Great Barrier Reef (June 23-25)

Having just checked in at the YHA in Cairns I inquired about a trip to the GBR to get to the next level in scuba diving, the advanced open water certification, when I was told that the next course was to commence the next day at 6:20h and that all the courses for the following days were fully booked already. Nice, that gave me 9 hours to do all my laundry, get rid of some more stuff to lighten my backpack and to recover from a 7 hour bus trip. Still, I was really eager to get in the water again and so it was easy to put up with a little less sleep although I knew I had 11 dives in 3 days ahead of me.

Our boat was a purpose built multi million Dollar scuba vessel with about 80 gross tons skippered by a 22-year-old.

Our boat: ScubaPro II

 Our scuba gear for the trip

Magnetic Island (June 20-22)

…or Maggy as it is also called is just 20 minutes off Townsville and is supposed to be the best location to see koalas in the wild. As a matter of course I missed them.

 Leaving Townsville for Maggy in a very nice cat

Townsville (June 16-20)

Townsville is the second largest city in Queensland with about 160k citizens and a lot of military presence in the area. 

So it is not unusual to see fighter planes breaking the sonic barrier over the city. It is also the gateway to the famous Yongala wreck. This is supposed to be one of the top dive site in Queensland but since I cant afford the GBR and Townsville it wasn’t hard to dismiss the Yongala. Still I would have loved to dive that wreck.

Townsville was one of the few places where I didn’t sleep at the YHA. I stayed at Reef Lodge instead which was recommended by Lonely Planet and the night in a 3 share dorm was just 22 bucks. Finally I have come that far north where you don’t have to put on any long clothes anymore and where you can stay up late just wearing shorts.

My room mates were the nicest couple I have ever come across on my trip so far. Grant and Sara from just outside of Belfast were working at a CD/DVD sale in Townsville and planned on staying there for three weeks. I watched the game Germany-Serbia (fu*king hell that sucked) with Grant and was impressed how much he knew about football. We spent entire evenings just talking about stuff and if you ever hear me saying [nei] instead of now then you know where I got it from ;-)

On the way to the hostel I noticed that the rubber on my suitcase wheel became loose and by the time I reached the hostel the rubber was completely gone and the wheel was about to break off. So unfortunately the suitcase just made it a little under 2 month before I had to replace it. In order to prevent that from happening in the future I decided to buy a proper backpack which proofed to be more difficult than expected. I checked out the local stores but those either didn’t have what I was looking for or the rucksacks (they actually use that word) were too dear (another word Grant uses frequently) . Therefore I had to take the bus to the suburbs. A clever bloke would have done that on any day between Monday and Saturday but I watched some movies I got from Sara instead and so decided to go shopping on a Sunday. N1.

I guess I don’t need to tell you how long I had to wait for the busses to get me to and from the store. Anyway, in the end I got what I wanted and so I am now [nei] a proud owner of a BlackWolf CedarCreek 75+15. They had a big sale on and I got the $330 backpack for $175.

Downsizing from 130 litres or however big my suitcase was to 80 litres was quite difficult and it took me quite long to decide what to keep and what to get rid of. In the end I had to let go of a pair of trainers, a sweater, a pair of jeans, my Lonely Planet Eastcoast, lots of ducuments and flyers, my sailing books and my beloved Gnuf hoody (courtesy of Pokerakedmie.com). Sorry for that, Micha. That hoody was really good but since I had never used it Down Under there was no sense in keeping in.

I almost cracked my bones putting on my new backpack and so I had to throw out more stuff in Cairns. From now on I am a genuine backpacker.

Enough of that bag and back to Townsville: There is the only living coral reef on display in the Reef HQ but as I will get to see that myself first hand in Cairns it was probably smarter to save the money. I would have loved to take a look at it, though.

Instead, I climbed castle to get a good view over the city. 

 Castle Hill

Airlie Beach (The Whitsunday Islands) June 12 – 16

Sailing the Whitsundays is one of three must-sees in Queensland. The other two being 4WDing on Fraser and diving in Cairns.

 The Whitsundays consist of more than 70 islands

Fortunately I just got the boat I was looking for. It was a catamaran (LOA: 15m, Beam 9m) with diving on board at a standby rate saving me $150. They crammed 21 people + 4 crew on board and so there was a snug atmosphere but still quite enjoyable.

All the sheets and sails were operated with hydraulics and so there was not much we could do to help the skipper. The swell picked up and so it was quite a bumpy trip with at least half the passengers getting sick on the way to the Whitsundays.

Rockhampton (June 9-12)

Unfortunately there is only one Greyhound bus out of Agnes Water (the second big coach company Premier Motor Service doesn’t even bother to go there) which is at 9 pm and so we were due to arrive Rocky at midnight. I phoned up the YHA in Rockhampton and they deposited my room key in their safe for me to pick up. Of course there was no taxi at the bus terminal and so we had to wait 20min for one to show up.

I met Suzi again in Agnes and it turned out she also wanted to stay at the YHA. Apparently we just keep bumping into each other. Together with a Dutch guy we shared a cab to go to our accommodation. The Dutch guy wanted to give me the money for the taxi later, he probably just forgot to do so ;-)

The YHA receptionist was a nice bloke from the Philippines. He showed me some cords on the ukulele (it is actually not tuned like a guiar), let me play his guitar and recommended a great restaurant.

I met Kevin from Noosa again (as everybody is travelling in the same direction and since most backpackers stay loyal to YHA you always meet your fellow travellers again) and we had a look around the city searching for the library for free Internet. The Show was in town (something like the Oktoberfest but much smaller and without the huge tents we are familiar with) and so people used it as an excuse not to work this day. Even the library was closed. I assume you meet more people in town on Boxing Day at 06:00 in the morning. The streets were wiped empty.

Since everybody was at the show ground we figured we should at least check it out swallowing hard when the lady said “That’ll come to $15, please”. I would never go to the Oktoberfest if I had to pay $15 admission. WTF???

Anyway, it was just as crowded as the Oktoberfest and so it felt like home.

 as crowded as the Oktoberfest

Agnes Water and Town of 1770 (June 6-8)

As the name indicates in 1770 James Cook came to this nice place and founded the state of Queensland. This is actually the most northern town where you can surf but I didn’t try it. Might save that for Sydney, not sure.

 Agnes Water

It is quite a small town and apart from the beach there is not much to see. Apparently this is a good spot for snorkelling but I will see loads of fish in the Whitsundays and Cairns and so I pointed my attention toward something else.

 Beach in Agnes Water

Hervey Bay (Fraser Island) June 01-06

I had to decide between Hervey Bay and Rainbow Beach as my starting point for Fraser Island. Since I am not the fastest traveller I choose the more northern City.

The YHA Collonial Village is a nice place and it looks more like a camping site than a hostel. Apparently space is becoming less of a concern the further north you go. Even the smallest streets are a lot bigger than back home. The hostel has its own tennis court, ping pong table and a good pool.

My skin deteriorated all of a sudden and so I decided to take it easy for a couple of days to let it get better before going to Fraser Island. Kinda fed up with all these delays and so I need to travel faster from now on.

Initially, I wanted to book a self drive tour on Fraser but as I didn’t feel well during the days before, I chose the guided tour where you can sleep in a hostel room rather than the sandy campground.

Driver was 8 minutes early and so everybody on the bus had to wait for me. Even the hostel staff was already looking for me.

Fraser Island consist of 99% sand and a wee volcanic material. Being 123 km long and 22 km wide it is the world’s biggest sand island and for some reasons different types of forest were able to settle. Depending on how much minerals the trees have already absorbed the color of sand changes every few kms. About 700-2000 Aboriginals (depending on the season) used to live there, but they were deported when the island was discovered by the logging industry.

The shuttle got us down to River Heads where the ferry was already waiting for us. The journey took about 35min and we saw something that some identified as dolphins.

 Fraser Venture