Airlie Beach to Mission Beach – the penultimate journey

Mission Beach at sunset

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Airlie Beach to Mission Beach

As the decision was made to travel to Mission Beach instead of spending another day at Airlie, today’s blog is another relatively uneventful one from the perspective of the reader – sorry! After two days on a boat we decided not to chance another day straight away on the beach, taking the view that we are doing pretty well with the old Scottish tan, we don’t want to risk it!

After a pretty busy day yesterday, we had a fairly relaxed start to the day (you may be able to see a pattern here!). Although Mission Beach was 6 hours drive away, if we felt tired along the way we could quite easily stop anywhere. After a quick fuel stop to put Vanessa’s gauge back to full, we hit the road smashing a solid 3 hours of uninterrupted driving before reaching our lunch stop. Our lunch stop today was in a place called Townsville (I think they were running out of names), about 70km from a familiar sight, the town of Ayr…the Aussie’s equivalent of the Scottish town has a slightly nicer beach I’ll have to admit.

After a quick pit stop for lunch (and a cheeky coffee and a cake), we were back on the road for the final leg. After our visit to the mall in Rockhampton, we were able to pick up a cable that allowed us to plug our iPhones/iPad into the radio. This has been pretty good until Amy remembered that she had the full rendition of the theatrical production called ‘Wicked’ on her phone. That’s maybe a bit harsh, it’s a show enjoyed by millions around the world (or so I’m told)…I’m just not convinced that many people have had the pleasure of an hour log singalong of the show where one person knows every word and note and the other knows nothing. There was no chance of me falling asleep mind you so that was a good thing!

We reached Mission Beach a little after 5 and after a quick set up, we decided to walk along the beach itself. Much like the rest of the Beaches we’ve seen in Aus so far, it’s another cracker! Beautiful scenery as far as the eye can see – we also got the chance to sea some crustaceans running along the beach but thankfully they were small enough to not cause any alarm.

On the walk back from the beach, we were treated with a field full of Kangaroos (about 20-25 of them). So far, the majority of ‘Roo’s’ that we’ve seen have been along the side of the Bruce Highway and they’ve not been looking too healthy so this was a great opportunity to see them hopping around – we also got to see two of the males (presumably) fighting each other which was pretty good. Although I like to think I’m one of David Attenbourghs camera team, I’m not…so although I did catch most of it, the footage is a bit shaky.

After the kangaroo show it was back to the camper for a shower, some dinner and on to bed. The plan for tomorrow is to enjoy Mission Beach a bit more then slowly make our final journey in ‘Nessy’ up to cairns (about an hour and a half). It’s an odd feeling just now…it feels like it’s the end of the holiday a little but in reality, we’re not even half way though yet! I’m starting to see some merits of using all your holidays in one blast…mind you, ask me that same question 2 months ago and you would have had a very different answer. Anyway, end to the penultimate days driving with Nessy – final day tomorrow, could get emotional…

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Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands

On-board the Blizzard at sunset

Whitsunday Islands

Over the last few days (Sunday to Tuesday) we’ve been sailing around the Whitsunday Islands…it has been nothing short of fantastic. I’ll try and detail a bit more of a blow by blow of the adventure…

On the Sunday, we woke up in our caravan with a bit of extra time on our hands. As we’d arrived in Airlie Beach a day ahead of our rough schedule, we had all day Sunday to enjoy Airlie beach as the boat wouldn’t depart until 16:00. So, after waking up late and taking our time to pack up (including a 40 minute showering session from Miss Laird (pushing us beyond our departure time of 10am!)), we decided to head into Airlie Beach and experience all it had to offer. As it was a Sunday morning, there was the weekly market which was a bit of a treat – we got the chance to pick up some bits and bobs, ie a nice straw hat for me.

After the market and a wee walk round the town, we had some lunch in the sun before a trip to the drive-through booze shop. As you can’t buy alcohol in the supermarkets in Aus, the alcohol shops (ie oddbins in the UK) are pretty prominent. And, if you’re in a rush, why not make it a drive through…I’m thinking this could be a business venture in Scotland. The main reason for the stop was that boat was a BYOB boat so a couple of bottles of wine to have during dinner was on the shopping list (Amy persuaded me into getting some Oyster Bay even though that’s a Kiwi wine and not an Aussie one!). Anyway, after our pit stop it was off to the marina to pack our ‘2 night-packs’ and head towards our boat.

We got on the boat (Blizzard) just after 16.00 and were greeted by the skipper (Tristram) and his deck hand (Ed) who had just joined the boat as was being ‘shown the ropes’. As the boat held 10 passengers, we were accompanied by an American couple (Art and Barb), a French couple (Julienne and Frederique) and family from Switzerland (The Heinzer Family). As it turns out just before we got to the boat, Amy announced that she’d love to have an American couple on the boat with us and if one was a granny, ‘that would be so cute’ – as fate would have it, that’s what she got. Our other passengers were great though, we all got on very well and because it is such a small number, you get a lot of time to sit and chat to them. The only downside was that, even in an Emglish speaking county, we were once again reminded at how good the Europeans are at languages and how hopeless we are (even though Amy got a higher in French I may add!). The youngest daughter of the Swiss family, who was 8, was fluent in English…amazing although in our defence, she did spend 2 years in Boston.

Anyway, the first day (Sunday) saw us set sail at about 16:15 and sail straight to a quiet cove where we anchored for the night. The journey was very nice with relatively calm waters so everyone was happy. After anchoring up, we had some dinner and chatted to our ‘shipmates’ before resting up for the evening.

The first full day on the boat (Monday) started off nice and early – a cheeky 7am wake up as we wanted to be at ‘Whitehaven Beach’ when the tide was low so we could get the best view. If you get a chance, Google Whitehaven Beach and I’m sure you’ll see some of the images we saw – amazing. We saw the first part of Whitehaven Beach from the islands viewing point before heading back to the boat to experience the beach for ourselves – 7km of practically unoccupied beach for us to enjoy. The sand was 99.8% Silica (it was used to fabricate the hubble telescope!) so it was amazingly soft, so much so when you stood on it when it was wet you would sink in by over half a foot. Was effectively paradise though, can’t think of a better word for it.

After a couple hours on the beach, it was back to the Blizzard (via Tristram’s towed RIB) for lunch before heading to our first snorkelling location. After suiting and booting in wetsuits and getting the masks and snorkels, I can confirm that Miss Laird did jump off the boat, into the sea and swam (with the fishes!) in the sea for over 15 minutes! She also stuck her head in the water and saw the coral so I think a congratulations should be in order. After a good hour or so of snorkelling round the coral, it was back on the boat for a shower and dinner before hitting the hay for our final day.

The last day of our trip was another early start – I was up and ready to go on Monday, Tuesday was a different matter with Amy having to pull me out of bed. I was taking motion sickness tablets so the rocking was just very soothing – between the ships rocking and the sun, a lot of people found it hard to fight off the snoozing at some point. The early start was once again so that we could take advantage of the tide. The low tide allowed us to get very close to the coral and at this site, we were able to see and swim with some turtles! A really amazing experience. We also got to play with the boats ‘Sea-scooter’ – effectively, a hand held propellor that looks like it should be reserved for the Navy Seals or SBS to use. Again, amazing fun. After we got back from the snorkelling, myself, Julienne and Raphaelle had a go at paddle boarding (effectively standing on a large inflatable surfboard with a paddle). The water was really choppy and it was also quite windy – not ideal conditions for your first attempt at paddling boarding as I proved on a number of occasions, first with a belly flop, second with a back flop. I did get up in the end however and paddle around – good fun but quite tiring after a while. When we were back onboard, Tris headed the blizzard back to Airlie beach and out adventure ended just after 14.00 – a great 2 days! As you can probably imagine, I’ve taken about a 1000 photos and vids which will take me until Christmas 2015 to sort out but it was great fun.

After returning to dry land, it was back to ‘Nessy’ to drop our kit back off and then back on the road to find a campsite. As it turns out, our last camp site in Airlie Beach was quite good so we went back there. After a wee home cooked meal at the campsite, it’s off to bed before tomorrow’s adventure – heading north to Mission Beach!

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Rockhampton to Airlie Beach

The long road ahead…

Rockhampton to Airlie Beach

As I read though my blog for yesterday, starting with ‘today was not very exciting’ was probably a bit incorrect. That statement could probably have been used for today unfortunately. As we got further up that intended yesterday, we were within reach of Airlie Beach today so decided to just make a shot for it.

We woke up ‘early’ this morning (8am) and were showered, fed as packed before 9. The plan of the day was to stop at a wee supermarket (Woolworths) and grab some food for lunch before hitting the road properly. This did happen but unfortunately for me, ‘Woolys’ happened to be located in an American style ‘Mall’ – much to Amy’s delight. So, after a ‘quick perusal’ and the 5 minutes in Woolys, we hit the road just after 10.

After knocking out a few hundred kilometres, we stopped for lunch in a wee town called Serina…Amy must’ve been feeling the holiday spirit as she decided to quench her thirst with a pear cider. I stuck to my water…my beer would have to wait.

We eventually got to Airlie beach at about 4.30. Another long shift in the drivers cab but that’s all the driving done until Wed/Thu. We decided to stay in with Vanessa tonight, have a wee barby and a couple of beers before our 2 day boat trip round the Whitsundays! As such, won’t be able to blog for a couple of days – will try and get online when we’re back on dry land!

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Noosa to Rockhampton

Amy and Vanessa and some amazing views!

Noosa to Rockhampton

Unfortunately, today is not an overly exciting day from the view of a blog. We has to knock a few hundred kilometres out on the way to Airlie Beach for our two day boat trip round the Whitsundays.

The day started off fairly standard, Amy wanting to snooze away the Morning and Mr Discipline here having to say no (admittedly after the 2nd snooze). As we were up by 8.30, a slow breakfast and pack up of the van saw us hit the road by about 9.15.

The journey was relatively uneventful. A couple of petrol stops along the way but nothing out of the ordinary for a 550km drive. As the journey was quite long, we’ve started to notice quite a difference as we’ve progressed north. A lot fewer towns and a lot more open plains rather than the relatively dense woodland that has flanked us for the majority of our time on the Bruce Highway.

There was one additional point to note during our drive. About 50km from Rockhampton (approx 6 hours on the road), a friendly Queensland police officer decided that he’d like to get a better look at Vanessa…or so I was thinking (or at least hoping!). After a brief chat which involved him questioning me more than the lovely Nessy, he let us go on our way. He did however charge us $220 for the privilege mind you!

As you may have guessed, I may have been going slightly above the speed limit and he was not overly happy…in my defence, on the main highway (equivalent of the a9), we drop in and out of towns, sometimes reducing the speed, sometimes not. And by town, I mean a few houses. Anyway, in this case, we had passed the ‘town’ but apparently, on this 2k stretch of ‘non-100kph’, a requirement of 70kph was still in place. Also, and I’m glad that the UK haven’t caught onto this (I’m used to a large luminous van on top of a bridge), the Aussie ‘Polis’ are quite cheeky. They were;

-on a 2km stretch of road surrounded by 100kph each side
-completely off the road with a police man in the bushes (genuinely)
-around the side of a hill, ie. unable to see them until you’re on top of them
-standing with the sun behind them to make it even harder to see them

Although I can make all the excuses I want, it was a 70kph and I was going 85kph…still, $220 is pretty steep! To make me feel a bit better, two cars were pulled in behind me for the same treatment and presumably a few more before they went home for the night…I guess someone needs to pay for the road repairs!

Anyway, rant over, we got to our campsite at about 6.30 and have just finished dinner. Plan is to watch a wee film then hit the hay for another long drive up to Airlie beach!

Ps. Amy would like me to mention one last bit to complete my day of shambles. At one petrol stop, we decided to get a wee ice lolly. As we were paying, the guy told me that my lolly, ‘a golden gaytime’ was buy one get one free. Amy tried to warn me off telling me that it wouldn’t survive in the fridge but I was having none of it…forgetting entirely that ice creams live in the ‘freezer’ and not the ‘fridge’. Needless to say, after still being a bit grumpy with the old fine, I spent the first 15 minutes after we parked up cleaning the fridge…not a great day for McKinley…

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Hervey Bay to Noosa

Dinner time

Hervey Bay to Noosa

I’m sure you’re all waiting to hear how the first night in the van was! It actually was really ok,even given the makeshift nature of the bag bed. So we got up and cleared out pretty early to have cereal on the beachfront, and then a quick mcdonalds wifi stop and we were on the road again to Noosa. It was a lot bigger than the little beachfront places we have been to so far,so we had a good drive round and ended up using the trusty SatNav (thanks Bill) to find a campsite. We couldn’t get a powered site,but I decided to forgo my diffuser for a day and just see how it went. A walk,a trip to the shops and dinner in the van took up pretty much the rest of the day.although I should probably add that the engineering genius that is Graeme McKinley has solved the bed conundrum…it turns out that he (we?) missed a compartment in the van that holds the right size board,and in fact the previous night we were trying to make a bed from our outside table. Hopeful it is going to make all the difference and tonight will be like sleeping in Loyal Gardens again 🙂 x

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As chilled out day in Noosa

Amy on the beach in Noosa

A chilled out day in Noosa

As the title suggest, we’ve had a pretty chilled out day here in Noosa. Noosa is a fantastic place, right at the top of Sunshine Coast. It seems like it might be a bit of a holiday destination for a lot of Aussies as it’s pretty geared up for tourists – that being said, with sun, sea and a lot if green growing everywhere, there is very little to dislike.

As we’re here for two nights, it was a nice easy morning without the rush to pack up the van. After a quick deconstruct of the bed and another breakfast of ‘max charge’ cereal (our favourite Aussie cereal, thanks Tom), we left to explore Noosa and to spend a bit of time on the beach.

The main ‘strip’ of Noosa is about 500m long with lots of touristy shops, a good number of which had vintage ‘stuff’ (dresses, jewellery etc) so Amy was more than happy.

However, after a quick wander, we headed off the strip onto the beach. Out first time really playing on the beach in Aus and it didn’t disappoint…white sand, crystal clear waters, couldn’t of asked for better.

We spent a few hours on the beach (even convincing Amy to go in the water up to her chin) and after a good toasting, headed back to our van before heading out for dinner in Noosa.

All in all, another great day and a nice treat to leave the van parked all day. Tomorrow is looking slightly more drive intensive however, a ‘small’ trip up north with the remit of, ‘we’ll see how far we get before we get fed up of driving…’

ps. for some reason the auto-locate didn’t work so if you want to see where we are you’ll need to google ‘noosa’ on google I’m afraid!

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Fraser Island and the 1st night in the Van!

Our Fraser Island Transport for the day…

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It was quite an early start this morning (5am), not exactly what we signed up for when we decided to go on holiday…that being said, we did opt for a final night with Tom and Debs to enjoy their hospitality (and comfy bed) one last time so it was the price we paid.

Unsurprisingly, we left later than we’d planned…that being said, we gave ourselves a bit of room for error and so left for Hervey Bay (a 90 minute drive) with over 2 and a half hours before the ferry for Fraser Island departed. However, lucky we gave ourselves the extra window of time, with over 35 minutes stuck watching the ‘Bruce Highway’ (genuinely called the Bruce highway) maintenance team repair a stretch of road, we once again cutting it fine…

Anyway, with all that excitement (and a couple of ‘this is beyond a joke’ and ‘this is ridiculous’ comments from Amy), we made it to the Fraser Island. It was amazing. The Aboriginals originally named the island ‘paradise’ (in their language) and it was easy to see why. As the largest sand Island in the world, our ‘bus’ was a 4×4 off-road truck that had some seats in the back…it was quite a bumpy ride but great fun.

After our day on the island, it was back to the main land and our next task – find a campervan site. This was hindered somewhat by our lack of booking anywhere and it now being dark…lucky for the SatNav! (In our defence, we’d tried to book somewhere last night but the website kept crashing). So, with camping ‘rough’ on our first night looming (something Amy is already concerned about), we headed off…finding a campsite at about 19.00 and setting up for the night. The only minor grievance we’ve had with our van (now named ‘Vanessa’ or ‘Nessy’) is that the table we have (which doubles as a bed board (ie what the mattress would sit on) for night time), is the wrong table. Thankfully, as our bags are so big, we were able to use them as a makeshift bed board.

Tomorrow’s plan is to head for Noosa and the Sunshine Coast – a couple days spent there before we head up North for the Whitsundays!

Last note: things lost so far;

Amy’s Diesel Shoes left in Toms car…

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Final day in Barrgara

Final Supper with Tom and Debs

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Our final day in Bundaberg started off with Amy getting a bit of a long lie in whilst Tom took me round the Coral Cove golf course for a cheeky front 9. We had never played with each other before so we were both very cagey about our golfing prowess, whilst both being secretly scared the other may be a Tiger Woods protégé…the first hole tee off’s happily concluded the opposite on both of us. After a couple hours round the front 9 in paradise (with about 9 balls lost between the two of us), I was the eventual victor 😄 . After we got back to Baragra, we all went out for a famous Baragara burger (or pancakes and fruit in Amy’s case) and hit the road to Bundaberg.

At Bundaberg, Tom took us to the Bundaberg rum distillery where we got to see (and taste) the main export of Bundaberg and why there are so many Sugar farms around here! He also showed us around Bundaberg, highlighting the damage that was caused by the worst flood on record that happened in January.

After our tour, we headed back to Bargara where Debs had cooked up a storm and we all sat down to a final dinner. Bags all packed up, it was ‘heads down’ before our next leg of the trip – a Frazer Island tour first thing in the morning and the first night in the camper van!

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A real Aussie recovery…

Quiet Morning in Bargara

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The morning after the night before was slightly harder than anyone had realy hoped for…I’m pretty sure I’m still recovering from Jet leg, Tom didn’t have the option of that excuse however. From the looks of things from the balcony however, it would appear we were truly immersed into the Aussie way of life as the rest as the country (or at least Bundaberg/Bargara) had similar Saturday nights…Sunday would be a lazy day from all perspectives.

Once the troops were amassed, the day was spent touring Bargara a bit more, Kangaroo spotting and generally chilling out by the pool. The night was ended, you’ll be surprised to hear, with another barby, this time joined by a couple of Tom and Debs friends from Baragara. I’ll be honest, I think i could get used to this ‘barby-based’ way of life…if only the Scottish climate would allow it- no matter how much I enjoy a barby, I’m not convinced it’s the same when it’s cooked underneath an umbrella in 5oC.

Tomorrow’s plan will be to have a Scotland vs England 9 hole Golf Championship before a tour of the famous Bundaberg Rum distillery. I’m sure Tom’s hoping to improve on the 5-0 table tennis deficit currently against him…

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A real Aussie welcome

First drink at an Aussie BBQ…

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A guest blog from Amy! Our first full day in Bargara,and Tom and Debs have a full day planned!They took us to a rugby club BBQ at the house of some friends and we were instantly welcomed with Aussie hospitality (see above photo taken at about 5 mins after arrival!).A lot of hours,some amazing BBQ food,and some interesting beverages later, we began the next stage of the days adventure-the Bundaberg Festi-bull!We arrived in time to see the rodeo final,and finished off the night with a wee nightcap of Bundaberg rum from the local distillery. A fantastic start to our holiday!xxx

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