And our trip begins!!! Kiley, Jess and I have set off on a 19 day road trip from the Gold Coast to Cairns stopping at every place along the way that we can. I’ve been saying that I will start blogging more once I actually start traveling and doing exciting things. Unfortuntely that is the time where not only do I not really have time to sit down and write, but I also don’t have the internet access to do it. So here I am, sitting in a caravan campsite in the town of seventeen seventy, a little hole in the wall paradise that no one has heard about, hoping that my computer doesn’t completely explode from overload of photos or die from lack of battery writing this so that everyone in the real world can be jealous. Seriously.
Our adventure started on Monday the 5th. Catching a few trains with a million bags on us and catching a ride with a friend from camp we finally made it to where we needed to pick up our campervan at. Not only was this place a complete dump, but the old man working there was CRAZY. It took us over 2 hours to get our camper. I have never seen anyone so slow moving and disorientated in my life. Then the fax machine ‘wasn’t working’ and I ended up being the one to fix it. The whole thing was ridiculous. Oh and to add to the joy it was pouring down rain for the first time in weeks. So finally we headed up north just a few hours later than planned. First stop on the list was to see the famous glass house mountains which are on the sunshine coast by the Australia Zoo. Too bad there was no sunshine for us. We couldn’t see any of the mountains and every time we tried to drive off onto the view points the roads were completely covered with water from the flash floods. We saw all that we could see and decided to head up more north. The great thing about having a campervan is that we can stop where ever we like and do something. We were driving along the freeway and saw signs for a place called aussie world. We didn’t think anything of it until we drove by a HUGE pub along the side of the road that looked ridiculous. We pulled a u-turn and headed in for a drink. There was some really cool fact about the Ettamoogah Pub, but I really can’t remember it. Google it. It was actually a really cool place with a lot of fun stuff on the inside. We then headed up just a bit, found a grocery store and a campervan site and called it a day. It’s hard to feel like doing stuff when it’s dumping down rain, plus we didn’t have any plans until we got to Noosa.
Day 2
We woke up early and headed out to Noosa. And surprise, it was still raining. It was starting to get really depressing that the only article of clothing I was caring about was my rain jacket. As we were driving into Noosa we noticed that the water in the area was incrediably high and all the fields were just swamps. It was the first time that we really got to experience and see the effects of the massive rainfall. Living on the Gold Coast we are surrounded by water so if there is heavy rainfall it just drains into the ocean or the rivers which then go into the ocean. It was really scary to see the water so high. We would drive over bridges and the water was at the top of the bridge almost coming over into the street. There were a few times that we drove through the water to get into Noosa. I was scared that if it kept raining we would be trapped in Noosa because the roads would completely be covered or that we wouldn’t be able to get back onto the freeway since we saw a sign saying even the highway was closed up north because of the floods. Noosa is one of those places where it would be really fun to just walk around and hang out all day…if it was sunny. We parked in the National Park on the top of the hill and walked into town along the boardwalk and then went in and out of all the little shops they have in town. At this point the rain had died down to a drizzle, but it was still pretty gross outside. We walked down to one of the beaches for a bit and had lunch and decided the rain just wasn’t worth it. We then walked back to the National Park and strolled along the beach in the other direction and watched all the surfing. There was so many little coves and places for surfers. I can see how this really is a surfers dream land. We then looked for a place to park for the night since paying 40 dollars at a campervan site every night doesn’t sound like our cup of tea. We found a spot right on the water that was also close to restrooms that just happen to have a shower in them…score!! Well…it was a shower to rinse the salt water and sand off of you, but whatever works!! After having a yummy meal of spaghetti we hit the hay.
Day 3
We woke up the next morning feeling refreshed, opened the door only to find that the water that we were sleeping next to was now in fact under us. Yes, the entire street that we were parked on had flooded. Luckily for us we were parked on the far end and were able to get out without getting too wet. It’s still scary how quickly it can happen. We found out that a town near Noosa has markets on Wednesdays so we headed over there to see what kind of goodies were around. It was similar to a Saturday market, but it was huge. Really cool to walk around and see how the different things that people had. Plus it wasn’t raining at the time so it was nice to be outside. During traveling Kiley is nose deep in all sorts of different brochures and books about different things to do in the area. We end up going to pretty much every information center that we find and just grabbing all the brochures that we can find. So she has pretty much turned into our tour guide and finding us tons of stuff to do. One of the things that she found was a lake on the way to Rainbow Beach called Lake Poona. It was a 2km hike to get to this lake in the middle of a sand dune. So we drove in on the extremely not paved bumpy road to get to the head of this trail. And so we head out, soaking wet and walked through the rainforest. We arrive at Lake Poona and there are no sand dunes around. Little did we know that by sand dune the brochure meant that it was in the middle of sand, but sand that was covered by trees and bushes and everything else you can imagaine, so it looked just like a normal lake. Still pretty though and good to get exercise. So we head back towards the car. We were about half way back when Jess started screaming and freaking out. It took Kiley and us both a second to realize that she was screaming because she had a leach on her foot. Yes, a leach. That will teach her to wear thongs while hiking in a forest. Kiley had to strike the leach with a rock to make it let go of Jess. We calmed down and walked a bit more before Jess realized she had another one between her toes. Yes, two leaches. By now the two spots where they were are bleeding down her foot. We keep walking and arrive at the camper before Kiley started to say her foot was itchy. She looks down and realizes that she also has a leach going down her sock. Yes, three leaches. And she was even wearing shoes and socks!! One last check and we find Jess has another one on the bottom of her foot. That gives us a grand total of 4 leaches. Gross. We decided that Lake Poona must be aboriginal for the Leach Lake. After feeling a bit left out because I didn’t get a leach we move on to Rainbow Beach. They are famous for having the rainbow colored sands. Whites and browns and yellows. It’s really pretty. Even in the rain. We walked along the beach for a bit and then someone told us to head up to the Carlo Sandblow that was nearby to see the best view in the area. We drove up and hiked a bit to arrive at this massive sandblow. You can walk along and hang out and it’s unreal. There were people there with bodyboards who were sandsurfing which looked really fun. You had the ocean and the multi colored sands on one side and on the other was inland with all the trees and lakes. It was unbelievable. We ended up hanging out there for the entire afternoon and staying to watch the sunset. It was a really good way to end day 3.
Day 4.
After the sunset in Rainbow Beach we had a quick bite for dinner and then drove to Tin Can Bay which is just north to sleep for the night. Tin Can Bay is famous for getting the opportunity to hand feed wild dolphins. We didn’t want to miss out on this experience and it’s an early morning one so we decided to park in the harbor and stay there for the night so that we could wake up and be right where we needed to be. We woke up and got dressed and arrived at the location and something amazing happened!! Wait…could it be??? Yes it is!!! The sun is out!! For the first time we had good weather and we could finally bust out the sunscreen. A perfect day for dolphin feeding. The dolphins just come up to the harbor to a certain dock to be fed. Apparently they have been doing this for many dolphin generations. We got into the water along with a fairly small group of people and waited for them to come in. Usually there is about 2 or 3 that actually come in, not the whole pack, but that day we only had 1. Still better than none!! It was so cool to see her coming into the harbor. Everyone once in a while you could see her flippers and stuff. Then she just came right up to us and waited for the food. There was a long wait period where she just swam around us and we could watch her. Very cool. We paid our 5 dollars and got a fish to feed her. I guess there wasn’t a lot of people that day because all 3 of us got another fish for free! So we got to feed her twice which was awesome. That is something that no one really gets to do and to be able to do it with a wild dolphin and have it be pretty cheap was just unreal. It was truly unforgettable. After we washed our hands, a bunch, we sat up shop in the parking lot and make some eggs and English muffins for brekky, then set sail out in the direction of Hervey Bay to get ready for our Fraser Island experience. We called to reserve our spots and it was right about this time that we realized that the crazy guy at the car rental place forgot to give Kiley back her credit card. The exact card that was supposed to be paying for her entire trip. Oh no. We tried calling and calling, but no luck. Finally we got a hold of him and he agreed it ship it out to 1770 for us to pick up when we arrived there. Cross your fingers that it shows up!!! On the way to Hervey Bay, Kiley reads in one of our books about a town Maryborough that we are going to drive through that has a few markets and also has a bunch of Mary Poppins things in it. The author of the Mary Poppins books was from this tiny town and they dedicated many things to her including placing a statue of Mary Poppins in the middle of the town. Hilarious. You could imagine we took some amazing photos with the umbrellas that we bought for the floods. After the quick detour we finally made it to Hervey Bay. Slightly cloudy again, but not terrible compared to what we were dealing with the few days before. We did some souvenir shopping and then headed out to the pier. The water was at extreme low tide or something because you could walk so far out onto the sand. It was the first thing we noticed when we arrived in Hervey. We walked out onto the longest pier known to man (not really, but it feels like that when you are walking down it). Hervey Bay is really not pretty, actually it’s pretty ugly. The water was really dark and dirty, but I think that a lot of that has to do with the recent flash floods as well. After the pier we walked along the sand just to see how far out we could go. We decided that we should stay in a caravan site that night so that we could get ready for our Fraser Island experience we were doing the next day!!! So exciting!!!
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