I Hope I Don't Get Rabies: March 2012

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Australia - Fraser Island & Rainbow Beach

Fraser Island is one of the places in Australia that I think is considered a must-see by most. Allegedly, it is the largest sand island in the world, and I think the whole island is a national park. While day trips are possible, you really need a few days to see the island properly. Amongst backpackers, the standard trip is a 3 day/2 night tag-along 4x4 camping excursion, where a group of 20-40 pile into a few 4x4's with a guide in the lead car, drive around to the various sights, and camp at night. There are at least 5 different companies that do it, and there all pretty fungible from what I can tell, but I went with Dingo's, which is based out of Rainbow Beach, just south of Fraser Island. Because it's a full day on the island on either side of the 2 nights on the island, it also means a night in Rainbow Beach before and after that are generally included with the cost of the trip.

Day 58 - Tuesday, March 20

So, on Tuesday, I hopped back on the greyhound and headed north another couple of hours from Noosa to Rainbow Beach. That afternoon we had a briefing on the trip and got to meet the folks that would be in our car and in the other tag-along cars. We also learned that afternoon that just to the north, severe storms had led to tornadoes and flooding, causing pretty severe damage, and as a result greyhound buses weren't running to a few northern stops. I wasn't really concerned about the bus because I wasn't heading north until Saturday (4 days later), but it did prompt me to look at the weather. It became clear that the weather system that had led to the rain, tornadoes and flooding was heading south and would be passing through Fraser Island while we were on the island, meaning pretty terrible weather the whole time we were supposed to be there. Awesome. I had already booked everything at that point, so changing dates wasn't an option. So I ordered a 4.5 liter box of goon (goon is the Aussie's name for boxed wine) for myself for the 2-night trip and figured I'd try to make the most of it.

Day 59 - Wednesday, March 21

We had to be checked out of the hostel and ready to go by 730 for the trip to Fraser. It was overcast and grey skies, but no rain just yet. We loaded up the SUVs and headed over to the island. I somehow ended up driving first. Driving on the left and shifting with the left hand was definitely a little weird, but no major incidents on the initial drive, though I did accidentally turn the windshield wipers on when I meant to use the turn signal (those were switched as well), which got a chuckle from the others in the car. When we got to the island, it still wasn't raining, so the guide, who was also familiar with the weather forecast, suggested we head to Lake McKenzie (which some consider the nicest part of Fraser Island), because Wednesday was supposed to be the nicest of the 3 days. So we started the drive through the woods up to the lake, and sure enough it started to rain. I didn't even take the camera out because of the rain, but we all sucked it up and made the best of it and swam in the lake for a bit, which was actually still quite amazing to see even in the rain. Here's what it looks like when it's not quite so rainy:

From Australia - Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island

Then we headed to the shipwreck of the Maheno, a pretty cool, and oft-photographed location. Again, I left the camera in my pocket, but snapped a couple as we drove by a few days later, none of which were as good as this guy's picture (again courtesy of my friend google):

From Australia - Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island

Then we headed to camp, where we set up tents and it looked like I was going to luck out and have a tent to myself. So I set up a tent and threw my bag in it and went to help with dinner and dig into my boxed wine, while the rain continued to come down.

One of the things that Fraser Island is most known for is all the wild dingoes that roam the island. Dingoes are like a wolf-dog hybrid that looks pretty similar to any mid-size domestic dog in the US, but are more related to wolves and have been known to attack humans. We were warned not to leave any food in our tents because they've also been known to rip up tents to get to food. So after a good group dinner and putting a decent dent in my box of wine, I went back to get something from my tent and what do you know, the damn dingoes had ripped apart my tent and the neighboring one and my toiletries were scattered all over the tent and sunscreen was everywhere. Awesome. It seems it was probably the sunscreen that attracted them, so if you're ever in a dingo-infested area, keep in mind that they love the smell of sunscreen. I did some cursory cleaning up and decided I just needed to have some more drinks, and that's exactly what I did. Turns out maybe a few too many. Apparently I told the folks from my car that I was going to the bathroom and after about 20 minutes they got worried and went looking for me. Turns out I had passed out in my tent - my very ripped tent. So when I woke up at about 6am to even harder rain, I had mosquito (and horsefly? and ant?) bites everywhere they could get to, which was primarily my feet, my hands, and my face. Awesome. I really hate mosquitoes. and dingoes. and rain. and boxed wine. but mostly mosquitoes and dingoes. Not a great start to the trip.

Day 60 - Thursday, March 22

Somehow between 6am when I first woke up and 8am when I rewoke up to start the day and get breakfast and whatnot, the rain stopped and the sun came out. It seemed a minor miracle given the weather forecast, but perhaps my luck had changed. We headed to Eli Creek, better known as Hangover Creek. It is more like a lazy river that is only a couple of feet deep and flows with enough velocity that you can sort of just float down it. It gets it's unofficial name due to its alleged ability to cure hangovers. As it turns out, creeks can only do so much for a hangover, because mine wasn't exactly cured after a swim/float in the creek, though I did feel a bit better.

From there we headed up past some sand cliffs called The Pinnacles...

From Australia - Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island

and to the champagne pools, so named because they are filled by the waves crashing against the rocks and as they pour into the pools they are filled with fizzy bubbles like champagne.

From Australia - Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island

From the pools, there is also pretty nice views of Indian Head, which was a destination later in the day:

From Australia - Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island

Then we headed to Waddy Point and hiked up some sand dunes, and chilled out in the tidal pool/lagoon.

From Australia - Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island

The entire day, our guide couldn't believe that the sun stayed out because every time he phoned someone on the mainland at Hervey Bay (a mile or so west of Fraser) or Rainbow Beach (a mile or so south of Fraser) they said it was pouring down rain there. Somehow we got spared and had nice weather pretty much all day. We ended the day at Indian Head:

From Australia - Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island

I opted to set up a new tent when we got back to the campsite. Especially after learning that day that the dingoes on Fraser used to hunt wild horses and the way they kill them and other large prey, including humans, is that they go straight for the femoral artery on the inside of the thigh to bleed out their prey as quickly as possible. I figured sleeping in a tent open to the air with such animals roaming around wasn't the best idea. But more importantly, I wanted to keep the stupid mosquitoes out. With the new tent, the second night was much better than the first.

Day 61 - Friday, March 23

It poured down rain all night again, but again let up a bit in the morning. We made our way back down the island, stopping off at Lake Wabby, a greenish lake with very steep sandbanks on the edge of a large sandblow, which is kind of like a mini-dessert. With the rain, I left the camera in the car, so here's some more stolen photos:

From Australia - Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island

When we got back to Rainbow Beach, I was greeted by an email from Greyhound saying that the following day's bus service I had booked from Rainbow Beach to 1770 (aka Agnes Water) had been cancelled because of flooding that prevented access to 1770. My best alternative was to rebook a 17-hour overnight bus ride on Sunday from Rainbow Beach all the way up to my next stop after 1770, which was Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands.

Day 62 - Saturday, March 24

The issues with the bus allowed me to take Saturday to just relax, do some much needed laundry, get a few blog posts up and generally just regroup and recharge my batteries after a rather exhausting 3 days on Fraser. Later in the afternoon, I did a short hike up to Cooloola National Park, which had a cool sandblow and nice views of the surrounding beaches from up on the cliffs.

From Australia - Rainbow Beach & Fraser Island

Day 63 - Sunday March 25

I got on the bus in Rainbow Beach at noon, got off in Hervey Bay for a few hours to switch buses, and arrived in Airlie Beach a little after 8am on Monday morning. Luckily the bus wasn't too full, the air conditioning worked, and I was able to get some sleep.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

Itinerary Update

For those that are curious (all 3 of you), I finally booked some more flights. I'm in Airlie Beach at the moment, after sailing around the Whitsundays for the past 3 days, which was amazing - photos and rambling summaries will be up before too long. The plan for the next month or so is:
March 30 - April 4: Cairns to do some diving around the Great Barrier Reef
April 4 - April 9: Darwin & Kakadu National Park
April 9 - April 12: Bali
April 12 - April ?: Bangkok for Thai New Year
Planning to stay in Thailand until the Full Moon Party on May 5.
Then, elsewhere in Asia, but not sure where yet or for how long.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Australia - Noosa

Day 57 - Monday, March 19

Monday morning I was back on the greyhound heading a few hours north to Noosa, another small coastal town, not too dissimilar from some of the others I had seen the previous week. It was kind of like Byron Bay but with slightly smaller waves, slightly browner water (due to the large river that flows into the Ocean there), and slightly more upscale stores, restaurants and accommodation. If I had gotten there a little earlier or stayed there for more than just the one night, I think I would've grabbed a surfboard and tried my hand at that again because the surf break looked to be quite friendly to someone of my very limited skill level. There's also a National Park with some nice long walking/hiking trails that I would've explored more of given more time, but only saw a bit of. A few pictures from Noosa:

From Australia - Yamba, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane & Noosa

I really should've gotten a picture of the wild turkeys that seemed to be everywhere, but failed on that account. Not sure why no one is out rounding them up and cooking them up because other than subway, you'd be hard pressed to find a turkey sandwich anywhere in this country. Anyway, Noosa seems to be a wild turkey haven.

Australia - Brisbane

Day 55 - Saturday, March 17 - St. Patty's Day

It seems they don't celebrate St. Patty's Day in Australia with quite the fervor that I was used to in the US, but nonetheless, the few Irish bars in downtown Brisbane were still packed full of people decked out in green, with ridiculously long waits to get inside the entire day. Elsewhere in the city, however, hardly anyone was wearing green and you'd be hard pressed to figure out it was anything but a typical saturday. There was a Scottish guy in my room who seemed friendly and he was nice enough to invite me to join him and his other Scottish friend for the day as they celebrated. So we had some drinks on the roof of the hostel before heading out to craziness at the nearby Irish pubs. Here's a view from the roof of the hostel, pretty nice spot:

From Australia - Yamba, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane & Noosa

Then we proceeded out to downtown Brisbane, bouncing around to a couple of Irish bars. I kind of forgot I had my camera and didn't get many pictures, but here's one of me and the Scottish guys as we waited in line outside one of the pubs we visited.

From Australia - Yamba, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane & Noosa

Day 56 - Sunday, March 18

I met two really cool Brisbanites (Brisbanians?) at my first stop in Fiji, and I was fortunate enough to have one of them, Nancy, show me around a bit, despite her crazy schedule. We met a friend of hers and had some drinks at a pretty cool spot on the river in an area of town called Teneriffe, that was quite nice and less touristy than elsewhere in the city I'd been. As in Melbourne, having someone who lived there to hang out with was really great alternative to the typical touristy stuff. After a few drinks, we checked out the city from Kangaroo Point, which was pretty awesome:

From Australia - Yamba, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane & Noosa

Many thanks to Nancy for putting up with me for the afternoon & evening.

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Australia - Byron Bay & Surfers Paradise

I wanted to try to get to Brisbane by Friday night so that I could spend the weekend and celebrate St. Patty's Day there. That combined with leaving Sydney a little later than originally anticipated, and adding in a stop in Yamba, left not very much time to check out Byron Bay and Surfers Paradise, the next two stops heading north up the east coast.

Day 53 - Thursday, March 15
After about 24 hours in Yamba, I left Thursday morning and headed to Byron Bay. When I got there, the weather was still overcast with occasional showers, but again the waves looked fun. After struggling a bit with the surfing in Yamba, and because rentals were about twice the price in Byron, I opted for a boogie/body board in Byron, which the hostel provided free of charge. I just wandered along the beach jumping in at various points and tried to enjoy the waves without getting too much in the way of surfers. Byron seemed like a place where I wouldn't have minded spending a few days. Like Yamba, it was a bit of a laid back surfer town, with lots of stuff catering to backpackers, but just a bit bigger and more commercialized than Yamba. While it is known to be a pretty fun place to go out, I opted for sleep. A few pictures:

From Australia - Yamba, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane & Noosa

Day 54 - Friday, March 16
After only about 24 hours in Byron, I jumped back on the greyhound in the morning and headed north just a short way to the Gold Coast, known for it's really nice beaches. Luckily the weather was amazing and I was able to spend most of the day on the sand in Surfers Paradise, which reminded me a bit of Miami's South Beach, with it's nice beaches, warm water, highrises lining the beach, and plethora of late-night clubs/hotspots. I was only there for about 10 hours from 1030 to 8, which was plenty of time to get sunburnt on what was a beautiful sunny day and enjoy some of the waves, this time without a board of any kind. I was glad I opted to only spend the day on the Gold Coast and didn't mind leaving after only 10 hours. So at 8, I jumped back on the greyhound and headed north another short distance to Brisbane. Some pics from Surfers Paradise:

From Australia - Yamba, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane & Noosa

Friday, March 23, 2012

Australia - Yamba

Day 52 - Wednesday, March 14
I was originally planning to go straight from Sydney to Byron Bay, the first major backpacker/tourist destination heading north on the east coast from Sydney. However, on the recommendation of another backpacker I met in Sydney, I decided to make a quick stop in a town called Yamba, which is just a little south of Byron Bay. Yamba is a small sleepy surfer town. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great, so I didn't get a chance to totally appreciate it. But it is really laid back and much less commercialized that some of the other beach towns on the east coast. It has some really nice surf breaks and I was able to rent a board for the day for $10, which was nice and definitely cheaper than anywhere else I've seen in Australia. A little clouds and rain may have detracted from the views, but were no reason not to get out and try to ride some waves.

The key word being "try." I headed over to Turner's beach and spent the better part of the morning trying and failing to swim out past the whitewash and then trying and failing to surf the whitewash. I did make it out to where the waves were breaking a few times and did ride a few waves. But I'm pretty sure I came away with more injuries (all minor) than the number of waves I rode. Still, a good time. Here's a photo of me in one of my few moments where I looked like I knew what I was doing:

From Australia - Yamba, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane & Noosa

Okay; that's not really me. I'm pretty sure I never looked like that. But that is Turner's beach, where I collected some bruises and fell down a lot.

When I got back from surfing I had missed the tour of the area that the hostel did, but I had seen the receptionist draw the route on the map and knew that it was about a 3 hour tour, so I figured I'd just do it myself. Well, as it turns out, the tour was a driving tour in a van, and I was under the impression it was a walking tour and my map wasn't exactly to scale. So in effort to find the "blue lake" and "cliff jump" advertised as part of the tour and pictured below, I ended up walking about 4 miles to the neighboring town of Angourie:

From Australia - Yamba, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane & Noosa

I then, for what I'm pretty sure was the first time in my life, hitchhiked my way back to Yamba. Luckily the first car that drove by picked me up and I didn't get murdered. Hitchhiking is pretty common in NZ and Oz and generally considered pretty safe, so not quite the same as hitchhiking in the US. Safely back in Yamba, I checked out some more of the coastline around Yamba. Here's a picture from some cliffs looking out onto Main Beach:

From Australia - Yamba, Byron Bay, Surfers Paradise, Brisbane & Noosa

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Australia - Sydney

Day 45 - Wednesday, March 7

As previously mentioned, I decided to fly from Melbourne to Sydney, so I did that on Wednesday. When I got to Sydney it was overcast and raining so I didn't do much, just wandered around the few city blocks by the hostel to sort of get my bearings. I stayed the first 2 nights at the YHA Railway Square, which I would highly recommend to anyone traveling to Sydney. Here's a random picture of the clocktower at the train station beside the hostel.

From Australia - Sydney

Day 46 - Thursday, March 8

It rained virtually all day thursday. And not like a light rain that you wouldn't mind walking around in, but a serious flood-inducing sort of rain. So I sat around the hostel and read most of the day. I met a few other travelers at a BBQ put on by the hostel that evening and we made plans to go check out a few of the local beaches the following day.

Day 47 - Friday, March 9

The weather Friday was beautiful, so we headed down south of Sydney to Coogee beach:

From Australia - Sydney

And then we walked along the cliffs and coastline from Coogee up to Bronte Beach, which had a pretty sweet surf break that attracted lots of surfers:

From Australia - Sydney

And then onto Bondi Beach, which is the biggest and most popular of the Sydney beaches. It's been quite a rainy summer in Sydney, so with the weather finally nice, lots of folks were out at the beach even though it was a weekday.

From Australia - Sydney

The YHA hostel I was at wed and thurs nights was full for the weekend, so I had to move hostels, and I moved to Backpackers HQ. That turned out not to be the best decision...

Day 48 - Saturday, March 10

The only bed left in my room in the new hostel was a top bunk and there was virtually no visible floor space around the bed because the people in that part of the room were quite messy. So on Saturday morning, I moved my sheets to a different bed to grab a bottom bunk in a tidier part of the room. In the process of moving my stuff, I noticed a little bug on my towel and when I killed I noticed it was filled with blood like a mosquito, and I was like, "huh?, I wonder what kind of bug that was..."

The weather was beautiful again on Saturday so I walked down and checked out the waterfront, the Opera House, the Botanic Gardens and bats who live there, etc. Here are some photos (more in the album):

From Australia - Sydney

While I was walking around, I noticed that there were quite a few bug bites on my arms and legs that were starting to itch, but I hadn't seen any mosquitoes or sand flies around anywhere, including the hostel, so I started to think maybe I had finally come across the dreaded bedbugs that are unfortunately somewhat common in hostels. After a little google research back at the hostel, and a further inspection of the itchy areas on my body, I was pretty certain that the little bug I had killed was an adult bedbug, and I had about 20-25 bedbug bites. So I went to the reception desk, and they said that there wasn't much they could do at that point because every single bed in the hostel was taken, and the guy at the desk was just some backpacker that had only been working there a few days. So he gave me some new sheets and I was hoping between the new sheets and having changed beds that morning, I'd be okay. Not so much. Between paranoia about being bitten and actually getting bitten, the little bit of sleep I got was mostly thanks to my friend Jim Beam.

Day 49 - Sunday, March 11
When I woke in the morning with a handful of additional bites, I went to the reception desk where the manager was working. He of course apologized, and moved me to a new, nicer, much less messy room, and he gave coins so that I could wash and dry all my clothes. So I spent a good bit of Sunday just washing clothes and cleaning out my bags and generally trying to make sure I was bedbug free.

The weather was beautiful again on Sunday, so after tending to the bedbug issue, I headed over to the downtown area where the ferries come and go. Harbor cruises are quite popular in Sydney, as that is apparently a good way to see the city, but I had read that the ferry to Manly beach is basically just as good as a harbor cruise in terms of what you see, but much cheaper, so I hopped on the ferry over to Manly beach. Some photos from the ferry:

From Australia - Sydney

And one of shadow-covered Manly beach:

From Australia - Sydney

I watched the sunset on Manly because I wanted to head back on the ferry after dark, hearing that the night views of the city were pretty cool. A photo from the ferry wharf at sunset:

From Australia - Sydney

And a couple of blurry photos of the city at night - taking night photos from a moving boat is not very easy - so don't look too closely at these:

From Australia - Sydney

Day 50 - Monday, March 12

I was originally planning to take the overnight greyhound bus out of Sydney on Monday night, but I waited too long to book it and it was full, so I moved back to the YHA for a night, where I lucked out and my 4-bed room was empty except for me, so I took a nice long nap, and then finally got a good night's sleep that night.

Day 51 - Tuesday, March 13

The weather was really nice again on Tuesday, and my bus didn't leave Sydney until 11pm, so headed back over to Bondi beach for the day and enjoyed the sun and waves. After getting sufficiently sunburnt, I headed back to the city and checked out the area just at the foot of the harbor bridge known as "the rocks" which has nice views of the opera house and bridge:

From Australia - Sydney

And then walked across the bridge which provided more nice views of the opera house and city:

From Australia - Sydney

Around 10:30 or so I jumped on the greyhound bus with about 40 other backpackers and headed north