Travel

AA: Dingoes, Sharks and Spiders oh my!

28 April 2011

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I awoke Wednesday morning to the endless screeching of lorikeets directly outside my bedroom window. It was 5:00AM. I eventually managed to drift off for another little bit when they quieted down, but that was likely only because the rain was starting… rain that would hit us on and off for the entire day.

The pickup for the transfer over to the barge dock was at the lovely time of 7:20 so I was up at 6 something for the third consecutive day. Grey skies drizzled casually at random intervals as we circled the town picking up an assortment of day trippers and overnighters before finally opening up and pouring just as we were to board the ferry barge. Needless to say everyone crammed into the tiny indoor lounge rather than sitting on deck and the only one impressed was the ship’s cat as she had plenty of people to inspect. Once we got over to the far side we were steered to our respective giant four wheel drive coaches.

Fraser Island is an island almost entirely made of sand (the largest such place in the world) and has near zilch in the way of paved roads, usually the best you can hope for are some traction blocks on the nastier hills. A 4WD is essential on the island. Many people either join a group that packs into smaller suv style ones and do the camping thing, or do a larger bus style guided tour that does a day trip or has an overnight stay at one of the two bigger resorts remaining on the island. Since my friends Chris and Jodi had a good experience with the Fraser Explorer guided tours I decided to give them a shot, especially as the weather was already looking questionable when I booked.

The tour actually started with a speed run across the island to the resort to pick up the rest of our crew arriving from the other boat over from Rainbow Beach. Friends who have been here before commented on how they got stuck on some of those roads due to soft sand. We had the opposite problem, wet packed sand from weeks of rain with massive ruts that set the cabin swaying dramatically and had the guide warning us to not hit our heads and break “his windows.” Most of us took advantage of this to grab some water and a bathroom break and put on our swimsuits. While we were there our guide Graham checked the weather and saw that the southern half of the island didn’t look like it would be seeing sun any time soon so he suggested the first of what would eventually be 20 odd itinerary changes for us. Instead of a 5+km walk in a monsoon-like downpour we instead started the day 2 itinerary on the beach.

Much like Daytona and some other places in the states, cars are allowed on the beach there. Unlike those places, it’s used as the main highway for the island with a speed limit of 80km/h in most places (lowered from 100 after a wave flipped a car and killed some tourists according to Wikipedia.) Adding to the fun is the fact that it’s also used as the landing strip for rangers and scenic flights so all vehicles have to yield to planes as well. Our beast of a bus tore up the sand and through various creeks in no time, only slowing when the rain hit an absolute blinding level in patches as it mixed with sea spray. We kept heading north, following the tempting glimpses of blue sky in the distance. Eventually we arrived at the Champagne Pools, small rock enclosed lagoons constantly being refilled with champagne bubbles of wave action. These are apparently the only safe places to swim in the ocean on the island. The super fun reason? Active fish breeding grounds and a quick, steep drop off mean the coast of the island is shark central. Combined with heavy riptides, going out past knee depth is asking to die. Apparently Tiger and Mako are often seen there, but Hammerheads, Bull and Black Tips as well… with Great White sightings during whale calving season. Fun stuff! At least the pools were nice… (Video later of them)

From the pools we headed south to one of the few rock outcroppings on the island, Indian Head. Named by Cook for the natives he saw on it while passing, the mount has great views. The wind was howling up to 75kph while we were up there, so unfortunately the sea was too rough to see any sharks or rays, but we still got a great view of the island interior. The wind was so strong that it was difficult to stand straight, but of course some morons felt the need to climb out past the collapsing cliff warning and hang above a 90m drop. Further south we had a photo stop at the Pinnacle Coloured Sands which are sand cliff formations of many different colours. Sadly the lack of sun kept the camera from really capturing them, but they were quite pretty. By then it was 1:30 and we were all clamouring for a lunch stop so we headed back to the resort.

After lunch the weather had (sort of) improved on the south end of the island so we decided to do the long walk with a swim in the middle. This one was to Waddy Lake, a barrage lake created by a sand blow cutting off a stream and forming it into a lake. It was a roughly 2.5km hike each way, with a lovely swim in the middle. Coming in via the sand blow is quite wild as you starting walk through what seems like a patch of desert in the middle of the rainforest. You wouldn’t even know the lake was there if you weren’t told where to look, but sure enough, nestled next to the forest is a dark green lake full of catfish and turtles (and though none of us saw any… apparently some freshwater eels.) It was a lovely refreshing swim after the walk, but of course the rain came back and forced us to run scurrying to protect our gear. It was almost 5 by the time everyone was back at the bus, and darkness falls swiftly, especially hugging the east coast of the island, so we headed back to the resort. Still, we’d gotten to see far more of the island than I’d feared first thing that morning.

Upon reaching the resort we were assigned rooms. I’d signed up for a quad, but I guess I was the 5^th guy to sign up for a quad because I ended up in a room by myself. Not your typical hostel room either, but what had clearly once been one of the nicer resort rooms, large with a kitchenette and ensuite. Instead of the two queen size it once likely had there were four singles. I actually sat there a while assuming someone else would come in, but when no one did I just had a laugh and hopped in the shower, finally feeling fully warm again for the first time since bed that morning. Dinner was an Aussie buffet and I swapped travel stories with an older British couple and two Norwegian girls who spoke shockingly good English. Malcolm even gave me a glass and a half of wine, which combined with all the swimming and the early mornings meant I was ready to go to bed and mellow out when they closed the main hall.

The next morning I actually had good intentions to get up and see the sunrise over the pacific, but upon waking up saw heavy cloud and a persistent drizzle so I went back to bed until 6:30. The one person who decided to try reported having no luck seeing the sun. After my first hot breakfast in quite a while, we set out to do the things we’d missed the day before. First up was a swim/wade in Eli Creek which runs down from a sand spring to the open ocean and is the biggest water outlet on the ocean side of the island. This was followed by a trip to the 1930s shipwreck Maheno not far away. Both places made for some fun camera and video shots though again some more sun would have been nice. We also saw a few of the local dingoes, reported to be one of the purest strains of them since dogs are not allowed on the island. Unfortunately we were never in a place where we could stop and take photos from a distance, but it was still very neat to see them.

After an early early lunch, we went for a walk in the rainforest along a beautifully clear stream. Endemic trees not too different from redwoods tower all along the path and the canopy is quite dense making it spooky in spots. The driver quite carefully saved his spider and snake lecture until after the walk, during which he revealed that we’d passed funnel web spiders as often as every 1.5m along the path. We also learned the rather unwelcome fact that the island actually does have Death Adders and Tai-pans… fun stuff again! Our last stop before heading back to the barge was Lake McKenzie a beautiful big perched lake up in the hills. Almost everyone had a swim here, but the wind was so cold that it eventually drove everyone back to the bus a bit early, not to the surprise of Graham. The last treat of the trip ended up being the sunset as we got close to mooring back in Hervey Bay.

So tonight I’m back at the Friendly Hostel, far too wiped to cook so I grabbed a pizza from the cheap locally recommended pizzeria and I’m going to settle down and probably fall asleep watching a movie once I post this entry. Thus far I’m alone in the three person room tonight as well, though it sounds like tomorrow night it will be packed as it took checking 5 hostels before I found a room for tomorrow night’s stop. Thankfully it’s just a short layover before I keep heading to the Whitsunday Islands.

AA:On the way to Hervey Bay

26 April 2011

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Quickie post while I have internet since I’ll be out on Fraser Island the next couple days.

The rest of my time hanging out with David was fun and pretty relaxed. Mostly amounted to a bit of shopping and a few more dips in the ocean wave before we headed to Brisbane yesterday to see the city and take in the ANZAC parade.

ANZAC day marks the anniversary of the beginning of the Gallipoli campaign in Turkey during World War I. Much like Canada, Australia (and to a lesser extent New Zealand) are thought to have come of age during WWI with Gallipoli being their first major contribution. Apparently ANZAC day is a much larger day of remembrance than November 11^th in Australia and New Zealand. We ended up taking the train into town (full of veterans) and set ourselves up to watch the parade through downtown. We watched a number of the veterans groups march by as well as some re-enactors before the modern troops walked by. We also saw a few of the Yellow Cab company cabs from yesteryear, which I suppose proves that the orange “yellow” cabs have always been a thing.

Today was a crash reintroduction to the terrible world of Greyhound. We started out with a packed bus out of Surfers Paradise that took forever to load and left 15 minutes late. We made another stop only 10 minutes outside of Surfers, not even farther out than David’s place. I think I ended up as the only person who didn’t have someone sitting next to them, so either I smelled or I looked so peeved that no one wanted it. In the end when I checked my watch 75mins or so after departure we were still someplace that I knew was within a 15 minute drive of where I’d been staying the past week.

When booking this section of the trip on the greyhound website I’d chosen to take a trip that took slightly longer but was one service rather than transferring in Brisbane. It turns out that was a wasted effort since this service transferred to another (shittier) bus in Brisbane anyway so I might as well have stopped in Brisbane for the layover and spent less time cramped up on the smaller bus. Apparently the A/C in this bus was also stuck on high and most of us spent the rest of the trip shivering away. I also wasn’t lucky enough to get a row to myself this time. Worse, I got a loudmouthed American who had very little concept of the space one seat provides and proceeded to shove various body parts in my direction for the next few hours.

As part of that shuttle I passed through a number of smaller towns that are apparently quite nice. All of them are of the little beach town variety however, something I’ve done a lot of already, so I don’t feel too regretful about passing them by. About an hour and a half from Hervey Bay I traded away my incredibly pushy seat mate as half the bus got off, but in return got someone in the seat in front who smelled as if he hadn’t showered in 3 days. I ended up pulling my backpack onto my lap and opening up the chip bag inside so that the chilli fumes wafted up into my face and overpowered his BO a little. By the time we arrived in Hervey Bay I was practically turning blue.

Thankfully the hostel here in Hervey is everything that was promised. It’s called the Friendly Hostel and it certainly is. They have 4 apartment unit style setups. Mine has one 3 bed dorm (just singles, no bunks), one straight double bed room, and one twin single room. Between these 7 people (only 5 in ours atm) there is a shared kitchen of decent size, a shower/toilet and a small tv/common room. Also lovely is the fact that each bed comes with a locking cupboard (full length), bedside table, lamp, FOUR SLOT POWER BAR!!! and a comfy pillow.

I’m really looking forward to Fraser Island for some sand and dingoes tomorrow, everyone I’ve met who has headed out there has loved it. A little scary to think that tomorrow marks the 3 weeks left mark though.

AA: Gold Coast Round 2

22 April 2011

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Still here on the Gold Coast with David though I expect I’ll be leaving soon. Because of the fact that Easter is so late this year it coincides with ANZAC day in Australia (their remembrance day for the Australia New Zealand Army Corps) and gives them a 5 day long weekend this week. Combined with both Queensland and New South Wales schools being on holiday this week it has made for busy times and I expect difficulties in booking my next step if I leave before Sunday. Thankfully David is being a fantastic host and hasn’t kicked my butt out yet.

In fact, he’s been showing me an excellent time. Thursday seemed like a good beach day as the sun seemed to be out and strong to start the day and the vast hordes were still working until the next day. David took me down the coast from main beach along the various sections of beaches and neighbourhoods we’d seen the previous day from the top of Q1. Every view was gorgeous, green blue seas rolling onto wide sandy beaches. The wave action wasn’t the best I’d seen down here, yet every beach had at least a few surfers challenging the curls. We stopped at a Surf Life Saving Club at Elephant Rock to check out the view and have a drink and some wedges (of course with sour cream and thai sweet chilli.) What a fantastic view… we sat and watched a few surfers catching the waves off the rocks and enjoyed the sun.

Further south we reached the border between QLD and NSW again, this time at Captain Cook’s Point Danger. Despite it only being Thursday several of the beaches were very busy, at least by David’s standards. Of course, unlike grand beach here you need to swim between the patrol flags (or at least somewhere reasonably close to them) on most of the beaches lest you encounter rips and other unpleasant things. We ended up finding a comfy spot on Greenmount beach where we could look back across the long bay and see the high rises of Surfers Paradise rising in the distance. By this point the temps had gotten pretty high and we were both dying for a swim so it didn’t take us long to plant our towels and hop into the waves. They weren’t great body surfing waves sadly but it was still a magnificent place to swim on a beautiful day. When we went back to the apartment to have a shower afterwards we were absolutely wrecked from playing in the waves for almost two hours. David ended up having a nap and I laid semi conscious in bed watching a show for a bit.

Due to the fact that it was school holidays we’d reluctantly concluded that the theme parks would be too nuts to really have much fun at, but David made the suggestion that we check out the Australian Outback Spectacular. This was a wild west type dinner show presenting the outback cattle station lifestyle both in the past and now. It was a blast. I’d read a fair bit about the production in advance but I was still blown away by how many animals they use. Tons of different horses, cattle, sheep and their herding dogs and even a demonstration of a helicopter mustering all in an indoor arena surrounded by dinner theatre seating. Included in the show (and very timely given ANZAC day on Monday) was a tribute to the Australian Light Horse regiments of the first World War, troops that were mostly outback volunteers. All the audience is divided into two teams and given appropriately coloured straw cowboy hats, of course they were out of anything larger than a medium hat so both David and I looked ridiculous trying to wear ours, but me more so. You actually get to keep the hats as well and they aren’t terrible so it’s a shame they were out of large or x-large. The show itself was incredibly well done, all the riders and animals were fantastic performers. The whole thing is a well oiled machine with the food brought to you piping hot during short intervals in the show (usually a song.) Several hundred people end up served within about 3 minutes while the drink staff bring around wine, beer or lemonade refills. The food itself was good as well, a salad with mango dressing wrapped in a tortilla, a quite tasty steak and trimmings and finally a proper Aussie pavlova for dessert with berries. The show ends with some audience participation moments but thankfully neither of us was chosen (David had done it in the past and faceplanted in the sand so he said no) and these determined which station was the winner. We lost thanks to some blatant cheating. All in all a great experience, still a little mystified as to why they sell light up lightsabers for kids though… surely a glowing cowboy hat or something would be better?

After the show we were about to pull back into the garage when David had another idea and took us back down the waterfront to the jetty we’d walked to my first day here. Here they’d implemented a very neat idea so that when we got to the end of the jetty in the dark we saw a ghostly looking scuba diver surfacing in the gloom. As he dove again we next saw a prehistoric looking creature swimming up out of the depths near the diver. Positioned above the pier are a number of powerful data projectors on swivel mounts that create a number of these images in the water. We saw the swimming dino looking things, the diver, eels and a turtle. Very neat idea. Not far from the pier there was a public installation along a path of what David called boopy things. Poles mounted with coloured LED bars that interact with passersby in sound and light. Fun to play with, but I couldn’t help but wonder how long they’d last in a park back home.

For Good Friday we decided to stay away from the beaches and go for another hike up in the hills. Judging by the traffic this was a good idea because even trying to get out of here we ended up doing about a 1 hour loop getting on the motorway then back off basically back where we started. We ended up going back through town and out another exit and back up into the hills the same way as before. Because most of these parks are built around outflow valleys from an ancient volcano they’re at the end of long roads that don’t connect to anything else because the ridges themselves are usually too rugged to build roads over. From looking at a map you can see that parts of where we went today are actually only a few kilometres from where we were in Springbrook but we’d have to do an hour’s drive down windy roads to go out and back in. This time we were hitting the Binna Burra section of Lamington National Park. The road wound up into the hills and then on to a wide ridge plateau with epic views of volcanic valleys on either side and the gold coast in the distance.

When we arrived at the info center David had a quick chat with the ranger and we decided to do the caves walk, a reasonably quick 5k with a lot of up and down. He warned us that the last 2km up the hill before the road was quite muddy and sure enough, soon after we got on the trail a family doing the walk in reverse came by with the kids quite covered in mud. Why you’d do the trail in reverse I don’t know as it leaves you with a long walk uphill on the road to finish instead of down it. It didn’t take long on the walk to get to the titular caves which were volcanic remnants thought in some cases to be Aboriginal weather shelters. It wasn’t until a bit after these caves and rock formations that the trail got quite muddy and we seemed to cross the same stream several times as we began winding our way back up the mountain. My most exciting moment came when I noticed something on the path and stopped dead as David nearly collided with me. As I pointed it out to David, the snake I noticed reared up and began making some disturbingly cobra-like poses with the front of its body while we meekly backed up a bit. Neither of us knew what type of snake it was so we politely waited for it to finish crossing the path. Thinking it had curled up under a rock we gave it some space only to discover that it was just beside the rock and kept having issues climbing the slippery muddy hill and reared back again as I passed. I like snakes and I’m certainly not terrified of them, but I knew there were potentially deadly ones in Queensland and both of us were very much more on the lookout as we clambered through the mud for the rest of the trail. Once we got up to the ranger hut again we showed David’s blurry photo (he camouflaged well) of Mr. Snake and were eventually hesitantly told what it was. It turned out the ranger was wrong as I later found the right species in a guide book at the lodge, venomous but rarely bites humans.

Not long after we encountered Jake the snake on the trail we began to see the true muddy bit of the trail. By picking our way carefully we managed to avoid the six inch deep portions, but it was still very slip and slide and you’d often plant your foot into something that felt like glue. We ran into several other groups coming the other way including a group of about 5 wearing the least appropriate footwear you can imagine. One guy wearing flipflops another wearing sports sandals (slightly better) and a woman wearing white slip-on shoes more appropriate to a lawn party I didn’t see what the other two were wearing but likely equally inappropriate. We warned them that the mud went on quite a while but they kept going. We heard the women yelping and could easily imagine the mud sucking their shoes off and leaving them barefoot to their ankles. We managed to avoid any leeches but saw a few people in the parking lot with blood streaming, I imagine that group discovered a few.

Annoyingly enough Australia seems to enjoy a tradition of restaurants (and perhaps other businesses?) imposing surcharges on public holidays. I’ve seen this number be up to 30%. We went up to the lodge at the end of the track but not only did they have a surcharge, they weren’t even serving food at 3pm. The only other eatery at the top was closed for the holiday, so we went back to the car, ate a few of our snacks and headed back to town stopping on the way for a slurpee (more yankee style than Winnipeg, but still refreshing.) Lunch/Dinner ended up being a lazy visit to Dominos and a pretty laid back night occasionally watching the giant bats fluttering outside.

Saturday will be time to do a bit of shopping and plan my next stop before David gets sick of me, I’m hoping to head up to Fraser Island and do some sand riding and dingo visiting.

AA: Intro to the Gold Coast

21 April 2011

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Sadly the weather turned for the worse the next day with grey skies blowing in from the sea and keeping things cool during the day. I still took the chance to go out boogie boarding, but it was a much shorter trip given the temps. When I eventually got back around 2:30 the Germans were only just stirring. I ended up spending most of the rest of the day browsing the town then reading a book by the pool before heading down to the beach again for a beer or two later on with Sabina.

My wonderful german roommates got back very late that night, not sure when but I’m fairly sure it was post 3AM.They continued their lovely trend of flicking on the light and talking loudly for 15 minutes so I didn’t feel too bad about making noise when I got up at 7:30ish to get ready for my bus. As usual I ended up at the bus stop far too early, but it’s always nice to feel safe about it. It was just a short trip up to Surfer’s Paradise on the Gold Coast which is just southish of Brisbane.

Surfer’s is an odd place, a very Niagara Falls feel about some of it, fancy pants shops in place mingling with Ripley’s Believe it or Not types things and a casino. A sudden cluster of high rise apartment and hotel blocks sit on a variety of islands and it all faces onto a long strip of beaches along the gold coast. Absolutely gorgeous sand and waves and the strip seems to go on forever.

My hostel was actually a bit north of the main part of town next to a couple of quite swanky resorts and a mall for them which doesn’t exactly lead to a lot of cheap food choices (or a proper supermarket.) I did once again find a fisherman’s coop and got some delicious prawn skewers (Lemongrass and Thai Chili.) The hostel itself was much nicer than the Cape Byron one, probably the same amount of space for 4-bed rooms that there was in 10-bed at Cape Byron. No sign of my roomies when I arrived, but a solid locking cupboard always helps. This hostel also provided free boogie boards so I went out and tried the waves but they were quite confused with some rips pulling you down the beach so I didn’t stay in long. Just as well too as it started pouring off and on the rest of the day.

The worst was to come the next day though as the rain was intense. A few of us braved the weather and hopped on the shuttle bus to head downtown. Even with my raincoat on I was drenched to the bone within minutes of getting out of the van. It turned out to be mostly a wasted trip though as there wasn’t much to do in that kind of rain other than shop and I’m hardly in a place financially or storage wise to do much of those. The one positive was finding a remaindered book sale and picking up 3 books at $5 a pop, $5 is insanely cheap by Aussie standards so I was pretty happy to restock some reading material.

Eventually I gave up on the excursion and headed back to the hostel to wait for my friend David from the Adventure Tours NZ group. He’s currently living in the Gold Coast area in between various side trips over here. Unfortunately that made for a very cold wait in the common room as it was open on the marina and front ends so it created a very cold wind tunnel through the whole room. Poor David was just returning from Sydney through and got what sounds like a wild ride through the storms, he described it as potholes in the sky the whole way back. Once he was safely home he came to get me at the hostel, thankfully not a long trip. We pretty quickly called it a night.

It’s been really nice having the chance to cruise around with David and get off the old Greyhound track a bit. Being locked into the tourist track makes it a little hard to check out some of the more remote places. Sadly the weather hadn’t improved much beyond the rain going from solid and driving to intermittent. We took a walk along the inner broadwater area the next morning but eventually dove into a mall and hit the movie theatres to take a break from it. Overall it was a lovely relaxing day and the chance to curl up and watch a bit of tv and catch up with a friend was fantastic after a few weeks of quick departures.

Today we headed up to Springbrook National Park and did a few great walks. After a quick lunch we headed down to Natural Arch. Gorgeous little walk out to a waterfall that has carved a hollow out into an archway. You can actually walk right down into a cave where we saw a ton of bats flying around feeding. Next up was “Best of all Lookout” an overlook at the Queensland/NSW border where we could look down into New South Wales from the rim of the old volcano that makes up the area. It was a gorgeous view, but the clouds were quickly rolling back in. Our last walk of the day was to Purling Brook falls, a bit of a longer walk with a lot more up and down but with a gorgeous waterfall that you actually get to walk behind. I also got to check a Wallaby off my aussie wildlife list as a little reddish grey buddy was sitting on the edge of the road as we drove back.

Oops, actually… before heading out to the parks we went up Q1 which is the tallest (or one of the tallest if it’s been passed by Dubai) residential only buildings in the world. Fantastic views up and down the beaches and off towards the hills we’d soon be visiting in the parklands.

We also took a spin around some of the swankier islands with giant homes. We particularly liked this one that was for sale, comes with a nice sheltered mooring for your multi-million dollar yacht:

I made us some Spring Rolls and Peanut Thai Chicken Noodles for dinner and now we’re both trying to write but neither of us are feeling creative so full of food after a good walk. Well that and the excitement of some laundry tonight… woohoo!

AA: Byron Bay

15 April 2011

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The past couple days have been great. Fine weather finally, sunny and +25-30ish every day and enough breeze to make the waves crash.

The rest of my Coffs Harbour time was pretty relaxing. Not long after posting the last update I took a walk out to the Muttonbird Island Nature preserve at the end of the harbour. Looking back at town gave a fantastic view of the bay and the buildings rising up on the hills then you could cross to the other side and look out into the open pacific and at the waves crashing below. Colour aside the Pacific just has an epic feel to it that the Atlantic can’t match. On the way back to town I stopped by the aforementioned fisherman’s coop to get some tasty fish and chips. Absolutely delicious but the seagulls were beginning to swarm around my park bench to Birdemic levels by the time I was done. I ended up walking along the coast to the south for a while afterwards, but after a while I was simply jonesing for a swim.

After walking back to the hostel and changing I headed down to the Jetty beach and walked out onto the jetty. It was close to low tide so the thing was more or less at its highest as I walked out to where everyone was splashing down. Pleasantly enough there’s actually stairs up from the water at that point so one doesn’t have to swim all the way to shore (probably 200m or so) in between jumps. I ended up jumping a few times, but it was quickly getting close to sunset and I wanted to hang out in the waves a bit before heading back. The water was lovely and warm (despite some aussies whimpering about how cold it was) but the waves were fairly gentle since it was such a protected beach.

That night I decided to treat myself to dinner out since I was pretty wiped from all the walking and swimming and found a decent thai place not far up from the hostel. Afterwards I was going to go for a beer at the same hotel as the trivia but there was a cover in place because it was apparently topless waitress night so instead I grabbed a bottle of wine from the bottleshop and headed back to the hostel. I ended up sitting around the pool for a while in between doing a load of laundry. By the time I went to bed at around midnight there was still no one else in my room so I celebrated some privacy for once… I must have been tired, because when I woke the next morning there was a guy in the other bottom bunk and enough unpacked that he must have had the light on and been making lots of noise. It must have been late though as he hadn’t so much as stirred by the time I left the next morning.

Annoyingly the bus out to Byron the next day wasn’t leaving until five or so. I had to throw my luggage in day storage and pay a day fee, but I made up for it by walking up to the creek that cuts the town in half and walking up it a ways to the Botanical Gardens. Afterwards I walked down to the surfing beach and then across the creek and through the waves back to the harbour wall. For whatever reason there are few things I enjoy more than wading around where a river/stream meets the sea. Something about the rapidly changing currents trying to knock you over and the swirling different colours is just a blast. The beach on the other side of the creek is known for strong riptides and waves that crash right onto rocks on one side so it isn’t meant for swimming. It is however without question the most beautiful off leash dog park I’ve ever seen and I was visited by a number of very cute (and mostly very wet) pups as they flew around enjoying the sand.

The bus to Byron ended up having a few of the same people I’d ridden into Coffs with (a few of which I hadn’t seen at all since checking in) though we all do seem to be taking fairly different paths after Byron. One of the girls was a German named Sabina who was interested in learning to surf and is (at least initially) intending on spending two weeks in Byron Bay. (Side note: I have met and become friendly with 9 German girls on this trip so far. All but one has been named either Sabina or Andrea…) We ended up chatting a bit since she wanted someone to split a chip combo with her at the meal stop. She’s actually been here since September but worked the first 3 months, we’d done a fair number of the same New Zealand things so we gave an English bloke a few tips before he heads off there from Brisbane in two weeks.

The meal stop was a story in itself as we pulled into a petrol station/terrible lunch counter combo. We passed a fast food plaza at the top of the hill 2 minutes after getting back on the bus and no one who had ordered from the gas station was too impressed. Sabina and I had done the two bags of chips for four bucks combo as I anticipated the food would be pretty terrible which was quickly confirmed. Bad food aside, the real adventure of the meal stop was the hippie Christian commune that seemed to be located next door. The moment we started emerging from the bus someone ran down from the weather beaten old mansion next door and turned on a spotlight, some twinkling lights and some blaring Christian country/rock. The spotlight lit up their “Jesus is the lord of our nation” placard and the music was the sort of thing you’d expect to hear driving through Alabama. They had a little hut of sorts on the edge of the road that I think they offered people coffee from during the day. The best was yet to come though as soon after we emerged from the petrol station a guy resembling a fat hippie jesus and wearing what seemed to be white cotton pyjamas exited the house and began dancing and swaying down to the music. Occasionally a whiff of pot drifted our way as well which wasn’t exactly a surprise given the atmosphere. Hilarious though. Hippie Jesus waved goodbye as we pulled back onto the highway.

At first glance Byron Bay didn’t really seem like my type of place, lots of 18 year old looking clubs, tons of drunks wandering the streets and very much the vibe of a place that I’m getting way too old for (and never enjoyed in the first place.) Unfortunately the hostel reinforced this, incredibly loud, five of us (and three surf boards) packed into a room that by all rights should have one double bed. It was not the most pleasant night and I was really wishing I’d booked a motel here (however it’s both expensive and usually packed here, sadly no RCI either.) Poor Sabina is in a ten share which I can’t even imagine, she said it’s basically one and a half motel rooms stuffed with bunk beds and no storage space. No storage space to start with AND a second German luggage invasion. The only thing it had going for it as we checked in was that they’d given us a shuttle ride from the bus stop. All that being said, the rest of the town made up for it come morning. The hostel is close to the beach and has free boogie boards. (Ugh, I actually just discovered that this hostel doesn’t actually provide dishes, you have to rent a dish set… seriously YHA, I thought you had standards, this place sucks)

I actually started off my day with a hike up to the lighthouse and the more easterly point in mainland Australia (I guess Lord Howe Island is probably the easternmost point?) This was a beautiful hike through a few of the remaining pockets of rainforest on Cape Byron. In a somewhat scary reminder to stay on the trails, after stopping to tie my shoe about 20 feet into the trail, I looked in the forest to see a two meter spider web and a spider with a leg span the size of my fist. She didn’t seem to be a venomous type thankfully. They weren’t kidding when they said steep about the trail either and the high temps and humidity made me thankful I’d brought a bunch of water. Here and there I caught sight of Tallow Beach to the south (a more dangerous beach open to the ocean that’s less used.) Eventually the lighthouse itself came into sight towering above the tallest point on the cape but it took another few minutes to get there. From the lighthouse you can apparently often see whales at the right time of year (sadly not now) but I did see some dolphins riding waves as well as some sea turtles feeding in some of the backwater pools. Pleasantly enough there was also a tiny cafe in one of the assistant keeper cottages so I was able to snag a Bundaberg Peachee soda and just watch the waves crash for a while.

Continuing the loop meant a bunch of stairs going down and a variety of lookouts along the way. I saw a few more turtles as I wound my way down the path, taking a few pictures and videos along the way. The tip of the cape was one of the most gorgeous spots. Every few seconds spray would shoot into the air as a wave crashed into the narrow rock barrier. Beyond it a couple very brave surfers set out to catch a wave that would carry them all the way back into the main bay. The rest of the loop back passed a series of gorgeous beaches and exclusive looking private homes and vacation rentals. By the time I reached the hostel again I needed a rest so I hopped into a deck chair by the pool (the only nice part of the hostel) and enjoyed the shade for a bit.

My short walk had turned into more of a trek than expected so by the time I was ready to go down to the beach it was already reasonably late. I couldn’t resist free boogie boards so I ended up riding waves until just before sunset. The nice thing about this beach is that the only real rip is a horizontal current trying to pull you away from your towel. The water itself is such a crystal clear green that you can look down between waves and see the occasional fish dart by your legs. Then if you’re me you get engrossed by a school of something blue and pretty and get a 12 foot wave in the face that whips your boogie board around into your skull! Fun times! I actually ran into Sabina down there again boogie boarding as well, she’d been heading out as I left for the lighthouse, but she’d apparently gone back for lunch in between. The waves were running really well for our boards and I was in there for hours, just thinking about packing it in when an absolute monster wave came in. Hopping up into it I got an amazing ride but also incredible pain… My poor legs, exhausted from the up and down then current fighting for hours had decided this big jump was enough and my left calf and right hamstring muscle locked. I had to sit there getting smacked by subsequent foam surges pressing on the muscles to get them to bend again. I did take the signal though and went to sit on the beach and watch the sun set over the mountains.

Tonight I’m going to try to find a decent pub and have a drink or two, I might even brave one of the other clubs, anything to delay coming back to this flophouse.

Antipodean Adventure: Port Mac and Coffs Harbour

12 April 2011

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Categories: Travel

Rain, rain again… it seems as if I’m now paying for my awesome New Zealand weather with a ton of rain up the eastern coast here. As if to rub it in, pretty much every restroom or shower block you enter has posters imploring you to save water because of drought conditions in New South Wales. It could be worse though, apparently a few weeks ago Port Mac went through a solid two weeks of unbroken rainstorms. Still, it put the kibosh on my plans for today including the sunset fish and chips cruise and most of my time on the beach. I thought about staying an extra night and trying again, but I think I’ve used up the rainy day activities for the town and I don’t feel like blowing through all of my computer’s video just yet. Tomorrow I’ll head to Coffs Harbour and just sail another day.

Sadly I got another snorer last night but managed to get to sleep relatively quickly anyway, he wasn’t in the same league as the previous dude. Still, come morning when I heard the rain pouring down and saw him packing up to leave I gladly burrowed back under my sheets and slept in to the luxurious hour of 10AM. I then spent most of the day walking around the town, and checking out the shorefront walk in between rain squalls, but as the weather moved back in I beat it back to the hostel. It sadly turned into a 4 hour rainstorm that made for a cooped up afternoon catching up on email while people watched what seemed to be an endless marathon of Malcolm in the Middle on the tv. My hopes of maybe getting the room to myself were getting quite high until about 7 when I saw three very loud swiss dudes enter my room. Oh well, if the RCI thing doesn’t shake out I’ll probably spring for a real hotel sometime next week just to have a chance to have a real shower and a soft mattress.

Despite the weather disappointment the time here has been quite entertaining on the nature front. The area is well known for “urban” koalas and sure enough I spotted one hiding from the rain while walking today. Unfortunately the area he was cuddled up in was too dark for a picture but it was still great to see a wild one. Less pleasant was my first encounter with a golden orb spider. These things can grow up to the size of a child’s head. The one I saw wasn’t that big, but still had a body that was probably an inch and a half long and a significant span including its legs. They aren’t one of the scary ultra venomous ones, but it was a reminder that I’m slowly making my way up to the tropical areas where paying attention to that sort of thing becomes (in the words of one of the hostel guys) “an important consideration.” Lastly, as I walked down for some non-nautically served fish and chips tonight I heard an irritated flapping of wings as I passed a bush. I figured it was a magpie or cockatoo upset with me, but an instantly later two big black forms burst from the bush and flew right into the light. Again it was something I’d seen at the nature reserve, but this time it was two flying foxes (basically a huge bat.) The did two swirls then swooped by about a foot from me to go back into the bush as I stood there mouth agape.

Port Macquarie itself is pretty but quite small. Apparently the surfing is pretty good which is one of the draws for younger people, but it hasn’t been great while I’ve been here. The rest of the town appears to be one of those resort towns that has seen better times. It reminds me a lot of some of the lakeside retreats that used to be a popular family and old folks destination until airfare became affordable and allowed people to go further afield for a weeklong trip. There are more than a few buildings that are obviously old family motels converted to cheap apartments for seasonal backpacker workers for the fruit picking and other activities around here. The street where the hostel sits has a few of these and some very beach house looking properties covered with ramshackle additions that are clearly multishare housing as well, though on a more permanent basis than the hostels. Overall the YHA here has been good, but had I known it was going to rain constantly I would have checked into the more expensive one which was farther from the beach but had cheaper internet.

I’m still a bit worried about what I’m going to do for the next bit, sometime in the next few days I need to work out what area I’ll be in for the ANZAC day national holiday and book something (depending on where I am that might be hotel night as it might be take whatever you can get.) Hopefully while I’m at Coffs Harbour I can get a handle on just how much I want to do in the Gold Coast/Brisbane region before I head up to the tropics. Part of me feels like I have ages left to plan for but I need to remember that the diving course and sailing trips I’m planning will take up a week or more by themselves.

No more internet tonight so I’ll just add on tomorrow’s notes then post a combined trip report tomorrow.

Finally some nice weather in Port Mac as I’m leaving, but I’d been reassured by someone travelling south that Coffs Harbour was essentially the same sort of town so I wasn’t missing much. My greyhound actually didn’t leave until the afternoon anyway so I got up and did a nice bit of beach walking and had a swim. As a result (and because this section of the pacific highway is basically a band of eucalyptus with a road through it) I had a nice nap on the bus until we got close to Coffs Harbour.

Coffs Harbour itself is an annoying to navigate town with the main clusters of things at the extreme points of a triangle around a creek inlet. My hostel here is right down by the water and is actually a nearly brand new purpose built building, quite nice, though it continues the stupid YHA tradition of only having 2 wall plugs for a 4 person room (both miles from the beds.) It was close to dinnertime when I checked in and the reception guy (and the dude running the shuttle van) recommended heading to a nearby pub for trivia night and 2 for 1 pizza, I didn’t take much convincing. My new roomie tagged along too and in the lobby I met up with a few Canadians, including a guy from Boissevain of all places.

The pub itself was a typical aussie village pub/hotel but the pizza was surprisingly great and the beer was cheap. Our team won a couple of spot prizes as well as the backpacker challenge (we beat the other two backpacker teams) and managed to get two free bottles of semi-terrible but drinkable wine and a godawful six pack of light beer. It actually would have been 3 bottles of wine but for the American at the table who invited a local friend to join us, her very drunk (VERY) friend felt the need to shout out our answer before it was our turn… She then proceeded to steal my wine and spill it on me, eat my roommate Craig’s leftover pizza, first pulling off toppings then randomly rubbing them on my face and the american’s mouth telling us to “EAT EAT EAT.” To make her even more appealing she felt free to punch anyone within reach very hard and without warning. I have a nice bruise on my chest this morning. Bizarrely enough though the pub closed down by 10:30 and in fact everything close to our hostel was closed by then, so Craig and I headed back to the hostel, snuck in our six pack (no drinking after ten) and watched the 5 channel tv until about one. Overall a weird night, but cheap drinking as I think I only paid for two beers all night but drank most of a bottle of wine and a few of the gross beers. As most of you know I’m not much of a beer drinker normally, but most of the time over here a shot of anything will cost you significantly more than even the better beers.

Today the plan is to head down to the beach, do a walk out to a nature preserve at the other end of the marina then have a swim. I’m told jumping off the big jetty is a blast, especially at low tide. On the food front there’s a fisherman’s coop at the marina that does fresh caught fish and chips (fush and chups David!) at a bargain price. There’s also some rafting around here apparently for full day trips but I need to pick up my pace up the coast so I think I’ll move on to Byron Bay tomorrow instead.

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