New baby, Weed and Fraser
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.
Tags: Travel
Kristin
Leave a Reply