During our last trip to Queensland we visited the Tangalooma Resort on Moreton Island and really enjoyed it.  However, we felt that our time there was a bit too short.  This time we returned for a longer stay.

Remember that big storm I mentioned in Brisbane?  Well, it seems that it was hanging around and made our trip to Moreton Island interesting.  Moreton Island is due east of Brisbane and the wind usually blows west, so the west side of Moreton Island is usually calm.  Not so that day.  The wind was at our back the entire trip, which would have been fine if not for the unprotected dock on the west side of the island.  The waves had plenty of time to build across the channel and slam into the dock and boat.  Getting off the boat was a ride.

Fortunately, the weather improved the next morning and was good for the rest of our stay.

We spent a lot of time on the beach.  It is good for Matthew to get out and stretch his plunger peg leg.

We made sand castles down by the wrecks.

That’s no moon… it’s a big nerd… behind the camera.

I went snorkelling at the wrecks down the beach from the hotel.  There was a snorkel tour that arrived by boat while I was there, and I tried to avoid them, but I think I confused the tour guides as their head count kept changing. 

It is a bit eerie swimming around the wrecks.  The water was a bit murky so it is hard to see into the depths.  Fun to sneak up on sea birds though.

Creatures of habit, we did the sand tobogganing last time, and we did it again this time.

It is still exciting to hurl yourself down a sand dune on a plank of wood.

Moreton Island is a sand island and, as a sand island, has a lot of sand.  There is a big open dune not far from the Tangalooma Resort.  They drive us over there, give us a sheet of wood, and send us up the hill.  It is a bit of a climb, and doing it in sand does not make it easier.

Matthew was allowed to go down on his own this trip.  The last time we did this he was six and went down on my back.

And, of course, we cannot forget the wild dolphin feeding.  That is one of the major draws of the Tangalooma Wild Dolphin Resort.  A local pod are fed a few fish by guests of the resort each night.  They feed each one a measured, and relatively small, amount of food so as not to mess with their normal hunting behaviour.  I suppose that could leave them hungry while surrounded by fingers and toes…

The family of dolphins is constantly changing.  Some dolphins stop coming and new ones appear every year.  One calf was hanging out with the group that we saw, though it did not come to the beach for fish.

Moreton Island was our last stop in Australia.  After leaving the island we headed to the airport for our return flight home.

Our first stop was the Eumundi Market, one of the largest markets in Queensland and significantly larger than Eumundi itself.  We had lunch at Kadek’s Kitchen, though she was nowhere to be found.  There was some Indonesian dude behind the counter who answered to the name.  Imposter!

We then headed north to Bargara to see the nesting turtles at Mon Repos.  When we arrived we drove around for a while looking for any sort of vacancy but everything was full.  We eventually found a two bedroom condo, but the manager was only willing to rent it to us for one night as long as we agreed to not use the second washroom.  Fair enough.

Mon Repos, as you may remember from past adventures, is a turtle conservation park and, more specifically, a turtle rookery with the largest concentration of marine nesting turtles on the east coast of Australia. 

There is also other wildlife to be found.

In the evenings Mon Repos has controlled access to the beach where small groups of people are taken out to watch turtles either nesting or hatching.  This is to keep the disturbance to a minimum and is particularly important when the turtles are nesting as they are easily scared.  During our last visit we witnessed turtles emerging from their nests, as we were there later in the season.  This time we arrived early in the season and witnessed one nesting.

We didn’t have to wait as long this time for action and were quickly shuttled out to the beach when a turtle made its way up the beach.  Turtles have poor peripheral vision as, I guess, they can’t move their heads around too much, so while she was digging the nest we could sneak up behind her and wait without spooking her.  Once they start laying the eggs there is apparently nothing that will distract them from their task.

Very cool.

After she finished laying her eggs she covered in the hole, took forever spreading the sand around, and returned to the ocean to possibly come back in a few weeks to lay more.  The conservation workers then start their work and dig up the nest to count the eggs for their records.  I understand that they would normally return them to the same hole, but they felt that it was a bit too low down the beach and would be safer further up, so they dug a new hole of the same depth and width and we moved the eggs.

Yes, that’s right, I said that we moved the eggs.  I guess the fastest way to move 100+ eggs up the beach is to give a few to each person

We all took some of the eggs from the original nest and delivered them to the new nest.

This is the new nest just before being filed in.  We left once the nest was all filled in and we were escorted back to the visitor centre.  Awesome.

When we arrived we had only a rental car and some plans to visit the Australia Zoo and Mon Repo beach for the turtles.  We headed north and ended up in Caloundra the first night, a convenient distance from Brisbane and close to the Australia Zoo.  We stumbled upon a room in a nice hotel, and they gave us two huge adjoining rooms (apartments really).

There was a major lightning storm just off shore and we requested a room with a view so we could watch it.

The entire sky was lit up with a constant glow from the lighting in the clouds.  It was far enough away that there wasn’t much noise, but it was bright.

I have video that I will try to post at some point that gives a much better idea of the volume of lightning.  It was a consistent and constant light coming from the clouds.  Crazy.

The next day we went to the Australia Zoo.  It is one of our favourite zoos and here is the post of our previous visit.  It, of course, includes the standard feeding of the kangaroos.

“Feeding kangaroos feeding kangaroos feeding.”

Work it out.

Not a kangaroo.

Most definitely not a kangaroo.

That’s more like it.

Going back through these photos I see how blind I’ve been.  We paid good money to go in and feed their animals.  It’s just a big scam.  They should be paying us!  I want my money back… or the food… no, the money.

The road to the Wombeyan Caves was actually not bad, and paved, and we finally saw our first wild Kangaroos in the nearby campground.  We didn’t even bother with the caves for reasons I forget, but perhaps we were caved out.

So back to the road.  We found the nasty narrow windy (steep canyon) road we should avoid, just before realizing that we were almost out of gas.  Almost exactly halfway between the two nearest gas stations, at either end of the road, our fuel light came on.  Oops.

We immediately programmed the Tom Tom GPS to navigate us to the nearest gas station.  It was really only helpful at keeping us informed of exactly how far we would have to walk if we ran out of gas.  We were in the middle of nowhere and only saw one other car on the road… and our cell phone did not work.  We saw some cars on the side of the road, but I don’t think the wreck down the ravine was going to help us at all.

The drive was actually pretty cool, and I recommend it for anyone with enough fuel.  We were a bit busy freaking out about the gas to notice much.  In the image above you can see one end of a tunnel carved through the rock.

The excitement as we reached the end of the gravel road was exciting.  We were still 5km away from the gas station, but the probability of cell coverage and other cars was increasing.

If getting to the end of the gravel was exciting – pulling into the petrol station was relieving.  If the fuel needle had gone any lower it might have bent against the bottom of the dial.

We spent the night in the nearby town of Mittagong before heading back to Sydney the next day. 

When we returned to Sydney, Matthew achieved his goal of seeing the Sydney Opera House up close.  He plans to build a model of it with Lego, but the project is still in the preliminary design phase.

Tomorrow Brisbane.

It was suggested we visit the Jenolan Caves by an attendant at Echo Point, so we did.  The entrance to the parking and hotel is through the cave above.  I can’t say I have ever driven through a natural cave.  A bit narrow, but high enough for a bus to get through.

The cave system is varied.  Some, like the one above, are huge caverns with multiple trails up the sides and routes through the rock to get to different vantage points.  You can see the walking path at the bottom to get an idea of the scale.

The photo above is a bit surreal and I couldn’t help but include it.  Take a close look at the stairs visible at both the top and bottom of the photograph.  Yes, they are part of the same path.

To access the smaller caves we purchased a guided tour.  They are very sterilized, like the Waitomo caves in New Zealand, with good lighting, railings, and cement stairs to provide the utmost security and spelunking safety.  They even went so far as to carve a tunnel straight through the mountain to access the cave so no one was inconvenienced too much by walking over the hill.

To be fair, the tour took us down into some spectacular caves with cool mineral formations

We liked it so much went back to the Jenolan Caves the next day to do our self-guided tour that was included with our tour purchase.  If we had more time we would have tried some of there more adventurous (helmet required) tours.

Even outside the caves there is stuff to see.

We got out of Sydney for a few days, fortunately, just in time to miss the premiere of “Australia” the movie.  We found a B&B near Katoomba in the Blue Mountains called the Naini Tal at the last minute and they were very accommodating.  It was quite a nice house and location.  They gave us two adjoining rooms so we had plenty of space.

They also had a lovely backyard, but we didn’t visit.

It was the first time we had cool wet weather while in Australia.  There was some wet in Cairns, but it was far from cool.

The fog was thick in the morning but lifted shortly after we got to the Three Sisters lookout at Echo Point.  Named for the three rocks on the point, I guess, though I’m not sure I see the resemblance.  If you look carefully you can see where the trail crosses a bridge to the first sister on the left.  The other sisters are hard to get… to.

There are some trails around the lookout and naturally we followed the narrow winding steep trail down the cliff side.  Unfortunately, they put in stairs and railings to prevent people from actually being able to fall off, though, to be fair, the stairs are still pretty steep and one could sprain something.

This is the bridge you can see in the photo of the three sisters above.

Yes, the photo above is, in fact, two photos.  We will call it a close approximation to reality, though, to be fair, it isn’t.

Down the road is “Scenic World“, a high budget tourist trap with two ways to help you down the mountain to trails at the bottom.  We took the very steep “Scenic” cable train down, seen above, that actually runs through a bit of a crevice and tunnel.  We took the “Scenic” cableway (Gondola) back up the mountain after a short walk along the boardwalk at the bottom.

The area at the bottom of the hill had been used for coal mining many years ago, and there are maps and entrances to the miles of caves.  They recommend not entering.

I have become quite adept at reading signs in Australia.  This one indicates that no dogs or fat cats are allowed on the trail, but it is ok to slip and fall off the cliff.  I don’t make them, I just interpret them.

We spend the afternoon at the Janolan Caves but I’ve saved that up for another post.

We spent the two days seeing some sights around the city, from the ships at the maritime museum to the the Taronga Zoo and the market at The Rocks.

At the maritime museum there is a replica of Captain Cooks Endeavour, a decommissioned battle ship (The Vampire), and a ramp down to where there was supposed to be a submarine.  They told us it was out for service, where does one take an old submarine for service?

The replica Endeavour has travelled around the world, following some of Captain Cooks voyages, and even visited Vancouver.

Inside the officer’s quarters was a bit cramped.  Either they were very short or had back problems by the end of their journey.

I couldn’t find a cup of coffee for breakfast that didn’t involve espresso and/or steamed milk (just go straight to McDonald’s for drip coffee), but Matthew found the perfect lemon meringue pie at a restaurant in Darling harbour for lunch.

We took a ferry to the Taronga Zoo to get a better view of/from the harbour.  Matthew wants to try and build the Sydney Opera House with Lego.

They have koala at this zoo too… and familiar looking langurs.

We left Sydney for a few days to travel up through the Blue Mountains and did a drive loop to the south.  I will cover that trip in more detail in future posts.  When we returned to Sydney we spent a night at Bondi beach before our flight out.

We had a few minutes at Bondi Beach in the morning before we left for Brisbane and saw… an ATM (We are told the locals pronounce it “atmuh”) walking along the beach.

Once we arrived we rented stinger suits and followed a trail around the island to a secluded beach south of the dock and resort area.  Above is a view of the mainland with Cairns harbour around the point.

We brought our own snorkel gear, of course.  That is why we lug it around the world.  However, when it comes to stinger suits, we are at the mercy of the local rental shops.  The stinger suits on Fitzroy were much more stylish than the ones we got on the reef boats.

The water wasn’t as clear as further out on the reefs but there were a lot more turtles here.

Matthew has been getting better at diving down while snorkelling.  Here he is checking out one of the many turtles we found off the beach.

The turtles didn’t seem to mind us too much as long as we kept a comfortable distance.  They looked like they were always planning an escape route in case things go sideways, and they can really move if they are in a hurry.

There were a few coral formations around the rocky areas but most of the area was clear “sand” (where by “sand” I mean jagged dead coral).  Obviously there used to be a lot of live coral there at some time in the past.

Matthew and Ria when climbing around looking for ants to eat.

I found some.  Mmmm, tasty.

On our walk back from the beach we found this spider just hanging out in a web the size of my car.  We must have walked right by it on the way to the beach.  Ria got right up close to take photos of this beast – she is fearless and was lucky to make it out with her camera.

Within driving distance of Cairns is forest, desert and things between.  The mountain range that runs along the coast protects the inland areas from the rain that keeps the coast so green and wet.  We went for a loop drive that took us over the mountains, along the Danbulla Forest Drive, around Lake Tinaroo, through the hip town of Mareeba, the tourist town of Kuranda, and back.

The forest over the mountains is quite different from that along the coast.  It is less hot and humid and has a “Less Dangerous” feel to it.  It is too far inland for crocodiles to be an issue and we didn’t see any crazy spiders.

One of the first stops was the Cathedral Fig.  The photo above shows only a small part of the tree in its centre where Matthew and Ria were able to climb it.

After leaving the Danbulla Forest Drive we got back on the highway heading north toward Mareeba.   I noticed a sign on the side of the road pointing to Granite Gorge and remembered reading about it on a flyer in Cairns.  We took the exit and followed the markers out into the middle of Australia.  Well, not “in” the middle, but toward the middle, and by that I mean further west, which, if we were to continue in that direction, might lead to the middle.  It felt like the middle until we got there.

Once we arrived and realized that the place actually existed, it turned out to be very nice.  It is an oasis in the middle of nowhere littered with huge granite boulders and rock-wallabies.  The wallabies were everywhere and curious/hungry.

They are cute too.

I have determined through rigorous scientific experiments that rock-wallabies do not, in fact, eat cameras.  They showed no interest in the camera when it was presented as food, though they did enjoy the food pellets we provided.

Some were more aggressive at getting food than others.  This mother and joey were actually rather friendly as long as we were feeding her, I think she was more upset about the food going away.

Matthew got some scratches when the wallabies attempted to climb him.

There is a stream that runs through the gorge with a dam at one end forming a pool that is recommended for swimming.  There didn’t appear to be any crocs in the water…

There were some turtles in the water with mossy heads that quite liked wallaby food.

Ria was the only one stupid brave enough to go in the water.  The rest of us are afraid of water bottles in Australia due to what might be hiding in them, but the deep pools of water in the middle of nowhere? Just jump in!

After leaving Granite Gorge we drove through and had lunch in the town of Mareeba.  It is just what you might expect in rural Australia.  The cafe doubled as an antique store.  I use the word antique loosely to describe anything that you might find in a flee market or garage sale.

Beyond that was more road and flat landscape back to Cairns through tourist trap of Kuranda which, unfortunately, was mostly closed when we went looking for dinner.

The photo above was from our trip to Kuranda a day earlier.  We took a gondola ride over the mountain and the train pictured above back to Cairns.  The railway was build a hundred years earlier along a very precipitous route through a narrow canyon with 15 tunnels from Cairns to Kuranda.  Curiously, none of the modern ways of getting there involve that route at all.  The nearest road route to Cairns has no bridges or tunnels.

They did not disappoint.

You will remember from our last adventure that it is stinger season.  To be safe in the water they gave us all stinger suits to wear.

Our boat did not go to any platforms, it just stopped at a few spots along the Agincourt reef.  The first stop had a surprise under the boat…

Shark!!11!!!!cos(0)!!!

A white tipped reef shark similar to the one we saw on our previous trip to Australia.  I’m sure there are lots of them out there.  It isn’t stalking us…

The water was pretty clear and calm, notwithstanding the photo above, which made for excellent snorkelling.  Better than our last experience at Lady Musgrave Island, but not as clear as the water around Cozumel.

There was definitely more coral than we have seen anywhere else.  There were huge forests of scary looking spikes and various other more recognizable formations.

The parrot fish are almost as big as the sharks (or bigger).  I guess they get a good selection of coral to eat.  The one above was a small one that Ria followed around with the camera.

We saw something else that resembled a parrot fish in the distance but only got one distant photo.  After some enhancement techniques I learned from CSI, I present… the bus.

(From a photo of a reflection in Ria’s snorkel mask of a reflection from Matthew’s cornea of the fish in question)

A bit of research (using a Visual Basic GUI to track IP addresses) has led me to identify the bus as a a green humphead parrot fish.  The photo doesn’t do it justice – let’s just say that it was ginormous.

Ria is such a rebel – all that exposed skin on her head is just teasing the jellyfish.  It is a good thing that jellyfish have cool tempers and are not easily provoked.

There were a few stops, with a lunch break in the middle.  A boat full of Smurfs eating lunch.  It was Smurfy.

We did a drift snorkel on the outside edge of the reef.  Although I’m sure it happens every day, the staff claimed that it was a rare treat due to the calm weather but made sure to keep us all close.  I can appreciate that losing passengers in the open Pacific is bad for business.

Everything is bigger in Australia.  You can make out a clam under Matthew in the photo above (also below in more detail, not sure if it is the same one).  It is hard to judge scale, but that was at least 10-15 feet under Matthew, I leave the trigonometry to the reader.

I’m sure I could beat it at chess, but I would not want to get my arm caught in those jaws.  In a game of Chess-Arm-Clam, clam beats arm every time.