Island Hopping
After Cairns, we decided to go island hopping. There are so many nice places on the coast, that there was no way we would get to see it all, so now was the time to choose........
We left Cairns on a rainy Monday morning, heading south towards Townsville, which was going to be our first stop. We arrived late afternoon, and immediatly decided to start our island hopping and take the ferry across to Magnetic Island. It is a fantastic little place, we stayed in a completely new hostel and had our own little house on the beach. We spent two days there, before returning to Townsville.
Next stop was Rockhampton, which turned out to be the worst place we have visited. We meant to go to great Keppel Island, but were too tired from the drive to get across so we stayed one night in Rockhampton and moved on to Arlie Beach.
Arlie was good fun, we stayed in the perfect hostel, another little bungalow with two rooms, kitchen and bathroom. From there, we took a day trip to the Whitsundays Islands and saw what they call one of the best beaches in Australia - White heaven beach. It was truly beautiful, the sand is so fine it feels like flour. We went snorkling, but had to wear stinger suits for the first time - I felt like Catwoman - however, it was needed, as besides lots of fish, we saw heaps of little blue box stingers. These are not the leathal ones, however, they still hurt you badly.
Afte Arlie, we headed south to Bargara outside the famous Rum town Bundaberg. I thnk we found the best hostel here.....it had everything, even cable TV! So for the first time in a long time, we could watch a movie on a Saturday night. The beach was great, no stingers, but huge tempting waves where we spent a whole day. We extended our stay and chilled out at the beach for two days before going to Fraser Island.
Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world, and it was very impressive, however, after having spent so much time on great islands, it was a disappointment not being able to swim in the ocean on Fraser. The beach was great, the water tempting, but due to the huge amount of sharks around the island, they do not recommend swimming except in the lakes. The island is known to have the biggest population of pure breed Dingos in Australia, and they are actually quite dangerous. Almost at the same time as our stay, a dingo was close to attacking a 14 month old baby on the west side of the island (we were on east)only saved by the girls older sister, who got inbetween and cried for help.
After Fraser, we took a short break in the island hopping and went to Cleveland south of Brisbane, to stay with Bob and Noreen Possingham. We enjoyed their hospitality for three days, had one day in Brisbane, and finally concluded the islands with one day on North Stradbrooke Island.
On our way down the coast, we stopped for a full day at seaworld, which, in particular the boys enjoyed. We considered to go snorkling in shark bay, but found it too expensive (I was very tempted - and you only swam with the little sharks.....)
After Seaworld, we drove to Lismore outside Byron Bay to visit Carsten, a Danish contact, who emmigrated to Australia 5 years ago. He has koalas in the backyard!
We are now in Byron Bay, where I got the chance to catch up with an old friend, Janes brother John. Byron is nice, perfect climate, great beaches, good fun. So here we are, working on our tan, it is hard work, but I am sure we'll get there. Still no pictures on my site, but we expect to be back in Sydney on Saturday to celebrate Nicolas' birthday and then I will try to upload a few photos.
So far so good - rumours say that it is getting cold in Denmark??? Stay warm and happy where ever you are and look forward to hearing from you.
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