Trading Kangaroos for Cassowaries on the way up to Cairns

Relying again on the oh so cheap (but occasionally unreliable) relocation deal through the friendly people at our favorite campervan relocation dealers, our 4 person campervan was made unavailable at the last minute, and then replaced suddenly and inexplicably with a larger 6 person Mega-Campervan…

We left on the 21st in the morning, to catch our plane to Sydney, where we would meet Aaron, Lucia and our relocation Mega-Campervan that we would call home for the next 7 days (1$ a day plus gas money, instead of the usual 230$/day, beat that!).

Outside of all the last minute campervan switching and changing about, the big concern was about out ability to safely navigate something with a blind spot bigger than two station wagons stacked end-to-end and all the maneuverability of a large brick with wheels. In addition, Rob wasn’t even sure if they were going to let him drive it with just a paper photocopy of his license, but they did, so the driving was let entirely to Rob and Aaron (great because that thing scared me).

After all the papers were signed and the bags safely stowed in the unusually roomy back end of the campervan, we launched ourselves onto the road with nothing but good times and cloudless skies on the horizon. Another awesome 2700km adventure on the road.

Navigating our way out of Sydney was surprisingly simple and in no time the four of us were rolling along the highway at top speed. Needless to say there were more than a few photo-ops along the way, but with the sun shining and the fridge fully stocked with provisions (beer), the time just flew by. That is, until we quickly caught up with the rain and the wind and the grey skies…for most of the way up to Cairns. But I’m not complaining… too much sun was turning the back-end of the camper into a giant pizza-oven, and the cool weather was a welcome reprieve. Although we had our fair share of windy and overcast days on the road, there were more than enough opportunities for sand and surf. That said, despite our occasional salty ocean dips, we got disproportionately wetter through the frequent and sudden torrential rains that occurred throughout our trip into Australia's wet tropics.

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Some highlights from the drive are Byron Bay and the Gold Coast for the great views and beaches. Brisbane seems like a pretty cool city, just wish we could’ve spent more than a few hours there. Nimbin was quite something. Nimbin is a small village and heaven for mainstream society dropouts, or hippies. That said, you could find enhanced culinary delights and other goodies easily if you know where to look. We got there at dusk, and it was quite sketchy. Then there was more roads, more rain, and more booze and card games. Airlie Beach was quite enjoyable and we had a xmas BBQ there, and then more fun In Mission Beach and Tully, and finally, Cairns proved to be well worth the trip.



Oh, and we can’t forget to mention the various ‘Big Things’ we encountered along the way. If you want to try to understand Australia’s obsession for ‘Big Things’, look at this website. Big everything and anything all over the place.



In Cairns, we took a journey to the Great Barrier Reef, where we did an intro dive. Breathing underwater is pretty sweet. We also went to visit Cape Tribulation further up north to see the rain forest, where we spent one night in a place called the rainforest hideaway, which was a very creative space. This place was owned by one guy, and he built a few rustic and self-sufficient eco-cabins in the rainforest around his house, offering a very unique experience of sleeping right in the rainforest. The ‘windows’ (or lack thereof) open up into the wild without any screens, and we can hear all of the rain and animal noises, creating a very open space. It was a pretty sweet spot.



The rainforest proved to be really wet, and the only road that services the area, which was a little flooded on our way in, got really flooded overnight. After waiting around most of the day for the water to go down (which it didn’t), Aaron asked the kind driver of a passing by 4-wheel-drive pickup truck if he could drag us across the flooded road/river…so that’s how we tied our poor rental car with ropes to the truck, and successfully got back to civilization. We probably made some people jealous, as some of them had been waiting around since the early hours of the day…

We made it back to Cairns for one last evening, and we left on the following day, new year’s eve. Rob and I lived up the new year in the plane back to Melbourne (cheap flight!), where we had the official countdown and to celebrate the new year, the flight attendant was blowing bubbles in the aisle as well as performing some well rehearsed magic tricks for a captive audience. Happy 2008 everyone.

Photos