Motor Home South Austalia Part 3

4 The trip today will see us cover quite a few miles, so we are up early and off. Within 1 hour we are pulled over for our first site of the day, the limestone cliffs of "ship wreck coast".  Absolutely stunning! The next 10 km are spent stopping and starting as another bend in the coastal highway brings more of nature's architecture. They have a famous site here called the Twelve Apostles (only six are still standing) and it is the etching of the limestone coast by the ocean that separates these 100 foot pillars out of the main land cliffs and then slowly over centuries pulverizes them into the sea. Further along is the town of Mt. Gambier and they have the distinction of having numerous limestone caves formed right inside the town. One is an amazing sink hole that looks like an old rock quarry, but is not man made. They have planted a tropical botanical garden in the bottom creating a lovely "secret garden" effect. The town's water source is from "the Blue Lake", another limestone crater, formed with volcanic help. The carter is blocked off from any entrance (it IS their drinking source) but they do have a viewing platform. It is the most amazing shade of blue, indescribable. We haven't downloaded our pictures yet so hopefully the color comes through in the photos. The town of Robe is our final stop and our camp ground here is based on a beautiful beach.  Another cute sea side town, lots of tourists, restaurants, pubs. When we ask for a Tooey's New (beer) in the pub, we are advised that w are in the "wrong State". It seems that Australians are very loyal to their own State produced beers. This doesn't bother us of course, so we have South Australia's Cooper Ale and Sparkling Ale. Good stuff.  Dinner is out at one of Robe's very fine sea food restaurants, Sails. We talk to everybody (our kids would be appalled) and strike up conversation over dinner with the Australian couple next to us. This is a great way to discover what is good to see and what is tourist hype, not to mention that we meet a lot of really interesting people too.

 

5 Next along our route is Kingston, lobster capital of Australia. So "when in Rome…" we detour off the road to find a vendor of "live" lobster. After much choosing and weighing and wrapping up, we have our two x 1.5k live lobsters (cray fish) ready to go. Well, we should Maybe have asked what the price Might be before we went to all of that trouble. $225.00 later, we have to console ourselves with how good these guys are going to taste when we finally sit down to eat them. (sheesh!) It is a driving day again today and we are driving beside a large, long, ocean estuary. It is very dry here. We are headed into wine country, the Adelaide Hills, and Mount Barker is the location of our caravan park. Tonight we "PIG OUT" on fantastic lobster and we have enough left over for another meal, so we feel much better about our "investment".

Motor Home South Australia Part 2

3 We navigate our way out of town and head off on the Great Ocean road. Lots of cute little sea side towns and gorgeous sweeping ocean views, shining sandy beaches and rugged cliffs. We stop to walk on the beach to see if there are shells for our collection on the boat, but it is very windy and cold today and there are no shells, so our beach walk is rather short. We have a sandwich in the camper (how exotic!) and stop for a beer in Apollo Bay. We wanted to try their locally brewed stuff, but a taste test convinced us to go for a brand we know. Next stop is to take a walk at Kennett River to see koala bears, they look so cute and cuddly. One fellow tells us a story of an Asian tourist who throws his camera at his buddy, saying, "take my picture with the bear" and scoops a sleeping koala out of a low branch. The buddy is too stunned by what his friend is doing to take the picture and in the mean time the cuddly little koala has woken up and is now scratching his holder's face off. Lesson - Do not let cute and cuddly fool you. Those claws that they hang in the trees with are very pointy and strong! Oh, but they are soooo cute! We came across one on the ground and he just ambles over to a tree - no big rush to get out of our way or reach. Glen has 100 photos, at least. Now as we drive along, we find that they are very prolific here in this region. Our next stop is Mait's Rest a rain forest walk in the Great Otway National Park.  It is a light 30 minute hike and has lots of beautiful rainforest vegetation, Jurassic Park ferns and trees, cool moist fragrant air. Today is getting pretty packed with "doing stuff", just because it is all very close. We are on the Otway Peninsula now and the site of an old majestic light house, which of course instigates a walk around the grounds and a trip up the light house stairs. There are information people spotted about and we get a low down on the history. Our camp ground tonight is Bimbi Park and we find that we didn't have to make a special trip to see koala's as they live right in the camp ground. This is more what a camp ground should be like, with towering trees and spacious sites. The city caravan parks are basically parking lots with toilet/shower facilities, no ambiance at all.

Motor Home Adventures in South Australia Part 1

1 Our motor home adventure begins by flying from Gold Coast airport to Melbourne.

Tiger Air is the carrier, I booked them because they were cheap. Then I had all kinds of second thought as some locals we have met were telling us horror stories about them, kind like our Canadian national air line (no names mentioned) but all turned out ok.

Arrive Melbourne 1:15 and grabbed a cab to Britz (company name) to pick up our unit - it is junk so we express our disappointment and are fortunate to be able to upgrade to a Maui (better unit) as this is the height of their rental season. Our 1st night is at the Ashley Street caravan park after getting groceries at Coles. Dinner is spaghetti a la camper. The Australian open is on in Melbourne right now, sight seeing here might be crazy.

 

2 The first real day of exploring sees us take a city bus to downtown Melbourne and walk around, it is 41 degrees today (that is hot!) We tour an 1858 church and gauk at all of the old architecture, they really like to preserve their heritage buildings.  There is a free bus that takes tourists around to see the general downtown sites, so we save our feet and ride it for the full 90 minute circuit. A hidden little alley, that goes for about three blocks,  is like a large food court, any kind of food type you can imagine, each vendor has a couple of tables out front and this is where we choose to have lunch. At the day's end we take the bus back to our camper, there is no way we would have been able to negotiate city centre with "the beast". Our steak dinner is fried as the camper grill does not work. Camping can be so challenging.

Mooloolaba to Gold Coast

Well it is finally time to finish off 2011, since we've been home to Calgary and are now back and it is 2012. Man! Where does the time go?

 

O.K. so it's Nov/11 and we were heading into Mooloolaba Marina, this is an in between spot after exiting the Great Sandy Strait and making the run to Brisbane. It is a nice marina and everybody is extremely friendly. We met Peter there, who is one of the Nordhavn sales persons for Australia. He is quite excited to have two 64 ft Nordies so close.  This is going to be our last night together with Eric, Anne and Bear so we have dinner out planned. Peter agrees to show us a really good place to eat and joins us for the evening, which is a good thing as he gives us a lovely walking tour of the waterfront/town area and finds us a great place to dine. Eric and Glen of course pepper him with questions about boats. We are quite pleased to learn that our sturdy little ships are holding their resale value well as they are of a very sought after model.  Do we want to sell them???

 

The next day, Glen and I say our goodbyes to Oso Blanco at 2:00 pm as we are heading out on an overnight jaunt that will take us out and around the protective Islands by Brisbane so that we may enter the coast line further south for the Gold Coast and they will continue down to Brisbane where they will stay for the next 3 to 4 months.  Gold Coast is more of an area than a separate city, and it is a very upscale area with multitudes of estate homes crowding the cannel waterways that go for miles and miles, manmade and natural rivers. After crossing the bar safely from the open ocean into the Gold Coast Seaway, we meander our way over very shallow waterways up to the Coomera River and after about two hours we are at our destination of Gold Coast Marina. This was recommended to us as there are lots of boat trades people and services here. But we find after a few days that it is a little too remote and too busy with work so we meander back along the Coomera to Sanctuary Cove Marina.  This is a great place with great shopping and lots of restaurants and bars. The beautiful Hyatt Sanctuary Cove is located here. This marina will be our home base while we go home. There is a Horizon boat dealership here and because we like all kinds of boats, we tour some 80 footers just for fun. The salesman, Colin, turns out to be a "decent chap" and long story short, he agrees to step into our boat a couple of times a week to make sure that all is going well. The marina guys are supposed to be checking, but Colin will be our second line of defense.

 

We rented a car for a couple of days, mainly to get us to the Brisbane airport to go home, but also to explore a bit. So we head inland about an hour to a place called Tambourine Mountain, reported to be a quaint little community with rain forests and boutique shopping. The rain forest isn't quite like those of Fiji or Vanuatu, but nice just the same. We see some really strange birds. I can see where a bird book is going to be a must. We stop at a winery and wander through the shops and of course have a lovely lunch.  The afternoon is spent driving through Surfers Paradise and Southport, towns, to view Marina Mirage, where we had planned to stay initially, but price and location got the better of us in Sanctuary Cove, less than half price of Mirage, quieter and all of the same amenities.

Great Sandy Straights and Wide Bay Bar

In order to continue our southward journey onthe Great Sandy Straight, we had to be up very early to be at an extremely shallow "dog leg" in the channel, for high tide. We are back in a part of the world where tide changes are big and currents can help or hinder your progress while underway. This particular spot is only 3 feet deep at low tide and 13 feet deep at high tide; we need a total of 7 feet to float the boat across. It was a game of follow the leader, as there were a gaggle of boats lined up to make the passage through. Slow going, but not a big challenge. We have to anchor up again at the end of the channel beside another sandy strip, as we need to cross the bar the next morning on high tide. Tonight's high tide would get us out into the open, but then we would have to travel overnight to get to our next marina stop. Hey, we're on holiday, no schedule -Yet! It's not really so tough to hang on the hook and watch what the Aussies do and we have a dinner date on Oso to look forward too. It is amazing how shinny you can make boat stainless with a couple of spare hours, rubbing away and enjoying the sunshine. The Aussies on shore are all busy bouncing around in their 4x4's staking out the prime beach fishing spot for the day/afternoon/night. We are at a place called Tin Can Inlet inside of Inskip Point. As far as I can see, the whole of the eastern side of Australia is one great big sand pile and the locals love to play in it, fishing, surfing, camping, sunbathing and 4x4ing, Oh, and boating too.

 

Next morning: our journey through the Wide Bay Bar at 6:30 am is uneventful (just how we planned it). You call into the local Coast Guard office and get the way point coordinates to follow as the sand bar changes with weather conditions and water movement, then just connect the dots with your boat to get to the outside. We are blessed with a gorgeous flat ocean so no big swell to bob over and no wind waves to splash through. We are now headed to Mooloolaba Marina and the water conditions are fantastic. You'd never guess that we are in the middle of one of the biggest "storm factory" pieces of water in the world. Somebody is watching over us and we are Thankful. At this point, we are about 150 miles North of Brisbane. So after Mooloolaba (mouthful!), Oso Blanco will motor on into the Manly Harbour in Brisbane and we will do a night passage around Moreton , North Stradbroke and South Stradbroke Islands to gain the passage into The Gold Coast Marina (slightly south of Brisbane) which is our final destination. The inside passage is just too shallow for us to comfortably navigate. For now, we are basking in a great day of cruising under a clear sky and even clearer waters, the 25 degree C temp. makes it pretty much perfect.

Moving Southward from Bundaberg

The Great Sandy Straights Marina on Hervey Bay is a pretty decent place to call home for a day or two. It has an extensive network of shops and services at the top of the ramp and some pretty decent restaurants and bars. We wandered over to the Hervey Bay Boat Club one afternoon for a beer and were amused to find that it was a great big open hall with tables, a bar, a bandstand and gambling machines. The place is packed with 70 (plus) year old Gramas and Grampas just kicking up their heels to the 60's duet that was playing. Glen teased the very young bar girl that he felt like a teenager here! Our new favorite beer is Toohey New. From here we wandered down the impossibly long Esplanade that runs along the ocean past four different beach front communities. We only made it as far as the middle of the first downtown before making our way back to the boat. Everything is different in Australia as far as the trees, the birds, the animals, it is amazing. Our attention is riveted to a rainbow of colour in one of the bushes, it is a beautiful Rainbow Lorakete (kind of a parrot type bird). Oh, he was so charming and exquisitely coloured, just like a rainbow!

 

The next stop on our way south is an anchorage in the Great Sandy Straight, beside the Kingfisher Resort on Frazer Island. Frazer Island is the biggest all sand island in the world and is a complete national park. The thing to do here is hire (rent) a 4x4 and blast through the bush on a single lane sand road - the sand is baby powder fine and about 2 feet deep, it is like driving through snow banks. There are a multitude of destinations, but there are only so many you can see on a one day rental so with our lunch box packed we spin out of the parking lot at 8:00am, Eric, Ann, Bear, Glen (driving) and me (navigating) and bounce our way across to the Eastern Beach. This beach is 75 miles long and is the best highway on the island. You access all of the sights by deeking in from the beach and then back out to travel up to the next one. We saw a dingo! Dingos are not dogs, but they sure look like dogs. On our itinerary are two beautiful inland lakes, one head lands look out - that is stunning, a beached wreck of a very large ship, the beach itself, rainbow sand cliffs and a small resort. It is a great day and we enjoy the rugged beauty that unfolds before us. Glen even got us through all of the rough spots without getting stuck - a big change from when we would 4x4 as youngsters - the goal then was to see how often you could get stuck and then get out! Sometimes it is nice to be older. Our day was finished in fine style at the Kingfisher's pool bar, Bear got to swim and we adults refreshed ourselves with drinks, Pizza was our dinner. What a great day.

Australia - Bundaberg

Australia

We're here, we're here! Safe and sound and not too badly shook (a word?) up. Actually the passage was great except for a couple of 6 hour stretches.

 

We arrived at Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia, as planned at 9:00 am on Nov 4/11, both Oso Blanco and ourselves. Because the marina was short of space, due to all of the "yachties" arriving from various South Pacific ports, we had to raft together on the end dock. That means Oso tied to the dock and we tied to Oso. It looked pretty neat to see the two big "Nordies" snuggled together out there. Nordhavns certainly are popular boats in this region, everybody comes down the dock to see them and ask questions. It is a good way to meet the local people and get information on what is entertaining and special in any given area while they are quizzing you about your boat. Customs clearance was a piece of cake compared to many of the other foreign ports we have attended and in no time we were free to step on land and begin our Adventures in Australia.

 

My first foray into the "outback" (which is technically a wrong statement because we are coastal) was a brisk walk over to the nearest grocery store (IGA) to pick up some fresh produce having surrendered our "stores" to the quarantine fellows. Guess what? We saw a kangaroo lounging in the shade, just off the road! The groceries are much the same as in any store in North America and the prices were pretty decent considering it was just a small outlet. We have been hearing how expensive Australia will be. So far, other than the 4 cents extra we have to pay to compete with their dollar (vs. Canadian) it is pretty much like we are used to at home. Our next day in Bundaberg had us catching the local bus and riding the 18 km into the town. The Mission - get some consistent internet connection. We are now the proud owners of a cellular wifi unit that works beautifully. Yeah!! Bundaberg is a relatively small town, it's claim to fame is the production of Bundaberg Rum. The local economy is sugar cane agriculture which fits with the production of rum perfectly.

 

We did a meet and greet with the yachting rally group, but didn't know any of these boaters, except Oso Blanco. We did catch up with John and Sheryl from Sea Mist, fellow Canadians that we have seen in various locations all over the South Pacific, and had a good visit with them.

 

Nov 6 we headed further south to the port at Urangan to see something new, as we wind our way down to the Gold Coast where we will keep the boat for most of our time here.