...we were blown onto the roads less travelled.

From Ballina we went southwest, to the tiny town of Bendemeer via Grafton and Armidale along the Waterfall Way. We crossed a considerable amount of road blockages (no, Rita is no 4WD, but she can fit under, over or around fallen trees and cross water of surprising depth) while going through the badly damaged forests of the Guy Fawkes River National Park and turned off the highway for some spectacular waterfalls in the Oxley Wild Rivers National Park. The little campsite we stayed at for the night turned out to be the wise choice when we witnessed a flash flood down at the local river that flooded the whole free camp area to the level of the toilets' roof in a matter of minutes the next morning. That's when we decided to venture even further inland, away from the storm that was raging over the coastal regions. 
So we went on to Coonabarrabran. Along the way we visited a huge golden guitar at Tamworth, Australia's capital of country music, and we went Koala spotting on a bushwalk in Gunnedah that claims to be the world's  Koala capital. Unfortunately it was badly hit with bushfires just a couple of weeks ago and many a koala might have felt the heat from a little too close. We didn't spot any Koala and since the burned bush wasn't necessarily the nicest environment for a long hike, we didn't look for much longer.

From Coonabarabran, we planned on venturing into the huge Pilliga Nature Reserve - but this also largely burnt down and the reserve was therefore closed. It didn't matter much, we wouldn't have wanted to go there just to see the big old black nothing a fire leaves behind. Instead we went back a few kilometres to the outskirts of the Pilliga and took a bush hike that lead us to beautiful sandstone caves. Some of the caves have ancient carvings from the local aboriginal people that show footprints of emus and kangaroos and markings from when they made their stone weapons. These markings are over 12000 years old - to imagine that people lived in that harsh environment that long ago is pretty cool.

From Coonabarabran we went south to the wine region around Mudgee and further on to Rylstone. This small town used to be home to the tasting room of a certain local olive oil production, run by Jens' uncle. The farm doesn't belong to the family any more but we still wanted to see where Jens' relatives spent many years. Rylstone has its charms considering its sandstone buildings with historic flair and tuscan gardens. It doesn't offer much for travellers, though, so we went on to Clandulla, a tiny village, and visited the 'Lakeland Olives' farm. The remote setting (you only get there via dirt road), the humming bush around the farm and the natural beauty of the surrounding area make you feel a little overwhelmed and lost in this place. We couldn't get on the actual plantation site, but standing at the entrance gate, thinking that other people from little Buende had actually lived and worked out here was quite the magical feeling.

We left Clandulla and went further on towards Sydney into the World Heritage listed Blue Mountains National Park. The scenery took our breath away! It felt like stepping into another world. After days of red earth, sparse bushland and eucalyptus we found ourselves on top of sheer cliffs that open up into endless valleys of dark green wilderness, running streams and deep gorges. Because of the latest storm that calmed down just the day before we arrived, the hikes into the valley were all impassable, but we could hike along the clifftop for a couple of hours, which afforded fantastic views of the valleys, a myriad of thundering waterfalls and the sheer cliffs that tower above it all. After the hike we went for a scenic drive to a couple more viewpoints before staying the night at Blackheath. From there we went on early the next day to Katoomba, home of the iconic Three Sisters and the Giant Staircase. When we got there, the whole valley below us was filled with clouds and only the cliffs and mountaintops were rising out from the mist like from the sea. After a while it started to clear up and the clouds gave way to a beautiful fresh morning. We made use of it and went on a couple of shorter walks to explore the Echopoint, the Three Sisters, Wentworth Falls and the Leura cascades. Climbing up and down tons of stairs, walking below dripping cliff overhangs and balancing along muddy waters that flood the pathway paid off in so many ways - we got to see more spectacular scenery, could bath our feet in cool mountain rivers, got showered under thundering waterfalls and got a really good workout - all before breakfast!
Of course the Blue Mountains brought us smack bang back to the much travelled roads. And that's where we'll stay now, in the vicinity of big and beautiful Sydney.

Halfway along the route...

From Noosa we went down south, along the so-called-but-differently-seen Sunshine Coast. Closed beaches, rain and wind drove us to find some bad weather activity -we went to the zoo (of corse that was the only day the weather stayed decent for a couple of hours in a row...anyway). The Australia Zoo, founded by ozzy icon Steve Irwin (and a fitting homage to that wildlife enthusiast, to say the least) has them all: slimy and dangerous snakes, giant lethal crocodiles (stars of the brilliant daily show in the famous Crocoseum), cuddly koalas, wombats and kangaroos, funny Tasman Devils and other local folks as well as visitors from Asia (Tigers and Elephants), Africa (the usual suspects) and the US (Alligators that seem like toys compared to their Australian relatives). We watched giant tortoises get their morning scrub from little birds, fed kangaroos, petted koalas and spent tons of time observing Wombats building their holes. The day went by before we knew and we didn't even get the chance to see all the birds, flying or walking, or the otters, camels and what not. It was time very well spent, and although the Australia Zoo probably already is on every traveller's list, it is not overrun and we can highly recommend it - it's a creature feature that shouldn't be missed.
 
We went on to the third biggest city in Australia that also happens to be Queensland's capital: Brisbane. We got their early and spent only half of the day looking for a carpark that would actually let us in (being taller than 2.4 meters doesn't make Rita a favourite guest on most of the carpark parties...). When we finally did find a spot to park, it had a 2 hours max limit, which obviously wouldn't do a city like Brisbane any justice. We took it anyways and decided to just make the best of the following two hours. And so we did. We walked through the beautiful South Bank Parklands with its artificial  Streets Beach, historic Stanley Street Plaza, patches of rainforest and hidden lawns. From the western side of the Brisbane river we crossed over to the city centre and continued our sightseeing trip along the beautiful sandstone buildings that house the City Hall, the Parliament and the Treasury. After a stroll down the pedestrian mall we even found time for a short bite before we headed down towards the river to the City Botanic Gardens. We were shocked at the sight of a sign that indicated the floodlevel of the 2011 floods and, when it started pouring in that same moment, hurried back to the car to go somewhere dry.

NO JUMPING ... on the edge!

The stretch of coast around Brisbane seemed rather fitting, the Gold Coast, known for its surfing spots and long white stretches of sand. So we went to the laid-back seaside resort of Coolangatta, ready to soak up some of that famous sunshine and finally catch a wave or two. Well, you know what happened...right, we took the rain with us, beaches got closed, the surf got too dangerous for amateurs to even look at and the wind started to blow away everything that wasn't fixed really well. There were still 2 things left for us to do: jump around on jumping pillows for hours and watch a professional surfer tournament from the beachfront while eating a hot dog stuffed with beetroot and salad...
Since we needed to keep moving, we tried our luck a little ways further down the coast, in famous Byron Bay. On our way there, things turned really bad regarding the weather. Trees were falling on streets all over the place, cars were blown onto the wrong lane by sudden wind and flash floods turned driving into a series of deep water river crossings. Byron had nothing to offer in this kind of weather and since we had to get Rita fixed in a garage in the nearby town of Ballina, we decided to go there right away.

That was stupid of course, as we got caught right in the middle of things. The storm was raging over Ballina, the whole city was without power and water levels kept rising while trees kept falling. We ultimately got trapped in the city. When the heavy rainfall stopped over night and the sun even showed itself for a couple of beautiful seconds the next morning, it brought some relief for the drainage system and we were able to get out of the city. The damage the storm left in town was really bad but there was hardly any time to clean it up as even harsher weather was predicted for the whole coast all the way down to Sydney starting that afternoon. Cities were being evacuated as major flooding and dangerous surf was expected and Highway 1, the most trafficked and important route in eastern Australia, had to be closed down due to damage and floodings. This left us no choice (not that we would have chosen to stay anywhere close to the storm after what we experienced before) but to go inland, along those roads less travelled...

The Green, the Red, the Blue

The Green

We picked up our new campervan, the 'Rasende Rita', on another steamy afternoon in tropical Cairns and ventured further north into the World Heritage listed Daintree Rainforest National Park. On our way there we spent a beautiful night out at the amazingly pretty Palm Cove, stayed at the most beautiful campground under palmtrees right at the turquoise ocean waters, went shopping in the charming little seaside town of Port Douglas and got excited about our first roadside Wallabies. When we finally got into the Daintree area the thick, lush vegetation amazed us. After the temperate rainforests of NZ this was completely different again and reminded more of Southeast  Asian jungles: lots of huge trees, climbers, flowers and tons of animals - some of which were rather disturbing (the stories of how we barely escaped a snake attack and how we hunted down big crocks could be told here...you always have to be on the watch in this wilderness!) - and beautiful rivers, creeks and waterfalls that invited for a swim. We explored the Mossman Gorge before starting our long way south that will eventually take us back to Sydney.

We stayed a night at picturesque Etty Bay where the dark green forest comes down all the way to meet white sand and clear blue ocean. The next morning we had a visitor for breakfast - a beautiful, big Cassowary checked out our meal before deciding to rather keep feeding on his forest fruits. Cassowaries are flightless birds with a bump on their heads that makes them look like straight from Jourrasic Park and they are quite rare so we were lucky to see it just like that. From Etty Bay we ventured inland to see Australia's highest single-drop waterfall, the Waksman Falls. Their thundering sounds announced them from afar and their stunning fall over a wall of sheer cliff was quite amazing. We hiked down from the top viewing platform through more steaming hot rainforest where this time we were attacked by the flora - dangeling thorny vines, stinging trees and the like...The view from the bottom pool of the fall was nice enough though, so we didn't mind the pain too much.

Cassowary - an encounter next to our van

 After a night under trees that we spent watching the fabulous Tree Kangaroos play and look for food ( and getting eaten by another camper's dog, but that's too sad a story to tell here) we went back to the coast and explored beautiful 'The Strand' of Townsville: a park-like area with white beaches, public pools, lots of shade from Perott-housing trees, cafes, sporting facilities etc. We took a stroll, enjoyed an ice cream and stared at the biggest Iguana either of us has ever seen in our lives. The tropical heat and humidity eventually drove us back into the soothing cool of air conditioned Rita and we went on to the little town of Ayr from where we wanted to go diving again. The wreck of the Yongala lies in the ocean only 30 minutes out from Ayr and it counts as one of the top ten dive sites in the world due to its amazing corals and marine life. Unfortunatelly, when we got to Ayr, the sky and sea had turned dark and stormy so there was no trip out to the wreck in at least the following two days. As we were a little pressed on time all that was left for us to do was to continue on the next day without having seen the Yongala. The weather stayed wet and foggy so we decided not to go for an expensive cruise around the supposedly paradise-like Whitsunday islands to spare us another disappointment. Instead we took the road less travelled and went back inland, into the lush, mountainous rainforest of the Eungella National Park.

Platypus surfacing while digesting

After overcoming a number of roadblockages by fallen trees and flooded streets we arrived at our destination, the Broken River, just in time to spot what we came for: Platypuses. There is a small viewing platform that offers views over a rather wide stretch of the river. When we got there, a little Platypus was swimming around the surface. It was much smaller than we had expected a Platypus to be and it was really really funny and absolutely wonderful to watch. It pedalled around with its little fins, munched away on its food that it frequently dived for and played around while just floating on the surface. We spotted three other specimen as well, but that first one stayed our favorites and it came closest (a brave little fella as Platypuses are very shy). If you don't know much about Platypuses definitely go and look them up 'cause they are amazing!


The Red

We were driving across the bushland to the outback and saw some grass. We drove a little further and were excited to see a kangaroo. We then got to see more grass. After many miles of breathtaking kangaroos, we got to see a wondrous bunch of eucalyptus trees. Later that day, we came around this one corner and got to see more kangaroos and they were standing in more grass, and they were surrounded by a lot more eucalyptus trees...Next time we're flying!

On a more serious note, we saw a lot more than just grass, kangaroos and eucalyptus trees. We crossed gigantic coalmines and drove along their equally gigantic coal trains. We shared the road with massive road-trains. We saw beautiful birds and met old, rusty locals in their long forgotten one-man villages. We saw the clearest and brightest  stary sky in the darkest of all nights. We saw the devastation a bush fire can bring. And above all, we saw the red, burnt earth that makes up this huge, wide country. So would we really rather fly the next time? Never.


The Blue

During our time in the bush, we came across the legendary Sapphire Fields. The gemfields can not be mined by heavy machinery, so most of the many mines are teeny tiny private ones, run by old miners that have spent their lives out there, hoping to one day get really lucky. Most of them are still waiting for that day to come, but the fields are quite rich so not only do they supply the world with 80 percent of all sapphires but also does every now and then someone get more lucky than usual and walk out with sapphires the size of a brick. We visited an old mine and took a guided tour through the shafts and tunnels. After we had learnt all we needed to know about sapphire mining that way, we tried our luck. We bought a bucket of wash (a bucket full of the part of the earth that might contain gemstones) and got our hands dirty on fosicking. And who would have guessed - in contrast to our hard efforts in gold panning in NZ this time we really got lucky. We found a couple of beautiful, dark blue sapphires, two of which are even quite big. Their colour is amazing - and it reminded us of the ocean, a place we wanted to return to. So we drove back to Rockhampton, where we didn't see the ocean but some evidence of the devastation the recent floods brought to the area. Since Rockhampton is OZ's beef capital, we went for dinner to a real nice steakhouse and were served some excellent meat before we went on to the city of Bundaberg. That's where we really got to see the horrible power of the storm that hit the eastern coast some weeks ago. Half of the city is closed down, houses are emptied out and left to slowly dry, boats ly around tops down in parks after being blown there from the river, tires and waste hang in trees, streets are still flooded, sugarcane fields and fruit plantations are flattened- in short, it's pretty bad. And it's still raining hard...

Don't drink and drive !!

We decided to meet the blue mood the city oozes with the only natural answer: a tour of the city's famous 'Bundaberg Rum' distillery, inclusive some fine tasting...that really lifted our spirits. Since we couldn't go on a tour to watch the hatching of baby turtles and their struggle to reach the water due to the flood (the 'Turtle Beach' is closed down for safety reasons...we wonder what happened to the turtle eggs) we went on to the seaside resort of Noosa. With all the heavy rain and stormy weather outside, we stayed inside and looked at postcard images of the paradise that we were (probably) surrounded by instead. It got even worse when we were told that the Koalas that lived in the Noosa National Park  (that we had planned on spotting for the next day) recently all died from a disease...well, this stretch of land really seems to have had its fair share of bad luck lately. We went to the National Park despite the empty eucalyptus trees and the pouring rain and went for a coastal hike. The ocean wasn't turquoise and calm like on the pictures but grey and rough, an unforgiving sea. We saw waves as high as houses that formed and crushed far out. And we saw the madness of tons of surfers that tried to catch the baby brothers of the giant waves that were still some meters tall. Through all this end-of-the-world weather we tried to stay positive (opened a couple of souvenir bottles from Bundaberg - the gingerbeer of course...), but we could seriously do with some good weather now that at least lets us experience some of the coastal highlights that eastern Australia has to offer.

Adventurous by nature

When we left the airport in Cairns, at the northern east coast of Australia, we almost dropped dead from the heat and, even more so, the humidity. Too long had we gotten used to the wonderful climate of a temperate summer, long were forgotten the Southeast Asian hot and steamy days (at least to our body temperature control system). Well, the tropics had us back.
We got to our hostel in Cairns, changed clothes and started exploring the little city. We didn't get far as we had to buy some general things and get ourselves checked in to a trip we were about to take. The climate, the very early start that day in Auckland and the slight time difference of 4 hours between NZ and Queensland did the rest. We ended up back in the hostel early for pizza, a game of pool and a shower before bed at 9 pm...

The next morning it was rise and shine early again as we were about to embark on our 3-day liveaboard diving cruise to the outer Great Barrier Reef. We went with the awesome guys from Pro Dive Cairns that made this trip a great and memorable experience. They picked us up at 6 am the first day, had us on the boat, enjoying a great tropical breakfast, by 7:30 am and readily briefed and all set up for the first dive at 11 am. The first dive was also our first dive without an instructor with us. It was an amazing and very liberating experience to explore a dive site on our own and to see that we are able to navigate through them well enough to see all the cool spots and make it back to the boat alive and well.

We had 4 dives on both the first and the second day and 3 more dives on the third. Highlights included diving with a crazy amount of huge turtles, diving with reef sharks by day and suddenly being surrounded by their bigger relatives from the deep sea on the night dives, seeing clownfish that are very rare in Australia (unlike in other places we dove at before),

Annelieses birthday cake

finding the funniest underwater snails, rays and huge schools of bumphead perrotfish. The colourful reef with all the great corals, anemones and the like is truly spectacular and makes the most perfect home for the similarly colourful tiny, funny, big, scary, spiky, interesting fish, crabs, jellyfish etc. that you could possibly think of. We even saw dolphins, that surely would have rescued us from the sharks if the need had been.
During the dives we were served awesome food, took naps on deck, sunbathed while looking out over the turquoise waters and slept in cosy  cabins. Oh those perfect days.
11 dives later, a happy, exhausted crowd got back on land, wishing to go back down immediately but also happy to just go take a nap in the next hammock. We went to pick up our new Campervan instead and thus our next adventure started right away.

Farewell NZ

Beautiful Lake Tekapo

When we left Lake Tekapo to go to Geraldine and the pristine nearby Peel Forest we also left the beautiful, rugged MacKenzie Basin behind and found ourselves back in more densly populated farmland. We had a very relaxing day in the forest, taking short walks to giant trees ( though not as giant as our old friend Tane Mahuta up north) and to nice little waterfalls (though not as nice as on the west coast) and going for a work out swim in Geraldine's cute pool (this was really the best pool we've been to in all of NZ - but it was also the only one).

After this it was time to say goodbye to Rolf. After 42 awesome days and about 7500 km we dropped him off in Christchurch, where we stayed for a couple of nights. Boy it was weird to be back in a hostel, having to carry around all our luggage all the time...What a great luxury a Campervan can be!
In Christchurch we stayed in the newly reopened YHA very close to the city centre. After the devastating and deadly earthquakes from February 2011 most of the centre is still a ghost town. It is closed for the public and everything is spooky quiet around this huge area. One can see the badly damaged buildings, cracks in the ground, offices and homes that were left in a hurry, clocks that still show the time of the quake.

Collapsed Christchurch Cathedral

Windows are broken, posters still promote events from early 2011, the once beautiful cathedral is left destroyed. To walk along the fences and catch these glimpses of the no-go zone gives you shivers and you can't help but feel pity for the Christchurchers. But walk around the next corner and your pity turns into respect when you see what all they have done and keep doing to get back on their feed and into a new future. The Re:Start area is only one of many examples: Colourful shipping containers make up a whole new quarter next to the centre with heaps of shops, cafes, nice restaurants, libraries, free internet etc. Next door, the centre is slowly being rebuilt after great new plans that include research, medical, museum, sports and many other quarters. Step by step the city centre will be reopened this way, and hopefully life will come back to it.

Since life isn't there quite yet, we spent most of our time in the Botanic Garden and wandering along the Avon River. We spent a great sunny Sunday afternoon in the park together with thousands of Christchurchers at the 'Lazy Sunday Picnic at the Gardens'. A great band performed super music, families sat on the lawn listening and enjoying a picnic, kids played in the trees, teenagers hung out with their friends and we just sat in the middle of it all and enjoyed the wonderful atmosphere (and the best chocolate-orange muffin ever).
After some very relaxing days in Christchurch we started our lengthy farewell from NZ by boarding a plane back to Auckland where our trip (at least this part of it) started many great weeks ago. We spent a day there running errands and sitting in an internet cafe to finally let people know what NZ looks like. We definitely needed that day of nothing touristy whatsoever.
And then, very early the next morning, we took the second and final step to leaving a wonderful little country behind and boarded our flight back to the tropics. Australia here we come.