Seasons Change

There has been a dramatic change between waking up in King’s Canyon yesterday and Port Augusta this morning. Only a couple days ago we were hot and sweating in the desert and now we’re wearing hoodies and sweats trying to keep warm. We’re thinking we’ve seen the last of our +30°C days. The air temperature is a lot cooler, and feels more like a summer day back home. Nonetheless, we headed off into the outback section of South Australia to an area known as Flinders Ranges.  Once we arrived at the National Park, we were informed that because of the amount of rain received, that much of the park walking tracks have been closed due to flooding and the ranger advised that the few remaining sections that were still open would have limited to non-existant visibility because of the cloud cover. 

We were determined to see what we could of the ranges and went ahead on the Wangara walking trail up to see the Wilpena Pound. We started off in a light drizzle of rain but by the time we reached the lookout the drizzle had reached a full on downpour. We found that it’s best to make the most of these situations and we took a picture anyways. On the return trek down from the lookout, the trail was starting to flood. We made double time back to the car and drove down to the city of Adelaide. 
Along the drive, Willy spotted a baby lamb on the other side of the fence from its mom and decided to go back and place it on the correct side of the fence. His heroic efforts will not be forgotten because he saved the little new born lamb.

Tumbleweed

Three words to describe today’s drive: LONG, FLAT, and BARREN. We covered a sizeable distance today (approx. 1200km) and we can honestly say that of all the different parts of this country that we’ve seen so far, this is the least scenic stretch of road.
We had left King’s Canyon at 5am and five minutes into our drive Willy drove through a small floodway at full speed – we now realize why those floodway signs exist as this is the first time there has been water in these unassuming flat stretches of road. Over the next 7 hours, the sun came up and the scenery did not change, except for a sign indicating we had crossed the Northern Territory/South Australia border. 


We arrived at a town built underground in the middle of the desert called Coober Pedy. Several houses and buildings are built underground because of the extreme temperatures in summer. We visited a couple of underground churches to get an appreciation of how far underground they are built. It was a dead town and we didn’t stay long. 

From here it was another 5 hours of driving through South Australia. The landscape was so barren, there were no trees, only shrubs, but we wouldn’t even call them that because we wouldn’t want to confuse anyone with something you could see over (they were knee high at best). 

This came as a surprise to us because we thought that this is more like what the Northern Territory would look like and that as we drove further south the landscape would become greener. We later learned that South Australia is known to be the driest state in the driest continent. We didn’t think it would take as long as it did to drive into South Australia, but we were happy to finally reach the coastal town of Port Augusta – brrrrrrrr.


Highlight of the day: we saw lots of wild emu’s on the drive down, probably because they have nothing to hide behind. 

The Big Three

For some weird reason, it decided to pour rain in the desert last night. This did not bode well for our plans to climb Ayer’s Rock this morning, as the climb can be closed with little or no notice for various reasons (heat, rain, wind, wet, cloud, rescue and culture). We headed to the rock anyways and our suspicions were confirmed – closed due to “Forecast Rain”. The chance to climb Uluru was right in front of us, yet was out of reach because the forecast for the rest of the week wasn’t very promising. It’s really too bad because it seems likely that the Uluru climb will be closed down permanently in the future.
We headed east out of Uluru to see these giant domes called Kata Tjuta (The Olgas), that we had seen in the distance when we first arrived. We got there well before 11am to make sure we could do the Valley of the Winds walk before it got too hot. Almost immediately during the 7.4 km walk, we noticed that Kata Tjuta had strikingly similar characteristics to the Bungle Bungles we saw in Western Australia, particularly the dome shape and striations in the rocks. 
We still think that the Bungle Bungles were more impressive though. It was an enjoyable walk that snaked through the valleys between the domes, with an amazing scenic lookout of the landscape.
We drove to King’s Canyon to complete our Red Centre experience. The 6 km walk around the rim of the canyon took us several hours. We stopped so many times to look over the edge and marvel at the 270m drop to the canyon floor (and throw some rocks). During the walk, we saw dozens of ring tailed dragons. They were very curious and not afraid of the camera. 
Willy took a cool, refreshing swim at the Garden of Eden waterhole before meeting up with an Australian couple on the trail. We met up with this couple again back at the campground and shared stories all night. After hearing some of their stories that they’ve heard from other travellers, we’re happy to say that we haven’t had anything stolen and our risks have been relatively minor. We also noticed we weren’t the only ones in the camp shelter tonight as a couple of dingos have been circling us all night with a watchful eye for food scraps. It’s a little un-nerving that these wild dingos have no fear and wander so close to us. I’ll be listening for them tonight.
PS. If you check out the background picture of our blog, it is one we took of the Bungle Bungles in Western Australia.

38°C

Anyone who knows me well will know that I love the heat, but today the sun kicked our ass! It was a scorching 38°C with blue skies and minimal wind. By 11:30am, we were feeling the full effects of the heat to the point where I’m pretty sure we stopped sweating (even after drinking about 2 litres of water each).

We had started our day at 6am and ate breakfast watching the sunrise with Uluru in the distance. We took our time and made our way closer to Ayer’s Rock and started the 10km Base Walk around 8am. We thought that this was plenty early however the walk was essentially a desert trek with no shade, and the sun was really beating down on us by this point.







Walking around the base of the rock really gave us an appreciation of how large, uneven, and multi-dimensional the rock is.  We were surprised to see that there were two water holes in shaded areas around the rock. We finished the walk before noon and we were absolutely zonked out and in desperate need of some A/C. We weren’t feeling too well at this point, so we headed back to the campground for a swim in the pool to cool off. It worked, but the only problem was that as soon as you got out of the pool, your body immediately felt like it was on fire again. Our plan for the afternoon was to head to Kata-Tjuta for the highly recommended “Valley of the Winds” walk; however they closed down the walk at 11am due to extreme temperatures. 

I really don’t think either of us could have pushed through another walk today in this heat anyways. Instead we had an extremely relaxing dinner on a platform with an incredible view of Uluru at sunset. These moments really define the trip that we’re on.

The Rock

Before leaving our rustic little campground this morning, we did a quick 3km hike called the Dolomite Walk. It’s a very small section of the Larapinta Trail that’s over 220km long. On the drive out of the MacDonnell Ranges we stopped in at Standley Chasm for a quick walk and short hike to a lookout. We passed through Alice Springs for a quick fuel up before heading into the desert in search of the iconic Ayer’s Rock (aka Uluru).

After driving for a couple hundred kilometres, we were expecting this giant rock to appear out of nowhere, and that’s exactly what happened – except it wasn’t Uluru. It was Mount Conner which most people mistaken for Ayers Rock, and even though we knew about it, we had triggered a false alarm of excitement. After driving another hundred kilometers, bringing our total driving time since Cairns to 28+ hours, we caught our first glimpse of Ayer’s Rock in the distance. People have told us to expect to drive and drive and drive and see nothing, and then all of a sudden it would appear – and it was really rewarding when it did. The road kept winding, so the rock kept on disappearing and every time it reappeared it was so much bigger and brighter and you could start to make out the detail in its formation. We’ve seen the rock in many pictures before and have heard others describe it, but once we saw it for ourselves, it was hard to believe it was actually in front of us because it is literally a giant rock that stands before you. We went to the sunset lookout and set up some chairs and made dinner. 

As the shadows grew longer, we watched the rock change colors from a bright orange to a dull red and took about as many photos as kilometers we drove to get here. Tonight we are camping at Yulara Resort Campsite and are planning to get up early tomorrow for the sunrise and base walk around Uluru.

Red Centre

We had driven for several hours in the dark last night, so the landscape looked very different when we woke up this morning. It had changed from open, lush, green grasslands to a rugged, red-orange and sandy desert. An added bonus of waking up this morning was that I got an extra 30 minutes of sleep because of the time change when we crossed the border yesterday. We explored the Devils Marbles and watched the colors on the rocks change as the sun came up. We even spotted a Rock Wallaby and Joey very high up. The Devils Marbles are so unique because they have been weathered down to the point of being smooth, giant, rounded boulders that seem like someone has delicately placed them on top of one another. We took some funny pictures and then hit the road.

WE MADE IT TO THE RED CENTRE – Alice Springs! We’ve been on the road for about 23+ hours but we did it. There is a large aboriginal population that lives in Alice Springs and surrounding areas, and it feels like there is a lot to learn about their culture.

We decided to head to the West MacDonnell Ranges for the afternoon and stopped at a place called Simpson’s Gap. The scenery here is familiar and really reminded us of our NT/Western Australia trip we took in September. The pictures we took here do not capture how high the walls of the Gorges really are. We drove further west to a campground called Ellery Creek Bighole. It was nice to be back at an actual campground with very basic facilities and not a caravan park. We made dinner and watched the sunset over the ranges. Willy made a rather large campfire and we sat under the stars and planned the next part of our outback adventure.

Road Sign of the Day: “We like our lizards frilled not grilled”.

Rollin, Rollin, Rollin

Over the past 2 days we've done a lot of driving.
On Wednesday, we spent half a day in Cairns talking to family, applying for jobs and mailing physio paperwork to Canada. Then we finally said goodbye to the east coast and started the long drive along the Overlander's Way across to the Outback. Our destination is only 2800km down the road. There was no need for the GPS. We drove about 5 hours, turned off the Bruce Highway and onto Flinder's Highway and spent the night in Charters Towers.
On Thursday, we drove the rest of the Flinder's Highway to Mount Isa. We nearly hit numerous Wedge Tailed Eagles because they like to eat the dead lizards and snakes on the road. Then we drove the entire length of the Barkley Highway. The towns we passed through were sparsely populated and fuel prices sky-rocketed. We're definately starting to feel the remote nature of the area. Once we passed the Northern Territory border, the speed limit changed to 130 - Is that even considered a speed limit anymore?
The end of the Barkely Highway meets with the Stuart Highway, where the road comes to a "T" known as Three Ways. You can turn right and drive North 1000km to Darwin or turn left and head South to Alice Springs, so we headed left, fueled up at Tenant Creek and decided to roll another 100km down to the Devils Marbles to spend the night.






Our final stats for the day are
Driving Time: 14hrs 37min
Distance: 1536.8km
Fuel Stops: 4

Finding Nemo Part II

We are probably the only people ever who have taken almost 6 weeks to travel up the east coast of Australia – but for good reason. First of all, we have taken some amazing detours off the beaten track that most people wouldn’t have had a chance to do, especially without a car. Secondly, we wanted to experience swimming in the Great Barrier Reef one more time to cap off our East coast adventure!

We left Port Douglas marina on the Silver Sonic this morning. This boat was so fast that it felt like we were on a plane going down the runway for take off! 
We got to a place called Agincourt Reef which is literally right on the outer reef. The first dive site for the day, was at “The Chappel” (apparently someone got married underwater here...hence the name). This was finally the moment that I had been waiting for, and it definitely did not disappoint. The feeling of been relaxed, weightless, and breathing all while being 10.6 meters under water is nothing short of amazing. Jenna and I were ‘buddied’ up for the dive, which meant we held hands (how romantic) for the entire dive. 

I did let go a few times but our instructor immediately made sure our hands went back together.  We saw big Clown Fish and they actually don’t leave the anemone – what was Nemo thinking! After we were back on the boat we had lunch and jetted off to the next dive site “Phills”. At the second site we had some lunch before jumping back in the water for some snorkelling. Jenna doesn’t even use a snorkel, she finds it annoying and prefers to hold her breath and dive down to get close to the reef. 
We both really enjoy snorkelling because there’s a sense of freedom that can’t be replicated on the guided intro dives. We were able to dive down to probably about 8m underwater to explore the reef and sometimes we would admire for too long, forgetting we didn’t have an oxygen tank, and suddenly 8 metres to the surface seemed really far up when you’re running out of air. This was definitely the best snorkelling site we’ve ever been to. The colors were very vibrant and the fish were so diverse. We even saw several sharks up close and were able to take some underwater videos. The third dive site was called “Castle Rock” and we decided to do a second dive here. We’ve been getting pretty good at communicating underwater with hand signals for ‘little shark’, ‘big shark’, ‘turtle’, ‘clown fish’, ‘trigger fish’ and ‘clams’.
 It seemed like we didn’t travel far to get to the last dive site, but the corals were very different and there was sandy bottom at this site, unlike the last site, you couldn’t reach the bottom, probably because we were on the very edge of the outer reef.

We really enjoyed our time today at the Great Barrier Reef, and it went by so fast. Before we knew it we were on the boat heading back towards Port Douglas.

Freedom

Today I finally got my cast off! I’ve been waiting for this day for almost 8 weeks since I first broke my arm. We went to the Cairns Base Hospital and ended up spending most of the day waiting for doctors and final x-rays. It feels so good to finally have it off and move my wrist around freely. Now that the cast is off, we decided to book a day tour to dive at the Great Barrier Reef out of Port Douglas for tomorrow, so I can finally experience scuba diving. 

We had a nice evening in Cairns. We walked down the esplanade at sunset and then stopped at the Pier Bar and Grill for some dinner, followed by some delicious pistachio ice cream. We drove to Port Douglas to spend the night because we have to be at the marina for 8am. 

Salty

It has been so hot and humid lately that Willy doesn’t even turn on the hot water in the shower anymore. We headed to Hartley’s Crocodile Adventures for a day of fun. We went to Harley's Crocodile Adventures for some fun. The first show of the day was a Saltwater (Estuarine) Crocodile feeding. We arrived at the enclosure a few minutes early and could see the crocodiles start to stir as more people started to show up. They knew what time it was. They were just inches below the water but you could barely see them - guess that's why you're supposed to stay away from the water's edge even if you don't see any in the wild. Interestingly enough, the ranger said that almost 80% of Salties actually live in freshwater, so their name is a little misleading. The ranger teased the crocs a bit with food so we could hear how loud their "chomp" really was and then fed them fish and chicken (whole). There was a massive croc who was definately the dominant male of the group and towards the end of the show, he saw something going on between two other crocs at the other end of the pond. He quickly turned and swam across to keep the other crocs in line.

Hartley's has made their own 5 acre lagoon for more crocs, so we were able to get a boat tour around the lagoon. It was cool to see the crocs so active in their environement. The ranger fed the crocs by a pole, making them jump nearly the entire length of their body. Next was a tour of the croc farm and we got to touch some of the year old crocs. The last show was a crocodile attack show where they demonstrated the "Death roll" and "head shake" highlighting their agressive nature and importance of croc safety. On the way out we saw some lazy Koalas airing out their armpits because they were so hot. It was a fun day and we would recommend it to anyone. 
We headed back to Cairns to play some tennis at the caravan park - we were so bad that I'm pretty sure the tennis gods made it start raining so we would stop, but it was fun trying. We made homemade woodfire pizzas on our bbq with chicken, bacon, mushrooms, pumpkin, sun-dried tomatoes, onion, basil and feta to cap off the night. Later that night the security guard told us a story of exactly what we were just educated NOT to do. The highlights of his story included being ambushed by a croc while fishing, smacked it with a water cooler, and then held it up to show off to his buddy to get a picture, all with his 8 year old daughter watching. He’s not allowed to take his daughter fishing anymore.

George Of The Jungle

This morning we had the option to rent kayaks for the day, but when we read that crocodile’s were sighted daily at Myall Beach and to stay away from the water’s edge we thought it would be a good idea to avoid the tiny plastic kayak and we signed up for Jungle Surfing instead. We thought it would be a good way to get a bird’s eye view of the oldest rainforest in the world by zip lining from tree to tree. There were some great views from the platforms and it was spectacular to see the rainforest meet the reef. It’s the only place in the world where two world heritage listed areas meet – the Daintree Rainforest and the Great Barrier Reef. It was another beautiful day, and apparently this is the driest wet season this area has seen in years. The zip lining was really fun and by the last platform we were literally upside down going from tree to tree. 

After our head rushes were gone from being upside down, we went on 3 walks through the Cape Tribulation section of the Daintree National Park. We didn’t walk anywhere near the water’s edge in fear of being eaten by a crocodile. During the Dubuji walk we saw 2 more cassowaries with an older baby that didn’t have his black color yet. We didn’t stay for too long because we didn’t have the car to protect us this time, but they were very admirable to watch. We also saw two snakes, Ulysses butterflies and a giant stick bug. At first it looked like a dead leaf, until I saw its head. It was probably a foot long, not exaggerating! After a full 24 hours in Cape Tribulation (the farthest North we will get on our trip), it was time to start making our way back down. We stopped into Port Douglas and walked around the main road and shops. 

There was a nice lookout but it was very windy. We are probably going to come back here in a few days to go on a day tour for one last Great Barrier Reef experience. Unfortunately, there was a bad car accident on the coastal highway we were on, so traffic was stopped for about 35 minutes, but we bumped into a friend we had met on our boat tour and chatted with him for a while. We pulled over for the night at Ellis beach and set up our tent with an ocean view. 

Wet Season

Last night we fully experienced the true meaning of the “wet season” in Far North Queensland. The rain woke us up in the middle of night and was coming down in buckets. This amount of rain proved to be too much for our trusty tent, and for the first time on our trip it began to leak. Luckily, when we woke up it was sunny again so we were able to dry most of our stuff.
We leisurely drove the scenic coastal route on Captain Cook Highway to the Mossman Gorge section of the Daintree National Park. We walked the 3.5km rainforest circuit track and found a giant standing strangler fig tree. The fig tree is unique because it grows from the sky down. The seed is dropped by other animals at the top of a host tree. The roots spiral down to the ground and end up killing the host tree, eventually leaving it hollow inside. We continued down the highway until we got to a river and needed to take the ferry across.  On the other side was the last stretch of paved road into Cape Tribulation (to go any further you need a 4WD). The winding road had lots of speed bumps to prevent drivers from hitting any of the endangered Cassowaries that live up here. 
There are only about 1500 left in the wild, so when Willy saw a big black bird in the distance on the road, we were pretty excited and whipped out our camera. It was a Cassowary and it even had a baby with it. Interestingly enough, we learned that it was probably a male that we saw, because after the female lays her eggs, she takes off to look for another mate while the male stays back with the eggs. It was definitely as big as described, and I’m glad we were in the car when we encountered them. We stopped at Mount Alexandra for a lookout over the Daintree River, Cape Kimberly and Snapper Island. We set up camp early tonight at the Cape Tribulation campground and made ourselves a great BBQ chicken skewer feast.  

Milestone

Mission beach is a neat little area of 4 towns linked closely together with a great atmosphere. Unfortunately for us, there was an endless grey sky full of rain in the forecast, which was expected because this is one of the highest rainfall areas in Australia (with a record of 7.9 metres in one year), so we decided to leave the area and head up the coast to Cairns. On the way we stopped at Wooroonooran National Park to see the Babinda Boulders. These massive granite boulders have been cut and shaped by the fast flowing water. It’s a beautiful area but extremely dangerous as there were plenty of warning signs not to enter the water and that many lives have been claimed here. We started a walk nearby through the rainforest, but we didn’t know much about the walk and there were no signs posting how long it was or where it went to. We decided to turn around and later discovered it was a 17km walk (one way) that went nowhere. 

Hooray! We made it to Cairns today. It feels like the first major milestone of our trip as we’re almost finished exploring the East coast. From here we need to plan out a few day trips North of Cairns and one more dive on the Great Barrier Reef before heading into the red centre.  So much to see, and so little time! The reason we are starting to stress about time is because we have been informed by a few locals not to take certain roads on the next leg of our journey due to the unpredictability of the roads during the wet season. This is actually going to force us to back track quite a bit now, and our next destination isn't for 2400km! We also met a tour guide who referred to this stretch of road as “a graveyard for backpacker vans”. We will be sure to let some people know where we plan to be day to day, because if something happens we are supposed to stay with the car no matter how tempting it may be to leave it.  We spent the day relaxing in Cairns, had some nachos and drinks on the pier and wandered along the esplanade. Tonight, we’re staying at a BIG4 Caravan Park that has 2 giant jumping pillows, mini golf, beach volleyball courts, tennis courts, 2 swimming pools, table tennis, outdoor big screen, giant chess board and tether ball, so we got to act like big little kids and play until dark.

Big Bird

Somehow Willy managed to get me out of bed at 5:30am, pack up the tent in the dark, and get on a bus to catch the first ferry back this morning. At first I thought he was crazy, but then remembered we used to wake up at that time every other day for swim practice. After grabbing some much needed coffees, we left Townsville and headed about 60km north to Paluma Range National Park and came across Paradise Lagoon at Big Crystal Creek. 

The water was so clear that we ended up jumping in and cooling off in the freshwater. There was a little boy there with his dad jumping off the rocks into the water probably about 3 meters high, and the boy was a great little swimmer and completely fearless. I asked the dad how old he was, turns out the kid was only 3 – very impressive. Curiosity got the best of us when we saw another sign pointing to the “rock slides”. A short walk through the bush revealed a series of waterfalls and swimming holes that were connected by slippery rocks. It was extremely fun to slide right into them and was an efficient way to enter the water. Back on the road, we stopped at Frosty Mango and tried some apple cashew gelato (great morning snack). We took a 50km detour (which took forever because we had to keep stopping for all the Brahmas on the road) to the top of Mount Fox in Girringun National Park.  At the top was Wallaman Falls, which are the tallest falls in Australia dropping 305 metres. There is a crazy walk down the bottom that takes over 3 hours and it’s only 1.6km, but it’s incredibly steep.

Unfortunately, it was closed due to a landslide – was probably meant to be that we weren’t able to do it. On the way back down, we passed a sign that let us know we’re now officially in crocodile country. The warning signs now appear near most creeks, rivers and beach fronts. Not only are there crocodile warning signs, but there are plenty of Cassowary road signs. The Cassowary is a huge bird with a freaking horn on its head and massive claws for feet. It kind of looks like a dinosaur. Apparently it can be a very aggressive bird, but we haven’t actually seen one in the wild yet. On top of the crocodiles and cassowaries, we still need to be on the lookout for deadly jellies, sharks, snakes and spiders that inhabit this beautiful area. Tonight we’re camping at Mission beach just under 200km south of Cairns.