Wild Places and Open Spaces

We were to meet our Canadian friends, Kathy and Steve, in Brisbane for Christmas. They had booked an apartment in ‘Surfers Paradise’ (just south of Brisbane on the Gold Coast) that they had generously told us we could stay at! The apartment turned out to be quite a luxurious place with a view on the top floor (31st floor) of a highrise! We had an ocean view, and it was only a 2 minute walk to the beach.

It proved rather difficult to sleep in at all though, because the sun literally rose at 4:30am and there were so many windows in the place we woke up sweating and burning to death by 5am! It took us a couple days to figure out if we drew the blinds (Kathy was the brains behind this one) we might be able to get a bit more sleep…

The week together was full of fun and lots of laughs. We did a lot of relaxing and beaching it – Steve and Jim tried out their surfing skills which I am sure would have been great if they could ever get past the waves to begin with! The waves were so fast and constant, pounding at the shore, that they were virtually impossible to get by in order to catch them on the way back in.

We travelled one day to the Glass House Mountains, just northwest of Brisbane to visit Steve Irwin’s zoo. The zoo was smaller than we had envisioned, but very well done. We watched the famous croc show in the ‘crocoseum’ and watched Steve Irwin on the big screen talk about his crocs and zoo as if he were right there with us. A tribute to him was set up at the zoo – khaki shirts like the one he wears were lined up with people’s messages from all over the world, flowers, drawings, stuffed animals, letters etc etc. I couldn’t help but shed a couple of tears. Animals and nature in general have lost an incredible and much needed ally.

Another day we went snorkelling. The Great Barrier Reef does not extend as south as Brisbane, so we decided (after much discussion) to go off of North Stradbrook Island. Hopped on a car ferry, hiked on the island in the am and went snorkelling in the early afternoon. The dive company that took us out to the snorkel site boasted seeing large sea life – especially manta rays. It was because of this that we had decided on this particular island.

The boat ride out to sea was, well, pretty darn exciting. There was about 12 of us in a Zodiac boat, and the driver of the boat had no fear of speed or waves! We figured that if we didn’t see anything snorkelling, at least we had the ride of our life out there! When we got to the site the water was extremely rough, and we figured it would be difficult to snorkel. But, once in the water, it wasn’t that bad… at least at first.

The site proved to be amazing. Not long after being out there we saw a magnificant Manta Ray! I knew what they were before, but I had no idea how huge they are – this one must have been 600 sqft in total – a gentle giant flying effortlessly through the water. A definite highlight and eye opening experience. During our time in the water we saw wobagong sharks, bull rays, leopard sharks, sea turtles and another giant manta ray.

At one point we heard a loud gagging and looked over and saw Steve trying to cough up a lung. We figured he got a mouthful of salt water and was gagging a bit on it. A few minutes later he motioned to us that he was going in because he felt ill. Kathy, Jim and myself kept going, but not for much longer as no sooner did I get stung by a jellyfish, so did Kathy, then Jim, then me a second time. Suddenly it seemed like there were hundreds of jellyfish surrounding us and dodging them was difficult (these jellyfish luckily for us are NOT the deadly kind – their ‘sting’ was more an irritating/scratchy feeling that left your skin sore, bumpy and red). It was at this point that I noticed I had a slight feeling of nausea coming upon me…

So, we headed back to the boat, and found Steve clinging to the anchor line trying his best to keep staring at the horizon as he bobbed up and down – the gagging before was actually him trying to vomit from sea sickness! We all clambered into the boat, including Steve, and he immediately started puking over the side of the Zodiac. At this point, the nausea that I had felt earlier overcame me and I found myself assuming the position alongside Steve, puking my guts out. So, Steve and I took turns vomiting over the side, one after another, me silently and Steve as if he was trying to tell the entire world that he was not feeling good. It was pretty hilarious.

Although it seemed like hours, it was probably only about 15 minutes we had to wait until all the others got back on board and we were off. Remember that great, exciting Zodiac ride out to the site earlier? Yeah, well, not so great going back in. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably because I was cold, not to mention it is kind of hard trying to control where your vomit is going to end up when one is going 40 miles/hr!

Steve and I kissed the ground when we reached land and he almost immediately recovered. I on the other hand was knackered for the rest of the day. But, regardless of the stingers and puking, it was well worth the trip to the sea to see the amazing wildlife we encountered (not to mention the laughs that I now have when I think back to it!!).

Christmas day was very different from home – we spent the majority of it sunning on the beach and playing in the waves. Our Christmas dinner was just as unique as the day – we ate Kangaroo. Kathy and Steve – and their New Zealand friends in the next apartment – had never eaten Kangaroo, so Jim made it for them on the ‘barbie’. We had a really nice meal, the 7 of us, and got to know the ‘Kiwis’ a bit better – Dave, Liz and their son Kayden (who are actually Canadian and moved to NZ last year, so they aren’t true “kiwis”). They have invited us over to visit when we travel there in February.

Although Surfers Paradise was wonderful in many ways, it was somewhat(okay, totally) lacking in any wildlife whatsoever. Even the most common birds were no where to be seen in the “miami beach like” area. We really wanted to show Kathy some of what Australia is really like….because Surfers Paradise doesn’t represent it at all. So, while Steve, Dave and Kayden went to a Warner Brothers theme park, Jim and I took Kathy on a search for some kangaroos. The day unfortunately was rainy, but we managed to get a good walk in. We went to an inland national park (Lamington, but not too far in from the coast. We were excited to hear from the visitors centre that they had spotted pademelons earlier in the day. (pademelons are marsupials that look like tiny wallabies – click here for more information.)Jim and I had not yet seen these, but had been on the search for them. We drove to where the trailhead was, and we were greeted by about 10 pademelons grazing on a patch of grass! Very lucky indeed, and we were glad to be able to show Kathy a small, but incredible part of wild Aussie wildlife.

Shortly after we began our hike we spotted yet another sight Jima nd I hadn’t seen before – a big fat skink (the name eludes me right now). May not seem too thrilling, but it was to us. We also stopped at one point to marvel at a Monarch caterpillar (although they call them the ‘Wandering Butterfly’ here), and as most of you (should) know, they are quite a beautiful creature. It was shortly after this that Jim felt something crawling up his leg – he looked down and saw a leech! He flicked it off(with some effort to get it “unsucked”) then noticed he had a couple more around his feet and ankles. This prompted me to look at my own feet – and low and behold I was covered in them. They were everywhere – even in between my toes. I managed to flick them all off – about 15 in total – and then proceded to bleed from the sites for about 10 minutes. (To this day -Jan 12- both Jim and myself have small lumps where they were ‘chowing down’ on us….) Kathy was smart and had on socks and boots so she didn’t have the pleasure of being lunch, but Jim and myself have become somewhat lackadaisical in our hiking attire – we both had sandals and barefeet. We continued, but checked our feet every few minutes.

Along the trail we met a couple who were staring up into the tree tops – they were looking at a koala! At this point we wanted to keep Kathy with us for the rest of the trip, because she was obviously packing a lucky horseshoe somewhere… Sure enough, high up in a gum tree (eucalypt)there was a koala…not only that, he was moving and eating! We tried to portray to Kathy how lucky a sighting this was, not only to see a koala, but actually see it move! Then, low and behold, it started groaning for her! This was just too lucky, we couldn’t believe it. It didn’t do its full-out guttural call we had heard before, but at least she had a taste of the noise. What a successful hike! After de-leaching once again, we were on our way back to the beach and the cozy apartment.

Our time with Kathy and Steve was full of fun, laughs and ice cream. (We are now going through withdrawal symptoms because we ate so much ice cream and now we can’t because we have no freezer to keep it frozen…) We can’t thank them enough for letting us stay with them and for spending their vacation with us. Definitely a highlight of our trip. We can only hope they had as much fun as we did! We miss having them around!

Next stop, Tasmania. We really needed to “boot it” to Melbourne where we’d catch the ferry to Tasmania on New Years Eve. On the way south we stopped at our friendly farmer friends (that we met earlier in our trip) house and spent the night. They showed us around their sorghum farm, and took us to their friends farm where they have cattle and a gravel pit along with their sorghum fields. It was a terrific learning experience – especially about how they irrigate their fields when they are in a drought – not to mention they fed us very well and we had a bed to sleep in again!

After Canberra, we were excited to once again visit my uncle Rolf in Manly, Sydney. My cousin’s wife was very pregnant and due to pop any day. With any luck we’d be there to see the new baby.

Sure enough, on the way there I received news that Vanessa did indeed ‘pop’ and while in Sydney we met ‘James’, the newest Edler in the family. A beautiful, healthy baby boy.

While in Sydney, Rolf and Marion took us to the famous Bondi Beach. Bondi is known for its good beach; popular with surfers, young people and topless women. Jim needless to say, had a good time as every couple of feet was a new spectacle to behold. What was strange though, was the gay beach we came across later that day on a walk – I must say I found it very odd seeing men, completely naked chatting to one another on the beach.

Later that night Marion got a phone call – she was asked to go on ‘penguin watch’. You see, there is a small troop of Fairy Penguins that call Manly their home, and this troop is endangered simply because the area is urbanized. It really is a silly place for them to keep coming to, as there are much safer areas for them to go, but I guess they like to call it home. Anyways, the residents of Manly look upon the penguins as their family and take their safety very seriously. So seriously, that every night a group goes down to the waterfront to watch them and make sure they ‘go to bed’ without harm. So, at 8:30pm we ventured to the water and not long after we sighted 3 penguins. See, the silly penguins try to walk up the boardwalk which eventually leads to the road, which obviously would lead to certain death. The job of the penguin watchers is to make sure they stay down a the beach and nobody disturbs them. After about 2 hours of watching the antics of one particular penguin, who apparently was not tired and liked the way the boardwalk felt on his feet as he danced along it – we decided they were safe and went home.

While we visited in Manly, our car was in the shop once again (we had already got the leak in the gas tank sealed in Queensland) – this time we had apparently hit one too many potholes and had really messed up our front tires. $200 later, we had 2 new tires and a front end alignment…not a bad price considering oil changes go for $90 a shot here!

With new wheels, we were on the road again, heading north. This time we drove out of Sydney ourselves, as Jim is a pro and we didn’t need my uncle as an escort.

Next day was a driving day, and we ended up camping in a small town of not much significance. Here we met 4 English kids who had just finished University and were travelling Australia. They had only done ‘city things’ so were quite interested in hearing our stories of wildlife – that is until we started talking about bugs…namely spiders. We had the girls on edge, screaming every time something moved, and then as if on cue, June bugs started flying into the cook shelter ….literally hundreds of them, flying into sinks, onto the tables, and most notably at the English kids and in their hair. They ran, screaming all the way to their van, and I trust that their Australian adventures remained in the city from then on! They were pretty funny people, and they were cheap entertainment for us for the night!

Next stop was Nimbin – a town we were told to visit by a fellow we had met in the Yukon. Nimbin is a ‘different place’. It is set amongst a beautiful backdrop of lush valleys and hills – a truly wonderful looking place. The town is populated by hippies – if you don’t wear dreadlocks, bare feet and smoke weed, you simply don’t fit in. Many of the people’s philosophies are posted around the town, and most of them are great ideas. Unfortunately, by just walking down the street in Nimbin you can get ‘high’ and because of this I am sure that their voices are not well heard in any parliamentary sense, as even I have trouble taking them seriously. It is too bad, because all of them seem to be quite environmentally aware.

Next stop, Hervey Bay Queensland, the launching point for Fraser Island. Fraser Island boasts to be the largest sand island on the planet, and apparently has the most pure strain of dingos anywhere. You probably remember hearing a few years back about “the dingo that stole my baby” story – it was here that this infamous tragedy took place.

Fraser Island is on the ‘tourist circuit’, ie. everyone that visits Australia knows about it and most visit it. Almost the entire island is National Park, so were were enticed and coughed up the cash to rent a 4×4 Suzuki to get around the island. The cheapest rental was not available for a couple of days, so we stayed put in Hervey Bay at a great caravan park. The owner of the park flies planes as a hobby and is quite an interesting bloke who was a source of tons of information. He and Jim had many funny stories to swap about dumb things they had done when they were younger – namely involving motorcycles and snowmobiles. While in the cook shelter at night we got talking to some really nice farmers, who ended up inviting us to their place to stay if we got the time (more on that later). We also met another couple from Tasmania that were full of info and also invited us to their place (at this rate we’d never have to camp again!). Late at night we hung out with two really young couples with children and compared ‘Canadianisms and Aussieisms’ and went to bed with sore stomachs with all the laughing we’d done. By the time it had rolled around to leave the park it felt like we were leaving a second family!

But alas, 4 wheel driving was in our future, so we were off at 6:30am to pick up the truck and get on the ferry.

We had been through our ‘safety intro’ about what to do and what NOT to do with the truck, and the video had showed us some major bang ups and trucks getting literally stuck in the sand when the tide comes in. You see, much of the driving on the island is on the beach and is obviously ruled by the tide. No driving for 2 hours before or after high tide. Apparently a young fellow did not heed this warning a few weeks ago when he took his dad’s brand new Land Rover there and got stuck in the water and basically started sinking. When they tried to tow the truck out the frame and body completely collapsed…..sorry daddy!

Our truck was less than ideal: dirty, greasy, gauges that didn’t work, didn’t like to start – but, it would be an adventure.

Once on the island we understood why no 2WDs could drive it – the sand, especially through the forest is quite difficult to get through. It made for some fun times as Jim loves to 4WD, but I on the other hand caught myself a couple of times hanging on the door for dear life while closing my eyes…

Gas on the island was very dear…$1.79/L! And yes, we had to get a bit of gas once because our gauge dropped to below empty, but upon filling it we only needed 1/2 a tank……yup, the broken gauge I mentioned earlier… The only place we saw a dingo was in town, and you guessed it…at the garbage bins. We didn’t even take a picture because we felt it would have been cheating. We never did see on outside the towns – why would they go anywhere else when they can just rummage through garbage bins that are so recklessly left available for them to rummage through?

We hit all the ‘hot spots’ on the island, helped a couple with a flat tire, camped on the beach, camped in the rainforest, spotted a beauty azure kingfisher, and headed to the mainland again. Our trip to Fraser was a fun adventure, but it was a bit too touristy for us.

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