Roving Gnome Travel Blog: Brisbane

I had a lovely stay with Davey, Eliana, and Benji. We went to the Museum of Modern Art and saw a couple of amazing exhibits. I also got to see Curtis (my old summer student from way-back-when I worked at Talisseuman Energy) thanks to Eli and Davey who generously invited him and some of their friends over for an amazing brunch...WAFFLES! Curtis still lives in Calgary but happened to be in Brisbane for work. Another stroke of luck was that The Lumineers were playing a gig at a small venue in downtown Brisbane. Curtis' friend got us tickets and we were able to go. They played in the Tivoli Theater which has seating for only 700 and standing room for 1500 so it was really up-close and the sound was amazing.

The Lumineers at The Tivoli in Brisbane

"Heritage", 99 sculpted animals (not taxidermy) drinking from one pool of water

"Headlong" 99 sculpted wolves leaping into a glass wall and tumbling to the ground

Happy baby Benji and Daddy Davey at Brunch

I picked up my Jucy campervan on Tuesday Jan 21st and hit the road heading north towards Brisbane. Before I forget to mention it, I have enjoyed some Australian company on all my drives in the form of my GPS voice "Adam". Adam is a charming Aussie bloke who is very helpful when it comes to navigating and he is never judgemental. If I take a wrong turn he tells me in his Aussie accent "Alright mate, when you get a chance turn around, and if those backseat drivers don't keep it down, drop 'em off at the next servo". I ignored his advice once and kept driving the wrong way because I wanted to do the tourist drive and he eventually said "It's allright mate, chuck a U-ey". Whenever I arrive somewhere I've planned to go he says "You have reached your destination, grab your sunnies, roll up the windows, and don't let the seagulls eat your chips". Adam got me safely from Sydney to Brisbane and when I picked up my new campervan and GPS I thought I would try out the British fellow on the GPS. He was very droll, spoke too slowly, and had nothing on Adam so I switched back.

I spent the first night near Noosa at a Scouts Camp beside a lake which was fully equipped with hot and cold showers, a kitchen area, powered sites for $12/night (WOW!). I got up early to drive to Noosa for a surf lesson. I've done one before in Hawaii and it just didn't stick. I was able to get up on the board a few times but it was really hard work and resulted in full-on exhaustion after 2 hours, a bruised chest, and a sunburnt face. But I'm glad I had another try!

Scout Camp campsite

The next day I headed up to the Town of 1770 (Seventeen Seventy on maps) because I had heard that Mantas frequent the waters offshore which marks the southern part of the Great Barrier Reef. I spent the night in a campsite near town and signed up to do a cruise to Lady Musgrave Island (80km offshore) for first thing in the morning to do two dives. The boat held 130 people and made it out to the island quickly and smoothly. Upon reaching the coral-fringed Lady Musgrave Island the water changed from dark blue to a very light blue with greenish patterns visible where the corals were very close to the surface. There were only 5 divers and the rest of the tourists were there to snorkel and to go for a walk on the island. Sadly we did not see any Mantas but the reef was colorful and the coral was relatively healthy... but no t the best I've seen. Visibility was pretty poor with only 3m visibility on our second dive.

Corals of all shapes, sizes, and colors. This view reminds me of a birds next in tree branches

This Giant Clam was the most beautiful shade of blue. Note the moray eel photobombing from the upper left

After my dives I drove about an hour north to a free campsite which is a rest area that allows overnight guests. There were even showers there and a friendly cat who showed up conveniently as I cooked my steak dinner ;) The following day I had a long drive (6 hours) to Airlie Beach. This is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands and I wanted to spend Australia Day there (Jan 26) and do a tour of some of the islands, hence the long drive. At one point of the drive I could see by my GPS that I was very close to the coast so I pulled over to have a look and found the most eerily beautiful wide sandy beach fringed by mangroves which were high and dry at low tide and beyond that desert-like scene was the most blue water you could imagine.

BLUE!

I stayed at a campsite recommended by one of the divers on the Lady Musgrave Island trip. Smalleys Campsite in Cape Hillsborough National Park. I think this is my favorite of all the campsites I've seen in Australia (well, maybe just ranked under Freemans Campsite in NSW because the water there was swimmable whereas there were warnings of marine stingers at Smalleys Beach). The campsite has only 11 sites which rent out for something silly like $5.60/person/night, the sites are very private and serene, and my site (and most of the others) was a very short walk down to the water in a protected bay. The best part was that the campsite was full of wildlife including Bush Stone Curlews (a long-legged big-eyed bird), a Frilled Lizard which I startled and got to see running on its hind legs, many Skinks, Wallabies, Cane Toads, Brush Turkeys, and even what I'm sure were Sugar Gliders flying between then scurrying around the treetops at dusk.

Path to the beach

Frilled Lizard

Turkey

The beach

Bush Stone Curlew

In the morning, a 10 minute drive took me to another beach within Cape Hillsborough National Park which had a number of walking tracks and a huge beach. I did a 5km loop to a lookout and saw even more wildlife!

Wallaby...This type is called a "Pretty Face Wallaby"... no joke

Signs advising caution due to marine stingers with Vinegar for first aid

Kangaroo

The lookout

At low tide this causeway can be used to walk across to Wedge Island which is inaccessible at high tide. If you time your hike badly you could get stranded on the island!

Beautiful patterns were formed on the beach by some creature rolling balls (probably of poo)...likely a small crab or shrimp

This rock formation looked like a wave or a serpents head

Driving in Queensland has been beautiful with big skies, long shadows, and a very "Saskatchewan" like quality of light that makes me nostalgic

TOMORROW IS AUSTRALIA DAY!

Picking up where I left off, I found an amazing campsite for $5/night at Borokee Campsite in Cathedral Rock National Park where I was thrilled to get an up close look at a brush tailed possum in the evening before I went to bed. In the morning, I did a spectacular hike at Cathedral Rock National Park in the NSW hinterland (inland from the coast) in a dry "alpine" environment. The hike went through a marshy area near a creek where Kangaroos were grazing, around piles of large granite boulders and culminated in a climb over huge boulders using an anchored chain for part of the climb to reach the stunning 360 degree view at the top.

Brush Tailed Possum

Kangaroos at Cathedral Rock National Park

My rig at the campsite

At the top

360 degree view

Next I drove about under an hour to Dorigo National Park to do another hike where I was able to see an ancient temperate rainforest... totally different vegetation, soil, and views from the earlier hike that day! The rainforest was a cool, shady, ancient, peaceful place where you could walk along paved and boardwalk paths surrounded by huge vine-wrapped trees listening to the calls of frogs, catbirds, bellbirds, riflebirds, and rosellas, and the rustle of brush turkeys scratching amongst the leaf litter. This pocket of forest and others like it in NSW are remnants of the Gondwanaland forests representing vegetation as it was on the supercontinent Gondwana prior to the breakup and continental drift of plates away from eachother. Tree ferns and other vegetation found in these forests is similar to what would have existed when the first land plants developed and when dinosaurs roamed.

strangler fig

waterfall

boardwalk high above the forest floor

Skywalk with views over the forest and valley

View from the skywalk on a clearer evening

A nice surprise of grazing Pademelons (like small, cat-sized wallabies... or very small kangaroos)

At the recommendation of one of the ladies working at the information desk at Dorigo National Park, I spent the night parked beside Dangar Falls behind a house owned by an elderly man and his wife.

Misty morning in the Dangar Falls Campsite

View from the Dangar Falls Campsite after the sun burned the mist away which took less than an hour

Dangar Falls, a short walk from the campsite

I then made the very scenic drive through Grafton and Casino to reach my Uncle Rick and Aunt Joy's beautiful country home near Kyogle. I got to meet and get to know them and my cousin Wendy (Wendy is Emma's sister... Emma is the cousin who met me in the Philippines and again in Sydney) while they took me all around the area showing me the sights and sharing their hospitality and knowledge. I had a wonderful time in this beautiful, peaceful part of the country surrounded by natural beauty.

Veranda at Rick and Joy's surrounded by a lush garden

Rick and Joy's lovely Golden Retrievers, Honey (in front) and Nutmeg

Uncle Rick, Aunt Joy, and their daughter (my 1st cousin) Wendy

Kookaburra

Mount Warning, the preserved volcanic neck, and other peaks on the rim of the huge caldera which surrounds the valley in the area

Natural Arch, a short walk brought us to this beautiful cave where a waterfall has eroded a hole in the roof to form a natural arch. The cave also contained glow worms which use bioluminescent strands to attact prey during the night

A lovely tree frog on the side of Rick and Joy's house

A lovely Carpet Python "making friends" with Joy's pet budgies. This snake was about 7' long. *No budgies were harmed during the making of this blog

a Cane Toad. These toxic toads have poison glands and are an invasive species which are quite abundant

I did two dives one day on Julian Rocks just off the coast by Byron Bay (about 1.5 hours drive from Rick and Joy's house). The visibility was not the best I've seen in Australia reaching only 10m on one dive and dropping slightly on the second dive but the water was slightly warmer at 22 degrees C and there were some lovely Leopard Sharks, Blind Sharks (a misnomer... they aren't actually blind), Bull Rays, Nudibranchs, and a lot of Sting Rays. I think the sting rays were Southern Sting Rays... the type that did in Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter.

Leopard Shark with a diver for scale

Leopard Shark

One of MANY rays

A veritable pile of the small blind sharks. They were all piled up together in a cave and there must have been 12 or more in there! They looked to be a couple feet long each

beautiful blue, purple, and yellow nudibranchs

After my dives, Rick and Joy picked me up and we went up to see the lighthouse and the view from this furthest eastern point of Australia. We were lucky enough to spot the shadows of a few Manta Rays in the surf near the rocky coast swimming near the surface of the water far below our vantage point. We returned to sealevel for a delicious dinner of fish and chips from "Fisheads" restaurant which we enjoyed at a picnic table near the beach as the sun set.

Beach near Byron Bay as viewed from the walk up to the lighthouse

A very picturesque plighthouse!

Whoops! We all forgot that dogs are not allowed in National Parks in Australia!

Fish and Chips with Joy, Rick, and Wendy

In the morning, while Rick was moving his cows, he spotted a wild Koala up in a tree! It was very exciting as it was my first Koala sighting and there are not many around since they are a threatened species. We also took a drive into Nimbin, which is a well-known "hippy" spot where marijuana is readily (and openly) available and people go so far as sitting on benches and smoking joints on main street. There are lovely murals through town, a nice art gallery, some funky shops, a candle factory, and an unconventional but interesting "museum", even if it does smell a bit skunky ;)

My first Koala (center of photo in the tree fork)

Nimbin Museum entrance

vats of wax at the candle factory

Candles are made by dipping these racks full of wicks into the vats of melted wax over and over again until enough layers of wax accumulate to make the desired candle thickness

After Nimbin we went to the Koala Care and Research Centre which is a small, volunteer-run rescue, treatment and rehabilitation centre. Rick and Joy volunteer with this organization and have been involved with a number of initiatives including Koala tracking using GPS, soft release whereby they have a tree in their farmyard with a low fence around it which can be used to house recovering Koalas until they are ready to head off into nature again, and even fielding emergency calls when Koalas are injured in some way (cars, disease, etc.).

SO CUTE!

I love how this Koala is balanced on his little bum and curled up in a ball with his head tucked to his chest for a snooze

We ended another busy day of driving with an adrenaline-filled drive to the gas station wondering if we would make it or run out of fuel before reaching a service station in Lismore (thank god for www.tankonempty.com which gave me confidence that we would make it). I packed up my van and hit the road to arrive near Mount Warning to overnight so I could tackle the 9km round trip climb to the summit in the dark the next morning in order to watch the sunrise. I awoke at 2:30am, got changed and started hiking at around 3am. The aboriginal name for the mountain is Wollumbin which means "cloud catcher" which is apropos since this high peak is often shrouded in clouds. The climb at night by headlamp was well maintained with steps nearly everywhere although uneven and wet, slippery spots made it critical to watch where you stepped. A few times I saw greenish glowing light coming from beside the trail as I walked. At first I thought it was fireflies since it had the same color and quality of light but upon closer inspection I found that small bioluminescent mushrooms were the culprit. I didn't even know that such a thing existed until a few days before the hike! As I ascended the air became slightly cooler and a lot more damp as I entered the level the cloud layer. I arrived at the summit by 5am where I had a bite to eat and chatted with other hikers who were also there for the event until after 6am when the sun first peeked through the mist and fog that hang around the volcano. It was spectacular when the sun was able to peek through the clouds gathered on top of us and by about 7:30am the sun was high enough that the fog would periodically open up to provide views of the valleys surrounding us on all sides and the caldera rim in the distance. From this vantage point I could even see out to Byron Bay, the lighthouse at Byron Bay, and out into the ocean beyond Byron Bay.

Geology Nerd Break

First window into the sunrise

The crowd gathered to watch the sunrise at the summit of Mount Warning

Most of the time this sign reading "Glorious View" seemed ironic

... and then the mists parted and WOW!

I did it, I did it, YAY!

Summit viewing platform facing east

Climbing down the steepest portion using a chain rail to hold onto

The lush forest I walked through and missed on the way up because it was total darkness

Immediately after the sunrise hike, I drove my smelly, dirty, sweaty self the 2 hours north to Brisbane to Davey and Eli's house (Davey is an old colleague of mine who moved from Calgary to Brisbane nearly 2 years ago and Eliana is his lovely wife). Their family has grown since I last saw them with the addition of a very smiley, happy, cute little baby boy, Benjamin (Benji). I've been enjoying going for walks, catching up with Davey and Eli, ogling Benji, and relaxing since my arrival. We also went downtown to take in some sights, ride the large ferris wheel in the center of Brisbane (like the London Eye) and have dinner with Davey's polite, funny, charming and gregarious niece, Ava, what a treat! I have also been mourning the loss of my green Jucy campervan. I enjoyed the freedom of the campervan so much I've decided to drive the rest of the way to Cairns rather than flying. I have booked another Jucy campervan which I will pick up next Tuesday and continue my journey north through Queensland, Australia.