CS

We still had a fair few miles to go up the east coast, with some of the longest drives still to come. Our next stop was Noosa, but we had no idea what to expect here. We hadn’t researched the place much and we arrived in the dark so didn’t see any of it on arrival. We decided to head into the town after we’d dropped our stuff at the hostel, we were surprised! It’s a mix of backpackers and middle class Australian families on their stay-cation. There are up market bars and restaurants, with hostels dotted in around them. The next day we saw the beauty of Noosa, with the intertwined waterways and beaches. We saw most of this on our boat trip, where we visited islands and got to kayak in the Noosa Everglades. It was hot, very hot! But we managed it and had a really nice BBQ on one of the islands! If you get chance definitely visit Noosa, it’s chilled but beautiful!

From Noosa we drove to Rainbow Beach for our trip to Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world. Rainbow Beach is essentially just the station for Fraser, with a lot of backpackers staying here before their trips to the island. Although on the night we stayed at Rainbow Beach there was the most incredible electric storm like I’ve never seen before. The Lightning forks were so visible in the pitch black sky and the air was so warm that it was like nothing I’d ever seen before. Such a spectacle.

The next day we prepared for our trip to Fraser Island where we were put into groups to drive one of the Toyota Land Cruisers onto the island. We rammed our stuff into the back of the 4×4 and I decided that I wanted to be the first to drive, which was epic as I got to drive off the boat and onto the beach, then down the ‘freeway’, also known as the west beach. Over the next two days we drove through forests, swam in fresh water lakes, chilled in ‘champagne’ pools filled by waves and Trekker to the most beautiful spots on the island. As expected, there was a LOT of sand, even showering didn’t get rid of it and I think I’m still finding it now!! But it was one crazy experience. The lack of sleep was a low point, as was one of the team getting bitten by a ‘brown’ snake and having to be air lifted to hospital, but luckily that turned out well as it was just a brown coloured snake – any bite from a brown snake would have probably killed him. The island is beautiful and well worth heading over to from the mainland, it’s like nowhere I’ve been before and driving there was really unique and will help my future driving skills (I hope)!

Next up was Bundaberg, known mainly for its rum! I’m not going to lie, this was the main reason that we decided to visit and we went on a rum factory tour, it was so good! Free samples and the smell of rum everywhere! It was also really nice to stay in a proper bed again after camping at Fraser, it was so comfy and we slept so well. The family that we stayed with using air bnb were so nice and couldn’t help enough!

The town of 1770 was next on our trip, so called for the year that James Cook landed here! It’s a really small place with lots of character and less backpackers than most other places. There’s a great tour called ‘Scooter Roo’ which we did on scooters made to look like we’re part of Hell’s Angels, so I was a bit sceptical as to how good it would be, but it was great fun and Vicki really enjoyed riding the bike which was her first time – she did amazing! A great way to see the town and its surroundings too and we saw more kangaroos just jumping down the road.

Then we drove onto Rockhampton and met Nat and Lawrie, Vicki knew Nat through uni so it was really cool to meet up with these guys and for them to show us where they live. It’s a nice town and had even less backpackers so was great to see a place with so many locals! Nat and Lawrie were amazing hosts and their place is amazing, it was fun. We did some clay sculpting at the local art gallery where Nat works and I think they turned out OK. Well, judge for yourself..

We loved Airlie Beach! A really cool place right on the beach and with the Whitsunday islands just a stone’s throw away. We did a boat trip out to the islands, they are beautiful as you can see from the photos. I’ve never seen so many fish before when we were snorkelling, some of them are bloody massive which is weird when you’re in the water with them! Some of the GoPro photos are below. The view from the top of the hill inlet was incredible and the day was perfect. We went down to Whitehaven beach and chilled for a couple of hours, what a beach! Being in the water with stingrays was an experience too, I couldn’t believe how close they swam to you! Being on a boat speeding through the Whitsundays was just amazing, I didn’t want it to end. We visited a fish restaurant and rum bar whilst we were there as well, you’ve probably guessed by now that I love a bit of rum. There was so much to choose from that it was pretty overwhelming, Vicki enjoyed some of it too (or so she says).

Then it was the long drive to Cairns. This was about an eight hour drive, which isn’t too bad, but it was lashing it down and towards the end of the journey there was a massive thunderstorm which lasted a few hours. What a journey!! We stopped off at Townsville and Cairns on the way. We thought Townsville was a bit of a nothing town, not much there or surrounding it. But it was where they launched the boats to do the Great Barrier Reef filming for the Blue Planet 2 programme, which is pretty cool! Then we called at Mission Beach, which is where the thunderstorm started. What a storm, there’s some crazy lightning on the east coast! We were hoping to see a Cassowary as they live in the wild here, but they we’re nowhere to be seen unfortunately. But we did head to the beach to watch the storm from afar, then carried on our journey north.

We got to Cairns pretty late, so we were hoping the Air bnb we had booked was nice so that we could relax. It wasn’t. It was basically a room in a shared house, almost student like really. Ah well, it was what it was. Until the air conditioning unit started to make random loud noises during the night – fair to say the sleep in Cairns wasn’t the best. The boat trip the next day was incredible though, even if we were a bit sleepy. It included snorkelling and an introduction to diving. The diving was amazing, like nothing I’ve ever done before and I really hope to do it again one day and do a course to become certified! We saw Nemo on the dive and plenty of coral, but the most spectacular wildlife we saw was actually when we were snorkelling. We saw so many different kinds of fish, a shark, a stingray and the one animal we had been wanting to see for the whole trip – a turtle!! It was so amazing to see these animals on the reef in their habitat, a really beautiful experience. Whilst in Cairns we also visited Port Douglas, a small town north of Cairns, which is really nice and has a great reputation amongst Australians. Here we went to the Wildlife Habitat and saw so many native animals including a Cassowary and we held a koala – such grippy claws!! On the way back we stopped by Mossman Gorge and trekked through the forest, well worth a visit!

It’s fair to say that we crammed a lot into our trip up the east coast, it’s an amazing part of the world that we will remember forever. Then it was onto Melbourne to see what was waiting for us there!