Well, I made it safely to Brisbane from Mackay and met Humme at baggage check in the airport. From the airport, we took a shuttle to our hotel in Noosa on the Surfer’s Coast. I was especially excited about this leg of our trip together, because I really enjoyed the quaint town of Noosa Heads when I visited it earlier as part of my East Coast road trip. Unlike many of the other places that I have stopped, Noosa has a much more relaxed atmosphere which is nice every once in awhile.
Since I was in New Zealand (and internet there is even harder to find than Australia, if you can believe), it was hard to plan Humme’s trip with him. He chose all of the hotels and planned a rough itinerary for the trip, and I was excited to see what he wanted to see and do. Our hotel in Noosa was a great start to the trip, because it was actually more of an apartment than a hotel. After spending some time in a campervan, our apartment was luxury! We had a living room (with TV), dining room, full kitchen with huge pantry, laundry room (with washer and dryer), bedroom, 2 bathrooms!, and a garage (that we did not even need since we didn’t have a car). We would be staying in Noosa for 2 nights before going south to the Gold Coast.
When we got into Noosa, we immediately dropped off our luggage and walked to Noosa National Park. I wanted to show Humme the amazing coastal walk I had done with Felix when we visited last time before the sun set. With great views of the beaches and wild bush turkeys, the coastal walk at the national park is a must-see in Noosa. We even saw a koala along our walk!
Since both of us had been travelling most of the day, we had not eaten in awhile, so we ended our walk to find something to eat. The restaurant we chose on Hastings St. (the main street in Noosa Heads) was delicious! We shared a lamb pizza (sounds weird, but was yummy) and each ordered our own stir-fry noodle dish. After dinner, we walked back to our hotel - Humme was still adjusting to the time difference and I was exhausted! Humme had planned for us to do a day-trip to Fraser Island the next day, so we would be waking up early anyway.
Fraser Island is one of my favorite places so far on my trip, so I did not mind at all that I would be visiting it again so Humme could experience paradise. I had previously done a 3-day self-drive camping trip on Fraser, so I thought it would be a different experience going on a guided day tour. I was definitely right! From the moment our barefoot tour guide picked us up in Noosa, I knew this day was going to be different and special.
Instead of catching the barge from Hervey Bay (as I had previously done), we drove down the beach in Noosa (most people only drive down the beach on Fraser!) to Rainbow Beach and caught the barge at Inskip Point. Before this, we also had to cross the Noosa River by a small cable car that carried our 4WD across the water. The barge crossing at Inskip Point is much shorter than the one at Hervey Bay (this is because it is believed that Fraser Island was once connected to the land here) and only took about 10 minutes to get across.
Once we reached Fraser Island, we embarked directly onto the sand and were driving up the beach before we knew it. Almost immediately, we saw our first dingo! begging for fish scraps from a fisherman on the beach. There are only about 100 dingoes estimated to be on Fraser Island, so it was lucky that we got to see one so soon (and during the day!) We drove up the beach for awhile, sometimes even driving right into waves washing up on the shore! This was amazing for even me to see - we were not allowed to get any saltwater on our hired 4WD we had for my last trip, otherwise we would have to pay an $1000 fee, so we had stayed further up the beach. However, our tour guide today has done this tour almost daily for over three years, so he drove quickly up the sand, spraying saltwater everywhere.
For some background information on dingoes (thanks to our barefoot tour guide) - They are very smart and supposedly their brains are 30% larger than domesticated dogs. More specifically, their smarts are of a problem-solving variety. Apparently, the two resorts on the island both built fences around them as a preventative measure so that their guests would not sue if they were attacked by dingoes. The fences cost $70K (taxpayer money) and the dingoes figured out how to get past them on the first day they were built haha.
After driving on the beach, we made our way to Central Station in the middle of the island, where we would be embarking on a 1.8km walk to Pile Valley. This was also something that I had not seen before! The walk was beautiful through the rainforest and we walked beside a silent, clearwater stream and among towering Kauri Pine and Satinay trees. At one point, Humme and I even stopped to take a drink from the stream and it was surprisingly delicious!
Our tour guide had driven to the other end of the walk to pick us up and would be driving us next to Lake McKenzie. One of the most popular tourist attractions on Fraser Island, Lake McKenzie has been closed to the public for a few months so that they can update their facilities (toilets and picnic tables). Even we had not been able to see it on my last trip, so we went to its sister lake instead, Lake Birrabeen. Today however, since we were with a commercial tour group, we were allowed to visit Lake McKenzie.
Both Lake McKenzie and Lake Birrabeen are what are known as perched lakes as I learned from our tour guide. There are only about 40 known perched lakes in the world, and 20 of them can be found on Fraser Island. A perched lake is formed when rainwater is collected in a sandy inlet. The water is crystal clear since the lake is not connected to the water table and only contains rainwater. It is uncommon to find many plants or fish in these types of lakes because the water is so acidic, but we were told to look for turtles and acid frogs. We did not see any...
We decided to go for a swim in Lake McKenzie even though the water was cold. How often would we be able to swim in such a beautiful lake? We had to take advantage of the opportunity. Since Lake McKenzie is closed to the public, we had the unique opportunity to spend some quiet time at the lake. When it reopens, the lake is expected to get between 500-1,000 visitors daily! Besides the other 2 people on our tour with us, we literally had the entire place to ourselves.
There is so much to see and do on Fraser Island, people visit and re-visit it often. I was glad to be able to supplement my first trip with Pile Valley and Lake McKenzie, but was sad that it was already time to leave. The day flew by quickly and before we knew it, we were driving back down the beach to the barge. Again, we saw some dingoes on the beach harassing the fishermen, and we also learned about pippies. Pippies are similar to mussels in the way they look, but they are found on the beaches, buried in the sand. Many fishermen dig them up and use them for bait, but today our tour guide found one just to show us what they looked like.
We also learned about Pied Oyster Catcher Birds that are found on Fraser Island, and they mate for life. When driving, we slowed because they travel in pairs and fly towards each other when they sense danger. If we drove in-between them, chances are one or both of them would be hit. Our tour guide joked that like humans, if the female dies, the male usually stops eating and dies soon after. But if the male dies, the female usually moves on and finds a new mate haha. Then it was time to leave, and we drove our 4WD onto the barge for the 10-minute trip back to Rainbow Beach. We even saw some dolphins from the boat!
Normally, the tide is too high so driving on Rainbow Beach is considered dangerous. However, today the tide was low so we chanced it and were able to make it the whole way back to Noosa by way of beach. Much better than taking the highway for 2 hours... Rainbow Beach is named as such because of the multi-colored sand dunes found there. I was excited to be able to see Rainbow Beach, because I had skipped it on my first time up the East Coast. We also might have seen a mainland dingo, but we are not 100% sure. Many Australians (even though it is illegal) have dogs that are part-dingo, so this might be what we saw.
The next morning, we were moving from Noosa down to Surfer’s Paradise by way of Brisbane. I should have known that this day was not going to be a good one after I got some terrible news from back home early in the morning. We decided to take the public city bus and then the train in order to halve the price of our tickets. We did not realize though that this option made our timetable too tight, and we ended up missing one of our connections (which was an express bus) and ended up taking a slower, local bus that stopped at every station. Needless to say, the trip ended up being at least 2 hours longer than we had expected, and we were tired of traveling by the time we got into Surfer’s. The good news is that our hotel was really nice, and we found this amazing Thai restaurant just down the street from it. The day was already starting to look up! After dinner, we even bought the ingredients to make Tim Tam Slammas (hot chocolate and Tim Tam’s, yum!)
Since we were in Surfer’s Paradise, we had to go surfing, so the next morning we rented a surfboard on the beach. I had not been surfing since before I left for New Zealand, so I was a little worried that I would not remember how to stand up. I was able to catch a couple of waves, but the weather was a little bad and the waves and current were a bit too strong. I even lost an earring when a wave crashed on me! We gave up after an hour, because we were both exhausted from fighting the current.
We decided to do another activity that would not be affected by the weather, so we went zorbing! I was stoked that Humme wanted to go zorbing, because the only place in Australia to go is on the Gold Coast and we were so close. We caught the city bus again (back towards Brisbane) out to the middle of nowhere where the zorbing place was. We agreed to do both a dry and wet zorb together (again, zorbing is when you roll down a hill inside a giant plastic ball), and it was a blast. We did the dry zorb first down the windy track and got a little dizzy. Next, we changed into our bathing suits and went back to the top of the hill. For the wet zorb, we rode down the hill in a straight line so it went much quicker. This time, the ball was filled with warm water, and even though we tried to stand up and jump around, we just ended up sliding all over the place!
From zorbing, we rushed back to Surfer’s Paradise in order to catch the lunch special at the Thai restaurant we had eaten at for dinner the night before (yes, it was that good!). The lunch special was supposed to last until 3PM, but we got there at 3:03 and they would not let us order it. Normally, we would have taken our business elsewhere, but we were very hungry and in need of some good food, so we decided to stay and eat there anyway.
Next on our agenda was the Q1 Tower which was across the street from our hotel. One of Humme’s friends had recommended going to the Observation Tower on the 77th floor of Q1 (which is the 20th tallest building in the world and the tallest building in Australia). The elevator up to the Observation Deck is one of the fastest also, and we were up at the top in 43 seconds. We had chosen to go up to the deck just before sunset so that we could see the view both in the light and as the sun was setting. It was such an amazing view!
After a few days in Surfer’s Paradise, it was time to move on, and we would be flying to Cairns from Brisbane Airport. In the morning, we caught the train (once again) to Brisbane and made it to our flight with plenty of time to spare. One thing I would like to digress and add here is that Australian airlines are skimpy with their luggage weight limits and only allow you to check 20kg (roughly 44lbs.). In addition to that, you are only supposed to carry-on 10kg (22lbs.). Since I travel so much in America, I am used to being able to check 50lbs. at least, so it has been really hard to restrict myself to these limits, especially while traveling for such an extended period of time. Basically, I have to sweet-talk my way through baggage check-in each time and usually get away without paying. Today however, Humme was nice enough to add some of my baggage to his, and we were both easily below the weight limits. One suggestion that I have thought of to solve this baggage problem once and for all is to have the person and their bag weighed at the same time. I am not sure if this would solve anything, but it is worth a shot, right?
We landed in Cairns just after 4PM, but we would actually be driving up to Port Douglas for a few days before visiting Cairns. Just north of Cairns, Port Douglas is a more upscale vacation destination and even attracts celebrity visitors. It is also a great place to stay because of its close vicinity to Mossman Gorge, the Daintree Rainforest, and Cape Tribulation.
We would be driving to Cape Tribulation (Humme rented a car for this leg of our trip) the next morning. Cape Tribulation is the farthest north that you can go on the East Coast of Australia without a 4WD vehicle. To get there, you have to drive through the Daintree Rainforest, and cross the Daintree River by a cable ferry. Before we did this however, we took a cruise up the Daintree River in search of crocodiles. Estuarine crocodiles or “salties” are found in the Daintree River, and some of them are quite large. I had read somewhere in my travel research that they can also run very fast. If you are ever caught being chased by a “salty,” run in a zig-zag fashion. The reason for this is that the crocodiles can only run straight because of their large tails... After cruising around the river, we saw some tree snakes, a Ulysses Blue Butterfly, some birds, and finally a crocodile laying on the beach!
It was now time to cross over the Daintree River with our car and drive the rest of the way to Cape Tribulation. Before we made it all the way though, we stopped a few times to do some rainforest walks. Along our first walk, Humme spotted a giant snake just a couple of feet away from the walking path. After doing some research, we have determined that it was a type of python (non-venomous but the largest snake in Australia!). We also stopped at the Discovery Center and walked through the rainforest (climbing a canopy tower) there as well. We were hopeful that we were going to see cassowaries (a large, flightless bird similar to an emu but endangered), but we did not see any...
We finally made it to Cape Tribulation and got out and walked down the beach. I had seen some amazing postcards of Cape Tribulation, so I was really excited to see it for myself. Once again, the weather was not great that day and the clouds were thick overhead. Since there was no sun to be found, the water did not appear to be as blue as the postcards advertised, but the scene was beautiful just the same.
On the way back from Cape Tribulation, we stopped to do one more walk in the rainforest, and we were glad that we did. The walk we chose is through the “world’s oldest rainforest” and our surroundings were much different on this walk than the others. The mangrove trees were numerous, and the views were spectacular. We were ready to head back to Port Douglas after we felt that we had seen what there was to see in Daintree National Park.
The following day, we would be leaving Port Douglas to go to Cairns, but we wanted to explore “Port Dougie” a little more and visit Mossman Gorge before we did. We took a walk down 4 Mile Beach in Port Douglas and walked back among the beautiful and luxurious holiday rentals.
Then we drove to nearby Mossman Gorge and decided to walk the entire track before finally going for a swim in the river. Even though we had been seeing some crazy trees in the last couple of days, the trees around Mossman Gorge have some of the longest roots I have ever seen. We were glad in the end that we did the entire walk, because the creek on the other side of the swing bridge was a beautiful site. There were fish swimming in the creek and a tiny waterfall.
At Mossman Gorge, we joined the many others and went for a swim in the river even though there was a “Danger” sign. The water was freezing cold and the current was pulling me down the river. We felt like we should go for a swim even if it was cold, because we would probably never be somewhere like Mossman Gorge again. The pictures I took while we were there looked just like the postcards we had seen. As we were swimming, it started to rain so we ran to the parking lot. Before getting into the car, we bought ice cream cones from the ice cream truck in the parking lot. Then, we drove to Cairns in just our bathing suits from Mossman Gorge, hoping they would dry.
We arrived in Cairns and checked into our hotel before walking around and exploring our new spot. We knew that we wanted to go snorkeling/scuba diving the Great Barrier Reef the next day (for the 4th of July), so we shopped around the many tour places checking prices. Basically, we learned that we should have gone to the Great Barrier Reef from Port Douglas, because there is better visibility at the spots further up north. Since the area north of Cairns is known for sugar cane, the water further south is not quite as clear. However, since we were already in Cairns, we chose a boat that would take us to the Middle/Outer Reef and guaranteed that no more than 35 people would be in our group. We did not want a repeat of the movie Open Water to happen to us...
After booking our Great Barrier Reef tour for early the next morning, we went to the Night Markets along the Esplanade and Humme bought a koala oven mitt. We were planning to go to bed early, but we ended up randomly running into Amy, Mark, and Vic (who I had travelled with in New Zealand) on the street and went for a few drinks with them.
In the morning, we woke up the earliest we had done yet and walked down to the fleet terminal to meet our boat, SeaStar by 7:30AM. The clouds were still with us overhead, but we were hopeful that the weather would get better the further away from shore that we were. As we started to pull away from shore, we were given a safety briefing on the front of the boat. We then moved indoors and learned about snorkeling.
As a part of the tour we booked, we were able to decide whether or not we wanted to try scuba diving for free. I had been wanting to become certified in scuba, so I thought I would try it and see if I liked it. A few others joined Humme and I for a scuba lesson where we learned the four skills we would need to perform on our dive (apparently you need these when you get certified too). As we were getting briefed about scuba diving, a few people were starting to look seasick and moved outside with paper bags. The water was getting a little rough and the boat was rocking from side to side.
After about an hour and a half of rough open seas, we arrived at our first location at the Great Barrier Reef called Michelmas Cay. At this spot, I would be scuba diving for my first time, but I went for a short snorkel before while they set up the equipment. Humme decided to just snorkel, so I was placed in a small group with a couple who were also diving for their first time. On our short snorkel, our guide picked up a sea cucumber from the bottom of the water and we got to feel it. Also, the sea cucumber appeared to be brown when looking down from the top of the water, but it was actually a deep red color once it was brought to the surface.
The scuba equipment was ready, so we swam back to the boat and were suited up. I was first to jump into the water and had to swim down two meters and wait for the others. As I was waiting, I had a few moments of panic that felt somewhat like claustrophobia (which I had never really experienced before). It was a weird feeling that I can only explain by saying that I did not feel like I was getting enough oxygen through my respirator. I was scared and at the point of giving up and swimming to the surface, when I thought, “when will I be here and able to do this again?” My breath slowed and the fear subsided magically. The couple joined me in the water two meters down and we had to perform the four skills we had discussed on the boat. After the third skill, I noticed that both the man and the woman in the couple had swum to the surface and it appeared that I would be doing the dive with only the guide and a guide in-training.
Even though the initial fear had passed, it was still weird to get used to the idea of scuba diving. As we descended lower down, my left ear began to hurt and I had the sensation of popping many times (feels similar to when flying). Each time, I had to remind myself that I could not give up and had to keep moving downward. I was so glad that I did not give in to my initial instinct, because on my dive we saw some really amazing things. We were able to get up-close to a giant clam (they really are giant!) and when you rub them, they close up their shell. It was really like something you only hear about but never actually get to do. We also saw a stingray along the bottom in the sand and spotted some clownfish (think Nemo!) swimming in an anemone. Scuba diving was really one of the most amazing things I have ever done!
When we swam back to the boat, I knew that I would definitely have to go scuba diving again. However, for now it was time to go snorkeling with Humme. We swam around for a little over an hour then headed back to the boat for a buffet lunch. The spread for lunch was quite impressive (by backpacker standards) and I enjoyed the prawns even though they had eyes!
After lunch while our food was digesting, the guides give a talk about the different types of coral and fish we had seen and would see later in the afternoon. Also, the captain came and talked to the group because the weather was actually getting quite worse. He was worried about moving the boat to our second location further towards the outer edge of the reef, so he had decided we would be staying at Michelmas Cay. After the rest of our lesson, we would be doing an “adventure snorkel” which meant we were dropped off in a dinghy somewhere and then had to swim back to the boat in small groups with a guide.
During our lesson about the Great Barrier Reef, we learned a couple of interesting things. The first is that everything in the water is pretty much named for exactly what it looks like. For example, brain coral looks like a brain, spaghetti coral looks like spaghetti, parrotfish looks like a parrot, etc. Another interesting fact is about clownfish. There is typically only one female in each group of clownfish, and when the female dies, the largest male is able to turn itself into a female and reproduce. The second largest male becomes the largest male and then mates with the female. If you think back to Finding Nemo, the movie would not have been appropriate for children if Nemo’s Dad had turned into Nemo’s Mom after she died and then Nemo mated with his Dad?
One more interesting fact we learned was about sea turtles. Like humans, turtles have lungs so they have to come to the surface of the water to breathe in oxygen. Unlike humans though, turtles can hold their breath for around 20 minutes while actively swimming and around 4 hours when they are sleeping at the bottom! While we were on our adventure snorkel, we spotted a sea turtle and followed it around hoping that we would get to see it swim to the top of the surface. Apparently, when turtles appear at the top of the surface, you are actually able to pet their shells if they will let you. Their nerve endings back right up to their shells, so they can actually feel your touch and they enjoy it. The first turtle that we saw did not appear to breathe in oxygen and many other snorkelers were nearing, so we moved on. Luckily, we spotted another sea turtle - this one only had three legs (our guide, Bob thinks it was attacked by a shark!) and followed him around for quite awhile. I was able to get incredibly close to the three-legged turtle but never actually touched it. He did resurface for air three times though while I watched!
Sadly, the day was coming to an end and it was time to turn the boat around and head for Cairns. This Fourth of July was definitely going to be one of the more memorable ones...
The next day was Humme’s final full day in Australia (he would be starting his long trip home the following morning), so we decided to take one final road trip to Kuranda and Barron Falls which were about 30 minutes out of Cairns. The funny thing is that we did not really know what to expect - we had only seen Barron Falls in a travel catalogue and thought it looked amazing. We also wanted to get more use out of the rental car and Kuranda was nearby.
It was yet another cloudy day and by the time we got to Barron Falls, it was definitely feeling a little jungly (an adjective that Humme thinks he made up haha). We walked to the lookout point to see the waterfalls, but the fog was so thick that we had limited visibility. However, the fog cleared miraculously and we were able to get a couple of pictures. An amazing sight!
From Barron Falls, we drove back to Kuranda (we had to drive about 2km past Kuranda to get to Barron Falls). We parked and walked through the many markets. When we parked, we noticed that the parking signs in Kuranda were only until 3PM (when they are usually to 5PM) but did not think anything of it. We had no idea that the entire town would close up around 3PM! Good thing we were able to visit the koala gardens there before it closed - this was definitely the highlight of our Kuranda trip. Not so much for the koalas either... We got to feed wallabies and pademelons (and even saw one with a joey in its pouch!) When Humme took a picture of one of the pademelons, he even posed! They were definitely used to having humans around. We were even able to get up close to some kangaroos too.
Another great day! We drove back to Cairns and went out for Humme’s last supper in Australia (for now). After, we met up again with Amy, Vic, and Mark (along with their new German friends, Patrick and Stefanie) at The Woolshed for some drinks.
The next morning, we checked out of our hotel, and Humme drove me to my new home, The Serpent Nomads hostel where I would be joining Amy, Vic, and Mark who had been staying there all along. Humme then headed to the airport, and I readjusted to living the hostel life. I didn’t have any plans for what I was going to do next. I knew that I needed to find a job and make money or I might have to leave Australia. More to come on that soon...
