provide the best services. We drove, initially on the wrong side of the road (Steven said he was still waking up), to Scenic World. Fortunately, we arrived just as the doors were opening so we could beat the crowds, and this turned out to be a wise decision.

It was a beautiful day and we rode to the canyon floor on the Cableway with just the operator, no other tourists, and Steven was able to get some good footage with the camcorder – without a bunch of heads in the way. After arriving at the canyon floor, we walked around the boardwalk for about an hour, admiring the enormous trees and spectacular surroundings.

We rode the Railway back up to the top – it’s the steepest railway in the world and they aren’t joking when they say it’s steep. The seats were cramped, a chain link fence was our roof, it was fast, and no one warned us we should be holding on to our belongings for dear life. Steven focused on hanging onto the camcorder as he recorded the ride up, while Stephanie was too terrified of dropping the camera and/or backpack to take any pictures, so you’ll have to trust us that the view was spectacular once again, albeit a bit frightening. The tracks were originally intended to transport coal, not people.

After getting to the top we noticed the increase in people as we took the Skyway across the canyon past Katoomba Falls. The ride was nice and there was even a clear glass bottom to look down to the canyon as we rode across.

We had lunch and then went to a chocolate factory near our hotel who claims to be famous for their hot chocolate, so of course we had to try. They provided us with chocolate chips, hot milk, a long spoon that doubled as a straw and the rest was up to us.

We then walked back to Echo Point for a free wine tasting of some local Blue Mountain wines, all of which were way out of budget but it was still nice to taste.

We headed back to the car and drove to a few more sites and lookout points in the area. The weather started to take a turn for the worse and we could hear the sound of thunder, so this was our cue to head back to Sydney.

The drive back was a nightmare – think driving back to Los Angeles from Las Vegas on Labor Day weekend. It took us about an hour to go 5 kilometers, apparently everyone had the same idea of heading back to the city after lunch. Once back in Sydney, the street on which we were supposed to exit never appeared and we had to navigate Sydney streets to get back to the hotel. Fortunately, the hotel was near the airport so we just followed the blue airplane signs back to our hotel. We checked in, had some dinner, and got ourselves ready to leave for Bali. Oh, and we spent about $30 AUD on 27 liters (a little over 7 gallons) - Americans definitely have no room to complain about gasoline prices.

And with that, our adventures in Australia comes to an end. It has been amazing, but we are ready to move on and begin our next journey.

Airlie Beach - Post Whitsundays

We awoke after a somewhat quiet night's sleep to find 2 friends occupying our balcony. They just wanted to say hello and make sure we didn't sleep in.




Our flight didn’t depart until 7pm, so after we checked out of the hotel, we headed into town to have breakfast, catch up on internet, exchange some books, and relax by the lagoon.





The town is so small that we kept seeing people from our cruise – someone even joked and said we were on the Anaconda IV. Whoever was left in town was in the same position as us, trying to kill some time before leaving on a late flight.




We headed back to the small, funny, airport and arrived in Sydney about an hour and a half later. Fortunately, our hotel was close to the airport so it was a short taxi ride to a shower and bed.

Whitsunday Islands

We left for our sail around the Whitsunday Islands around 7pm on Tuesday evening. The Whitsundays are a group of 74 islands nestled between the mainland and the very southern part of the Great Barrier Reef.

Our boat, the Anaconda III. We think she's about 102', but no one could tell for sure.

Our cell, err, “cabin.” Steven was annoyed because the boat claimed to be “luxury,” however we’ve heard from others this is actually a really good boat. We don’t want to know what the others look like. Yes, it is very messy, however it's really difficult to organize such a small space - it was diffcult enough for both of us to be in the same room.

The seas were a bit rough and a few people were not feeling well and fed the fish:/ Again, thank goodness for the seasickness patches, they came in handy once again…for both of us this time. We anchored in between two islands in Hook Passage where the seas were calmer and as some of the passengers stayed up, we called it a night.

Day 1: After a not-so-pleasant night’s sleep, sleeping next to the generator, we awoke to breakfast and Captain Max (aka grumpy old man) driving us to Whitehaven Beach on the Whitsunday Island. It now made sense to us as to why we left in the evening and sailed when it was dark – we were able to enjoy the beach all to ourselves before the madness of other boats arrived.

We were able to enjoy the peaceful white sand beach for a few hours before heading to our next destination, Luncheon Bay on Hook Island, for some snorkeling.

We anchored in the same spot and once again called it a night.

Day 2: We awoke still not sure if we were going to make it out to the Great Barrier Reef. Max grumbled something about how the boat had gone out to the reef the previous week and it really shouldn’t have – the weather was awful. Emerging from our cell, oops “cabin,” the deckhands said we were indeed going to the reef! This was the first time in the past 4 cruises so even the crew was excited. The swells were pretty big and most of us stayed on deck so as to not get seasick.

Steven helping to put up the sails:

After about 3 hours, we anchored just outside of the Great Barrier Reef at Bait Reef and took the dinghies to the snorkel spot where we swam around for about an hour. The current was strong and did not make for the best snorkeling. After a quick lunch, we were off to another snorkel spot on the other side of the reef. Stephanie stayed on the boat this time. Steven saw both orange and pink clown “Nemo” fish. This is the time where an underwater camera would have come in handy…alas, the once-a-year snorkeling doesn’t really justify buying a new camera. One of our sailing companions had a really cool underwater digital camera so we’re going to try and get some pictures from him.

We once again anchored, had dinner, and went to bed early to try and get some sleep.

Day 3: Three hours back to the islands and we were at Blue Pearl Bay near Hayman Island for the last snorkel. We were told Blue Pearl Bay has a ton of fish, more than at the GBR, and we were not disappointed. Some of the deckhands threw in pieces of bread so the fish would swim around us – it was overwhelming at times to have that many fish circling around, looking for food.

Once again, crazy hair and a full beard - can't expect much when we've only showered 2 minutes in 3 days.

After our snorkel, we sailed back to port – we were all desperately looking forward to a long, hot, shower considering we were only allowed a one minute shower per day. With limited hot water. We can tell you that we both really enjoyed the shower back at the hotel, we’ll even venture to say it was one of the best of our lives.

Whoever was staying in town for the evening was invited to go to the local bar to meet up for drinks. Interestingly, the Australians put more emphasis on Good Friday and not so much on Easter. Bottle shops are closed and only bars serving food are allowed to operate on Good Friday. In order to buy a drink, we had to order a main meal…and even after that, we were only allowed to buy drinks an hour and a half after ordering our meal – we had to show our food receipt to the bartender. Needless to say, it was an early night.

A few pictures of our group, looking much better after a good shower!

Airlie Beach

We've just spent 3 amazing days in the Whitsunday Islands on a sailboat, but the internet cafe doesn't have laptop access so we'll have to save the update and pictures for another day. In the meantime, we'll give you a non-picture update of what we've been up to.

We took a 2 hour shuttle bus from Noosa to the Brisbane Airport, then another hour and 20 minute flight to the Proserpine Airport, the closest one to Airlie Beach. Airlie is full of backpackers and hostels, we were even told by a local that the "thing" to do in this town is skydive and get a tattoo. Uh, we'll pass on both counts. Since we had a rather full day of just traveling, we checked into our hotel, walked around town for a bit, and relaxed.

Monday and Tuesday were more of the same, especially since the town is about one kilometer long - you can do everything in about 20 minutes. We were lucky to find the cheapest internet cafe so far, 1 hour for $2, so we caught up on emails, etc. We also wanted to familarize ourselves with the boat dock, so we went on a nice walk along the water on Monday afternoon.

Airlie is right on the beach, but there are quite a few stingers (aka jellyfish) in the area, so they don't recommend for people to swim in the ocean. Instead, there is a large swimming pool with seawater, this seems to be the popular spot in town. Besides the bars, of course.

Again, pictures will follow in a separate post.

Noosa, Day 2

Today was a fairly uneventful day, filled with resting, doing some much-needed laundry, and catching up on some reading. Since Steven wasn't feeling well, we decided to lay low and just relax since tomorrow is another travel day. We picked up some fish and chips for dinner and called it a day.

Fraser Island, Day 3

Waking up on day 3 proved to be not so much fun for everyone. Steven ended up staying up too late the previous night hanging out with the three Irish after the pub, staying up later than we all should have. Stephanie was not able to sleep well due to the noise from the Irish and Steven when he got back, along with the sunburn. The Canadian, who was a women studies professor, ended up getting friendly with the tour guide. Steven discovered one of the Irish guys (two guys and one girl total) was not named Sebastian as we all previous thought, but is in fact named Stephen. Apparently, he had made up the name Sebastian as he didn't want to be the third Steven/Stephen in the group. Maeve, the Irish girl, drank too much the night before and could not get out of bed, missing the morning activities.


Once we consumed enough coffee and toast, we boarded the truck, minus Maeve. We drove along the beach and then headed inland for Lake Wabby (pronounced Wobby).



Another truck following behind us:

We parked the truck and walked through the rainforest to the lookout point, an amazing view. Lake Wabby started as a creek and damned up as the wind carried the sand further inland over thousands of years.

It is possible to walk in from the beach but we took the scenic route through the rainforest instead, trying to avoid snakes and spiders. The March flies were out in full force as well, pestering and biting us every possible chance.

Once we arrived at the lake, we saw an amazing sand-blow with steep slopes down to the water. Not to be confused with its cousin, the sand dune, sand-blows are constantly moving - up to 1 mm a year.

Steven and Sebastian/Stephen were very excited as this was our chance to ride the boogie board down the dune into the water. Shane showed us first, and then both Stevens went. After Stephanie headed straight for the shade, the French girl even gave it a try (the French guy couldn't as he had recently broken a rib). The ride down was great, but the walk back up was not so much fun.

Steven swam some more in the water and tried to grab hold of a catfish, but no such luck.

A few more pictures of the dunes, known as the Hammerstone Sand-blow.

The walk back to the car was not so much fun as we were all tired and ready to go home, not to mention it was uphill. Stephanie tried to explain some more things to the French couple as the tour guide sometimes spoke too quickly for them. We can't really blame them as both the Australian and Irish accents are not always the easiest to understand, especially when people are speaking very quickly.

Lunch was back at the hotel/dorm and we picked up Maeve for the ride back to Noosa. She rode in the front this time as we were afraid she was going to be ill on the bumpy road. The French girl usually sat up front for motion sickness reasons, but Maeve had dibs this time due to the previous night activities. We made it to Rainbow Beach after asking Maeve a thousand times if she was okay - she got annoyed, but we all enjoyed it. At Rainbow Beach, on the mainland, we dropped off the French couple and Sebastian/Stephen at the hostels; then it was only Kevin (the other Irishman), Maeve, and us. We took the forestry roads to avoid the highways and arrived back at our hotel around 4pm with plenty of sand as a souvenir.

Maeve got out with us and booked a studio at our hotel as she was desperate for some sleep and was tired of staying in hostels, while we upgraded to a 1 bedroom apartment so we could use the laundry facilities. This proved to be a good idea as Steven wasn't feeling well that night, his punishment for staying up late the night before, and he slept on the couch in the living room to be closer to the A/C.

We had a great time on Fraser, but we are both really, really tired of sand.

Fraser Island, Day 2

Day 2 was the main reason why we came to Fraser Island - for the beautiful lakes!

After a night out, watching our fearless leader win a pool tournament at the local pub, everyone slowly crawled out of bed. Today was a day of lakes and swimming, yet Stephanie thought she had a good base tan and would not need much sunscreen. We had breakfast, consisting of cereal and toast, and loaded into the truck. We drove into the center of the island for our first stop - Lake McKenzie. It was fairly crowded as it is the most popular lake on the island. All of the lakes on Fraser are fresh water - there is a large water table underneath the island and since water weighs less than sand, the water rises to the top. Shane mentioned the sand can actually be used to clean jewelry.

In the next two pictures you can see a dingo that decided to join all the sunbathers. Dingos are not to be approached and not to be fed, even though they look pretty cute, but they are actually more scared of humans than they let you believe. These happen to be young pups who are apparently fearless.

Another one showed up later and took a bag from someone that had gone into the lake. The bag never returned.

After sunbathing, swimming, and napping for a few hours we piled in the truck for a trip to Central Station for lunch. This spot was converted from the hub of the logging industry to a park once the island was awared as a World Heritage Site a few years ago. We ate lunch and then walked around Wanggoolba Creek where Shane told us about various trees and other stories about the formation of the island. Basically, sand had been taken by the wind from the mainland and formed the island over millions of years. The Ice Age has something to do with it as well, but we can't really remember details.

Our next lake was Lake Birrabeen. It was almost a perfect circle with clear, warm water. Steven jumped in was amazed at how the depth changes so dramatically. Where the water looks clear it is only about up to your chest, but then it takes a steep slope down where the lake is dark, and gets very deep. We swam and sunbathed before walking back to the truck through the rainforest for our final lake.

By time we arrived at Lake Boomajin, everyone was exhausted and Stephanie was starting to turn a nice shade of pink. Steven went swimming while most everyone else primarily relaxed. After our tour guide got a nice nap we left for beach house, our temporary home.

Dinner that evening was pasta, which we both helped Shane make, and then Stephanie went to bed early (due to sunburn and a long day) and Steven went out to the pub again. This proved to not be such a good idea as he was quite tired and not feeling so well the next day.

Fraser Island, Day 1

Our tour guide, Shane, picked us up from our hotel at 8am in what was supposed to be this vehicle:

Apparently, a cable in the gear box broke on another tour the day before, so he had to go to plan B, which was smaller (pictures to follow). Positive: we were able to access more of the island as larger vehicles can't go everywhere; our group was downsized from the normal 20 to just 8 people. Negatives - we were crammed like sardines, however this can also be seen as a positive as we got to know each other fairly quickly.

After making numerous stops to pick up various people (3 Irish, 2 French, 1 Canadian + us), we arrived on the island around 1pm, had lunch, and headed off to our first destination. Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island (98% of the island is comprised of sand) and is only accessible by 4WD. One can rent a 4WD and go it alone, but many people get stuck in the sand, so we figured it was worth the extra dollars to pay someone else to do the driving.

On the east side of the island there is 75 Mile Beach (technically, it's around 72 miles, but Aussies like to round - generally up), and cars just drive up and down the beach. Somewhat of an odd sight to see and it can get a little hairy with the tides, rocks, etc. People also don't swim off the coast as there are quite a few jellyfish and sharks.

The small blob in the picture is another vehicle - supposedly, the same driving rules apply on the sand, but we were doubtful the two policemen on the island actually did anything about speeding.

We drove along most of 75 Mile Beach and arrived at the Champagne pools - a cool area comprised of rocks that (obviously) form a pool where you can swim; Steven saw two crabs and was tempted to pick it up and take it home for dinner.

After the pools, we hiked up to Indian Heads, a large rock on the island with a good lookout point. Captain Cook was the first white man to discover the island and when he first saw the rock, he noticed some Aboriginals and named it Indian Head. Apparently, everyone was assumed to be Indian back in the day.

Again, it was really windy - note the crazy hair.

Back along 75 Mile Beach, we stopped at the Pinnacles, a rock formation with multi-colored sand...here is a picture of our vehicle as well.

Next to the Pinnacles is the Mahena, a ship-wreck located on the island. The story is it was a luxury ship in its inception, then carried soldiers between England and France in WWI, and finally ferried passengers between New Zealand and Tasmania. A Japanese company purchased it for scrap metal after the ship was retired and was in the process of towing it back to Japan when a cyclone hit the coast and the tow broke, causing the ship to end up where it is today.

Our last stop of the day was Eli Creek, a freshwater creek that runs into the ocean. There is a fairly strong current and some of our group decided to walk down the creek, while we saw a younger girl who had the right idea and brought a boogie board to ride down numerous times.

We cleaned up, Shane made us dinner, and most of the group headed over to the local bar for a few drinks before calling it a night.