Finally we arrived in Australia and what a way to arrive, by cruise ship. We had cruised for 44 days on Radiance of the Seas and were looking forward to having what we thought would be 3 months with out feet firmly on the ground but, as it happened, that was not quite the case...
We had so many friends and family to visit and we were so excited.
Here you see our early adventures but nothing quite prepared for some of the experiences in our photographs and videos you are about to see. We encountered rare animals during this trip, in the wild, in their natural habitat and not in captivity. We feel so privileged, it was such an amazing place.
After spending some time in Sydney and the surrounding area we flew North to Cairns to explore other places. We first concentrated on the Far North Queensland coastline from Port Douglas then on up to The Daintree rain forest and Cape tribulation before making our way south.
We were stunned by the diversity Australia has to offer. We headed South from Cairns in our hire car, passing through Kuranda National Park with it's famous railway and cablecar. We then drove through the Undara National Park, visited the lava tubes and then continued on our way to the Atherton tablelands and numerous National Parks.
The Atherton tablelandsis part of the Great Dividing Range in Queensland, Australia. The Tablelands is a diverse region, covering an area of 64,768 square kilometres and the principal river is the Barron River. The area is easily accessible to all with an abundance of waterfalls, natural wonders and even some of the rarest birds in the world.
but where to next... We had booked a room in Townsville as it was a logical place to stop on the drive down the coast. After checking out the ferry trips that could be taken from there we stumbled across an island just a few miles off the coast known as Magnetic Island. There we got to see our first rock wallaby and a very sleepy koala.
Time to visit the Great Barrier reef and Whitsunday Islands National Park
We had waited years to visit Australia and this area and we were not disappointed...
As we drove South we had another Parkrun to complete. We had also met a couple on our cruise who had moved to Australia from the UK some years ago. Phil & Margaret at Gladstone and they kindly invited us to stay at their house on our way through.
One night at Hervey Bay but sadly we were two weeks too late to see the migrating whales resting in the bay. Our next stop was the great sandy straits and Rainbow beach
Moving on toward Noosa to meet some other friends we also met on the cruise from Vancouver, Alan and Christine
As we headed to Brisbane, we escaped the forest fires. We drove straight through one bush fire, no more than 20 metres away and it was one of the scariest moments of the trip. The fire appeared uncontrollable but we were through, safe and continuing on to the sunshine coast.
As Saturday arrived a plan had been made for another Parkrun at North Lakes. This was convenient as we are registered with Trusted House Sitters so had arranged a sit for 2 nights at Mango Hill where we looked after 2 cats and a small dog called 'Mini'.
Back on the road to Brisbane then on to meet more friends who we had met on the cruise ship, Bill and Jean.
After staying with Bill and Jean we headed for Coolangatta and Tweed Heads. At snapper rocks you can stand across two timelines, Queensland to the north and New South Wales to the south, which are an hour apart. Having coped well with our time travel we moved on to Byron Bay, Australia's most Easterly, point before stopping at Coff's Harbour and Port Macquarie on our way back to Sydney.
Such a fantastic trip but very tiring and trying. The temperature was over 35 deg and driving a car from the North East to Sydney was at sometimes testing. We took stock and thought about the next 6 weeks as we still needed to do the South West and around to Adelaide and the Great ocean road. Whilst staying with friends on the Gold coast we had been made aware of some cruising websites that offered good discounts. We looked at one specifically that covered the South west corner, Melbourne, Tasmania and Kangaroo island. We calculated that it was more cost effective to do the cruise than to go to Alice Springs and Ayre's Rock or Uluru. We would cover more ground, get to see some different places and have all our food and accommodation sorted for us. We booked 15 days with Holland America on the mid sized ship the MS Noordam once again combining our adventure both on land and sea. We booked the next 15 day trip whilst on board that went to Papua New Guinea, Conflict islands and a number of other stops that we were not originally planning and we were pleased we did. The conflict Islands and Kitava provided us with some of the most amazing snorkelling with beautiful coral and tropical fish that surpassed anything we saw on the Great Barrier Reef.