Ray and Jeanne in Oz
Episode 1: Beaches and Birds
Sydney Opera House
Long Beach, Great Keppel Island
Read next Corals
and Coincidences
Wednesday 29
October 2003, Airlie Beach, Queensland, AustraliaG’Day
Mates! (pronounced G’die Mites)
We made it! Three long flights totaling 26.5 hours and
we were in Sydney two days after we left Ottawa. We took
Air Canada overnight to London England, then two hours
later boarded a Malaysia Airlines 12.5 hour flight for
Kuala Lumpur. We had asked in London if there was a
chance for an upgrade, but had been told they were sorry
but the plane was full. We lucked out when we presented
ourselves for the last flight to Sydney. We got upgraded
to Business Class. That was the best eight hour flight we
have ever had. I must admit that I like to be pampered
every now and then.
It was dark by the time we landed in Sydney, so once
we took the shuttle to our hotel in King’s Cross, we
headed for bed to try to get over some of the jet lag.
The next day we discovered we were in a foreign
country. Everybody speaks with a funny accent and as we
found out the Aussies of Oz are masters of abbreviations.
For instance, breakfast is ‘brekkie’, rugby football, all
the rage here with the world cup in progress, is ‘footie’.
If that isn’t bad enough they use British expressions for
everything. Our first day here we were directed to see
‘the man in the green jumper’. There wasn’t anyone
wearing green overalls, just a green sweater. Another
time we went into a bookstore to inquire if they sold
second hand books. The manager was perplexed until I
pointed out the sign in the window advertising ‘trading
hours’. It was explained to us that that was their hours
of business, they did not trade books. Oh.
Our first order of business in Sydney was to buy a
second hand car. Langley Muir had recommended the do-it-yourself
sales area in the underground car park in King’s Cross,
where we were staying. To sell your car, you pay $65 AUS
for one week’s parking and drive down to the second
parking level where you display your car advertising the
price and all the car’s selling points. Ray had been told
that a Ford Falcon station wagon was the car to buy as it
was reliable and every mechanic in Oz knows how to fix it.
There were a number of camper vans offered for sale that
looked very tempting to me but Ray was more interested in
a more comfortable and economical station wagon. We
missed out on one hot number the first day but the second
day we were waiting when a 1989 Toyota Camry wagon drove
in. It didn’t take long to take a test drive and strike a
bargain and Priscilla was ours. Her full name is Queen
Bee Priscilla (Licence number QBP 174) but to us she is
simply Priscilla, and still Queen of Oz roads at a mere
217,000 Kms.
A word about the complications of buying a car in Oz;
to transfer ownership in New Zealand, all we had to do
was fill in a form at the post office and pay $7. In
Australia, we needed copies of our passports and Driver’s
licences, a ‘pink slip’ indicating the car had passed a
roadworthy test recently, $69 plus pay a tax based on the
selling price of the car, somewhat reduced for
officialdom.
Like New Zealand, cars must be re-registered each year
(the ‘rego’), but it is a bit more complicated and
expensive here. Each state has different rules. The rego
on Priscilla expired in Dec 2003 and since we planned to
leave NSW before than, we decided to renew the rego as
soon as possible. That was a bit of a hassle. We had to
get new insurance on the car and that could add up to big
bucks, depending on the address you used in Oz. As
tourists we didn’t have an address of where we regularly
‘garage the car’ (their term), so we used the Canberra
address of the Jones, who lived next door to us in Ottawa
several years ago. That worked well as the insurance
costs for their suburban home were considerably less than
many other places. A mere $450 later, Priscilla was fit
to drive until Dec 2004. That will make it a lot easier
to resell her when we leave next March.
Priscilla came equipped with a 6 person tent, an
‘Eskie’ (cooler) and ice packs, two camp chairs and
various other items for camping. Ray had told me we were
going to camp most of the time to save money, but we
haven’t yet. We have been experiencing afternoon or
evening rain showers so it has been a lot easier to stay
at hostels or cabins in Caravan Parks. I am not
complaining. There has been lots of choice in our budget
range but the prices are higher than New Zealand and a
lot more than South East Asia, India or South America.
Still, we get away with paying between $40 – $60 AUS per
night and that includes kitchen facilities to make our
own meals. That Eskie is well used. Food prices in Oz are
quite a bit higher than we are used to paying in Canada
and restaurant meals are no bargain. Gas is also a bit
more expensive than Ottawa. We have paid anywhere from 0.79
– 0.96 per liter. Still, I appreciate the fact that the
GST has already been factored into the price so what is
advertised is what you pay, no extra tax surprises.
I complained a bit about the weather, but once we left
the chilly weather we found in Sydney and headed north,
things improved. In fact, our trip so far has been rather
like an extended resort holiday and our tans are
improving. (Eat your hearts out!)
A bit about that strange game, Footie: Observations of
an uninitiated viewer:
This masochistic version of football is played with a
ball shaped like a football but the teams play with no
protective padding at all and it looks like a no holds
barred game. The favourite play is to bury the ball
carrier with every member of the opposing team. The ball
carrier often manages to sneak the ball back into play by
throwing it out from under the piled up bodies to a team
mate. That player runs with the ball, kicks it or throws
it to someone else, whatever he wishes. To score points,
they can kick the ball between the goal posts or they can
incur extreme grass burns by flinging themselves in the
air while carrying the ball and slide over the goal line.
To catch a ball thrown by an opposing team, they love to
hoist one player in the air to gain extra height.
Naturally injuries occur all the time but hey, this is a
rough and tough game! The spectators love it.
But back to our travels, we only spent one full day
sightseeing in Sydney before heading north. We fly home
from Sydney so we figure we will have time to see more
then. Besides, we prefer the countryside to cities.
Just north of Sydney is the Hunter Valley, one of the
biggest wine districts in Oz. We couldn’t pass up a
chance to sample some of their great wines, so we spent a
day touring several of the wineries. There are lots of
them so it was hard picking and choosing and there were
all those ‘don’t drink and drive’ signs to make us feel
guilty. We did manage to visit five wineries, all a bit
different, but Jeanne had to sacrifice and do most of the
tasting. We bought a few whites to drink with our dinners
as well as a whole case of Lindeman Cabernet-Shiraz blend
that was a great price. There is another wine district
north of Adelaide, so we will have to do a comparison
when we are there.
Ray thought the Hunter Valley area would lend itself
very well to a bicycle tour. The roads were nice and
quiet and the countryside was gently rolling, plus there
are all those enticing stops along the way. Towns are
often too far apart or roads are too busy in other areas
we have visited to make bicycling practical.
We stayed at a YHA hostel in the countryside outside
Scone on the northern fringe of the Hunter Valley. This
area is the ‘stud center’ of Oz. Dozens of very
attractive horse farms specializing in breeding the
Australian Stock horse are found here. They claim that it
rivals Kentucky for horse breeding. There was a small
group of students from a girl’s private school staying at
the hostel. They were spending a week working on various
stud farms as part of their practicum for a vocational
course they were taking. They were up shortly after 5 AM
to prepare for their day of working with the horses, so
they were too tired at night to cause any disturbance.
Dorringo forest
Bush tukey
We hoped to do a
little hiking in Oz and the Dorrigo National Park in NSW
sounded interesting. It was an easy morning’s walk but
was most interesting. The area is a botanists and birders
paradise and there were lots of signs identifying trees
and birds. We even saw our first live wallaby in the park.
Up until then all we had seen was road kill on the
highway.
We had bought a good Oz Bird Book in Sydney so we were
keen to see, as rank amateurs, if we could sight all the
Australian birds that are new and exotic to us. We got
all excited at one point when we realized a bush turkey
was routing around in the brush right next to the path
through Dorrigo. We crept as close as we could trying to
get a good photo. We heard and saw lots of Riflebirds; in
fact you can’t miss them, they are a loud as a real rifle
shot.
It was lunch time
by the time we finished our walk so we spread our lunch
out on a picnic bench, only to have to fight off bush
turkeys. They were not rare at all, they are pests that
have become tame with people feeding them. Ray got a
stick to scare them off the top of our picnic bench so we
could eat our sandwiches.
Leaving Dorrigo, we headed for the coastal beaches. We
stopped first at the small resort town of Lennox Head to
watch the surfers. It was still a bit cool and rain
threatened so we didn’t stay. A bit farther north we
stopped at Fisherman’s Lookout at Byron Bay. Stairs led
to the top of a small hill right beside the beach where
we could watch all the surfers ride the waves into shore.
We were lucky as a little offshore we saw a few small
whales making their way north along the coast.
Dickie Beach
We crossed from
New South Wales into Queensland but decided not to stop
on the very commercial Gold Coast and to bypass Brisbane.
Instead, we stayed at Dicky Beach, outside the resort
town of Caloundra on the southern end of the Sunshine
coast, just north of Brisbane. We had fun playing in the
surf and watching children gathered for their Sunday
morning surfing lessons. They all had on matching
swimsuits and the Aussie version of a swim cap, a small
colour coordinated fabric cap tied on under their chin. A
little farther up the beach we watched about 10
parachutes descend and land on the beach. It must have
been a class as several were tandem riders, strapped on
in front of an instructor.
Our next stop was another small resort town, Rainbow
Beach, where we booked a day tour of Fraser Island, the
longest sand island in the world. It is 120 km long and
up to 10 km wide, but there are no paved (bitumen or
sealed) roads. This is strictly 4WD country. Priscilla
didn’t qualify so we joined other tourists for a 4WD bus
tour. You can camp or stay in a resort on the island but
we opted for a day tour. We took a short ferry ride
across to the island and proceeded to drive about 25 km
up the beach. You can’t swim in the ocean at all because
of rip tides and sharks that come to prey on the baby
whales born offshore every spring.
We
passed a private vehicle towing a camper trailer that was
stuck in the sand. It had chosen to avoid driving through
the surf by passing on the bush side of a fallen tree.
Bad move. He was going to need some assistance moving the
tree before getting free. We couldn’t stop to help. We
saw some sea hawks on our drive up the beach but no
animals. Our driver kept up a continual patter, telling
us all about the origin of the island and other snippets
of information. He kept talking about the dingoes, wild
dogs, on the island but we didn’t see any. After a young
boy was killed by one a few years ago, the Conservation
people have been killing any that strayed into areas
where tourists congregate.
Fraser Island Beach
Fraser Island Lake Mackenzie
We
drove inland to swim at Lake Mackenzie, one of several
‘perched’ lakes on the island. They form in pockets in
the higher areas, resting on an accumulated layer of
decayed leaves and other organic material. They are
filled solely by rainwater so the water is crystal clear
and good for the skin and hair. We had a lovely swim and
sunned ourselves on the white sand surrounding the lake.
Next came a short walk
through the rainforest where we did see a 4 foot long
python and some small lizards, then we had a lunch
provided at one of the resorts before returning down the
beach. The tide had come in while we were on the island
so it was more difficult driving back. A second vehicle
with us fell victim to the damage caused by the sand and
sea salt. The air conditioning conked out, then it lost
its exhaust system and finally the fan belt broke, but it
was able to limp back to town. Our driver cautioned us to
drive someone else’s 4WD rather than your own on the
island.
python on the path
Agnes Waters surf beach
We headed north again to the small towns of Agnes
Waters and next to it, the Town of 1770, named for the
date that Captain Cook first landed in Queensland. Agnes
Waters is the most northerly surf beach, as the Great
Barrier Reef protects the coast north of there. Just
before we left Dicky Beach we went to a second hand shop
and bought cloth covered foam boards, about half the
length of a surfboard. These are called ‘body boards’ or
‘boogie boards’ and they looked like great fun. You don’t
stand up on them, you lie on them and try to catch the
perfect wave into shore. The beach at Agnes Waters proved
to be the perfect place to try them out. We got quite
good at riding the relatively gentle waves into shore. I
wish we had bought them earlier but we will now be on the
lookout for more surf beaches.
snorkeling on Lady Musgrave Island
The main reason for our stop at 1770 was to join a
tour boat to try snorkeling on one of the southernmost
island of the Great Barrier Reef, just 1 1/2 hours
offshore. We had a great day on Lady Musgrave Island. It
is a small island surrounded on one side by a coral cay
almost larger than the island itself. We anchored just
outside the cay and were ferried into shore on a glass
bottom boat. We could see lots of colourful fish and even
a few turtles swimming in the clear waters. Our first
swim was right offshore. It was great, the corals were
lovely and the fish were plentiful. We had lunch back on
the boat and then moved closed to the outer reef for a
second swim. That was even more fun. We swam above a
turtle resting on rocks below us and we saw one of Nemo’s
cousins swimming around an anemone. We even frightened a
large, ugly, but harmless, rock cod from his lair in a
coral crevice. The finale for the day was a little
fishing off the side of the tour boat. Thirty lines
dropped off the side at once and a few lucky people
caught dinner, but not me. I just lost my bait twice and
Ray lost his sinker. Oh well, it was fun anyway and we
didn’t have to try to clean our catch.
After talking to fellow tourists on our snorkeling
expedition, we headed north again to Rockhampton where we
caught a ferry to Great Keppel Island. We stayed for
three days at the YHA tent village, enjoying the sand
beaches and forest walks. The permanent tents are quite
comfortable, with double or twin beds and a shaded area
outside the door to sit and relax. We keep being told
there are lots of Canadians travelling in Oz, and some of
them, like Vancouver born Russ, the manager of the YHA,
have married Aussies and stayed on. We had planned to do
a little snorkeling on Keppel, but the winds that cooled
us nicely also stirred up the sands making visibility
poor. The swimming was good anyway.
our home in YHA tent village on Great
Keppel Island
Possum
The possums that
live on the island know a good thing when they see it.
The kitchen area of the hostel was open to air, in
typical tropical fashion and every evening, one or two
possums would come sauntering in to see what they could
cadge. They weren’t at all shy.
On our last day, we decided to have lunch at the local
restaurant before taking the ferry back to the mainland.
We were greeted by a receiving line of eight or nine
Rainbow Lorikeets perched on the railing of the
restaurant. There was a sign prominently displayed
admonishing people to not feed the lorikeets, possums or
Kookaburras, but this didn’t deter several people and the
lorikeets knew it. Soon several of them were gathered
around a few people who were feeding them French Fries. A
Kookaburra flew down from a tree and managed to get one
fry before being chased off by the noisy lorikeets. Ray
and I were watching all this, just having a drink of
water after our meal when two lorikeets descended on us.
One sat on my hand and drank thirstily from my cup while
the other perched on the table and drank from Ray’s cup.
When they had their fill, they wiped the leftover French
Fries off their beaks on the side of the wooden table and
flew back to the trees to await the next visitors.
We are currently in Airlie Beach, the biggest resort
town so far, just north of Mackay. Today is laundry and
internet day but tomorrow, if the weather is good, we
will take another day excursion out to the corals to do
some more snorkelling. It should be fun. Our plan is to
make it as far north as Cairns, then head inland through
the desert outback to Alice Springs and Uluru (Ayer’s
Rock), then head south towards Adelaide, so stay tuned.
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