Brisbane Part Three

I had no real intention of seeing Brisbane again, and although there was another 3pm train to take me straight out of town two hours after arriving, I decided to stay the night, for the sole purpose of seeing Jon and Em one more time.

Of course, I wasn't about to waste my afternoon here either! I read in my Lonely planet of a great lookout atop the nearby Mt. Coot-tha. IN fact, my Lonely Planet had many easily accessed Brisbane attractions that my other guide failed to mention. Once again, do not buy the BUG guide. There was one bus that goes to the summit and back every hour or so until 4PM.

I was chatting with my mother on the bus when it hit a loop atop and hill and turned around to head back down. Confusing this for the summit, I hit the stop button and got off. Wrong stop. It was apparently the stop for a hilltop, all-girl catholic school, right at dismissal time. I stood there, a 25-year-old man, hanging out a bus stop, decked out in my baggy Johan Santana t-shirt and aviator sunglasses, surrounded by a hundred young catholic school girls between the ages of eleven and seventeen. I was probably the only tourist to have ever visited this particular part of Brisbane. After 45 minutes of silent discomfort, shared by 101 people, the next bus to the summit arrived, but sadly, it was the last.

Mt. Coot-that has miles of hiking trails, botanical gardens, copious wildlife, and numerous cliffside waterfalls, all overlooking the vast city of Brisbane and the sunshine coast. I had exactly 4 minutes to enjoy it all. After a few quick photos, I boarded the bus and headed back to the city to meet up with Jon and Em.

We had a quiet take-out Indian meal at their apartment and chatted over an incredibly lopsided rugby league game between the Australia and the Kiwis. We only chilled for a couple of hours, but it was good to see another of the good friends I've made in Australia before heading home. Another goodbye.

Fraser Island

My overnight bus dropped me off at Rainbow Beach, closest departing point for another of Eastern Australia's most popular destinations, Fraser Island.

IT is a place that is quite hard to imagine and equally, to describe. Simply put, it is the world's largest sand bar. Oddly enough, this 150km long, 50km wide sand pile is large enough to support a diverse rainforest ecosystem, complete with many large freshwater lakes, fish, birds, lizards, and quite a large population of dingos.

Australia's park system has allowed a silly occurrence. Though the island has a few settlements with a couple of resorts, hostels, and hotels, the most common way to experience the island is by taking an unsupervised 4x4 camping trip. Various tour companies unleash groups of ten or so backpackers onto the island with a giant four-wheel-drive truck, tents, food, gallons of beer and box wine, to stomp around the island, the only direction given is a map and when to not get stuck in the high tides. I find it absolutely mental that the level of trust for all these kids on such a fragile ecosystem is so high.

My group was very friendly, but quite irressponsibleble. To say I didn't really enjoy myself would be a total lie, but I would have rather shared this natural wonder with a group of older, more laid-back group who'd rather enjoy a couple of beers under the stars instead of 20. Camping is easy when lots of people help out, but I found myself initiating most of the work. The most disheartening part was the explicit ignoring of the park ranger's rules for camp cleaning. I wanted to follow the rules, but at the same time, I wasn't about to spend hours doing dishes and collecting rubbish while everyone else was partying.

Cleaning up immediately is essential for one big reason, prevention of dingo raids. Dingos are a pest in Australia and are not native by any means. Brought from Asia as hunting dogs long ago, many escaped, became feral and became a species of their own. Many efforts are taken to control the spread of dingos and their ecosystem harming ways, including the famous dingo fence across Australia. That said, the dingos are here to stay and need to be respected as a part of Australia's wildlife. Fraser Island being, surprise, surprise, an island, and protected from cross-breeding, houses some of the purest dingos in all of Australia. Our island briefing included ways to avoid attacks (crossing arms across your chest apparently (laugh, laugh) scares them away) and other ways to be "dingo safe". After all the warning, when I finally saw one was quite amusing. Dingos are simply put, small, red, wild dogs, about the size of a small border collie. IF not wild, it would be tempting to just pet one. Though crafty enough to raid dirty camps for random food scraps, they are quite shy of people. With every dirty camp however, they become more and more accustomed to people and more and more aggressive about getting people food. There are only 50 dingos left on the island, and nearly five a year need to be put down because of aggressive behavior towards tourists.

As a nature lover, I was quite angry by the behavior of my group mates. I awoke one night to find four dingos in our camp, ripping our rubbish bags apart, scattering the dirty dishes and eating food left on the ground. I saw one sneaky bastard open the esky with its nose, remove a liter of milk, and run away with it in its mouth. No amount of crossing my arms and stern looks seemed to scare them. Finally, a cross, finger pointing, "Bad Dingo!" made them cower away in shame.

My trip wasn't all negative. There was some amazing scenery, including an incredible view from the northern Indian Head Point. Lake Mackenzie, a perched lake in the center of the island had water so clear, it couldn't even be captured with a camera. Swimming pools look murky in comparison.

It was quite fun to drive so many miles with the beach as the road, though a few errant waves negatively tested the watersealing capabilities of the truck.

The trip was quite fun, but (fellow backpackers, please throw not your stones!) there needs to be more control over the tourists coming to the island. Reform is not too far away actually; two backpackers were killed after their vehicle rolled when swerving around a wave. Yeah, even our crazy party group did not cause excessive damage to the fragile environment, we also didn't help in anyway.

Mackay Again...again

I wasn't about to pass through Mackay again without making another stop. Due to time constraints, my last visit to Mackay left me with only a few moments to spend with Faith and Glen. Nell organized a little bonfire at her farm that was quite fun and gave me a bit more time with my friends.

My second stay at the sugar plantation was even less eventful than the first. Nell attended a circus with her mother, so her father, Guy, and I hung out and listened to old comedy LP's. He later showed me his dizzingly huge collection of model aircrafts, sitting the boxes, waiting to be built and painted. I wasn't able to count, but I'm sure there were at least 1,000 boxes in the 15 or so steel cupboards in the lower part of his Queenslander home.

The next day, Nell and I spent an uncomfortable time together at the a nearby beach. It is funny how last days together are never crazy and fun, trying to pack in as much as one can in the scant few hours left. Instead, they are mostly awkward and sad. Nell is one of the best friends I've made on my trip and I was honestly a bit choked up as I boarded the bus out of Mackay forever.

Whitsunday Islands

There are four typical activities that about 99% of all Eastern Australia backpackers do: visit Sydney and Byron Bay, 4x4 camping on Fraser Island, and an overnight sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands. Although cliche, all four are popular for a good reason.

My Whitsunday experience was aboard Habibi, a medium sized yacht; I didn't measure it, but I'd say it was 10-15 meters or so. We crammed 26 people onto the boat, but it really wasn't very crowded feeling after we dispersed into groups.

We didn't really do much; it was more about spending some relaxing time out at sea amongst some beautiful islands. The first night I did some fishing and caught an eel; as they are armed with sharp teeth, like to coil and have tough skin, the skipper wasn't too happy about my catch. We had to cut the line.

There was one full day out at sea. Our first stop was Whitehaven Beach, most popular of all Whitsunday destinations. It was an amazingly beautiful beach with fine sand as white as snow. It actually has nearly a 100% silicone level, making it great for exfoliation.
The rest of the day was spent snorkeling at a couple of sites. The Whitsundays are connected to the Great Barrier Reef, but not actually in it. The snorkeling was still good though. It was nothing compared to the actually reef.

We watched an amazing sunset from the beach off of some island, home of one the most expensive resorts in the area. We, however, slept on the boat. The evening was dedicated to a very fun boat party.

We awoke much too early and sailed home in the morning. Most of our "sailing" was with a motor, but the sails were brought up a couple of times. Everyone had a chance to help. As I write this, I still have vertigo. Funny how it takes longer to get land legs back than it does to get sea legs.

Mackay Again

I really had no choice but to visit again. I don't like passing up opportunities to meet up with friends, especially ones I won't see for a long time, if ever. Nell and her family opened up their home to me for a few nights on their large sugar plantation. This is the most representative accommodation one can find in Mackay. Once the town ends, there is nothing but sugar cane for miles in all directions.

On my first full day, Nell and I took the two-hour drive to Eungella National Park. Like most of North Queensland's parks, it was a large expanse of rainforest atop a mountain. Nell and I took a lovely 10km hike through the rainforest. Our conversation shifted to snakes at a point, for some odd reason. In the middle of me speaking the following sentence, "Yeah, Australia has more deadly animals than in the states, but like our animals, if you don't bother them, and let them do their own thing, you shouldn't have any problems," Nell screamed as she stepped on a brown snake, one of the many deadly species of Australian snakes. It whipped her leg with its tail before scurrying into the bushes. We stopped for a few minutes to allow our hearts to stop pumping. We then tiptoed further down the trail, eyes on the forest floor. The carefree tone of our walk changed instantly.

We hiked another kilometer before the trail became too overgrown for our addled selves to continue. Even wallabies were making us jump. We returned to the trailhead and staked out the river for the main draw of this part of the park, the potential of spotting a platypus! We were quite lucky; just as we got toe the river, a woman gave us a silent signal. We creeped to the bank just in time to see a duck-billed platypus surface. I snapped a quick photo before it dove again. It surfaced one more time and I had a great photo lined up, but it dove again, leaving me with just a photo of rippled water. We stared at the river for a couple more hours, hoping to see another and to give us another photo-op. Sadly, platypi are quite shy; any noise or movements scare them way. Aussies on the other hand are not shy and are quite boisterous, so every five minutes, people would walk by loudly, gabbing away, oblivious to the fact that there are seven people keeping completely still and silent, staring at the water. Honestly, what did they think we were doing? We saw one more at a distance, but my one encounter proved to be the only one of note. Boy though, what a great encounter it was! Australian nature, despite it affinity for trying to kill my friends has treated me quite well.

We wanted to stay longer, especially since platypi are most active in the evening, but there was still the nearby Finch-Hatton Gorge to see. After being forced to take a long detour due a flooded road (stupid Queensland!), we arrived at the gorge at dark. It was too dark to see anything, so we got back in the car and headed home. We should have stopped there first. To bad as well, because we could have stayed longer, staring at the river.

The next day was relaxed. That evening, we went for a sunset tour of her sugar farm. It was pretty cool. A cow got loose, so we had to chase it down and herd it back to its home. Nell chased after it in the bumpy grass. I was quite freaked out honestly: I've never been too much of a fan for open-air vehicles. I stayed cool though; I trusted Nell not to kill me. I didn't fool her though.

"A little freaked out, huh? I was going really slow."

"How did you know?"

"Uh, Aaron, I could see how tightly you were holding on."

"Oh." My facade of masculinity shattered a little too easily, not that I was fooling anyone anyway.

Nell had to work the next day, so I hitched a ride to town to Glen and Faith. First, I stopped into an interesting art exhibit on tapa, an art form from the South Pacific. They take the bark from some tree, make into a crude paper and do some fishing related painting upon it. Nothing too exciting really, but it occupied me for a good thirty minutes or so.

I joined Nell for lunch at the weirdest little park near the port. It had a giant fiberglass shoe, crocodile, Fred Flintstone, and Snoopy. I can't explain the bizarre feel of the park; it is just an odd place. Next, I met up with Glen for a couple of hours. We cruised around town, hunting for his lost wallet.

Finally, I had to bid farewell to Glen and Faith, then Nell, which was quite sad. Too many goodbyes in too short of a time. I may come back for another night for a bonfire on my way south, considering it is on the way.

Goodbyes

The eve of my trip is beginning as I only have two more months in Australia. After three weeks of work, I had to leave Cardwell, the prawns, and my friends behind. Hanani needed at least a month more of work and Eline and Mirte planned to stick it out another week. With my May 12th flight from Sydney still approaching, I had but two and a half weeks to fly down the coast. My packed itinerary already included three days in Mackay with Nell, three days of sailing around the Whitsundays, a camping trip on Fraser Island, and a quick stop in Brisbane to say goodbye to Jon and Em. This little breathing room is a bit stifling!

Sandy died a few days ago. Hanani drove her to Cairns over the weekend, but she never made it back. He grabbed all he could carry, but he still could not get everything; I will now have to buy my third set of dishes since embarking on my travels. I never even got to say goodbye.

I had a fun party my last night, which was quite bittersweet. After spending three weeks with the same people, friendships easily develop. I made tentative plans to meet with some of them on the trip, but it is often hard to converge schedules on the road.

For the first time in a month, I am on my own again, which I find quite annoying. I love making new friends, but I found it too easy to acclimate myself to security of having a stable friendship network. I absolutely hate goodbyes. I let my guard down quite a bit lately, which has been both good and bad. I will be sad to leave North Queensland, which has proven to be my favorite part of the Australia so far (well at least during the dry season anyway). I may even have to come back someday. Goodbye friends. Goodbye North Queensland. Hello the end of the road.