On avait une semaine pour faire la route Cairns -> Brisbane; quand on regarde sur la carte, ça semble pas tres loin...sauf que la plupart des gens prennent l'avion pour parcourir cette distance, ou reservent au moins 2 semaines de vacances. Heureusement notre mini camping-car était flambant neuf et Neil a su manier la bete assez rapidement. On a donc beaucoup roulé et on ne s'est pas beaucoup arretes, on regrette assez. Mais c'etait quand-meme sympa et on a decouvert le coté un peu plus rustre, voire "paysan texan" des australiens du Nord. Ici t'es pas un homme si t'as pas un tracteur. Sur la route on a vu enormement de champs de canne à sucre et bananes (les australiens n'importent pratiquement aucun produit, ils produisent tout eux-memes meme si ça leur coute plus cher), et quelques endroits ou on nous promettait des kangourous, des koalas ou des cassawaries (genre d'émeus) qui pouvaient eventuellement traverser la route; que nenni. Le plus interessant c'était d'avoir la possibilité de se garer et dormir pres des plages, qui sont, il faut bien le dire, les plus immenses que j'ai jamais vues. Pas un chat, pas un papier, presque pas un nageur (normal y'a des meduses et des crocodiles) et du sable super fin, immaculé, à perte de vue. C'etait notamment le cas de Mission Beach (photo 4, 5 et 6). Les mini boulettes de sable (photo 6) sont faites par les crabes du soir, et elles couvrent absolument toute la plage; ça en fait du boulot...La derniere photo c'est Airlie Beach, d'ou l'on a pris un bateau le lendemain pour aller voir, entre autres, ma plage preferéee (jusqu'à maintenant).
After being looked after by our various friends in Australia it was time for these two young spirits to break free and hit the road. We were in Cairns and were due to fly from Brisbane to NZ in a weeks time, the answer was obvious, hire a van with a bed in the back and drive ourselves down, that's what I'm talking about, have ourselves a road trip. First thing that escaped our attention, Brisbane is about 1,800km (sorry for going metric on you, but that is all they know out here - although you can buy pints in pubs, but of course they don't call them pints) which was a little ambitious for what was essentially only five real days of driving. There are some real plus points from having a camper van, the best by far being that you don't have to keep packing and unpacking all your worldly belonging. It was great to be free on the open road, but our lack of time and my resistance to driving in the dark through lightless Cassawary infested roads (massive birds who habitually head but cars and kill people) meant that one or two sites had to be skipped on the way eg Steve Irvin's Australia Zoo (crikey), Magnetic Island, Goldcoast and Sunshine Coast. By the way the route we took didn't necessitate moving out of the state of Queensland, or venturing much off of the main Highland 1; we met a pleasant lady from Queensland who had taken a year off of work to travel around Queensland and she said she hadn't managed to do much of it, what I'm getting at is that Queensland is very big and there is lots of fun stuff to do there. Places that we did spend a little time in included Mission Beach, beautiful and nobody there (perhaps as they have all been eaten by the crocodiles); Arlie Beach, a bit like Bournemouth, Stag town-tastic; Rockhampton, here's a tip for nowt, if it's not the weekend don't bother; and various little stop offs at places like Townsville, Waranga Wagga, Ruwungaa Gonapegadoo, Belongtomcick etc. The main places on our intinaries were the Whitsundays and Fraser Island so read on.......
Pictures:
1. Our transport and home.
2. The inside of our spacious new home.
3. When you have a van you can spontaneously stop at a waterfall to eat your lunch.
4. Mission Beach, very nice.
5. Close up on what the crabs had done to Mission Beach (made lots of perfectly spherical shapes, Attenborough is on his way).
4. Dipping my feet in the sea at Mission Beach.
5. View from back of our van at Bowen Beach.
6. Coralie sitting near Airly Beach.
Pictures:
1. Our transport and home.
2. The inside of our spacious new home.
3. When you have a van you can spontaneously stop at a waterfall to eat your lunch.
4. Mission Beach, very nice.
5. Close up on what the crabs had done to Mission Beach (made lots of perfectly spherical shapes, Attenborough is on his way).
4. Dipping my feet in the sea at Mission Beach.
5. View from back of our van at Bowen Beach.
6. Coralie sitting near Airly Beach.
