Townsville (for Feb. 25)

We had a couple of light rain showers yesterday evening and at least one heavy shower overnight. This morning we had overcast skies with pretty steady precipitation, varying from drizzle to moderate rain, until 150 km out. From there it got more and more sunny until it was almost clear when we arrived in Townsville, 400 km from our starting point.

The terrain was quite flat all day, but there were always a few low mountains/high hills nearby. They are rarely in ranges, like we are used to in the Rockies, but usually stand alone or in clusters of a handful or so. I suspect they might be volcano remnants like the Glass Mountains that we passed a few days ago.

The main crop north of Mackay was sugar cane until about the same place as the rain stopped at 150 km out. From there it was mostly cattle grazing in scrub forest and open meadows until about 100 km south of Townsville when we ran into mostly sugar cane again. Another common crop was mango orchards.


We stopped for a picnic lunch in Bowen. There we observed our first ‘stinger net’. We are now into the area where jelly fish are common from October to April. Contact with one can cause a pretty severe burn-like injury and even death in the worst cases. Some beaches have a net that is supposed to protect part of the beach for swimmers.


One other interesting discovery was of another variety of fig tree that sends runners down to the ground that develop into supplementary trunks.










They say they also grow watermelons and rockmelons around here. (If a rockmelon isn’t the same as a cantaloupe, it is pretty darn close.) We saw a watermelon in a roadside produce store that was more than 2 feet long! It could feed an army.

In Townsville, we drove to the top of Castle Hill in the center of town. What a view! From there we went down to ‘The Strand,’ a park along the beach. It was one of the nicest such parks we have seen.


The beach was closed due to stingers, but there were two pools along the strand, at least one of which was saltwater. There was also a great water park for kids, including a huge bucket that filled until it tipped and dumped a torrent of water on the kids below. Another great feature was a number of free built-in gas barbecues.

Mackay (for Feb. 24)

The battery started to crap out last night while Celeste was adding her thoughts, so we had to shut down. We finally got the call about 11:30. It was group two, but so many people had left that they took some of the early people from group 3. We were numbers 20 and 21, so that indicates how many had left.

Out on the beach it was pitch black. It turns out that they had become desperate waiting for a second nest, so they took us to the first nest where two researchers were digging out the nest to gather data. They found that 107 of 139 eggs had hatched, about 75%. This is about normal for an average nest in an average year, but, due to unusual heat this year, they had been averaging around 20%. They dug out 5 hatchings that hadn’t made it out, so they showed them around before giving them a second chance at life. For little guys not much bigger than a toonie it was amazing how much strength they had in their little flippers.

The next step was to help the hatchlings get to the water. They must make the walk to the shore by themselves because it enables them to imprint the location to return to and lay their own eggs in about 30 years. They are drawn to the light of the moon and stars on the water. To assist them, the rangers made everyone, except a chosen few, line up on either side of a corridor to the water. The remaining people stood in a line in the corridor, front to back about 6-8 feet apart, facing inland, and shining flashlights inland. Then they released the rescued turtles to make their way to the water. It was not the exciting spectacle we had hoped for of a hundred turtles digging themselves out and swarming to the beach, but it was a decent consolation prize. It was poignant that these little creatures that otherwise wouldn’t have survived had a chance, however small, to return and lay their own eggs in 30 years.

We got back to the car about 12:30 and to the hotel about 1.

This morning we were both up early and couldn’t go back to sleep, so we thought we would get an early start. It will be tough driving this afternoon, but there is no point laying awake for 2 or 3 hours. I fleshed out yesterday’s blog and started today’s and tried to send some email. I am not sure how successfully. I had a problem with passwords. We both took the opportunity to splash around in the Jacuzzi. Other than that, our upgraded accommodations were pretty much wasted.

We finally got out of town at 10 and pulled into our new place almost 700 km later at 6. We grabbed some KFC and went to a grocery store to pick up some camera batteries (my rechargeable ones seem to be crapping out on me) and replace the toiletries I left behind in Hervey Bay. I set them down while we had a little planning session. We got a little bit out of routine and walked out the door without picking them up or doing a last minute walk around.

The drive toady was pretty easy, although my eyelids were pretty heavy just before lunch and again a little while after. The road was good two lane highway gradually winding back and forth with light traffic. The terrain was flat to gently rolling all day, although there were higher hills nearby all day.

As we left Bundaberg heading inland, sugar cane was the dominant crop with a few orchards and some lower growing crops I couldn’t identify from the road at 100 kmph. They say that they grow snow peas and tomatoes here too. After about half an hour we turned north and remained inland all day until we hit the coast again at Mackay. As we headed north, the surroundings varied from fairly heavy scrub forest to grazing land almost bare of trees as it got drier. Cattle grazing was the main activity, especially around Rockhampton, although I saw a couple of banana plantations and tree farms. It kept getting drier until about 100 km out of Mackay when the grass began getting greener and the trees more plentiful again. We began to see a few sugar cane fields and, before long, they were everywhere, which could explain why Mackay is a major sugar refining centre.

Ever since Sydney we have been noticing a pretty consistent weather pattern that is growing stronger as we progress north. Almost every day begins with varying amounts of cloud that mostly burns off by late morning and rebuilds during the day into afternoon or evening thunder showers. This is their summer and the rainy season for the tropical northern areas. I hope we can stay lucky with the weather.

Bundaberg (for Feb. 23)

On our Fraser Island tour yesterday, we spoke with a couple who had watched a nest of turtles hatch at nearby Bundaberg a few days previously. They were quite enthralled with the experience, so we thought we might give it a try. The fly in the ointment is that it is less than two hours away, but burns a whole day for us because they emerge in the evening. And, unlike the penguins, which you know will show up eventually, there is no assurance that any nest will emerge on any particular night. Last night I burned some midnight oil figuring out whether we could fit it in with all the remaining activities in the few days left to us. The conclusion was that we would go there, see what the track record had been over the last few days, and make our decision then. It helped that they also had a rum distillery to tour and that the hotel there had wireless internet so we could catch up on our communications.

On the way there, we drove through some open, but well-treed grazing land, but the biggest agricultural crop was sugar cane. Especially on the more open, flatter land around Bundaberg, it was sugar cane everywhere, much like Saskatchewan used to have wheat as far as the eye could see.


In Bundaberg, we checked at tourist info where they said they had had 8, 4, and 2 hatchings on the last three nights. We decided to chance it, bought our tickets, and headed for the hotel. They didn’t have any rooms left in the category of our vouchers, so we paid a little extra for an upgrade. We ended up with a full kitchen and sitting area with the bedroom in a second storey loft, and a great view of the river (and the sugar factory and rum distillery – but, hey, no view is perfect). There is a TV for each floor, although you couldn’t play them both at the same time anyway. It also has a Jacuzzi tub.


We had a quick bite to eat and headed for the rum tour. Celeste had noticed a coupon for ‘buy one get one free’ in the local tourism guide. For $10 AU we got a tour and two free drinks each. We were tempted to find another guide and go back for another tour, but we went to the tropical fruit wine tasting instead. It was less satisfactory than the rum.

Bundaberg Rum is Australia’s favourite rum by far. I think I heard somewhere around 50-70% of the rum market. The tour guides had quite an entertaining comedy routine going. They took us through a molasses storage well holding 5 million litres. It smelled like baking Celeste’s gingerbread cookies with extra molasses. Mmmmm, good. The storage area where the rum cures for two years in giant oak casks smelled like a distillery. Mmmmm, good. The bottling line was surprisingly small, about one quarter the size of the one we saw in Cuba, but I am sure it had much more capacity, as it was totally automated. It wasn’t working today for some reason, so it was difficult to form an impression. The most surprising thing was that the whole facility only employs 58 people – 16 in promotions to run the tours, bar, and store; 10 in management; and only 32 in operations.

Back at the hotel, I fiddled with the wireless internet for a while before finally concluding I could only get it in the lobby where I had to run on battery power. Finally connected, we downloaded our email and posted the story of our last few days.

At 5:30 we rushed out to get a bite to eat and then head to the turtle rookery. In our haste, we both left our cameras behind! Bummer! They split people into manageable groups based on when they booked their tour, and then take the groups out one at a time as the park rangers observe nests coming to life. We are in group 3, having only booked this morning. Others may have booked days or weeks in advance. They said that last night the first hatch was at 8:15 with a second at 9:15. Tonight they called the first group at 9:45. It doesn’t look too encouraging. They have a good interpretive centre, a ranger gave a good talk, and they are showing slide shows and videos, so at least there is something going on. Fortunately, I brought the laptop along for just such an eventuality. So far, I have done a little accounting, read the email I downloaded, and written today’s blog. I wonder how much battery I have remaining?

Hervey Bay/Fraser Island (for Feb. 22)

Today we did a one day Fraser Island tour. It is one of those “must do” when visiting Australia activities. This island is the largest sand island in the world at 123 km long and 23 km wide and is a World Heritage Site.



The tour bus picked us up outside our hotel at 8, made a few more stops, and took us to the ferry. We arrived on the island an hour later at 9:30 and boarded a special 4WD bus. Off we went on roads barely wider than the bus in sand almost as fine as talcum powder with deep ruts in many places. We landed on the western shore and had to cross the island for many of our activities.

The first stop was in a section of rainforest where the driver kicked us out and made us walk for a km. Along the way, some of the major tree species (which the driver had previously pointed out) were labeled for our closer examination and we soaked up the atmosphere of being in a rainforest. I am going to go into a little detail about it for posterity, so, if you are not interested in trees, you can skip ahead.

One of the prized species of past generations was the Kauri Pine, which was prized for masts for sailing ships because it grew so tall and straight. We had previously heard about this tree in New Zealand where Kauri were harvested almost to extinction.


A common species is the Brush Box, which apparently is used to produce beautiful flooring.



Satinay belongs to the turpentine family (I didn’t know there was one.). It is very useful in building piers and jetties as it is very resistant to salt water and sea creatures don’t like to eat it. It has very rough bark with deep grooves.















But the most interesting is the Single-leaved Fig, a parasite that preys particularly on the Brush Box. Our driver called it the Strangling Fig. It begins life as a seed deposited in the upper branches of another tree by a bird. If conditions are right, it sprouts and sends a runner to the ground. It takes root there, but also attaches itself to the host tree. Eventually it kills the host, which rots away, leaving a hollow column of fig, which has now established its own root system in the ground.


Now, on to more interesting stuff. I hope! Our next destination was a resort where we were to have lunch. Only 400 metres from our goal, we were halted by a broken down private 4WD. (These are allowed if they pay the fees and stick to the roads and beach.) The accelerator was stuck in the full open position. It was impossible to get around him to give him a tow. Fortunately, our driver had radio communication and was able to radio the resort to send out a truck to tow him in ahead of us. Within about 15 minutes we were back underway and soon we were dining on a nice buffet lunch.


From lunch we headed out onto the beach on the east coast of the island. First stop was the rusting hulk of the Maheno. It was built as a 400 foot long luxury liner about 1905 and used as a cruise ship in Australian waters. (It even cruised to Vancouver a couple of times.) In 1935 it was being towed to Europe as scrap when the tow line broke in a storm and it washed ashore here. It is now half buried in sand. It is amazing how the sea has eaten away the exposed steel over the decades. It is all rotten.


Next stop was The Pinnacles, a cliff of compacted, coloured sand (not sandstone).


Our last stop on the east coast was at Eli Creek, one of many creeks where the fresh water from the island’s interior makes its way back to the sea. After being filtered by all that sand, it is crystal clear. It is a very popular place to cool off for everyone passing by. They also have a boardwalk along the creek for 100 metres or so into the bush.


From the creek we returned to the resort to pick up a road to an interior lake, Lake Garawongera. (How do you get lakes in sand, you ask? Well, over time, the litter from tree bark and leaves accumulates in hollows and forms enough peat that it slows the seeping through the sand.) It was OK, but a bit if a disappointment compared to what we had come to expect. It was quite small and shallow with a mostly weedy bottom and a lot of grass on the beach. It was very warm though. Our driver speculated that it would be around 26 degrees. A rain shower passed by as we were getting into the water and, after the cold rain and a bit of a breeze, submerging in the lake was like getting into a bathtub.

On the way back to the ferry, our path was blocked by a fallen tree. It was a straight trunk about 50 feet long varying from about a 6 inch diameter at the bottom to a 3 inch diameter at the top and topped by a few branches. The driver, two other guys, and I tried to slide it out of our way to one side, but it was jammed between other trees and we could only move it part of the way. The driver retreated to the bus and returned with an axe. With about 6 chops he cut through a 4 inch diameter section and we were on our way. Either that wood is pretty soft or he is a heck of a woodsman. He was a pretty interesting guy. He spent much of his youth on the island and you could tell he really loved the place. He was filled with stories of its history and knowledge of its flora and fauna.

We were back at the ferry at 5, back on the mainland by 6 and back at our hotel at 6:30.

Hervey Bay (for Feb. 21)

First light this morning was about 4:45 with sunrise at 5:15 when everyone is sleeping. But it is pitch dark at 7 PM. Go figure.


Today we visited Steve “Crocodile Hunter” Irwin’s Australia Zoo, arriving about 11 and staying until 4:30. The guy is a bit of a loon and we thought it bordered on tacky to visit his facility, but he has a very impressive operation going down here. The huge infrastructure and gazillions of staff explains the steep ticket price. Of course, you would expect the crocodile show to be the highlight, but there was much, much more. There is a good sized stadium facility (I would guess it seats 2,000 to 3,000 people) where they did a snake show, a tiger show, a free flying birds show, and, of course, a crocodile show. After that we wandered the park, where there were additional shows or interpretive talks at each of several animal compounds, including camels, foxes, koalas, and, once again, crocodiles. They also have many other animals, including two large compounds of free roaming kangaroos.


As interesting as the crocs were, the highlight for me was our visit to the Tiger Temple where the keepers were playing with the tigers while one of them gave a commentary. The rapport the keepers had with these dangerous animals was pretty impressive. They had them wrestling, chasing toys, and jumping in a pool. Throughout the park and in every interpretive talk or demonstration, the message was consistent – animals in the wild are under great pressure and we must take action to protect them if we don’t want them to disappear.

Another interesting specimen was the cassowary. It is like an emu, but with more colourful plumage. I had never heard of this bird until we saw a display at the Brisbane Museum about how endangered it is.



We had bypassed the Glass Mountains on our way to the zoo because we wanted to catch the shows, so we backtracked from the zoo. These nine mountains are volcanic plugs that remain after the mountain around them has eroded. The most interesting were fairly narrow spires with very steep sides. Unfortunately, by the time we got to the lookout, the light was not very good, so it was hard to appreciate them. By the time we were back on the road, it was 5:30.

We arrived in Hervey Bay at 8 and were settled in our hotel before 8:30. As described yesterday, it is pitch dark here by 7 PM. Our late start from the mountains forced us to drive narrow, winding roads in the dark at highway speed for the last hour with mostly large trucks for company. It sure focuses your concentration.

We still hadn’t eaten supper, so we went back to a grocery store we had passed a couple of blocks back. We walked in at 8:55 and were warned that they were closing at 9. What a great time to go shopping! Celeste picked up a pack of 8 hot cross buns for 50 cents. As we were walking by the meat counter, a young clerk offered us a whole barbecued chicken for $5, regularly $9.95. The other lad behind the counter marked it down another dollar! This could become habit forming.

The terrain today was hilly with quite a bit of agriculture. The area between Brisbane and the zoo had a lot of pineapple and orchards. After that it gave way to mostly cattle grazing.

Clear Mountain (Feb. 20)

This morning we went to the Botanic Garden at the foot of Mount Coot-tha (more of a hill really). The gardens were quite extensive with good variety. Celeste really enjoyed the Bonsai House, which had more than 60 bonsai plants, and the Japanese Garden, although it was not as spectacular as the much larger Chinese Garden in Sydney. I really liked the arid plant display of cacti and other succulents. We had lunch there, and then took the tourist drive up and around the mountain, stopping at the lookout for some pictures. We noted four TV station towers up there.


From the mountain, we went to the Queensland Museum. It was less extensive than some we have seen, but good in its specialty areas. They had a Queensland section about some of their specific issues and promoting things tourists should see. They had a good section on turtles and crocodiles and another on endangered birds and animals. They had a huge collection of artifacts and stuffed birds, animals, and fish that were displayed in cabinets rather than coordinated dioramas. Too bad. There is a lot of potential there. They did have a good kangaroo diorama and an interesting display of humpback whales hanging from the ceiling.




We emerged from the museum at 5 just in time to battle rush hour traffic while we tried to find our way out of downtown. It took a while to find the right route and to get out of the main crush, but things moved pretty well after that. Our hotel was a little further out of the way than we thought. It is about 15 km off the main road. The map in the hotel guide book wasn’t too detailed, so we thought we must have missed our turn. Just then, there it was. We continued into the countryside and up a mountain road that Tony Jones would love to a scenic and secluded site. The hotel is a little worn, but OK overall. We had hoped to stay another night at our previous place, but they were full for tonight. First time we have run into that.

It is noticeably cooler up here. Today was warm, but not as warm as yesterday and there was broken cloud most of the day, so we had some breaks from the sun. In the Botanic Garden we could duck into some shade and, of course, the museum was air conditioned. We had a good rain shower late in the evening.

Canadiana, eh?

While waiting for the animal shows at the Zoo, the MC warming up the crowd asked for volunteers to do an imitation of Steve Irwin (the Aussie who wrestles crocodiles and whose pet phrase is ‘Crikey’). A young Canadian named Matthew volunteered. His imitation was ‘Crikey, eh’. The MC got the Canadian reference and laughed. Cute kid, eh?

Also met a Canadian girl on the tour bus today – she’s from Vancouver and had been working and touring around Australia for the last nine months. She had been sorting bananas and said it was the hardest job she ever had – hard work but good money.

Frog Visitor

We had a little frog visitor in our room last night (no, not a Frenchman, an amphibian). It was bright green with orange feet and about two inches long. It climbed up the bathroom wall and then leapt into the shower stall. We tried to take a picture but the batteries in the camera were dead. It was gone this morning – don’t know how it got in or out. Mysterious.

Brisbane (for Feb. 19)

We gained an hour as we crossed the border from New South Wales to Queensland, which seems odd, because intuitively, you should be in the same time zone if you are traveling south/north. Anyway, we had free internet and an extra hour of time, so we used it to catch up on blogging and finances. Celeste also tried to call the kids on Skype, but was only able to get hold of Darren. We could here him fine, but he could not hear us well, so they did some instant messaging instead of talking.

With all the interneting, we only got out of the hotel at 10, despite the gain of the extra hour. We headed to the beach, just one block away, and took a looong beach walk. Being a Sunday, there were lots of people, but because the beach is miles long, it was not at all crowded. People were concentrated around the patrolled areas marked by flags, although there were some people everywhere up and down the beach. The patrolled areas are about 50 metres wide and marked by red and yellow flags. I am not sure if it is the same everywhere, but, apparently, at Bondi Beach in Sydney, paid lifeguards work the weekdays and volunteers work the weekends. The volunteers belong to beach rescue clubs, complete with club houses comparable to a Victoria Club type operation. They are highly trained and it is a big status symbol to belong. At the beach in Brisbane, there was a patrolled beach about every half mile.

It was a pretty hot, humid, and sunny day, but quite comfortable on the beach with the ocean breeze. Away from the beach, the heat was pretty oppressive, so after our walk we retreated to a mall to pick up some groceries. As malls go, it was pretty interesting. In addition to the very large, two stories high, and fairly conventional main mall, there was a surrounding shopping area that was laid out in narrow streets that bent back and forth, giving it the feel of shopping in an old European town.

With groceries in hand, we went back to a park near the beach for a picnic and finally hit the road for Brisbane at 3, arriving in our hotel at 4:30. It was so warm (34 degrees) and humid that, I am embarrassed to admit, we hid out in our hotel room and watched a movie on TV. At about 6:30 we went out for a walk. It was still 29 and humid, so Celeste was still suffering. But, get this. It was already getting dark. By 7 it was totally dark with just a hint of light on the horizon. How weird is that? Somebody should explain to these people about Daylight Saving Time.