III. AUS - OA/QL 1; Cairns-Sunshine C EN

Th, 08.12. Flight Perth - Cairns
With a 4h20 night flight (yippee, saves me an expensive hostel accommodation :P) I travelled now from the slightly cooler Perth on the West Coast in Western Australia to the tropical and hot Cairns on the East Coast in Queensland ;)

Fr, 09.12. Cairns / Great Barrier Reef
Cairns reminded me a lot of Darwin: hot, humid and tropical rain forest :)
It is not a big town but the difference to the West Coast is immediate: a lot of backpackers, hostels and ticket shops selling incredibly expensive tours everywhere, clubbing; in general a lot busier - and a lot more expensive (fuel, food etc).
However, the town is really nice and directly located on the sea - but unfortunately (and this is often the case on the East Coast) it is not possible to swim in the ocean; in Cairns due to the crocodiles, in other places due to jellyfishes. As a result, every town has esplanades or pools where you can go swimming and the one in Cairns was decorated with a huge Christmas tree: for me it is still really weird to think about Christmas with these tropical temperatures and days on the beach ;)
-->Of course, the absolute highlight here is the Great Barrier Reef so that I booked a day tour for snorkelling and introductory diving to the Outer Reef:
Despite many comparisons to a very high price typical for the East Coast for which you then have high expectations and thus a higher risk of getting disappointed - and I was indeed very disappointed. Well, for sure the Reef is gigantic and can be seen from space - but I have definitively already seen nicer ones with a lot more and more diverse fishes, especially on Australia's West Coast and in Asia which can be seen without expensive Tour and cheaper or even completely free. I think this one is completely overrated and destroyed by mass tourism - sometimes the reef was totally damaged and you could not even see any fishes :(
The diving in particular really disappointed me:
It was my very first time diving and unfortunately I had quite bad pressure issues right at the beginning - but my diving instructor was so impatient and not comprehensive that I had to give up after 3 trials. Usually (or at least that's how it is done in Asia) you should have a max. of 1-2 people per instructor and we were 4 - well, it is all about the money here :P Nevertheless, I could still see Nemo, Dori and a turtle whilst snorkelling and as I got the diving für free it was fine - but I really cannot recommend to learn diving here, rather to more reasonable prices at nicer places like Asia; and that was the main backpackers opinion we figured out later at the hostel ;)
After that I spent some time in 'town' (Cairns is really very small) and went to the famous night market which reminded me a lot of Asia :)

Sa, 10.12 Cairns - Airlie Beach
This was a really long driving day:
In a facebook group I met Valentine who fortunately wanted to travel the Northern half of the East Coast (Cairns to Brisbane) at the same time and speed than me with her own car - shared fuel costs, double experience ;) On this trip we also had a third person, Jessica from Germany, who turned out to be our DJ with me being the GPS navigator and so we only had to pay $25 pP for this route (710km =8hrs), which is way cheaper than any Greyhound offer and made us flexible and spontaneous to stop on nice places.
So we first drove through the tropical raimforest via Lake Berrine and Atherton to the Millaa Millaa Waterfalls known from some ads so that I also unexpectedly had a tour to waterfalls and rainforests ;)
The landscape here in the Northern part of the East Coast is also completely different: a lot of mountains, hills, (rain) forests and partially reminded us, especially with the bendy roads, of Southern Germany or France's mountaineous regions.
Mission Beach was our lunch spot where we directly ate on the beach - a really beautiful place with awesome landscape - but the sand was a little bit hot and it is also not possible to swim here for above-mentioned reasons ;)
We continued driving via small little towns such as Cardwell and Ingham (the water there was so dirty and grey that you could also not swim in there) to Townsville which is the getaway to Magnetic Island.
From there we drove to Airlie Beach, passing a lot of road works. The Aussies are also really keen about security, herewith some examples of the road signs:
'Break the drive, stay alive'
'Take a rest and refresh'
'Driver reviver' (free coffee or tea)
Ayr and Bowen were two more small towns, known for sugar cane.
In the evening we arrived in the small fisherman town and touri backpackers party town Airlie Beach - partys are everywhere as well as a lot of super young and party seeking German :D

Su, 11.12. Airlie Beach / Whitsundays
-->Airlie Beach is in particular known as getaway for the Whitsundays so that I also booked a day trip there:
This time it was absolutely amazing. The crew from ThunderCat was awesome and we first drove at a pretty high speed roughly 1hr to Whitehaven Beach. The ride was pretty bumpy and like a rollercoaster with cool music and atmosphere :)
After arriving at Tongue Bay/Whitehaven Beach (which is supposed to be the n*1 beach on Instagram) we first went to Hill Inlet viewpoint where you get a nice view of the whole beach - the sand is almost snow-white, super soft and in contrast to all the other beaches on the East Coast you can walk on there without getting burned. The reason for that are silicon materials which are supposed to be good for teeth and skin - so we had a free body peeling with super soft baby skin afterwards ;)
After a really delicious lunch we then went to our first snorkelling spot, Mantaray Bay - and that was pretty cool now: very nice reef with a lot of different fishes swimming in huge groups directly around us or even in the face, a really nice experience :)))
We then already went to our second and unfortunately also already last snorkelling spot, Langford Sandbar - again nice fishes and also apparently turtles; we didn't see any but it was still nice and a really awesome day, the Whitsundays are super beautiful and I can definitively recommend going there :)))

Mo, 12.12. Airlie Beach - Bundaberg
Well, it is wet season in Queensland - which we got to experience that night: there was a real thunderstorm and heavy rain; I had a pretty good timing with the Whitsundays on Sunday, on Monday I would have got very wet :O
This day was our second long driving day so the rain didn't really bother us; but it is not so nice to drive and a little bit more dangerous due to potential aquaplaning. It was also only the two of us left so that the fuel costs for this route (770km = 8,5hrs) were a bit higher with $36 pP - which was however compensated with a free campsite in the evening ;)
Moreover, Valentine is the perfect travel mate: we are so similar and sharing the same interests that the trip was really enjoyable and we are even thinking about doing a Tassie trip together. She also informed me that koala is Aboriginal language meaning 'no drink' and kangaroo 'I don't know'.
From Airlie Beach we then went via Mackay (a bigger town) further to Sarina (I could not resist and had to take a picture of me cause of the similar names) to Rockhampton (another bigger city). We also drove through koala region but could only see the Eucalyptus trees.
The Aussies are also really worried about the drivers - on the East Coast the distances are also quite far so that you can find a lot of warning signs, games and rest areas with free toilets. They sometimes even offer free coffee, tea, biscuits and water - pretty cool and something Germany should really start as well ;)
After Rockhampton, Australia's steak capital, we had again a lot of road works before we finally reached Bundaberg via the town of 1770. At 7pm we drove to Mon Repos in the southern end of the 2,300km long Great Barrier Reef to watch the turtles breeding and laying eggs where the small babies will be born from January on. You have to be very patient until the turtles arrive and especially very quiet - there are several steps and only if the ranger agrees you are allowed to use torches and cameras to not disturb the animals. Waiting wasn't that bad based on a good information centre and interesting videos. It was a pretty cool experience ;), especially as these animals are endangered and cannot be seen that often anymore. We saw 3 turtles laying eggs and then returning back to the ocean. On average they lay 127 gulf ball sized eggs in a 60cm deep hole. 2 months later the up to 4cm small turtles are born and use themselves as a ladder to get out of the net and make the quickest way over the beach to the ocean. Only after 30 years the females are able to lay their first eggs and grow up to 95cm. But unfortunately I also have to admit that it was really touristy with too many families and kids :O
Our free campground was next to Gin Gin so that we spontaneously decided to name the car after it, super strong, reliable and loving classical music ;)Read more