KKK: Koala’s, Kamel toes and Komodo dragon’s

We’ve been using a couple of resources for recommendations of the areas that we are travelling (north along the gold coast) for the best things to do in each area along the way. One of the books recommended the Booti Booti National park hike called the Booti Hill walking track. (Aussie’s call trails, “tracks”). 

The trail started on a beach and then basically went straight up for about 500 metres, and then plateaued for a bit. There were signs everywhere to watch for koalas, so we were looking hard for them everywhere, but had an epic fail. The hike was pretty uneventful in the end, we wouldn’t have called it a recommended hike. This was the first time in 10 days that ALL of us were starting to feel like we were finally getting into shape. 

After a quick picnic lunch in the back of the Mitsubishi, we drove to Bonny Hills which was our next 2-day overnight stop. We had booked a “tent” accommodation which included: a queen bed, a set of bunks, bull bathroom and almost full kitchen.

 This was probably one of the most unique accommodations we’ve ever seen. This was located directly on the cliff overlooking the Rainbow Beach, which was about 8 miles long.

 

The next morning we went to a recommended beach called Pilots beach; it was great for swimming, and didn’t have much of a surf, which was good cause we really just wanted to swim and cool off and get some relaxation and sun and freckles!

An interesting tidbit: there are A LOT of pie shops here. Meat pie shops are like Tim Hortons, but they are all independent. So we stop at almost EVERY pie stop along the highway for pies every day, for Brent, Todd and Wanda.

Just like all other tourists, we are excited to see animals that we would never get to see. We found out about a Koala hospital and thought, hey lets go see some koalas. 

They had feedings at 3 and it was recommended to go at feeding times. Here are some things that we found out about koalas: most in the hospital were injured from car accidents (there is signage everywhere on the highways!), the rest of them are there from illnesses such as conjunctivitis and chlamydia (yes the same one as humans) which affects their eye site, urinary tract and reproductive systems and will eventually kill them if not treated. Koalas are not bears but are marsupials and carry their joeys (baby’s) in their pouch. They are pretty docile (due to the eucalyptus leaves they eat) and only are active for about 4 hours per day, sleep for the rest. They have 2 thumbs and 3 claws. Eat a pound of leaves daily. During mating season they are VERY loud trying to attract a mate AND when they get it on (confirmed by Jill who questioned Sheena, the tour guide). Apparently if you have a koala in your backyard, they are annoying and loud from getting’ it on!

 

The highlight of the day, was when Todd accidentally walked into a MUSEUM voluntarily! Let it be known and on record that this event happened. It was called the Roto house, which was the oldest house in Port MacQuarie. Brent learned about “dance cards” from 1902. A full dance card apparently means that the girl is a slut, according to Brent.

The next day we had to pack up the Mitsubishi. Let me just say that we are MASTERS OF PACKING and everything get’s “tetris’d” into the vehicle very quickly and efficiently. In fact we left 20 minutes ahead of schedule because we are AMAZING! We may have been a bit anxious and excited for the next adventure. We had an appointment with 4 camels!

 

When Danni and I went to Turkey, we had planned to ride some camels and this didn’t happen. So it’s been on my mind that the next chance I got, I had to ride a camel; hence Lighthouse beach. Can I tell you how much I enjoyed this?!!!

Here are some interesting facts about camels: there were imported as work animals in the 1800’s, one-hump camels are for hot climates and two-hump camels are for cold climates, male adult can lift up to 600 kg for up to 12 hours, they can go for up to 90 days without water, there are 1.7 million wild camels in Aus, the first piano in Alice Springs was carried in by camel, they don’t have hooves they have pads like dogs. The guys who ran the company were super friendly, knowledgeable and fun! And looked like the Aus version of Duck Dynasty. It was quite funny when we realized that Jules Mooseknuckle was sitting on top of a camel toe!

 

The afternoon was spent driving and exploring on yet another recommended beach for snorkeling, red hat beach, where the river met the ocean. We didn’t get any pictures of this place, but when we walked up the path from the parking area to the beach, we saw, what I thought was a komodo dragon (but the men said it was a monitor reptile thingy, but I’m going with komodo dragon)! We ventured out snorkeling in the ocean towards a reef, or so we thought. We swam for quite a while and then gave up on the reef that we thought we saw, and headed back in towards land. Wanda finally found the spot we were told about and found puffer fish, some black striped tiger looking fish, stingrays, blue fishes, angel fishes, and transparent clear type fishies (Brent called the Australian Transparent Reef Fish). It was a great swim and excellent opportunity for freckles collection!

 

Our next stay was north of Coff’s Harbour at Corindi Beach Holiday Park, where each couple got their own studio cabin, right on the beach.

Some interesting tidbits about the holiday parks: you can rent an “ensuite” for your tent. Basically you put up your tent right next to the path that leads to your own private bathroom (full loaded with hot and cold water, shitter, sink and shower) how very civil! There are some really cool tent-trailers and trailers in general. Not many push-outs to the side, but most push-out to the top. Or some explode and look like the Sydney opera house!

 

We were told by quite a few locals in the area about Waterfall Way, which was a highway that had “waterfall, after waterfall after waterfall”. This sounded like a great day activity, so we got into the Mitsubishi and by 8 am were on our way. We ran into a major traffic jam going back into Coffs Harbour so we detoured on what we thought was an equivalent type highway, which we figured would take an extra 20 mins or so. The road was worse than the Hana highway, which was also gravel for 3/4 of it, and had NO guardrails. There were 3-400 foot drops into the jungle below. (Todd was in his element!) After 2.5 hours we finally had to pull over to take a break and check out this totally random MASSIVE tree.

Make sure you read the stats on this thing!

And then about 5 more minutes down the road, we finally came across the first waterfall: Dangar Falls.

The trek down was pretty easy, compared to other hikes we’ve done.

And the view was amazing from down below too.

We then drove to Dorrigo where we stopped at the Rainforest Lookout, which was pretty breathtaking.

There was a lovely café there, so we stopped for lunch. The menu was half gluten free, so I was very happy! All of us had great food, and I left just enough room for dessert: GLUTEN FREE ORANGE AND ALMOND CAKE WITH CREAM. Can you visualize how great this was for me? Let me repeat: GLUTEN FREE CAKE ON THE MENU! It was frickin’ amazing, so amazing in fact that it deserves 2 pictures, I don’t care!

 

 

Got back into the Mitsubishi, and toured the nearest waterfalls Ebor Falls, and two others I forget.

And then we saw some emu’s. We dropped Wanda off on the side of the highway to take some pictures. We turned around to go get her, and she was being chased down by 3 Emu's, but actually they are very curious birds and need to come check out who she was. Luckily there was a wire fence between her and the Emu's. However, we found out later that they can rip a wire fence with their legs, if need be.

The end.

Leaving Sydney in the Rear View Mirror

So our last day in Sydney started with a Bondi Beach walk, again, because you can never get sick of a beach walk, but to the South end this time. Probably a total of 4 km round trip. We found a man-made jetty, turned ocean swimming pool, it was cool. There are alot of swimming pools along the beach walk, all made of ocean water of course. In fact, Sydney is pretty good at keeping its people active with free outdoor sports. (swimming, volleyball, basketball, walking, running, boardwalks, exercise stations everywhere, it was crazy awesome!). We all took a swim in the jetty.

Not my best side, but Todd said i owed him since i called him Jules Mooseknuckle!

The afternoon was spent driving around Sydney along the coast area to check out more watery areas.

 

And we decided to stop for a refreshing beverage along the side of a road, at yet another beach.

We decided that we needed to have a fabulous dinner nite out downtown where we had to "dress up". Wanda and I decided we both needed new dresses for the event and pitstopped at the market to purchase said garments. Jules Mooseknuckle googled "O" restaurant which was located on the 47 floor of a round building, and the restaurant rotated so we could see Sydney all lit up at nite. This sounded perfect, away we went. Had a lovely meal.

 By day 6, we were sick of downtown living, the crowds and big city life, we were all looking forward to head north out of the city. Sydney was good, but it was time to move on.

We loaded up the car, red neck style, and moved the wagons north up M-1, Pacific Coast highway (which is the QE1). 

Getting on the highway, we were impressed with a few Australian road works including: rest stops every 10 minutes (with flush toilets! and covered picnic tables), U-turn lanes (U-turn bays), and unimpressed that we couldn't speed due to excessive photo radar on every corner. We had no agenda for the day, other than go north. As we drove through torrential down pours sheets mixed with dry/clear spells, back to blanketing rain, we stumbled on a hidden gem called Seal Rock. This was located on the very far east tip of some national park. It was off the beaten path, off a narrow windy road and dead ended at a lighthouse perched upon a wicked rock cliff. It was pouring rain, so we donned the raincoats and climbed up to see this cool site. The lighthouse still operated a functional conventional turny light. You could rent a room at the lighthouse, if you planned ahead, but we were foot loose. We back tracked a couple of km's to a campground type park, which offered cabins and camping sites. We inquired to see if anything was available and they had a fully equipped cabin with a beach view.

 

We were a little excited about the beach! The sand squeeked when we walked on it.

When we woke up in the morning and looked out the front window, there was a pod of dolphins swimming right there. It was amazing! Todd, Wanda and Brent suited up in snorkel gear and headed out to go swim with them. Epic fail. They could hear the dolphins screaming in the water and saw stingrays instead. An epic fail, but success for swimming in ocean with sea creatures. Much more to come with northern travels....

Jules Mooseknuckle

 We headed into the Blue Mountains again on Friday, hoping to see all the cool things we missed the first time around like the Three Sisters, some amazing lookout views, some fabulous short hikes and the general viewing of the blue mountain valley. We awoke at 5, left at 6 and arrived at visitor information at 8:45, where, it was so cloudy and overcast, we found out that our planned day was an epic fail. So we consulted with the information lady and she sent us to the Jenolan Caves. So we drove about 70 minutes along a gorgeous secondary highway, where the last 10km was winding road, just like the road to Hana (those familiar with the Maui road know what i'm talking about). Just before we got there though, we came across this...

We were pretty frickin excited!

The final drive into the caves was just like driving into Radium, but better! We signed up for the 11:30 tour of the Lucas caves. Take a look...

Of course, it wouldn't be a true Donovan adventure without some kind of hike or climb.

and one more

We stopped for a picnic lunch and saw these gorgeous birds.

And then we came home. Got stuck in rush hour traffic.

Some random notes about Sydney: women are very tall here, no one is overweight, the city of 4.5 million can really move people with ferries, buses, trains, bridges, tunnels and we think the city of Calgary needs to take a few pointers from this place. Also, it is very clean for the amount of people that are here.




So you may be wondering why I called this blog post Jules Mooseknuckle, well before we left on this holiday, Todd researched every inch of travel information to plan the trip and itinerary for the rest of us; therefore, we thought it was appropriate to call him the male version of Julie - the Cruise director; hence Jules. And then, last night we went for a fancy dinner where we all had to dress up. So Todd put on his Dockers that he probably hasn't worn in 5 years, and you know, they were a bit tight in all areas surrounding the jewels, hence Mooseknuckle.

Blue Mountain Boot Camp

Day 3: we were up early again, before sunrise, simply amazed at where we are. The sunrise is awesome, and we never want to miss it.

We ventured out of Sydney today, west to the Blue Mountains. On the journey, the first pit stop was at "pie in the sky" for mocha's, coffee and the most DELICIOUS sausage rolls EVER (according to Brent and Todd). So much for losing 20 pounds on this trip.

Our trip to the Blue Mountains was a bit spontaneous and unplanned, which as we found out, was not a great idea. Our navigational tools failed us epically, we ended up with no definitive plan and no idea where we were or what we should be doing. Its kinda like going to the banff gate, and randomly driving down the highway not knowing that the town and all its greatness is around you. So we stopped for fuel and found a local tour magazine and quickly figured out our days purpose. We headed to Evans lookout; this was our first experience at the Blue Mountains, and we were awed!

The reason they are the Blue Mountains has something to do with water particles and dirt in the air and your eyeballs transform them into a blue haze (or something like that); hence blue mountains. We got back into the car and headed down the Great Western Highway to Wentworth Falls. In the tourguide magazine, we saw a hike rated 5-6 hours with a difficulty of "hard". In true Donovan fashion we thought, "yes, we are ALL IN!" and away we went. This hike started with a moderate downhill walk to the upper falls.

Walked around the bend...

and then saw this...

And then we walked down a few sets of stairs.....

Actually, it was about 15 sets of stairs, at a 65 degree angle, carved by hand, in the 1860s to bring us down to the mid-basin of the falls.

After this beautiful falls, we expected that we had seen the Wentworth falls and all its greatness, and then we came upon a junction which allowed us to go back to the parking lot, OR take us down to the next set of falls, which said for experienced hikers only, and since we were experienced West Coast Trail Veterans, hey, we were up for the challenge! This is old hat for us.

When we finally got to the very bottom, the waterfall was not anything we had originally imagined.

From here, we weren't quite sure where to go, back up? Oh man, 1000 feet straight up did not sound like a good plan.
We were very uneducated about this hike and second guessed ourselves, but decided to follow the signs out through a different path. Every aspect of this trail reminded us of the West Coast Trail. Let me tell you, that the humidity in Australia is not something we are used to in dry Western Canada. Although it was only 22 C, the humidity was 87%, which made it feel like 40 C, we were definitely sweaty beasts.
Eventually, we started to gain altitude out of the valley, and FINALLY met other hikers coming from the other way, and we thought ok, we are headed in the right direction. Throughout the next 2 hours, we "ran" into about 10 more waterfalls, just as great as the first one, but we stopped taking pictures, and kinda thought, hmmmm, whatever, who cares! We were spoiled with the first set of falls, that it didn't matter anymore what we saw, it was so old news.
It was hell, let me tell you, hiking back out of this pit in the bottom of the earth, our legs, thighs, asses, and everything in between, on top of, or beside, ached and sweated like never before in our lives. It was super shitty,  but we sucked it up because we were in AUSTRALIA DAMMIT!

Eventually we made it back to the car, and we all concluded that despite the pain and agony, this was the most amazing waterfall and hike we had ever done. period. end of story.

And then we went to the mall. All sweaty, salty, sore, disgusting, to buy groceries and beach towels for the next adventure.

Day 4: Oh man, did our legs hurt today,and we are old and out of shape! Thought we should keep up with exercise and left early this morning to do the Bondi Beach Walk. Heading north from the condo, for magnificent ocean views....

And after a lovely walk, had to jump into the ocean to cool off, at 9 am. Again, 20 C and 87% humidity is hard to adjust too.
After showers and lunch, we headed downtown to the harbour tour, which was a tour of a bunch of wharfs in the Sydney Harbour area. (and holy cow, this is a very big harbour). We caught the boat at Darling Harbour (pronounced dah-lin-ah-bour) Here are a few of the fabulous sites...

It was worth it. Great to be on a boat, enjoying the sun, water and freedom.
That's it.

In the land down under....

Wow, that was one helluva long flight. 15 hours from Vancouver. Upon arrival at the airport we had to get a SIM card, get the rental car and a trip to Costco before we checked into the condo. By the time we arrived in Heaven at Bondi (pronounced "bond-eye") we were exhausted.

We, of course, had to dip our toes in the ocean, with 10,000 other people on the beach! That had to be a record number of people we've EVER seen on the beach. There were so many lifeguards, you couldn't drown a toad. Below is the beach, which is about 400 metres from our condo.

After our first night, it was early to bed and awoke around 6 am to the sound of waves, birds and warm weather urging us to get up and explore Sydney. So we went down the Bondi Beach walk to the south end. Its a geological extravaganza, according to Wanda and Brent. We realized how pedestrian this area is as EVERYONE was on this pathway, but no one likes to say "good morning". And there are no overweight people here.

So after the 3 hours walk, we thought hey, what better way to see the city on our first day so lets get on the double decker bus! The on and off bus took us through Bondi and downtown Sydney areas. The city is a cool mix of old and new and super clean! We learned a lot and Todd said it was educational as it was a good introduction to the history of Sydney.

We celebrated Brents birthday on the tour bus day! Happy Birthday to Brent.

This morning we awoke and it was Todd's birthday in Sydney (and Brents birthday in Calgary, so hence it has turned into a 3 day merged birthday celebration, and they are milking it big time!)

So Todd's birthday wish was to go on the Sydney Bridge Climb. For those of you who aren't familiar with this activity, you basically walk on top of the bridge 134 metres above the ocean. This was VERY COOL and we all highly recommend this activity, even though it is very pricey. After an hour (yes an hour) of safety talks, safety gear attachment and ugly uniforms, we finally got to step out onto the bridge for some of the most amazing views of Sydney! We weren't allowed to take our own camera, and were forced to purchase their pics, so all we have is what i've got here: lovely viewage of Opera house and then the angle of the climb. We all agreed this was a very cool day, we, again, learned ALOT, for example: how many hot rivets did it take to build this bridge: 6 million, 16 men died building this bridge, it was built from both sides at the same time and held with cables and when it came together it was out by 5 mm (which is amazing considering it was all done manually with no computers), the two pillars on each side of the bridge are fake, they have no structural purpose as they put them there for esthetic reasons.In today's dollars it cost 2.5 billion to build. It is the longest freestanding single arch bridge in the world and we effing climbed it!(on our birthdays says Todd and Brent!)

Final end to the day was beers at the Australian Pub, one of the oldest pubs in The Rocks, Sydney.
(The Rocks, was the area where the first prisoners and inhabitants of Australia settled- see how smart we are!)

G'day mates!

Tick Tock Tick Tock - Countdown to Australia.

So Todd and I are heading to Australia for 2 months which will be the the trip of our lifetime! I hope to keep you all up to date on our adventures as we go along. Departure date is March 28, 2014.