Day 43 - Lady Musgrave Island

Today was probably one of the best of the holiday so far. We took a trip to Lady Musgrave Island which is a small national/marine park about 100km off the coast of Australia and is part of a group of islands called the Capricorns that mark the start of the Great Barrier Reef. It took about 2 hours to reach it by boat, but was worth it! We had two dives booked and the water was the bluest I have ever seen! Our first dive was on the outer reef and had to be more than 18 metres depth so we could get it as a credit for an advanced level diver. It was fairly uneventful until the very end when this huge manta Ray swam past! Jess actually spat her regulator out of her mouth! It was incredible - probably about 2 meters wing span and swam around us for a bit. I was really hoping that we might see a manta, but wasn't counting on it.

The manta ray:




We had about 2 hours for lunch, so after we went for a small snorkel off the pontoon. Apart for a load a fish, this really friendly Loggerhead turtle turned up. We swam together with her for a bit and I managed to get some very cool pics. Second dive was in the lagoon which was much shallower so visibility and colour was much better. Saw a lot of butterfly and angelfish as well as a barracuda. The dive wasn't that long as the boat needed to head back to the mainland. I really hope we get a few more days like this! Tomorrow we have a wreck dive planned and then we are catching a boat to Heron Island to stay for a couple of nights. Heron looks amazing too except we get to stay longer than a day which will be awesome!


Clown fish and a loggerhead turtle:

Loggerhead turtle:

Wobbegong Shark

Day 40 - Fraser Island and Bundy

One of the things we were really looking forward to was Fraser Island. Well, Jess was looking forward to it, I was more sold on the fact that I would get to drive a 4WD down the beach! Sweeet! Fraser Island is the world's biggest sand island and is about 30kms off the coast of Brisbane. All the roads are soft sand tracks, and only 4WD are permitted so we had to hire one. I was thinking of some kick-ass Mad Max style monster truck that would increase the size of my manhood 10 times!! oh yeah!! We got a Suzuki Jimmy. Not really much to say about it except Noddy and Big Ears would be proud.



Having said that the little beast did a pretty good job and we only had to dig ourselves out about 5 times. Jess' driving technique was pretty sweet - no matter how big the bump, sand dune, tree root etc. hit it at 50kmh and we'll make it! ;)










Jess found a coconut, which we tried to get the milk out off with little success:

.....still trying :(:

The Maheno shipwreck:


The remoteness of the whole island was pretty incredible. There were a couple of resorts with general stores but other than that not much else. The sea was off limits due to being a shark breeding zone, but in the middle of the island were some of the most beautiful lakes I have ever seen. The water was crystal clear, white sand and freshwater which made swimming in them absolutely amazing. We also saw some wild dingoes which roam the island and also the Maheno shipwreck on the beach. We had to camp for 2 nights. Camping is shit. I don't care what people say. Maybe if we had one of those mungo 5 room tents, then it would be good, but 2 days of sleeping on a crappy camping mat and I was looking forward to getting back to the 5 star-ness that is our campervan.

Wild dingo:


Lake MacKenzie (yes, I'm wearing speedos....gay, but I'm fed up of my legs looking like they belong to a dead guy)




After Fraser, we chilled out in Hervey Bay for a day before heading to Bundaberg so that Jess could do her dive course. The Great Barrier Reef pretty much starts here and the diving is some of the best in the world! Bundaberg itself is ok - teeming with fruit pickers and backpackers. Diving has been pretty cool - Jess saw a massive leopard stingray with a span of about 2 metres. Also saw highly venomous sea-snake, turtles and a shedload of fish. Long story short, Jess is now qualified and we have some amazing dives to look forward to :)




I miss my bike. A 50cc 4-stroke hairdryer is a poor substitute, but 2 wheels are still 2 wheels! Plus we got to look like Poncherello for 2 hours. Booya!



Last night we stayed in Mon Repos which is one of the main site for turtle nesting in the world. The Queensland Wildlife Service offer night-time tours to observe the female Loggerheads coming out of the sea, up into the dunes to lay their eggs. The whole experience was incredible as we watched a 40 year old Loggerhead lady drop her first lay of the season, burying them and then heading back down the beach and out to sea. The little guys will hatch in about 6-8 weeks.

Day 31 - Australia Zoo

No update for some time now ... eeks, so we better catch up:

After Brisbane we moved on to try out our first Queensland National Park camping experience. Basically all over Queensland are national park's which have area's for people to stay over night. These are not privately run like all the normal caravan parks and have no power access, but do have some basic facilities and you can book a camp site for $5 per person over the internet or phone. Anyway, so we thought it's be a great idea to give them a try and save some money.
In our clever "nice but cheap camp sites" book we decided on one called Coochin Creek. The description on how to get there was something like this: Turn E 11km of Caloundra, then onto Roys Rd for 4km, then S for 500m. Sounded (almost) pretty straight forward. 2 Hours later we finally found the camp site only to eaten by a million mosquitos within the first 2 minutes! Luckily our wide assortment of insect repellent fended them off. We noticed that we were the only people in some camp site in the middle of some forest right by a lake. And the basic facilities was a bush loo, which was a deep hole in the ground. Excellent. No shower. But hey a big lake! So there we were standing at the edge of the lake, which looked very pretty but also very muggy and brown asking ourselves: Were we already in that part of Australia where crocodiles and other vicious animals were lurking in muggy waters like this one? And were they just waiting for some unknowing stupid tourists like us?? Hmm.. We decided it'd be best not to find out!


The mysterious lake:


Finally trying out our hammock:


That night I am pretty sure there was a snake underneath our van as well. I could heard it moving on top of the surf board bag. Luke said the next morning he had heard it too. Neither of us had the guts though to go and have a closer look. :)

Next day we moved on to Australia Zoo, which is the home of the late crocodile hunter Steve Irwin and his family. By now we felt pretty skanky having had no showers and being covered in several layers of insect repellent. Ah well.
The Zoo was pretty cool. Everything was very open and most of the animals were some animals that Steve Irwin had captured when they endangered human residencies (like the crocs) or were animals that had been brought to him for their own safety when humans were endangering them. Indeed a great place and not just a zoo.




This big tortoise was being fed and the little guy thought he'd join in:



A black cockatoo:







We moved onto to Mooloolaba for a well-deserved shower in a proper caravan park. Next day we decided we hadn't quite had enough of zoo's and entertainment parks yet and went to Underwater World.
Though I'm not really a big fan of the trained seals and fish in over-crowded tanks it was nevertheless not that bad and we had a good look at what sharks looked like in real life. Pretty Frickin scary!!

A sting ray getting fed:







On the road again off to Noosa Heads, which we heard was a pretty little sea side town. And indeed it was very pretty, up-market and swanky. The camp site was right by a river and our camp site neighbours lent us their kayaks. We paddled right across the river to one of the un-inhabitat beaches and hung out there a little. The water was super warm and nice :)

This was a funny camper van we saw:


Noosa Heads: