The End of Australia

After we had recovered from our Fraser Island experience we started continuing up the east coast. We had planned to make our way to Agnes Waters/1770 because it is the furthest north you can actually get waves to ride before they disappear because of the Great Barrier Reef. Unfortunately mother nature had other plans for us. You see, northern Queensland was bracing for Cyclone Ita at that time and we were far enough south that we didn't get hit by the cyclone but we did get heavy, heavy rains. So, instead of surfing we basically holed up in Bam Bam and watched a lot of The Wire. Good show, by the way!

From Agnes Waters we made our way to Rockhampton, which is a town right on the Tropic of Capricorn. We had meant to go from there over to Great Keppel Island - a girl we had met previously said that it was a beautiful place, and the cyclone weather had cleared, but it was so expensive for the ferry over, and we would have only had a few hours on the island, so we vetoed it right at the last second. Instead, we stumbled upon the Capricorn Caves. We went on a tour of the caves - they were really cool. There was even a cave in the system called Cathedral Cave. It is so big and beautiful and apparently the acoustics are similar to the Sydney Opera House, so they actually host operas and weddings inside this cave system. It was pretty cool!

The pews of Cathedral Cave

We had another tour booked leaving from Airlee Beach, so we had to get there soon after we left the Capricorn Caves. We were going on a 3 day, 2 night boat cruise around the Whitsunday Islands on a boat called The Samurai. We were a little worried that this would end up like Fraser Island, but our boat only had 21 people on it and everyone was really nice. We had an awesome time cruising around the islands and the weather couldn't have been better. We even got to do a scuba dive and some snorkelling while we were out there. I even saw a huge turtle while I was snorkelling. Dave was doing a second scuba dive at the time so he missed it. One of the nights on the boat we also saw tons of squid swimming around the boat and even a huge eagle-ray swam by. We also got to go to the most beautiful beach in the world - Whitehaven Beach. It really was pretty amazing. We started at a view point of the beach and the tide was going out so you could see the sand bars emerging again - there were so many colours from white to blue...it was beautiful. Then we went down onto the actual beach and did a little photo shot with some German guys from our boat. Apparently, the sand is so white there that you can do these photos that end up like a trick of the eye because the depth perception is off. See the photo we posted...doesn't it look like the guys are tiny and I am holding them in the palm of my hand?? All in all, we had a great time in the Whitsunday Islands and we were really glad we had decided to do the tour.

 

From Airlee Beach we made our way up to Cairns. We were running out of time in Australia and we wanted to do a few dives on the Great Barrier Reef. You have to give yourself 24 hours after a dive before you can fly so we motored it up to Cairns, unfortunately that meant that we had to bypass Townsville and Magnetic Island. We'll just have to see those next time we're in Australia ;)

Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef were perfect! We spent a full day on a boat that took us to the Outer Reef and we stopped at two different dive spots. The first one was Norman Reef. We did 2 dives there. We saw star fish, lion fish a few Napoleon Maori Wrasse (which are these huge fish that let you pet them just like puppy dogs!), 3 Reef Sharks (one was even swimming right towards me at one point...scary!), sting ray, nudie branches and all kinds of coral and other colourful fish. Both dives went really well and I think I am actually starting to like it. We had lunch while the boat took us over to the second dive spot at Hastings Reef. Unfortunately for us, we went down too deep on our second dive and blew our dive table, which basically means that there was the potential for us to get decompression sickness so they wouldn't let us do our third dive of the day. I guess we got too carried away by the reef sharks! Instead, we had to snorkel. But it was some of the best snorkelling I have ever done. We saw more reef sharks and tons of colour fish and coral. It was such a good day. Well, it would have been a little better if the water was a little calmer. I think at one point over half of the people on our boat were seasick and throwing up. Luckily, Dave and I didn't get too effected by it, but it was really rough.

Our last full day in Australia was spent getting ready for our departure. We had to mail a box of things home, cancel our bank account and cell phone, return our camper van, pack and do a little last minute shopping for the rest of our trip. We also managed to get in touch with Fran and Zoe and see them again before we left. We ended up going to their hostel bar for a few drinks that night and things got a little crazy. Before we knew it we were watching girls wrestle topless in jelly...I thought that kind of stuff only happened in movies! And don't worry, the final two girls in competition were both from Canada - making our country proud!! Then it was bye bye Australia.

We had such an amazing time in Australia. I can't believe that we had been away from home for almost 8 months, 5.5 of those in Australia. We had so many adventures, met so many great people and really challenged ourselves to do new and different things. It wouldn't have been the same without all of the friends that took us in, showed us around and helped us along the way. Thank you Oz! Until next time...

Bye Australia

Thanks for reading

xo