Our first day in Cairns is dedicated to catching up with laundry and getting to know the town. While doing laundry we discussed our plans for our stay. The Great Barrier Reef is one of our prime objectives. One travel brochure we picked up in the park office has an item I was interested in learning more about. It was a an offering of the Down Under Dive company to certify for open water SCUBA in a four day course. The course involved two days of tests and preliminary training followed by tw
Monday, April 7, 2014. Looking over the information we picked up from the ladies in Ayr the day before, we decided to pursue a scenic drive into the Dividing Range to see some waterfalls. I love a good waterfall and the ones in the brochure looked inviting including one which we were told we could swim under the cascading water. We had about 70 kilometers to cover before leaving the Bruce Highway for the highlands. I put the town with the same name as the waterfall we wanted to visit, Millaa
Sunday, April 6, 2014. Our travels north continue. Leaving Mackay we drove on almost until noon. Our lunch stop was a park in a small town, Ayr. Louise fixed sandwiches while I went in search of a restroom. The restrooms were behind the information booth so I stopped in there to see the two ladies who were sitting outside in front of the building this sunny warm day. We talked, they inquired about our travels and then loaded me up with information both verbal and written. One of the ladie
Friday, April 4, 2014. We drove a short distance into Brisbane and made a quick stop at Britz to deal with several nagging problems with the campervan. That done, we left the city about noon headed north toward Cairns, a city on the northeast coast of Australia. At Cairns the famous Barrier Reef is closest to the coast and is thus most accessible. We hope to spend several days exploring this wonderful natural feature. The challenge is that the distance from Brisbane to Cairns is a daunting
Mt. Tambourine National Park is a collection of smaller national parks on the slopes of Mt. Tambourine, an extinct weathered volcano. There is a town at the summit which features a variety of shops for those who enjoy quaint towns and browsing curio and antique shops. We went to take a walk in the rainforest. This was not to be an ordinary walk. The walkway was elevated. We walked out of the building that housed a café, a small museum with information about the rainforest into the upper lev
Wednesday April 2, 2014. We’re near the end of the New England Highway and we want to make our way to the coast. Looking at all the opportunities, we decide to make a stop at Mt. Tambourine National Park which is south of Brisbane. The attraction there that drew our attention was a Rainforest Walkway. Without knowing much more than that, we left Rochedale headed north on the final leg of the New England Highway before turning off onto the Scenic Rim Highway. This heads east through a calder
Leaving camp at Mother of Ducks Wildlife Preserve in Guyra early in the morning, we drove to Glen Innes for breakfast at McDonalds. I know, not your idea of luxury dining but they do have internet. We parked behind the building and could access the internet from the campervan. I spent 30 or 40 minutes on line after eating breakfast. Right next door was the i. This one was a jewelry shop and information center. Louise enjoyed chatting with the jeweler. I was able to find several brochures
We started our first day on the New England Highway with a visit to the yellow i. That is what I call the visitor’s center here which are identified on the blue signs with a simple i for information. Many of these are commercial operations, others are operated by the community. I suspect that if you pay the state or national government your money, you too can be an i. They all have a variety of brochures on the local activities and some regional activities. They tend to be pretty parochial,
No, this wasn’t named for New England in the US. Both the US and Australia have a common connection to England so both have named a part of their country New England. Australia assigns names to their highways and designated the highway that runs through the area the New England Highway. It took the better part of a day to drive from Lightning Ridge to Tamworth which was our starting point for touring the New England Highway. It was a distance of 400 km but the road was rough and we had to d
Lightning Ridge is an opal mining area. Opals were first discovered in the early 1900’s and mining has been going on ever since. The opals are different from those found in many other areas. These opals are known as black opals. They are dark with the colors familiar in other opals. They are beautiful and quite expensive. Just as in a gold rush, the discovery of opals in the area caused a boom in population. Mining camps sprung up near the hot spots for opals and towns developed near the
The next morning we departed Katoomba just after the office opened and we had paid our bill. We planned to drive to Lightning Ridge which was over 600 kilometers away. The Western Expressway gave way to two lane highway and this then entered the Blue Mountains. Travel became slower, the road was rougher and traffic was slower. We were among the slowest traffic most of time. We stopped occasionally to let traffic pass and pulled off at scenic overlooks. The weather was cloudy, hazy and we w
We left the Australian capital, Canberra early in the morning in order to get into Sydney to visit the Britz office. On the way in we added one more item to our to-do list. An indicator on the instrument panel indicated a light was out.
The roads from Canberra to Sydney are excellent roads. It is four lane interstate quality highway all the way. As we approached Sydney, we encountered the toll roads. These toll roads automatically bill each vehicle that doesn’t have an electronic pass. T
Canberra is the national capital of Australia. It is located between Melbourne and Sydney which have a population of about 4 million people in each city. That is 8 million people in a nation of about 14 million. So most of the population of Australia is in these two cities and in the surrounding communities. Once we leave this area we’ll see very few large towns and as we head west, we’ll see fewer people. Canberra itself is not a huge city. The population of Canberra is just over 400,000.
We’ve had a very dry trip, only a couple of days of rain in New Zealand and nothing to speak of in Australia. That all changed on Tuesday, March 25. As I was doing the final outdoor tasks getting ready to leave our campground in Eden in New South Wales (NSW) I noticed a little mist in the air. The clouds were dark and heavy and the forecast for several days had called for rain. We planned to drive along the Sapphire Coast as it is known. There are designated tourist routes which have histor
At the town of Adaminaby we stopped at the visitor’s center and talked with several natives. They had a statue of the Man From Snowy River, the supposed subject of the poem of the same name. Louise bought a copy of the poem for $1 and read the poem to me as we traveled on through the mountains.
As we drove on, the road once again descended a steep slope and large vehicles were advised to use lower gears. I down shifted and we started our descent. Just a kilometer or so down the road we cam
For a week we’ve been following the Murray River east from Adelaide toward the Great Dividing Range, the mountains which feed the headwaters of the Murray. The Murray also is the boundary between the state of Victoria and the state of New South Wales. Thus we’ve been exploring both the northern part of Victoria and seeing the territory of New South Wales across the river. As we leave Wodonga we are headed east into the Snowy Mountains, part of the Great Dividing Range. Historically, this rang
Without any definite word on the outcome of the refrigerator problem we decided to stay one more night at the Big 4 Campervan Park in Ecucha. Louise had our refrigerated items stored in the refrigerator in the park kitchen facilities. We moved to the new site and then decided to explore the town. As we walked, we got a call from the road service company. The agent informed us he was trying to put together a solution. He thought we would be exchanging our campervan for a different one and jus
A good drive from Adelaide takes us to Renmark on the Murray River. The Murray is the largest river in Australia. North of Adelaide it has high cliffs which overlook its large valley. Our park on Monday night was right on the river. In fact they had canoes which we rented to do some paddling on the Murray. There are larger boats on the Murray, the river has many houseboats plying the waters. One passed while we were launching our canoe.
Meanwhile, in the campground, children were playing
Our campervan has several nagging problems and one big problem. The big problem is the gray water tank which doesn’t seem to vent except through the shower drain. The drain on the gray water tank is very slow and the valve has stops at two open positions but no stop for a closed position. So it takes forever to drain the tank and then when the tank is empty you just have to guess when the valve is closed. I talked to the technician and explained the problem. I also mentioned that the hose f
Adelaide is the largest city in the state of South Australia. It is the smallest of the five cities in Australia with a population over one million. It is located on the southern coast of Australia in the State of South Australia. The Murray River is the largest river in Australia and its mouth is just east of Adelaide. It was the Murray River that we crossed on a Ferry on our way into Adelaide.
We have arranged to have some repair work done on the caravan at the Britz office in Adelaide on
The campground at Mount Gambier was in a difficult location to find and when we did, it wasn’t the best place to stay. They let us choose our own site which was their way of not having to listen to us complain about the assigned site. We found no level sites and settled for one that was nearly level. It was at the bottom of a slope and back away from the road for some distance. This became a concern when I heard it start raining during the night. As the night went on, the rain continued in
Leaving Melbourne we head southwest toward the coast and a road called the Great Ocean Road. It is a little more than a hundred kilometers to the coast. When we reach the Great Ocean Road we find a curving, hilly, narrow road. Reaching the ocean, we are rewarded with wonderful views of a spectacular coast. We spent three days on the Great Ocean Road. We found so many viewpoints that we were unable to stop at all of them. The coast in this area between Melbourne and Adelaide is rugged limes
Arriving at Britz at 7:45 a.m. we found the place locked up. It was not only locked up, the parking lot was gated and there was no place to leave the luggage when we got out of the cab. The driver suggested that we go to a shopping center a block north of the Britz office. We found a bench near the mall entrance and piled our luggage there. Here we were homeless, we just needed to find a shopping cart for our possessions! I waited while Louise went inside to find a cup of coffee. When she
Day six was a late start as we planned a late night activity. Mt. William National Park in the northeast is known for its abundant wildlife. Most marsupials are active at night and the information on this national park suggested spending time after sunset observing the wildlife. Many of these animals we had seen along the roadside, killed by automobiles. Now we wanted to see them live. We hiked to the top of Mt. William in the late afternoon and returned to the car as the sun was setting.
Our second day we drove south to Hobart and Tasman National Park. There we saw interesting natural features, tessellated pavement, sea arches and a blowhole formed when waves cut a tunnel through the cliff front so that water comes bursting through with each wave. At Eaglehawk neck we walked from one shore to the other in five minutes. A low sandy neck of land connects the area to the south to the north mainland. On the southern peninsula lies the town of Port Arthur which was a penal colony
