Down Under Adventures Part 1

Part of the reason we moved to New Zealand was to explore this side of the world, and while New Zealand has proven to be a poorly located base to explore from, it has not deterred us. There is that other island to check out after-all, and it is pretty big, and now having just driven most of the length of its eastern seaboard, I truly understand how big, big, actually is. I shouldn't be surprised really, and I suppose I am not, but having lived on a comparatively small island now for a year and a half, I had forgotten what long, never-ending, hopelessly bleak straight roads that stretch to horizon are really like. At least it was warm.

Please read the following paragraph while listening to the track below, and in your head reading in documentary voiceover type voice, perhaps Morgan Freeman?

We have just ended our now seemingly annual: summer vacation to a country other than New Zealand to escape the cold, - family trip. This time our adventures took us to Australia, the land that fascinated me as a youth, and terrified me as a father of three young girls, who have never seen anything more harmful than a mosquito in their young lives. Australia, where even the Croc' Hunter couldn't survive. Australia, where eight of the ten most poisonous snakes live. Australia, where eight of the ten most poisonous spiders live. Australia, where crocodiles patrol the outback. Australia, where sharks guard the coastline. Australia, where if the sharks don't get you, the stingrays might. Australia, where the Dingo might "ait your baiby!" Austraiya, where the "l" is apparently silent. Australia, where the Hartlen's camper-vanned for the first time as a five piece.

We start in Brisbane, the Edmonton of Queensland. A place for living, not really visiting, but we did have some old couch-surfer friends from way back that we caught up with for the first time in four years. Jodie and Mick were gracious enough to let us invade their home for a night while we waited to pick up our camper-van the following morning.  

Campervan sorted, we head to the Gold Coast to meet up with another CS friend, Hugh, who stayed with us in CHCH last fall, he was good enough to make the trek up from Coffs Harbour just to meet us for the afternoon at Surfer's Paradise, a beautiful but very touristy beach area. Together we failed at writing signs in the very dry sand and Stephanie succeeded in impaling her foot on a very spiny dead fish of some sort( see pictures above) literally within the first minute on the beach, we were not up to deal with sea water and wet children so we just let them have their beach adventure in the sand.

Eleven days a is not a lot of time, and we really only had nine, with a travel day on either end. In all we would travel 2450km. By the end of day 3, we were only at 175km, and not yet more than 70km from Brisbane. This was in part due to my mistaking the direction of the Lone Pine Koala sanctuary believing it to be north East of the city, when in actual fact it was south west. The sanctuary would be our activity for this third day, but not before we had our first of many campervan camping adventures.

Off in a north-westerly direction we rolled at the end of our day in the Gold Coast, we did not have a specific destination in mind, just somewhere close to Lone Pine. We eventually made it to the north-western suburbs of Brisbane, found an un-assuming residential road near a gas station (we had no desire to make use of, or be responsible for, the cleaning of the porta-loo we had on board). So there we were on the corner of Windeyer and Lucy st. in the suburb of Bald Hills. Queenslanders were getting ready for bed, perhaps watching television, and we were out front on the street, squatting in our van like homeless transients. We pulled tight the curtains so as not to arouse suspicion, got the girls dressed for bed, shifted the luggage around and went to sleep. That is everyone except Clara, who had no idea what time it was, and was not so easily settled that first night. Twice in the middle of the night I stumbled to the gas station to acquire boiling water for her bottle, to some it may seem like the trials of a petty homeless family trying to survive, to us it was an adventure, how ever frustrating 3am feedings in random Aussie neighbourhoods are.

Getting up was the trick, though really, if anyone had actually come out of their front doors, I doubt they would have confronted us, after-all, we were not being a nuisance, I am not sure that we were even breaking the law, but the whole thing felt shifty so we acted the part. Flattened to the bed, with the curtains still shut tight we quietly drove the block to the gas station in the now broad daylight, and got our day sorted, breakfast etc. in the comfort of the our campervan in the parking lot of the United service station.  

Our first family adventure was at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where the girls enjoyed interacting up close with all sorts of Aussie animals, they showed no fear while feeding kangaroos, and chasing them around the fields where they roamed freely. This was followed by another night of side of the road camping, and then off bright and early northward. The highlight of the next day was the Glass Top Mountains, a series of uniquely formed hills that apparently look like glass furnace houses from England, or so thought Captain Cook when he "discovered" them, back in the 1700's.

It was now time to make some ground. We were also happy to have a shower, so we splurged for a camper park in Tin Can Bay, where our next wild animal encounter took place the following morning with the feeding of wild dolphins at The Barnacle in Tin Can Bay. Aurora Steph and I go right into the water, and hand fed sardines to a couple of Dolphins who sat patiently waiting by the pier, a much more ethical dolphin experience could not be had anywhere I do not think. Brynn had little desire to get into the water with fish that were 3 times her size.

When Stephanie was younger, she had a fascination with Platypi. We had already seen some in captivity at Lone Pine, but an opportunity to see some in the wild at Eungella National park was for her too much to pass up. the park itself was a great example of Aussie Rainforest, with some nice nature walks alongside lagoons, and streams, but it seemed we were out of luck on the Playtpus front. However, jus as we were leaving we saw some people headed to a vantage point, and we thought there must be a reason. Success! Despite the fact that it was three in the afternoon, the notoriously nocturnal platypus was out and about frolicking in one of the streams gathering food for its young.

Now we were really stuck for time and distance, much that we would have like to have done, we didn't for this reason. The second half of our trip was a lot of driving, and a lot of road-kill, but was also where our favourite memories of Australia were created. Part 2 Coming Soon!