After a couple of nights in Cairns (pleasant enough town, with a big outdoor swimming pool and green area; someone stole all our food out of the fridge) we picked up our Wicked Campervan.
We were visited by another stroke of good fortune when we went to the depot. The receptionist ran through our booking: bog standard campervan, with no air-con or power steering. Now, we don’t know if it was because the depot was particularly busy that morning and perhaps the receptionist was getting flustered or something, but we were inadvertently given someone else’s van - with air-con and power steering! Laughing, as we power-steered our way up the twisting Captain Cook Highway, through tropical Queensland, air-con blasting, in the middle of our 6-month tour around the world, with the turquoise expanse of the Pacific Ocean stretched out on our right, we felt like the luckiest people in the world.
Our campervan is definitely more van than camper. It’s just a beaten old VW workman’s van, completely gutted and re-fitted with a table which folds into a bed at night, and a kitchen area at the back. We love it! Which is just as well, as it’s our home for the next four weeks. Embarrasingly though – and bear in mind that we didn’t get to choose the van – it has pictures of magic mushrooms sprayed up the side and the slogan ‘We take drugs to make the world seem normal’ on the back! It draws some funny glances.
Camping in Oz is a great experience. There is so much you can do for free. Such is the uniqeness and diversity of its landscape, there are thousands of national parks; with well signposted walks, view points, picnic areas, toilets and showers, campfires, even gas barbecues – all for free! They even give out free coffee along the highway, as a ‘driver reviver’!
It would take to long to type out all that we’ve done so far, so here are some of the highlights:
Cape Tribulation – this was our first port of call after Cairns, about 3 hours North of the city, in the Daintree Rainforest national park. Our campsite was set in a large clearing in the rainforest, about 20 metres away from which the dense forest abrubtly stopped and the white sand of Myall beach began. The beach was almost deserted and completely undeveloped, there was hardly a soul walking along its 3k length and not so much as a boat in sight. At night you could hear the whisper of the foamy swell as it broke upon it. Cape Tribulation beach itself is a small cove of white sand and crystal clear waters set in the rainforest….This was Amy’s favourite beach to date!
Danbulla State Forest (Lake Tinaroo) – this was pretty special too. Camped on the bank of the great lake, a wall of pine forest on the far bank and with pointed hills as the backdrop. The birdlife around us was an unexpected boon; species of such variety fluttering and splashing about, their chirps and song playing an overture to the ambient serenity. At night we sat under a canopy of stars and gazed at the mountains reflected in the moonlit surface of the lake.
Mission Beach – camped 10 yds from the beach, so that when we opened the back door of the van we could see the the white crested surf rolling in. We met a British couple on our last night and got so drunk on Goon (very cheap wine, about 7 pounds for a 4 litre box!) that we fell asleep on the beach at 3am. One of those fleeting travelling relationships – we’ll probably never see them again!
The Whitsunday Islands – these are one of the main attractions of Oz, and a must-do on the travellers itinerary. We stayed in nearby Airlie Beach and took a day cruise around them. Naturally, as soon as we set out to sea we were blighted by bilious clouds, slashing rain, high waves and heavy winds, which made for a vomit-inducing ride to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island, the largest of the 74 that make up the Whitsundays. Thankfully the rain had let off by the time we got there, and not even the weather could denigrate the scene – turquoise sea against snowblinding sand, daubed by the wavy white lines of the water breaking in the mouth of the bay. Truly spectacular.
Afterwards we went snorkelling in the inner Barrier Reef where we saw a kaleidoscope of sealife, chief of which was a [/i]huge[i] blue Maori Wrasse that came right up close, regarding us with one-eyed curiousity. But best of all was that Amy conquered her life long phobia of the sea, and got in snorkelling! With easily the biggest fishes that I’ve ever seen swimming around her!
That’s as far as we’ve come to date. The road has changed from a precipitous rainforest track to plummeting country lanes through roller-coaster dales, to a tediously long and flat highway which shimmers in the distant heat – and we’re not even halfway to Sydney yet.