Into Queensland and the Tropics

View over Gloucester

Having decided to ship from Brisbane in early July, before the Carnet expires, we are eager to get to the north of Queensland around Cairns. So after passing through Gloucester and reaching the Pacific Coast Highway we had three days of driving, to reach Brisbane, but managed to find some beautiful  campsites en route.

Sunset over river at Macleans Campground

At the Macleans Campground site a few kms off the highway we managed to park beside a tidal river with beautiful views of the sunset reflected in the estuary. Just after we parked two dolphins swam right past the van, then in the last afterglow of the sunset tens of thousands of fruit bats - or flying foxes - flew over the site. an extraordinary sight which went on for a good 10 minutes. Finally as we were having dinner persistent lightning provided a fantastic lightshow in two separate clouds over the coast. No thunder, and no rain.


Lightning illuminating a cloud

Just south of Brisbane we stopped at Byron Beach where a headland marks the eastern most point of the Australian Mainland. From the viewpoint we were privileged to see a dozen or so dolphin playing in the waves, a small shark patrolling the shoreline, and out to sea several humpback whales breaching and playing.
Passing through Brisbane we headed north stopping for a night in the glasshouse mountains - an area of numerous sharp hills in a flat landscape which are the remains of ancient volcanic plugs.   

Narrow gauge rails for cane trucks

Another couple of long days driving through mile upon mile of sugar cane fields with their snaking narrow gauge railways to take the cane to either a processing plant or a main rail terminal and we reached Townsville, and much warmer weather.

Wallaman Falls

Here the Great Dividing Range again approaches the coast and the scenery becomes more interesting, with more extraordinary places to visit. Wallaman Falls just north of Townsville is the longest single drop waterfall in Australia with a single fall of 265m. A morning walk down the track to the bottom of the gorge rewarded me with the sun progressively illuminating the falls, and growing the rainbow formed in its spray, a mesmerising sight.


Fan Palms

Queensland is home to the Cassowary - a prehistoric bird similar to an ostrich but with a blue head and red wattle, so we were keen to try and catch a glimpse of one. They are present in two areas - some forest near Mission Beach, and the Daintree Rainforest north of Cairns. Wanting to maximise our chances of seeing one we headed towards Mission Beach stopping in the Fan Palm Forest, no Cassowaries but remarkable fan palms. We then drove to the main campsite, getting the last available place when the caretaker said he had just seen a Cassowary crossing the main road in the centre of town!



We arrived in Cairns looking for the Tourist Information centre to find this weekend Cairns hosts one round of the international Ironman competition. So having found out about snorkelling on the Great barrier Reef we headed north to the Daintree as the road will be closed for 50kms tomorrow for the cycle element of the race.

Where the Rainforest meet the Ocean

The rainforest here tumbles down the mountains straight to the sandy beaches of the Coral Sea - beautiful. We spent a couple of days pottering along the coast past Cape Tribulation, and north towards Cooktown with the best campsite so far at Archers Point just south of Cooktown.

The birdlife continues to amaze us with a wide range of beautiful birds - something new almost every day.

Archers Point Campsite

 

Evening light from campsite

Queensland Coast North of Cairns

 



Beach Rock Curlew

 



The elusive Lyre Bird

 

 

New South Wales

Brush Tailed Possum

As we travelled north so the weather has improved, with nice sunny days, and clear, but still cold nights. The Jervis Bay area has some beautiful beaches and dramatic cliffs, and also offers whale watching - at this time of year the whales are migrating north to the warmer waters to breed and we spent several days enjoying the area, including camping by honeymoon beach - a small, almost circular sandy cove - walking along the dramatic cliffs, and crawling through a 10m long rock tunnel to a platform 30m above the crashing ocean.

Honeymoon Bay

Humpback Whales

We twice took a boat out to see the whales, the first time it was more of an adrenaline ride with 3m of swell and strong winds, but no whales. On the second attempt we were fortunate to have a pod of three whales come straight to towards the boat and the skipper had to reverse rapidly out of the way.


Skirting Sydney we headed inland to the Blue Mountains which offer some dramatic waterfalls - the Fitzroy falls dropping over 300m, and spectacular vistas across the deeply cut valleys from the sandstone escarpment around Katoomba.









There are numerous walking trails and lookouts giving different perspectives on the landscape. We spent time visiting a number of them before heading north through the Great Dividing Range and its beautiful varied scenery, with its dramatic autumn colours on the trees.







Pulpit Rock Lookout

We eventually dropped back down towards the coast through Gloucester and picked up the Pacific Coast Highway to make faster progress north. 

 

Queen Elizabeth Lookout

 



 

     

Back to the Mainland

Cradle Mountain
 

The Edge of the World

The wild north west of Tasmania provided some dramatic seascapes west towards Patagonia with one viewpoint named The Edge of the World. One of Tasmania's main attractions is Cradle Mountain - an area of Alpine scenery. Spending a couple of days in the area reminded us more of Scottish weather with mist and drizzle - and overnight lows of -4 Celcius, but through the mists we caught glimpses of the more rocky outcrops of Cradle Mountain and wandered through some of the valleys where ancient pine trees, many over a thousand years old sit in the temperate rain forests covered in mosses and lichens - all very atmospheric.

Tasmanian Devil

With time running out on Tasmania, and not having seen a wild Tasmanian Devil we visited Devils @ Cradle, a centre where they are maintaining a breeding population of Tasmanian Devils, and Quolls isolated from the current outbreak of facial cancer amongst Devils which is decimating the wild population.



Russel Falls on Tasmania
 

Our last day on Tasmania was spent driving through the beautiful central mountains and stopping at Sheffield to view some of their extraordinary displays of wall murals and on to Latrobe, and the Mersey River to look for platypus. We were fortunate to see a couple of platypus - strange creatures,  searching for food in the meandering river.



Duck Billed Platypus

Back on the mainland we drove around Melbourne to get a feel of the city and enjoyed its fabulous Botanic Gardens, then headed south to Philip Island with its beautiful beaches and rocky headlands. It is famous for its little penguins and as we walked some of the tracks we spotted some resting in their burrows. However with the weather still mainly dull and drizzly we decided it was time to head north and east to find more scenery and to get away from the static weather pattern which had established itself over the Tasmanian Sea.


Little Penguin in its Burrow

Driving north we crossed into the Great Dividing Range - tree covered mountains with beautiful winding valleys. As it is out of season the roads and campgrounds are incredibly quiet. Canberra - the Capital is a planned city with huge spaces of grass and trees between its public buildings, but driving through it had a feel of Milton Keynes - lots of roads with wide grass verges and roundabouts.

Dramatic East Coast
 

We are now on the East Coast of New South Wales about 200kms south of Sydney enjoying the wild coast and beautiful beaches of Jervis Bay. This is a popular area for vacationers and as a consequence some of the wildlife has become very friendly - we have had close encounters with wallabies, kangaroos, possum and have even been attacked by a Kookaburra!

We plan to head north now to explore the Dividing Range and head to Queensland and hopefully even warmer weather.

 



Frosty campsite Cradle Mountain
 

 

 

Tasmanian Mountains

 





Captive Spotted Quoll

 

 

Back on the Road

Anzac Day Parade

After 5 months "enjoying" the British Winter we eventually returned to Australia in late April - managing to arrive in Sydney on Anzac Day. Despite 26 hours of travelling we went in to the centre of Sydney to witness this event. It is amazing the level of involvement - the parade of servicemen, ex-servicemen and organisations took around 4 hours to pass, with over 50 brass, pipe and drum marching bands; even a Sikh pipe band. It was extraordinary to see. The parade concluded with a lovely service at the Anzac memorial in the centre of Sydney. Well worth making the effort.

Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House

We had a couple more days in Sydney visiting the sights, which are every bit as good as the photos, before flying down to Melbourne to be reunited with the van. It was just as we left it and once we had connected the batteries it was fully functional, even starting on the first turn of the ignition. It was great to be back.



Eastern Grey Kangaroo

We had four days around the coast near Melbourne while we recuperated from the jet lag, and did some long waited for maintenance before catching the ferry across to Tasmania. With two weeks before our return crossing we headed east, then down the beautiful east coast with its pure white squeaking beaches and granite outcrops, stopping at some of the National Parks to see waterfalls, huge Gum trees and some special wildlife, including our first sighting of a wombat, two species of possum and even little penguins. The latter surprising us crossing the road, after we had sat for over an hour in the dusk watching their beach with no success.

At the southern tip of Tasmania is the infamous Port Arthur - the punishment centre for repeat offending convicts from across the Australian penal colonies. The weather had started to deteriorate, but it gave a better feel of some of the raw conditions the inmates had to suffer.



Wombat

With bad weather forecast we first visited some spectacular coastal arches and blowholes, before heading to Hobart - a lovely town set in a beautiful landscape under Mount Wellington. Choosing the camp in the grounds of a tavern 15kms outside Hobart we enjoyed blazing log fires and a steak dinner before settling down in the van to the sound of drumming rain. Around 11.00pm a thunderstorm broke overhead, and continued for around 2 hours. As it subsided we could feel vibrations and hear large rocks rumbling in the nearby river. Looking out we were in 2" of flowing water and the river could be seen above its banks. Deciding discretion was the better part of valour we move uphill, further away from the river.

Possum

The morning news headlined with the biggest storms in Hobart with the centre of town flooded and roads closed due to landslips, flooding and washed away cars. Mount wellington recorded over 220mm of rain.

With less than a week left in Tasmania we have started heading up the western side, much more mountainous - rather like Scotland, but with a lot of tree cover, and we are currently in a small town Strachan, on the west coast, with nothing but ocean between us and Patagonia!

 

 

 

   

Change of Plans

Well, our expected return to our van in Australia has been delayed as a result of Sue tearing her Achilles tendon at the beginning of the New Year. As a result she is on crutches for 8 weeks so climbing in and out of the camper van is not really possible. We will be staying in the UK until after our eldest son's wedding and we plan to recommence our travels in Australia in late April. Meanwhile it has ben lovely to be able to spend more time with the family and Ed has been busy with various jobs for the family such as helping to install a new bathroom, decorating and gardening occupying much of the time.
 

  

Charging down through China

Beijing Forbidden City Palace

Great Wall of China

With two weeks to fill before our flight home from Singapore we decided to revisit China while our Visas were still valid. Landing in Beijing was a shock with the temperature of -4 C, after leaving Melbourne with temperatures in the low 30's. Entering China without a vehicle is so much easier, and we breezed through immigration and customs.

Summer Palace - Beijing

The trip has turned out to be another tour of world heritage sites, China has so much history, culture and fantastic scenery that many of the sights have been listed by UNESCO. Our first stop was at the Forbidden City in Beijing, which was the home of the emperors. It is a huge site in the middle of the city with hundreds of temples and palace buildings, which after a while all start to look somewhat similar. However it is an incredible place and reflects the size of the court the emperor had. Despite the sub zero temperatures there were still thousands of tourists, something we had to get used to right through China.
The great Wall runs relatively close to Beijing, so we took the bus to the wall and spent the day, again in freezing temperatures walking the vest restored section of the wall. The weather ensured the wall was not too crowded and we could walk some of the less popular sections (where tour groups do not venture) and have sections almost to ourselves. It is an incredible structure, built over some of the most inhospitable terrain. In places the wall climbs up slopes greater then 50 degrees and it is very convoluted as it maintains the highest points of the mountains.


Ping Yao Street

Back in Beijing the emperor and court moved to the summer palace on the outskirts of the city for the hot period of the year, where the empress had a huge lake excavated and palace buildings, temples and follies constructed, using monies which were meant to be spent on building their navy. As with many things Chinese the scale of the endeavour is huge.


Ping Yao City Wall

Taking the excellent bullet trains which travel at up to 300kph, we headed south, stopping briefly at Ping Yao, a mediaeval village which has remained completely intact within its old city walls. One of the oldest Confucian temples as well as the location of the oldest bank lie within the walls, and it has retained its original street layout. Now a significant tourist attraction the centre has been renovated to offer all a tourist needs.


Bullet Train

Xian our next stop is another huge city which lies at the eastern end of one of the old silk roads. It is being developed into a new industrial centre but has retained a lot of its old charm in the centre where again the huge city walls protected the inhabitants. The Shanxi museum has some fantastic displays of artefacts from excavations in and around Xian some dating back to 5000BC which demonstrate remarkable advanced culture and technological skills.

Pottery from 5000BC

A visit to he terracotta warriors is a must, and again it is difficult to appreciate the scale of the work. Pit 1 - the most famous is absolutely huge and housed thousands of warriors. Whilst most pictures show the lines of restored warriors they do not show the immensity of the pit, and the painstaking work required to excavate and reconstruct the warriors. With only a fraction of the pit excavated it will be tens of years before it can all be reconstructed. The detail on the warriors is incredible, although standard mould were used to make the heads the detail of the faces was all done by hand, so every one is different, and the facial characteristics reflect the variety found across greater China.

Terracotta warriors in Pit 1

For a change of scenery we caught the train to Huashan Mountain. Huashan is a large granite mountain which rises 4000ft almost vertically from the adjoining plains and was sacred to Taoists who built many temples on the very rugged top. Nowadays there is a cable car which takes 10 minutes and saves climbing the 21,000 steps to the top. However, even when at the top there is a continuous series of steps mainly carved into the granite to enable you to access the various temples on the peaks. Incredible scenery, and incredible endeavour to build temples up here, having to carry all the materials up 21,000 steps!

Hua Shan Mountain

Hua Shan - spot the cable car gondolas

Our whirlwind tour continued to Chengdu - a fast developing megacity in the south west where the main attraction was the panda research centre. This remarkable place houses and breeds pandas with great success. Pandas are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity, but Chengdu have managed to breed over 130 pandas and are aiming to reach 300 when they believe they will have sufficient stock to reintroduce some into the wild. These docile creatures live solitary lives in the mountains but their habitat is being progressively destroyed. There are currently around 1500 wild pandas and 500 in captivity, so breeding 130 is a significant achievement. As well as the giant pandas they breed the beautiful red panda.
The other attraction outside Chengdu is the giant 72 metre high buddha carved into the cliff at Leshan. The site is the junction of three rivers and the Buddha was cut as a means of appeasing the gods to tame the torrential rivers at its feet.

Giant Panda

A 14 hour train ride then took us through the mountains, the high speed rail line has many long tunnels and huge sections built on stilts, to Shanghai where we had time to see the famous view from the Bund and get a flavour of this very cosmopolitan city before our final stop in Hong Kong.

Leshan Giant Buddha

So what are our impressions of the eastern side of China,
 - it is remarkably well developed and there is a huge amount of new building of blocks of flats and infrastructure.
- it has a long history of which the Chinese are justifiable proud.
- the public transport system is very efficient and cheap.
- they design and construct on a huge scale, and are investing very heavily in tourism, manily domestic.
- there are vast numbers of people - even the small cities have populations of over a million.  

Shanghai skyline

 
 

 

Terracotta warrior

as excavated - Before restoration

Young Giant Panda                                                              Red Panda

 

Night time street scene - Xian