Some more pics

We're still in Gympie so not much to report. We chatted to a couple of Dutch girls last night who had just returned from a 3-day trip to Fraser Island. We're just sat in Gympie library browsing the harvest jobs in the area, and it looks like we'll have to go north to find something that we could start within the next few days.

Some pictures...

A Noosa Sunset:


Feeding 'Mystique' the dolphin in Tin Can Bay:



Our campsite in Tin Can Bay - spot the odd one out:


The spectacular Carlo Sand Blow at Rainbow Beach:

Curtains

For reasons beyond our control it appears our last blog entry has disappeared. This is quite annoying since we have to pay internet cafes to do it, but there we go. So here's another attempt.

Noosa was lovely. A bunch of towns; Noosa Heads, Noosaville etc., all connected by a river in from the sea. We found a nice campsite right on the river and settled in. The plan was to have a quiet couple of days before we started work, since there were no job agencies open over the weekend. The weather was superb in the daytime despite a few spots of rain when we arrived, but it wasn't enough to stop us spending a bit of time on the beach and catching a bit of sun.

On Friday evening we were cooking in the camp kitchen and Martin and Nancy from Sydney and Byron Bay suddenly turned up, so we had a quick chat with them and then retired to the van for a bit of wine and a game of Ludo (at which Charlotte is invincible). The following day we got up early to watch the Noosa Swim which is one of those things we've seen on telly where a big bunch of men, women and kids run into the sea and swim round some bouys.

On Sunday afternoon we popped to do our daily shop at the supermarket and the car had it's bimonthly pain in the arse moment. So, first thing on Monday morning it was off to the auto-electrician for a diagnosis which established the starter motor as faulty. However, at the end of the day we returned to find that the mechanic had found the starter motor to be fine, and it was actually the alternator that was buggered, so we booked another night at the campsite and took the car back in the morning. In a rare moment of good luck with our car, however, this was all covered by our warranty so we didn't pay a penny.

Meanwhile, we had been in touch with the harvest guide to find out about fruit picking work in the area, and were told there was nothing until June around here.

On our final night in Noosa we had a bit of food and the last of one of our wine boxes with Martin and Nancy, and also a British couple from Manchester called Richard and Caroline. We all talked about cars and at the end of the evening we felt a lot better knowing that almost everyone had experienced mechanical problems. Continuing the conversation with a German couple in the morning also reaffirmed this!

We finally said goodbye to everyone and left the relaxing Noosa on Wednesday with a fixed alternator (so far), to head to a place called Tin Can Bay. We didn't have much of an idea what was there but had heard that you can feed a wild dolphins for free there. Mention the word 'free' to us these days and we're on it.

Tin Can Bay is a tiny little town on the river, which probably has more tourists than residents but isn't at all commercialised. We found ourselves a campsite and since we had a spare afternoon, decided to put our sexy curtains up properly, rather than leave them hanging off bulldog clips and safety pins as they have been so far. As the sun went down and we switched on our brand new camping lantern, the temperature dropped dramatically. We were cooking in the outdoor kitchen and it was getting colder as the night went on. It turned out to be the coldest temperature recorded in May; almost freezing. Not a good evening to be in flip-flops and shorts.

It was still cold at 6am when we got up the next morning, but the sun was up and as we headed down to the river to see about this dolphin feeding it was getting a bit more comfortable. When we arrived there was a small group of people on the marina wall and lady in the water with a humpback dolphin sitting there, happily playing with leaves. At 8am more people turned up but we were all given a bucket with a fish in it, and allowed into the water to feed the dolphin by hand. We got to do it twice and it was an amazing opportunity. We really enjoyed it.

It was back to the campsite for a bit of breakfast and then off to Rainbow beach for another truly memorable part of our trip. Overlooking the beach is an area where the forest meets the cliff. The cliff is gradually eroding and the sand is slowly burying the forest, leaving a spectacular area arrangement of ocean, beach, cliff, dunes and forest. It was incredibly beautiful and we spent a while there, taking it all in. We had a bit of lunch on the beach proper, and then it was back to the campsite before the darkness and cold arrived.

We've left Tin Can Bay now and are sat in a library in Gympie, waiting for a call from a local farmer about possible work. Our plan for the afternoon consists of... err...

We'll let you know later.

It always rains on the Sunshine Coast

After our mad dash up the coast this past few weeks we've stopped a few hours north of Brisbane to catch our breath. Yes, we were going to stop in Brisbane but more on that later.

We left Coffs Harbour after our last update but not before getting a photo of the famous Big Banana. It was quite disappointing - it's more of a Quite Big Banana. Unless you compare it to a normal banana, then it is Big.

Anyway, our next stop was Byron Bay. We arrived late in the afternoon and found a Caravan Park just outside of the town, which turned out to be our worst one yet. It was quite deserted, and the facilities were mostly locked up. They didn't issue us a site though so we just drove round and found our own spot in amongst the "long term" caravanners.

After admiring our home for the evening we set off down to the beach just as it was getting dark. There is a fantastic atmosphere in Byron Bay, people were playing music out on the street and the mood was great. We spotted some Dolphins a few hundred metres out and stayed to watch them as the sun went down.

It was too nice to leave it at that so we booked another night (in a different caravan park) and had a nice relaxing day walking round the town and lounging on the beach.

Our new campsite was full of backpackers, and we happened to get a site next to a couple that we had originally met in our first hostel in Sydney, Martin and Nancy (no Phil, not Martin and Linda). We finished off a couple of casks of wine with them and they told us that they'd been working on an organic farm for a couple of months. The work was hard and repetitive but the money was fantastic so that's something we're looking into now.

They had told us they were heading to a weird hippie town called Nimbin and since we'd already had that mentioned to us we thought we'd take that route across the New South Wales/Queensland border, several miles inland. Nimbin was a surreal experience. It's a tiny place but full of character, it's like a hippie's dream. Everyone appears to be selling cookies and cakes but we suspected the ingredients might be a little more colourful than those available from the WI.

The alternative route we took across the border led us through some superb scenery, including a place called Natural Bridge just over the border. It's a waterfall out on a ledge, but the water created a hole a few metres back from the edge, so the water falls through into a cave below. Charlotte got bitten by pretty much every bug in the area that day, but it was a nice place to be mobbed by mossies.

Surfers Paradise is one of those places we'd heard about so had to have a look. We were expecting something like Byron Bay but found a huge resort, with some massive buildings that we first mistook for Brisbane itself. It was raining hard when we arrived and that continued through the night (no leaks in the van though). We found a caravan park up the road at Main Beach, and then tried to drive into Surfers Paradise but it was too difficult to find anywhere to park as the rain was too heavy, so we retired to the van park for the night. The park seemed to be entirely occupied by British, peculiarly. The next day the sun made an attempt to come out so we had a bit of time on the beach, but the conditions weren't right for surfing so our hopes of seeing some professionals doing spectacular tricks were dashed.

Our next stop was intended to be our home for a month or so but we drove in to look for some information, then got annoyed by the rubbish signposts. In Australia they tend not to put the places that the roads off the motorway go to, but the name of that road instead. These are, of course, absolutely useless without a street map, so after attempting to find a suburb on pure guesswork, we finally had to stop and buy one. As we've experience in all the cities we've been to, finding somewhere we can both sleep, see the city and park the van is extremely difficult without paying a fortune. We ended up at a nice little suburb east of Brisbane called Manly, where the tourist information lady helped us out a bit.

We got the train into the city and had a look round. There were some special sights - the subtropical beach in the middle of the city for example - but we're finding that once you've seen the sights of a city, everything else is like any other. We simply did the tourist bit and then left.

A couple of hours up the coast and we arrived at the imaginatively named Scarborough. We arrived in the dark and found a caravan park as yet more rain came down. We considered getting a tour to Moreton Island, a national park which has some massive sand dunes that you can sort of sledge down, and wild dolphin feeding at one of the resorts. It didn't take long to realise that if we did Moreton Island, there wouldn't be enough money left to do Fraser Island, so we abandoned those plans.

Yet again we hit the road but it wasn't long before we saw, just off the highway, a big picture of Steve Irwin and in enormous writing, the word "CRIKEY!". Obviously this was enough advertising for us and we found ourselves at the Australia Zoo, home of the Crocodile Hunter don't you know. Despite yet more rain, we had a good day out there. The zoo's quite unusual in that they really like to put on a show for the punters. We saw the crocodiles being fed, a Cheetah's birthday party (with cake) and Charlotte got to stroke a couple of Koalas - at last!

Moocheydore was our stop for the night, and then we had a short dash up the coast to a lovely little area called Noosa where it was finally sunny! We're stopping here for a bit of a rest and to recharge after some fairly major mileage. We've got some numbers to find a bit of work here, so that's the plan now. Again.

Photo catchup time!

Dolphin cruising in Jervis Bay:


Charlotte on the "whitest sand in the world":


A lookout we can't spell just north of Jervis Bay, over Kangaroo Valley:


Mmm... wine tasting in the Hunter Valley:


Hawks Nest, and as you can see it was one hell of a haircut:



A Kookaburra joins us (and nearly takes Charlotte's head off in the process):


The painted rocks at Nambucca Heads, where we stopped for lunch one day:


Byron Bay - as nice as it looks:


The lighthouse at Byron Bay, which is the most easterly...:


Nimbin - hippy heaven!


Surfers Paradise:


The beach in Brisbane:


Grrrrr (ok, they don't make any noise):


Awww:

Chasing the sunshine

G'day.

The lack of updates this past week is due to the fact that we've been racing up the coast and living the cheap life. Funds are low so we're trying to get to Brisbane relatively quickly so that we can find work.

We left Narooma and headed a couple of hours up the coast to Jervis Bay. We'd heard about a hostel from Wendy and Chris and so rang them and booked a room. When we arrived it turns out that it's basically a house with just two rooms for travellers. There are no signs or any clues at all that it's a hostel, and they leave the keys in a not-so-secret hiding place for guests, since the owners work full time.

We had a couple of nights there and spent some time in Jervis Bay which is very nice. The beaches there feature the whitest sand in the world according to the Guiness Book of Records, and they also squeak when you walk on them which is very odd. We were joined on the first night by a French father and son and so we had a few glasses of wine with them and complained about the number of adverts on Aussie TV.

The following day we jumped on a cruise boat to see some of the 60-70 resident dolphins in the bay. They say there is a 95% chance of seeing dolphins, so after a 2.5 hour trip round the bay we discovered we're in the lucky 5%. We briefly spotted the back of one but the little sods just disappeared after that but they were kind enough to give us a free return trip.

Although we're on a super-cheap trip, our new love of Thai food forced us to test the Thai restaurant out in Huskisson. A worthy expense, we felt.

The next day we took advantage of our free dolphin cruise and jumped back on the boat, this time with some success (although we had all but given up hope after 1.5 hours). The captain tracked them down and they came over to swim along the bow of the boat for a while which was great.

That afternoon we explored the numerous beaches of the bay and that evening we were joined by a lovely Irish couple who had replaced the Frenchies in our hostel/house. We all got drunk and complained about the adverts on Aussie TV.

Oh, and we insisted they all visit Narooma, by the way.

We left Jervis Bay after that but not before checking out the north side of the bay which is mostly national park area, as well as a navy testing zone, which restricted our movements somewhat. We set off up the highway towards Sydney, stopping off at an incredible lookout which overlooked Kangaroo Valley, although we didn't see any (kangaroos that is, there was a valley).

The plan was to stop somewhere south of Sydney to give us a good base to head north from but that plan didn't work too well, since it seems there are no hotels, motels, backpackers or campsites south of Sydney. By 8pm that evening we'd ended up at Bondi Beach where we knew we'd be able to find a bed for the night.

We thought about stopping in Sydney for a bit but we realised we had to get moving, so after a big old fry up at Bondi, it was back on the road again. Our next stop turned out to be the Hunter Valley - wine country. There are something like 140 wineries in the area so we hopped on one of the wine tours to see how many we could test. You can probably imagine how horrible it is to be driven round a dozen wineries, sampling some of the best the area has to offer. Yes, it was as horrible as that.

Our next stop was an unusual little place off the highway called Hawks Nest. We were back to camping by this point, as the weather's getting warmer the more north we get, although it's not without the odd torrential downpour. There wasn't much to do there but it was a nice place to relax. So after a wet night there it was back in the van to head up to our next stop; Port Macquarie. This was a seaside town more akin to Skeggy than much else we've seen here. The weather was a bit miserable which may have tainted our experience a little, but we felt that it was just your average family seaside resort that you can see all over Europe, so we weren't tempted to hang around.

A few hours up the coast brought us to our current location, Coffs Harbour. It's a bit nicer here but during a sudden downpour last night the van started leaking, so Charlotte spent most of the evening holding bowls to catch the water while Kev was outside trying to plug the seals up with cardboard. Eventually Charlotte suggested we use plastic bags which worked much better, and then the rain stopped for the night. Hopefully it was just the sheer volume of rain that overloaded the seals but, knowing this van, it's probably something else that we'll have to fix.

We've already done well over 1,000km this week but we're off again now. No chance of photos here unfortunately but we'll get some on as soon as we can. There are lots.

Moving on

OK, we were only supposed to stay here for 2 nights and have stayed for over a week now, but one glance at the noticeboard full of letters from people who have done the same shows that we're not the only ones who like this place. The car kept us here until Tuesday as that was the earliest we could get it fixed but that's all sorted now. It is running better than ever but we're pretty confident it won't last.

The reason we have stayed an extra couple of nights is that it just so happened that Chris (one of the managers of this motel/hostel) wanted a website set up, so getting a little website done and the domains and webspace sorted was yesterday's job (http://www.motelnarooma.com).

The day before, Chris had managed to sort out a bit of work that involved digging a hole for a storm drain in the morning and clearing cobwebs from all around the motel. The latter might not sound too exciting but let's just say that we've now seen two Redback spiders. Charlotte was excused from the work and so has had a nice, relaxing couple of days.

We are definitely moving on today. As I type this, listening to the weird cackle of the Kookaburras, Matilda is packed and ready to go to Jervis Bay.

Where we've spent the last week:


Cleaning the spiders in the roof was fine - the Redbacks are under the chairs and tables: