Saturday, June 28, 2008

Fraser Island

We started the Fraser leg of the trip with two nights at Rainbow Beach, where one of the barges leaves every 15min or so for Fraser. Rainbow Beach was gorgeous, and the caravan park really nice - and the best was we could have campfires right outside our tent. Kids helped build the fire and really enjoyed the experience. Marshmallows also a hit surprisingly.


We also got the rods out for the first time and Ruben and Ash tried their hand at fishing, lasted about 5 mins which I thought was pretty good - Rob a bit disappointed, but he got to fish on in peace. He came home with a yellow fin tuna - nope didn't catch it but he discovered it pays to talk to the guys coming off the charter boats, they'd caught more than enough and were keen to share it around. Enough for two meals and really yummy.
The camper trailer was set for a week of doing it hard - it'll be first time 4wding, first time at a non-powered site, with no drinking water (unless boiled - we brought in 120 litres of water to be safe, we used about 20 litres so that was learning curve no. 201).While not exactly free camping the campsite was basic, although had hot water and the rangers cleaned the toilet block for us every morning. Most important, flushing toilets, phew that was a weight off!!

The Tourist Stops:


Lake Allom, where the freshwater turtles come up to see you.

Maheno shipwreck, once a luxury liner now a rusting tourist attraction. Kids were in awe, briefly anyway.


The pinnacles, another much photographed stop on the beach...
Most of the walks were too long for us to do, which was a bit disappointing but we did a couple of 1km tracks. At speed.
Waddy Point (above and below), in hindsight this is where we should have stayed. Its at the top of the island, past the point backpackers are allowed to drive their rental 'troopies' to - no offences to backpackers, but on Fraser they're nicknamed 'the circus', literally hundreds of them swarming all over the island, 12 to a vehicle (fair play to them too, looks bloody uncomfortable), many drinking heavily (don't I sound old!) and basically annoying everyone else around them. Waddy Points beach is not the main road/runway like the rest of 75 mile beach so you can use it like a normal beach, without expecting to be scraped off someones bumper.
We walked the boardwalk up Eli Creek and then walked back down to the beach in the creek. This was a major stop for 'the circus' (below) but they never ventured from their vehicles (same on many stops) so a very peaceful and enjoyable place to visit.



Lake Wabby, this lake was created by a sandblow (massive slow moving sand dunes that envelop forests and leave skeleton trees in their wake) damming a creek and turning it into a beautiful lake. The sandblow is now enveloping Wabby which will soon be no longer. Fantastic place for kids (young and old) to ride their boards down the dune to the water (they're the black dots on the sand near the lake).

Champagne pools, where the pounding surf gives the 'pool' water a bubbly effect as it comes over the rocks. We thought the pool might be a good place for the boys to try out their snorkels and see some crabs. Ash was proud of his attempt, at putting the mask on his head and dipping it in a puddle. Its a start.
Our campsite had a dingo fence around the perimeter - initial thought was a bit over the top but on reading the million and one signs around the island (ie dingoes attack children, we knew that, they also attack adults, didn't know that). A newspaper article pinned up at the campsite showed a series of four photos - 2 girls (4yr old, 2yr old) playing 50mtres from their adults. Dingo attacks 4yr old who is kneeling (a lucky break for the 2yr old), she wasn't badly hurt, cut and bruised stomach but it made us VERY AWARE! (The dingo was shot). Luckily every dingo we saw was from the vehicle - we saw four all up.



The west beach (75 mile beach) was also the airport for the rangers - many of whom were flown in and out on a daily basis. A bit freaky to look in your rear view mirror and see a plane right behind you, coming in to land. This plane gave Ash a major fright as it lifted off 50 mtres from where we were standing.

Ruben is still into weapons, now has his own homemade bow and arrow to torment backpackers with.

We spent the morning at Kingfisher Resort on the way back to the mainland, our friendly bush ranger gave us instructions about how to get into the 'guests only' resort pool and it was worthwhile sneaking in the back way, beautiful warm pools, with spa pool in the middle, fantastic way to finish our island holiday up.

We spent two days in Hervey Bay after this. Had to buy a new battery for the patrol, the deep cycle auxillary battery stopped working 1 day into the trip and our fridge had to be used as (a very expensive) chilli bin while on Fraser. Due to superb management, no food was lost. Liked Hervey Bay, would liked to have stayed longer, and hired some bicycles with kid seats but its time to head north... till next time.

Friday, June 13, 2008

Week 5 - Maroochydore

We spent the week at Maroochydore and checked out the surrounding areas and activities. Spent a day in Noosa - was fun to drive around the canal housing (gorgeous houses all new or a few years old), beach at Noosa Heads was pretty good, although a bit rocky and the Nature Walk nice too although couldn't go too far becauses of the kids limits! We had lunch by some rock pools and saw heaps of BIG crabs. And a big spider (although these are everywhere...)



Also went to Underwater World at Mooloolaba, we all enjoyed that, particularly the seal show, the sharks and nemo (see Ruben and Ash's page for their favourite photos).

We went on a canal boat cruise around Mooloolaba River which we enjoyed although the boys didn't so much - we kept filling them with food to get them through the hour trip, one part they did enjoy was the pelican feeding. We enjoyed the stories about the various houses along the canal including Steve Irwin's - which was bought because they needed somewhere to house the boat (the infamous Croc One).

Rob got his boat licence (had to do a day course) and we finally got the dinghy out on the water. We went for a trot up the Maroochy River to Bli Bli and back down again.




Photo of our campground from the boat.



The stranded boat (see last weeks post) makes a run for it at high tide - they made it easily this time. Pleased they made it, because the whole campground came out to watch!

We're off to Rainbow Beach for a couple of days on Friday, and then to Fraser Island for a week.

Weeks 3 & 4 - On the Road

Week 3. Back from the Walsh's, staying at Lisa and Fiz's again - they're being very patient while we get our set up organised! And Harry (14 yr old cousin) has been fantastic with the boys, they're going to really miss him as we head off. Have been held back waiting for the cargo net - the shop we bought it from was way cheaper but they neglected to tell us it was under handover from one owner to another and seems our purchase was being haggled over, but it all came right in the end (4 days late) and we could set up the back of the 4WD with drawers and fridge slide etc. We booked a campsite in Yandina (about 20km inland from Maroochydore) for Saturday and were finally off. Initial set up was pretty easy but we're still searching to find a 'best practice' for where everything will go to keep the camper traileras spacious as it should be. (read so Kirsten doesn't go mad).

Week 4. Off to Yandina on Saturday afternoon, about 2 hours north of Brisbane, leaving us just enough time to do most of the set up before darkness closed in. We spent 5 nights at Yandina which gave us enough time to come to grips with the camper, visit the surrounding touristy places and hand-pick a good campsite at the beach for our next stop. We spent a day at the Eumundi Markets - awesome, bit like Martinborough Markets but they hold these every Wednesday and Saturday, I think it's what keeps the town going (town has a gorgeous villagey atmosphere and a pop. of 1800 I think). The boys hated it of course so we had to keep them sweet by buying a foam sword each, and letting them spend time on the bouncy castle.

We also spent an afternoon at Bli Bli Castle which Ruben (being a Knight himself, or a Prince - I can't keep up) thought was fantastic, we also enjoyed viewing the real armour, swords and other weapons of localised destruction from centuries ago. The boys enjoyed the dungeon the best, had a 'man' hanging in chains and a torture device that I think was supposed to stretch people. Next stop was the Ginger Factory (southern hemispheres largest you know) which was just down the road from our campground and a nice place to visit although geared to rid the tourist of every cent it could.

Thursday we packed up and moved to Cotton Tree (a beach caravan park in Maroochydore), gorgeous campground - very close to shops, riverside and beach so we plan to just relax here for a few days and try out our dinghy etc. 28 degrees today (Friday, week 4), ridiculous weather for early June but after the rains we're not complaining. Water temp at the beach 21 - 22 degrees, even I could get into that.

River mouth at Maroochydore. Great surf beach, bit rough for littlies though - the shark net puts me off a bit too.


River beach just outside our campground. Poor boat came in before the floods and the floods have changed the river mouth now she can't get out again - oops!


The Set-up
Camp kitchen - just like a bought one eh! The kitchen folds away into the hole on the left and becomes the back of the trailer. Features - 80l waeco fridge/freezer (personally I liked our last one better), above that our little stereo the iPod plugs into, drawers close away (don't need to remove stuff to travel, yeh), fully automatic three ring gas cooker with glass lid, next to sink with tap (cold water only unfortunately), underneath is our sovereign portable bbq - man have we spent some money although its cheaper than our last house! We also splashed out on an 80w portable solar panel for when freecamping (we worked out we'd get our money back over six months of using cheaper sites and freecamping - we'll see how good our math turns out!) And, so Rob could have his hot showers we bought a shower tent and a hot water on demand unit with shower attachment. Boat - action shot to come, 3.7m quintrex dinghy with 15hp suzuki outboard.

Master bedroom, sleeps 4 uncomfortably. Trailer folds away on top of bed so we need never remake it to travel.
Ruben's only requirement on this trip was a bunk bed, and we found these fantastic camp stretchers that can either be bunks or single (we weren't sure the bunk bed interest would last but they both seem to love it), as you can see below...

Friday, June 6, 2008

Weeks 2 & 3. Brisbane - Stradbroke - Brisbane

The Real Beginning
Sunday morning we headed for Cleveland to catch the ferry (barge?) to North Stradbroke Island. We managed to get a cabin at Amity Point for three nights. Straddie is gorgeous with its golden sand beaches and blue waters all around. Heaps of wildlife around too - the birds are everywhere, very noisy too. Saw our first green tree frog outside the campground toilet blocks. Pelicans hanging out at the beach with the seagulls. Turtles swimming in a little crevice in rocks off Amity Point. Missed out on seeing the whales who go through from June to Nov, and haven't seen any dolphins at this point either.

Rob had some fun getting the sand under his tyres. We've driven Flinders Beach twice and we got about halfway down the main beach (the length of the island) before deciding we should turn back or the tide might catch us out. Had a picnic at Brown Lake which is a very nice secluded spot,with a beautiful lake (apart from the very slight brown tinge coming up from the sand, and the composting toilets - guess I'd better get used to those!) Headed back to the mainland on Wednesday just as the weather was starting to pack-in, great timing for once!

Thursday - the camper trailer is ready, yeh!! Had a 2 hr training session in opening it up and taking it down, doesn't seem too bad but we're bound to make dicks of ourselves the first time we do it in a camping ground - lets hope not too many people are watching. I hear its a bit of a sport for the caravanners to grab a cold one and sit and laugh at the newbies putting their tents or camper trailers up for the first time!



fruit bats on North Stradbroke


Our first sunset on Stradbroke


Ash trials the boys new bath


Yup, its a turtle.

Once back we spent the weekend with Walsh family, great to catch up with them after 18mths...



Kirsten's birthday



Hunter


Brett and India


Ruben and Courtney

Indy reads to Ruben.

Somehow Debbie avoided being photographed yet again - next time!