So we havent updated the blog for 2 weeks now, 1) because internet cafes are not as abundant here, because i guess, people have it at home and unless your in a tourist place, there is no need for it. 2) When you do find it, it is soo expensive so we have to quickly use it and as it takes hours to write our blog and load our pictures online, it would be costing us about 10 pounds a time. 3) we have been staying in free camps as much as we can, i.e layby type areas, where there nothing more than a toilet, if your lucky. However.....after 2 weeks of getting frustrated that we cant blog and we also cant skype home, we have sucumed to the urge to purchase a netbook laptop. Till now, we have been the only backpackers without one, and now that we are out of South America ande the worry that it may get half inched, we have brought one. So tonight i am writing the last 2 weeks worth of our diary in the comfort of our campervan. Tom is sitting outside, barbequing our snags (sausages) anour kangaroo kebabs. We have managed to skype Toms family and given them the grand tour of our mobile palace and tommorow i will do the same. As you may tell, we are a bit excited about our new toy. So enough of that, the last 2 weeks, well we have had our van. We have had our freedom and we have explored...it has been amazing!
Monday
After our last blog, we went to the book exchange where a very unhelpful man tried to buy our new books for 50p each, we told him a big no way and went. As we were standing at the bus stop deciding whether to have another Subway lunch, we saw none other than Liss and Andy walking to their hotel. Now as we said before, Liss is a friend from work who has travelled to Oz to meet Andy who has been living here for a few months, on Saturday we had a beer with Andy, today we walk into them both in the street, very bizare but lovely to see a familiar face from home. Liss told me how she had seen Nic (my best friend) before she came out, and i booed at the thought. We are missing home and people now. After aranging to catch up again soon, we headed to get our camper. We boarded the same bus with the sam ebus driver who didnt take very well to our 'we arent stalking you' comment, no sense of humour here! Our camper is brilliant. We are fully equipped with a sink, fridge, microwave, brilliant. Once we paid our extortionate security bond, we were on our way, very carefully, and we got that Subway enroute. It was late afternoon by the time we had collected the van so we headed straight for Kmart and Coles. We stocked up on bedding and food for the week. We couldnt find a little bbq so we decided to see what we found enroute. We didnt get too far out of Cairns tonight and stayed at Ellis Beach. It was expensive but it was beautiful. Our pitch was 2m from the beach and we arrived in time to watch the sunset. We cooked Thai noodles and arranged our van so that everything had a place. First nights sleep, suprisingly comfortable.
We woke on Tuesday and Tom made us omlettes. We filled our van with water and went on our way up the coast road towards Cape Tribulation. The scenery en route is some of the best we have seen and our first real feel of the coast and the ocean. The drive to Daintree is about 2 hours and it takes yoru right into Daintree town which is tiny. We drove around it in minutes and decided that the needed to move on so headed back down to catch the ferry over the Daintree river to the Cape Tribulation area. Here is where, they say, the Reef meets the Rainforest and its so true. One side of the road you have dense rainforest and the other you see the sea and the beach. When we got to the ferry port, we obviously hadnt thought ahead and had no cash. The charge was $20 to get across, we asked if we could pay by card, we couldnt, so she told us to head back to the Crossroads cafe where they would 'give us money'. Now we know this place can be freindly, but giving out free money seemed unreal. Looking back now, it seems more unreal that we thought for the time, that they would actually give us money, it must be the heat. It turned out that they can give you cash back, which they thankfully did. So we crossed the river on the ferry, which was similar to the one in Sandbanks and armed with our map, went to explore the area. We stopped first at Jindalba where we did a 1km boardwalk and stopped for lunch. There are boardwalks everywhere which are raised platforms round the rainforest and keep you away from the creepy crawlies...well a bit further away. We did get stopped from going to one viewpoint by a giant spider sitting on the path. Tom stayed to take a picture, i backed up and ran. After our walk we carried on north and stopped at Thorntons beach where you can walk down it to the mouth of Cooper Creek. There was hardly a soul here, it looks like a beach from a trpoical island.Heres where you can see esturine crocs. We went croc spotting but saw none, just loads of sand crabs rollign their sand balls around. Tom had a game of chase with one but unfurtunatly the crab got confused and ran at Tom rather than away, he got a few broken pincers and Tom felt a bit bad for squishing him, oh dear, I suppose thats what you get for playing with the big boys. We travelled further up till we reached Cape Tribulation. Again, it was out of this world, but maybe not to the extent that some of the other beaches we had seen were. Once we had walked it we carried on to find a camp for the night and stopped at Cape Trib camping. Here we found giant, yes giant cockroaches. We took a pic. They were everywhere, you get used to them though. We had a fab spag bol cooked by Tom, a few beers and bed.
Wednesday morning we walked to the beach that the campsite is on. Again, another spectacular beach. We found people swimming in the sea, which is a bit daft given that the sea is currently over run with jellyfish and we saw fishermen and their catch. We carried on down as we were now heading out of cape Tribulation. We walked another boardwalk. We saw more wildlife than we had seen in the Amazon, minus the monkeys. A giant monitor lizard jumped out of our way as we were walking, lizards, geckos and turkeys were everywhere, and as we were getting out of the walk, we saw a giant cobweb...with a giant red back spider sitting in the middle. Argh! Tom stopped and took a pic while shouting 'Carol run run runnnnn'. I ducked down (thinking that they couldnt see me if i was low, nerd!) and ran screaming to Tomto stop takign bloody pictures and run! These things are deadly dangerous and not something we want to be around, or biten by. Eaw. Once i dragged Tom away we carried on, stopping at more stunning beaches. Once over the ferry we drive through to Mossman where we continued our search for a bbq. It just wouldnt be right being in Oz without one and we needed one. We could only find the giant gas flamed barbies which would take up our van in size so I thought that we could improvise...We found a 's*** shop' i.e a poundstretcher esk place where we brought some foil pans and a metal grill for 5 pounds. The plan was to fill the foil pan with charcoal and cook on the grill, genius. Tom didnt look convinced but humoured me and brought it all anyway. Next stop on our list of things to see was Mossman Gorge. We drove through an aboriginal community before arriving at the gorge. Once there we found people swimming in the river that ran through it, so I stripped off (to vest and pants!) and jumped in, well kind of wimped my way in, it was still nice. Tom had swim envy as he cant get in the water for another week becasue of his tattoo so I didnt stay in long. After drying off (which takes approximately 3 minutes in this tropical heat) we went to Port Douglas where we were plannign on staying for the night. En route, we stopped at a Woolworths to buy some charcoal for our homemade bbq, only to get in there and find the perfect mini marshan type bbq for $30. Perfect! So we had him. Very content with our new bbq we found a wicked backpackers with campervan sites called Dougies. Now Port Douglas is 'Australias Freindlist Town 2007' so we were expecting a lot. When we got to Dougies, the guy on reception proved it. If you imagine a crocodile dundee type fellow, with long blond hair, this was him. With the stongest australian accent he told us when checking in, not to swim in the sea becasue of the stingers. Me being intregued asked, what kind of stingers are they, i.e are they deadly. He gave us their names and told us that' one of the symptons of a jellyfish sting is that it makes you want to diiiiiie, and i just dont fancy that'. You probably had to be there to find it funny but with his accent and straight faced tone, we found it hilarious. Tom built the bbq, very proudly, using in gerber and swiss army knife and was content having a 'man make fire' moment, therefore tonight we had bbq night. Sausages, steak and jacket spuds. Delish!
Thursday morning we planned to meet Liss and Andy at our campsite that night, where we would have a bbq and a catch up. Another chance for Tom to be 'god of fire' for the evening, which of course he did very very well. We had a quiet one today, we mooched into town walking past the harbour and once again found ourselves walking unplanned into Liss and Andy. We had a bit of retial therapy and brought Tom some swimmies and new shorts and were lucky that they shop he found them in had a 40% sale on for that day only so they were a Billabong bargain. We brought a few more bits for the bbq and went back to the site to lay by the pool, catch some rays and have a snooze. We had a brilliant night, It was good to see people we knew and catch up about all of the gossip from home. We tried our first Risoles, which are beef patty and parmesan things, very nice. I had my first bottle of Rose wine for 7 weeks and enjoyed every drop of half the bottle. It seems my tolerance of wine has disappeared as after half a bottle, it all goes blurry and i think being put to bed was involved!
Friday we woke and had a full fry up...bacon, eggs and tomatos. Definatly what we needed after last night and very very nice. Before we went anywhere, Andy and Liss' van wouldnt start, It had the same issue the morning before so Andy got some jump leads and asked us to jump the van. This morning however, our van wouldnt start either. It was like it has caught the lurgy from their van. We had to get crocodile dundee to come and jump both for us, not a good start. Today we went back into Cairns so that we could get some demestic stuff sorted, namely our visas for the rest of the world. As some of them have limited entry times, we had to get them arranged here and as some of them take 5 weeks to approve, we have got the forms into the embassys and are collecting them in Sydney when we get there. What daft questions those forms ask you. We need a reference, to travel into a country. Its not a job application!!! We also had to visit the tattoo place for Tom to have it checked and any bits touched up. When we got back to our van to carry on our of Cairns, our battery was flat, again. We called the rental company and waited, and waited until someone came out to tell us that the battery was dead and we needed a new one (suprise!) By the time this was all sorted it was getting dark and with no where to go, we decided we would have ourselves a free campsite on the side of the road where we were. So we did, we stopped and we made our dinner on the roadside. Not much to do here so another early night, until a very early morning where we were woken up by a load of drunkards returning from the pub.
Saturday we were heading inland into the Atherton Tablelands. Today it was rainy but again, still so hot. Before we went inland, we went to Yorkeys k*** beach, mainly because we thought the name was funny. Once we had our pictures, we left. We went as per my navigation, into the tablelands. Our first stop was the Barron Falls and Lake Placid. Now we werent sure if the scary film, Lake Placid, was filmed in the US or here, The place did have a funny feel to it and the toilets were scary enough themselves. By the side of the lake a group had formed, so we went over to see what was going on. Above us a 7ft python was wrapped around a branch and next to us a little boy explained that he wanted to climb up the tree and get the snake and put it in the boys toilets so that they would all scream like girls. He was adorable and made us chuckle. From here we continued to the Barron falls which were huge. Now this is where we got lost. We carried on the road we started on and ended up back in Cairns, at the other end. It seems that I had directed us compleatly wrong as we were 20km in the opposite direction that we needed to be. We found the right road soon enough and drove on towards Kuranda. After here we carried on the loop until we got to the Granite Gorge. The views here are brilliant and there are Wallabies everywhere which you can feed. They obviously are used to being fed as they have become quite aggresive. So much so that a big Wallaby guards the path and jumps out as you walk down practicaly with his hand out. I thought this was cute and great at first, until one hissed at me, dug his nails into my hand and bit my finger. It wasnt deep and didnt draw blood but it pinched and scared the cr*p out of me. Tom got given the food after that and I didnt want to go near them. We walked through the area, constantly scared of snakes lurking in the dry leaves on the floor. We went up to the natural lagoon where you could swim, only to time it when a man was compleatly starkers about to get changed, porr thing, we looked away. Tom once again hurt his toe. He jumped off a rock and damaged it again. You would think that he would know where his toes were and how to manouvre them by now but it seems not. So a limp and a new blood blister and we walked/hobbled back towards the car. It is very arid here, and then you will get a bright load of flowers or trees, like and oasis. Nice to look at. We found a campsite in Walkamin for the night. We had to walk through someones home and back out to their garage to find them and as the night was drawing it, it felt abit freaky. The guy was very normal though and very nice, nothing to fear after all. We had to make use of the last bits of fresh food we had tonight and so had a pork fillet that we had been looking forward to all week (simple things...) it had gone green round he edges which was a concern, but waste not want not and it was yummy. We played cards and Tom tried ot teach me how to gamble at poker, didnt really work, im still useless.
Sunday was our last day in the Tablelands and we started it by travelling to Lake Tinaroo. This wasnt much really as it was a man made lake with watersports on, we soon moved on. We went through Atherton itself which is 'Australias tidiest town 2004'. One thing we have realised is that every town seems to have some kind of award for one year and they advertise it forever. We visited the Curtain Fig Tree which is huge and is basically a tree which has taken over another tree and grows its roots above ground. Its incredible to see as its soo big. We visited gallos dairy farm, where they make chocolate and cheese and we watched as they made it (sounds like a school trip). We got lost again, we just couldnt find the road we wanted and drove round for ages. Some people just aren't born to navigate! We decided to go back the way we came and go the long way and typically we found the road that we would have come out on if we had found the road we wanted, bum. In the afternoon we travelled the waterfall loop and saw about 4 stunning waterfalls. We had now completed the inland route and were back to the coast. We stayed in a free camp tonight which was a layby. They call then Driver Revivers. We saw a lady with the best hairstyle ever. Something like a mullet buy reminded us of 80's neighbours haircuts, they still exsist it seems. The toilets here were shocking. At night time, all the bugs come out...in force. The site was next to a cane field so we think they come from there. Tom escorted me to the toilet but i couldnt get in any further than a metre because i was getting dive bombed by bugs, flys and who knows what. When i managed to poke my head round the cubicle door, something big, rat sized, ran behind the loo. I wasnt locking myself in the cubicle with all of that so we had to make a mad dash to a Mcdonalds in the nearest town 5km away so I could have a wee.
We have seen a real mixture of places this week. Sea, sand, ranforests, deserts, the lot. Its been brillaint but we are now ready for the seaside and so are now off down the coast. What a wicked adventure!