Saying goodbye to Daisy :(

Hello! Long time no update, we know... it turns out Western Australia really IS quite remote (as in, good luck finding internet, at least after 5pm!). We're now in Fremantle, a seaside suburb of Perth/really cool historic port town, where we've been hanging out the last couple of days, preparing for the most heartbreaking moment of our trip...saying goodbye to Daisy.

OK, I'm getting weepy just writing this (possibly I'm a little sleep-deprived from our first night in a very small tent!) but we knew it had to happen sometime. We just didn't expect it to happen so fast! After our big driving adventure down the coast from Broome since we last wrote (details to come-- hiking Karijini National Park, camping at a cattle station, snorkelling with reef sharks on the Ningaloo Reef, evicting a mouse from our van, and many more stories... ) we arrived in Perth on Australia Day-- Jan 26-- and caught some fantastic fireworks over the pretty Swan River, which cuts through the downtown. The next day (Tuesday) was business time and we started posting flyers in hostels/internet cafes/online advertising our very awesome van. We had two dates to meet potential buyers on Wednesday morning before the day was even done-- not bad. [We weren't sure how the car market would be here, as we've been reading news articles on how backpackers aren't finding work in Perth right now, with a late fruit season and the economic crap affecting city jobs. But since it would have been another 4000 or so really long and desolate-- not to mention rushed-- kilometres back to Melbourne, we thought we'd give selling a go in Perth....]

Wednesday morning we gave Daisy the first car wash she'd had in more than a year (unless you count the one in Broome which barely took the first layer of splattered bugs off!) and she was shiny and beautiful. We wondered why we hadn't done it sooner, but with dusty unsealed roads around every corner it seemed a bit futile! We met a few nice people-- an Austrian couple, a group of two French and a Belgian, and later an Aussie guy. It felt really weird to be showing her off like that-- she's not just our vehicle, but our home and kind of a family member too! It was very important to us not only to sell her (and for a good price, as she's a great car and plus we've really fixed her up over the past year and a half), but also to sell her to nice people who would take her to some great spots around the country-- and not just to the idiot non-stop-party-backpacker types that we encounter quite often along the way. After posting a bunch more posters, we decided to take a few hours off and explore Fremantle, which we've heard much about (it's very hippie and relaxed) and its Cappuccino Strip-- street of cafes with great patios-- where we could sip coffee and people-watch. And then we got another two calls from people who wanted to meet Daisy...

We made plans to meet one of the new callers, Thomas, a German, after we finished in Fremantle (or Freo). We ended up pulling up to his hostel a bit later than planned, and were parking to give him a ring when we noticed a few people waving to us from outside the hostel... then some excited yells, "It's Daisy!!"... then a few girls and a guy running towards our van, kind of like a Beatlemania scene or something. Very weird.

It turns out they must have liked our posters-- Daisy seemed to be a bit of a celebrity at the hostel. Thomas and the three German girls (Julia, Katarina and Mai) he was travelling with were all very excited to meet her. We gave them the tour, Adrian took them for a bit of a cruise (he was nervous and almost started driving on the righthand side of the road!) and then Thomas said, "I'll buy Daisy!" and shook our hands and that was it. (Oh, and the girls were screaming with joy) We were happy, sad, and a bit panicked because it really meant the end of the big trip. Luckily, the Germans had just paid for a week at the hostel so we had til Tuesday to get ourselves organized and say our goodbyes...
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Yesterday was the big day-- after days of packing, cleaning, and shipping things overseas, it was time (two hours late, after we needed some quick thinking after learning our first overseas box was too big to send at 24kg, and Adrian's didgeridoo box was too long to send at more than 1.05m long!)-- we pulled Daisy up in front of the hostel and met the happy new owners of our van. We unloaded the last of our gear sadly and traded keys for a giant wad of cash... and called a taxi to take our still-massive pile of stuff to the rental car agency in the CBD. It was pretty weird watching other people jump in and out of Daisy, mill about her, push buttons and open cupboards. There was even this stupid guy from the hostel who kept whacking his empty water bottle on Daisy... Adrian and I were cringing! But the Germans are very much in love with Daisy (even with the Hello Kitty toaster, which is exactly what we wanted!) and we're pretty sure they'll take good care or her. Fingers crossed!

So now we've decided to take a mini road-trip to the southwest corner of the state, to what we've heard is a beautiful area with tall, ancient forests, gorgeous beaches, and hippie wine towns for the next week, and we're adjusting to a very different camping lifestyle-- tent and teeny car! On the bright side, the Corolla hatchback is quite roomy and air conditioned, and automatic! Adrian keeps reaching for the gearshifter and the clutch and I keep giggling at him. We have a working radio, but actually radio kind of sucks in Perth, so we've have to burn some CDs to listen to (we gave away the cord to plug in the iPod). We had to buy a few supplies that we couldn't "borrow" from Daisy (ie. we had an extra tent!) but we're realizing how truly nice and comfortable our van was-- luxurious even-- having a huge comfy bed/full kitchen/changeroom/lounge and everything we needed in one compact van! There are definite plans in the works already to create a Daisy II someday when we're back in Canada...

So, crazily enough, our two years in Oz are almost finished-- we fly out to Vietnam on February 19, which we're pretty excited about! After our week hooning it up "down south", we'll fly back to Melbourne on Feb. 10 for one last week in the great city we left only two months ago. Hopefully we'll get a few more surfs in, and have a just few more Little Creatures beers (some really fantastic beer brewed right here in Freo, but not yet shipped overseas unfortunately)...

Going Outback Pt II: Ghost Towns & Mountain Hikes

By now, we were still marvelling at the silence of the Outback-- day and night, we'd barely meet another soul. We passed through Wilcannia, a former gold mining town which had a ghost-town feel to it-- dilapidated buildings and not a soul on the street (it was really hot outside though). Next it was Broken Hill, a relatively large town close to the South Australia border. It's known as the "Silver City", and the town has been built around a giant silver mine (looks quite weird to see a huge mound behind the town's buildings, and it always sounded like a construction site). There was also gold mines back in the day, and the "downtown" was full of Gold Rush-era, well-preserved buildings. It's also been a hotspot for films-- the Palace Hotel is a huge pub featured in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and nearby ghost town Silverton was the filming site for Mad Max II. Since Adrian's a huge Mad Max fan, we drove out to the spooky town to check out the tiny pub and the scenic sunbleached buildings of the town. The publican told us about the crazy dust storms that come through town, as well as the floods that close off the town from civilization when too much rain falls. We even met some wild donkeys hanging out by the (closed) museum/jail. There are a few people who live and work there-- there are a few art galleries, a house which we saw a ute pull into, and the family who runs the pub are residents, too. But otherwise, Silverton had quite the spooky, deserted air to it.

Nonetheless, Broken Hill was the closest we'd get to civilization for a while. We crossed into South Australia later the next day, through a manned quarantine checkpoint (you have to toss out your fruit & veggies just between most states here, it's crazy!) and straight into a dark storm cloud. We stopped in at the info centre in a cute town called Quorn, just below the Flinders Ranges National Park, and got the bad news we'd been dreading: the Oodnadatta Track was closed due to rains the Friday before (it was already Wednesday by then!). Norm, the biker who planted the adventuresome idea in our heads earlier that week, had told us authorities close the roads due to creeks flooding, but mostly so that vehicles don't create but ditches and ruts in the soft, wet ground. Since this was the rainier season (despite the drought), there was always the chance it would get closed down. Word is, if you travel on the road when it is closed and are caught, you'll be fined $1000 per tire. Yikes!

Disappointed as we were, we decided to at least check out the Flinders Ranges the next day and see if the track would reopen. It would be a detour-- the path we were taking is on the east side of some very large (and dried-out, we believe) lakes and there was no way north to join the main north-south highway, without the unsealed tracks. We'd have to detour back south for about 300km, and return north on the other side of the lakes-- a lot more time and fuel, but we'd heard the Flinders Ranges were worth it in scenery.

We drove further north, checking out historic ruins of sheep stations (abandoned because of the inhospitable conditions, heat and drought) and some Aboriginal rock paintings along the way to the National Park. We paused for the night in a wee town nestled in the mountains called Hawker, along the road where every town felt more and more like the end of the line.

Hanging onto our last bits of hope, we arrived inside Flinders Ranges National Park, to begin a hike with views of Wilpena Pound, a mountain range with a circular valley in the centre (apparently shepherds used to round up their sheep in this natural "pound"). And we got the news-- the Oodnadatta Track had reopened! As long as there wasn't another freak rain (we were told they'd had a huge amount of rain this month compared to normal), we could do it with ease, even without a 4WD, we were reassured. So with a burst of excited energy, we opted for a hike with great views and kind of overlooked that it was the only one listed as "Hard". Two hours of steep rock climbing to the top of Mount Ohlssen-Bagge found us sweaty and exhausted at the top (why do we always seem to hike in mid-afternoon?). We'd seen a few lizards but all the other wildlife was sensible enough to stay inside for the day. The views were phenomenal though and it was a much easier time down the steep trail, even with jello-ey legs.


We found a sweet campsite in the park (after "snaking" a refreshing shower from the Wilpena Pound Resort at the trailhead...) after a winding drive past emus sipping from puddles and roaming kangaroos-- by a dry riverbed and a mountain, and watched the stars from our peaceful site. In the morning, another camper came by to check out our trails map and we warned him about Mt Ohlssen-Bagge. He may have suited it better than us though, being a Bavarian who wore his lederhosen camping (we met him again in Coober Pedy, days later, in his lederhosen again!). We opted for a more peaceful trail through some grasslands and through a gorge that day... figured our energy is best put into the Outback Track driving the next day!

Chasing the Fifty Year Storm

Last weekend we finally got away from the city routine and headed down to the Great Ocean Road-- a winding, 250-km-or-so stretch of gorgeous highway running along the southernmost point in mainland Australia (built by returning soldiers after WWI). We'd been hearing about it for ages, and so when our friends Bianca (the German) and John (the ranger) invited us to join them for this leg of their trip, we jumped at the chance. We set off last Saturday morning, girls in one car, boys in the other, equipped with VHF radios and off to see a picturesque corner of Oz none of us four had seen, outside of many, many postcards and books.

After emerging from a traffic jam around Melbourne's west end, our first peek at the coastline was in Torquay, Victoria's surf capital. With a surfing museum, surf lessons galore, and outlet stores for every surfer brand imaginable from Rip Curl to Billabong to Blunt (etc.), there's no doubt we'll be heading back to explore. But, we had a lot of ground to cover in two days, and made our first stop just outside Torquay at the legendary Bells Beach. And why does this name sounds familiar, you ask? Movie buffs, here's your clue:

JOHNNY UTAH: I knew you wouldn't miss the fifty year storm, Bodhi.

Who can forget Keanu in his hot surfer days in Point Break? Not us. We soon learned that despite our differences in ages and homelands, all four of us were huge Point Break fans, and so visiting Bells Beach--home to that dramatic final scene in the film-- was a bit of a pilgrimage. It wasn't long before the Point Break quotes were flying back and forth on the VHF. Appropriately enough, it started to pour rain like crazy just as we left our cars for the long boardwalk descending down the cliff. THE FIFTY YEAR STORM HAD ARRIVED! We tried looking for Bodhi in the waves, but it was pretty choppy and hard to get a good look (though we're sure he must have been out there...). Visiting Bells did finally confirm what Adrian and I have been suspecting after watching Point Break over here: the final scene was definitely NOT filmed in Oz. First of all, there are no beaches lined with pine trees in Australia; secondly, the beach in the movie is a tiny little cove, while Bells is actually a long sandy beach. *Sigh* (Check online and it seems we've all been duped: the "Bells Beach" pictured in the movie was actually a beach in Oregon) We got drenched during the walk, and spent a good part of the day with the only warm clothes we packed now sopping wet. Not so much fun. [If you're craving a little surf right now, check out this live web cam (and photos) to see how the waves are down at Bells.]

After Bells, the road became more winding, often running along cliffs which dropped straight into the ocean. The views were gorgeous and reminded us a lot of the drive from Port Douglas to Cairns (except colder). Though it's not always beside the ocean, as the name led us to believe, the farmlands it travels through are pretty spectacular too. We explored waterfalls, a lighthouse, cute little towns (Lorne, Apollo Bay), and watched packs of surfers along each beach, beginning to realize that the GOR may very well be Daisy's true home. Ever since we bought her (and who knows for how long before that), she's had a Bells Beach Rip Curl Surfing Pro Competition poster stuck up on a window--which eerily enough, fell off as we were lunching near Bells Beach-- and a sticker that says "I played Apollo Bay 2000" (the Apollo Bay Music Festival is a hippie music fest held in a cute GOR town in March) along with a couple of surf brand bumper stickers as well. We're sure she was quite the happy van despite the many twists and turns en route.

One of the other coolest sights from our first day on the road came when we spotted a bunch of cars stopped at the roadside ahead of us. At first we thought "Car accident!" but then Ranger John pointed out the bare branches of the trees around-- KOALAS! We pulled over with the other tourists to snap photos and film the adorable koalas munching on eucalyptus in their natural habitat. It was just after 6pm and they were lively as ever, hopping from tree to tree in the cutest of ways. They were also brown, not the typical grey variety we see on postcards. We even got quite close to one in the forest nearby.

That night we camped among sand dunes at Johanna Beach, site of one of many shipwrecks on the coast. It was gorgeous but so much colder than Queenslander camping (we'll pack better next time!). As we ate breakfast, tiny birds with bright blue stripes on their heads chirped and flitted around us. We set off for the most famous of GOR sights Sunday morning: the Twelve Apostles, a set of giant limestone towers just off the coast that are slowly being eroded by the elements over the centuries. These monoliths, alongside the high cliffs of the shoreline, really do make for a spellbinding scene, even after seeing it in a million photos (just like the Grand Canyon, or like Angkor Wat). We took plenty of our own pics, because, who knows how much it will change by the next time we visit? It'll be cool to find out.

There were more interesting rock formations along the way -- like Loch Ard Gorge, with a giant, noisy, creepy inland blowhole -- and plenty of historical plaques dedicated to all the ship which were destroyed along the treacherous coastline. The landscape here was fascinating-- the road was slightly inland, following the shoreline along a flat, desertlike plateau that suddenly drops into the crashing ocean far below. It was also neat to think about how close we were standing to Antarctica (you sure felt the chill in the air) as the wind howled straight at us from the south. And all this, just a few hours from our home in Melbourne! We turned back on Sunday afternoon, leaving Bianca and John to continue on their grand tour of Oz, and we headed back to the city, our zest for the camping life completely revived and thankful for our good old trusty surfin' van Daisy! We'll definitely be making a trip back to the Great Ocean Road as soon as we can--maybe next time with boards of our own.

WHOAAAAA! We just found out there will be a Point Break sequel.
Vaya con dios, brah.

When possums attack

Howdy, y'all! We're now back to livin' it up in the country (if you can call it that).
Brisbane was great and all, and we'll definitely be back, but for now it's time to hunker down and get the rest of our required six weeks of harvest work done for our second year's visa-- and hopefully we'll never have to pretend we're Paris and Nicole on The Simple Life again.

After Brisbane we decided to take Daisy for a camping night on the way to Stanthorpe. We visited an information centre and they pointed us to The Gorge campground, a strange prviately-run campground near Boonah, QLD. It was a little rugged, but recommended because it was by a creek-- and they really love to swim in anything here. One look at the black, murky water with vines overgrowing the sides and we were like "Forget it! Where's our pool?" But we parked next to it and it was a nice setting to eat cheese and crackers in.

Not long after we had started our snack, a friendly man with beer in hand came over to invite us over to the large cabin across the lane for his group's annual men-vs-women Trivial Pursuit faceoff and apple pie. How could we refuse? We were there for hours in a fierce battle with retired schoolteachers, posties, etc... until the men finally took it (though we were aces at sports, us girls just couldn't get the Arts & Literature questions!)

We get back to our van, which we had left open to get some air into (it was stiflingly hot) and immediately think "Eek, what kind of bugs are going to be sleeping with us tonight!?". Adrian gets in to investigate. Everything seems in place. I'm standing outside the van when I hear a rustling and a cat-sized figure just behind the driver's seat-- A POSSUM! Our first possum sighting (finally) though maybe not in the manner we were hoping. The damn thing wouldn't leave, and there was a baby one on the roof trying to sneak inside as well. With some help from our Trivial Pursuit mates and some fierce possum-shooing tactics, we finally got them back up the tree and surveyed the damage: they apparently had fancy tastes and only went for the French baguette we bought to accompany dinner. Yarrr! They tried to pay us back by scritch-scratching trails along the roof of the van for the rest of the night...

On Sunday we drove the rest of the way to Stanthorpe (the farm town in the mountain we ditched for HK a few weeks ago) and found a much better caravan park than our last-- at Top of the Town, we get a pool, nice patches of grass to park on, showers you DON'T have to put coins in to use (sheesh!), and microwaves and real ovens to use in the camp kitchen. AND we have phone reception (at our old "home", Blue Topaz, the phone bars dropped off randomly on the highway about a 1/2km before the park) AND it's walkable to town. We had just started our laundry and jobs came to us within about two hours after arriving-- and now we pick cherries for a farmer named Beaver. :)

We did our first day out it the orchard yesterday-- and without jinxing anything, it's probably our best harvest job yet-- we get a bit dirty and sticky by the end of the day, but there's no ladders, scratchy branches, or even a hovering supervisor to deal with. Not bad! Today we got rained out, so we even get to catch up on our errands and though it's kind of freezing, but life is pretty all right here. (Though we're thinking Brisbane hotel for Xmas!)

Oh yeah-- And if anyone wants to mail us, send away! We'll be staying at Top of the Town for a while-- here's our address:

10 High Street
Stanthorpe, QLD 4380
AUSTRALIA

Fighting Ageism Across The Outback... and other adventures

Hello all! We're in the pleasantly-named town of Emerald, writing to you from the Tropic of Capricorn. We thought we were in the Outback again but it might still be too "urban" here. Later today we're off to Carnarvon Gorge National Park, to go try out our new hiking boots and see some cool Aboriginal rock art. Hopefully there will be lots of lizards and no dingoes (we've managed to hit school holidays by accident, so we also hope it won't be overrun by rugrats).

It's been a while... since we last wrote we've made some progress south. The scenery has gotten much drier and hotter, but we're still enjoying the camping life. The accomodation has been okay (anything from beachside caravan parks to roadside rest stops) Lately we've come across a few cranky caravanning seniors, who come storming out of their trailers if we've parked "too close" to their shade tree. There was one especially awesome dude in a place called Carmila Beach who came out at this FREE rest stop by a beach, hands on hips, and was like "are you going to pitch a tent there?" and we're like "no, we have a van" (duh). and he's like "well, what time are you leaving in the morning? because I need to get my caravan out that side right threr" (points to the big open free sand patch we have parked in, that somehow he has laid claim to). we kindly move back a bit while the old cranky dude watches us the whole time, since we're sleeping definitely in the next day and are not moving for his big gas guzzler. Without a thanks or anything, him and his wife drive off to town later that night, and he says "Well, I suppose that will work." and from then on he became the "mayor of Carmila Beach" (and we've encountered a few more mayors of free rest stops since then too). We've found that going off the main backpacker trail on the coast means fighting with these caravan lifers sometimes... but it's also good for laughs when they eat our dust and we blare whatever hiphop we can find to play on our crappy stereo! (gotta keep up stereotypes, yo!) The funny part is, we met a great couple in Ravenshoe, wheat farmers from Western Australia who were in their 50s, tops, and they even said they've gotten attitude from the really old folks-- like 'you aren't old enough to be living this kind of life' attitude. Strange!

Things we've noticed/love lately:
-Big things- We're starting to see some goodies... the big cassowary, the big cane toad (ugly!), the big mango (so big, Dayle tripped down some stairs looking at it. Her knee is still healing)
-We love Utes! They're like cars mixed with pick-up trucks, and "Ute" is short for "utility vehicle" or something. There are old clunky ones everywhere, and then some people have sparkly shiny bright coloured ones, like sportscars. We're currently compiling a ute photo album, for all the hoons to check out (see next)
-Our current favourite Aussie term is "hoon"... which we've read means delinquent, but it also has to do with street racing (ie. "hooning around"). Maybe Daisy can be our hoonmobile...
-People (maybe hoons!) like to hang big gutted fish from the roadsigns marking creeks and rivers. ew!
-Sugar cane is king (never thought of Oz as a cane farming country but it's everywhere!)
-Either the wood here is really hard to burn or we're really out of practice with our campfires. We sit shivering and jealous of all of our neighbours whenever there's a firepit.
-Kookaburras are really cute... until they swoop onto your table and steal a chunk of pancake (they did this to Adrian not long ago!) Yarrrrr!
-The Chaser-- A guy on ABC TV (like CBC back home) made big news here when him and his TV show team crashed the APEC meetings in Sydney saying they were the Canadian motorcade (who weren't even in the country yet)... and they got through tons of security as a prank and basically just stirred things up. Check out his show if you can... he rocks!
-Our favourite thing of all is our little tiny radio that we bought for $20. We're in touch with the world again-- country stations, top 40, and really bad comedy shows. Yippee!
Catch you soon... xoxxo, D&A
PS. We just put up lots of new pictures on Flickr (ok, the scuba ones are old now but we found them in the van finally!)

Snail's Pace Travel 101

We made it to Townsville! This is where we're writing from right now... a town with a real military presence and some pretty cool historic buildings in its core. After a good couple of weeks of nature-camping and rainforest walks, it's definitely refreshing to come to a city for a change, parade around in an air conditioned shopping mall, have a restaurant meal, and see a movie (we're hitting the 3rd Bourne one tonight-- any reviews on that?). But the best part about making it to Townsville is it means we finally made a bit of progress!

We are now about 3 or four hours down the coast from Port Douglas, which might seem absurd that we only made it this far in more than three weeks. We did a lot of zigzagging inland, had a couple dates to make (a concert festival in Cairns), and chilled out in a camp spot right by the gorgeous beach at Mission Beach last week and watched about four or five days go by as we lazily drank "goon" (for those unfamiliar, it's the extra- classy wine that is $10 for a 4L box! It's really not that bad, and definitely the backpacker special over here.) We also checked out a Spanish castle in sugarcane country (yep, not kidding) called Paronella Park, built as a sort of amusement park in the 1930s by a Spanish immigrant. And we've bought plenty of fresh fruit and veg from farmers' roadside stands... yum! It's just funny where the days disappear to...

We're at a crossroads now-- there are a lot of cool Outback things to do (dinosaur museums!), as well as lots of pretty coastline to see (sailing and beaches!). We're amazed we've only made it this far, since many people do the entire east coast-- Cairns to Sydney-- in a two weeks to a month, but we're enjoying the leisurely lifestyle and have discovered the secrets of the "CAMPS" book-- a manual of every cheap and free place to camp in Australia. It's amazing! (the only dud so far was the mosquito-infested rest stop where we shut the van door and slaughtered for about 15 minutes straight...) Thinking of you all from the road... let us know how things are on your end of the planet! xoxox, A&D

Into the Outback…

Lately we’ve been pondering where the infamous Outback really begins. Everyone seems to have a different answer. As Daisy took us out of the greenery and into a vibrant, dusty landscape of red sand, road trains, and grasslands, we figured “We must have found it!” But then, we’re only about an hour or two from what’s called the Tropical North. We still plan to head further west, to a town called Mt Surprise (yes, of course just because of the name) and asked an Aussie traveler if the town is “in the Outback” and she just laughed and said it’s not the Outback till way past that. Sheesh!

Right now we’re in a place called Undara (which, by the way, looks like our idea of Outback anyway), home to a national park and these mind-blowingly huge caves called the Undara Lava Tubes. We took a tour deep into the tubes this morning and learned all about how lava formed these massive holes in the earth about 190,000 years ago. We’re in a volcanic area right now, where even though it’s dry, the soil seems pretty rich. It’s cool to see a chunk of history that scientists are still getting excited about.

And we also got excited about seeing our first bunch of kangaroos and wallabies in the wild! (Wallabies have little rounded ears, while roos have pointy ears). What a sight yesterday when we set up our campsite just before dusk and a big kangaroo and a baby in tow just went hopping (quite high!) through the campground. We’ve since seen the pair, along with a mum with a joey in her pouch grazing anywhere they can find grass… and they’re pretty tame. We also saw Mareeba rock wallabies acting cute on some rocks near the lava tubes, and a gigantic snake (a python?) stretched across the road when we came into Undara (we'll put the wideo up soon). And we watched the full lunar eclipse (go from bright to dark to red and back over 6 hours) from around a campfire last night as well (though we’re not getting any better with our astronomy yet).


The night before we got into what really looks like Outback, we stayed for a drizzly night in Ravenshoe (pronounced “Ravens-hoe”), Queensland’s highest town, which sits 920m above sea level. It didn’t look much like we were in the mountains, since we’d already been up in the Atherton Tablelands (a giant plateau full of farming west of Cairns) for a few days. You feel the altitude more by the cold temperatures and the wind—we also visited the Windy Hill wind farm, which powers 3500 homes with 20 turbines, quite a cool sight. Ravenshoe’s budget campsite was actually an old railway yard on the town’s main street, complete with old trains and rusted-out railway paraphernalia everywhere… and it costs us $2 to stay there, a bargoon! We got down into true hobo-mode and barbequed up some veggie kebabs, garlic bread, and Adrian had steak… living on the wrong side of the tracks indeed.

We heart camping

Hartley's 102
Originally uploaded by bigquestionmarks.

This entry comes straight to you from us at the trailer park. Yes, i'm writing from the inside of the van in a caravan park... the train goes by sometimes, planes fly quite low overhead (prime real estate by the airport) and yesterday morning we got woken up by a dinging seafood truck that was touring the dirt roads around the sites, trying to sell seafood at 8am! Yay for trailer park life!

Nah, it's not that bad, it's actually pretty fun. We're in the middle of Cairns city right now, after doing some shopping (neon has gotten huge here again in Aussie malls!) and we went to a outdoor concert festival that was nothing like it was hyped up to be (Edgefest was better by 1000, even the Creed one) but maybe pretty big for northern Queensland. Had some beers with our Aussie friend Bruce and his German girlfriend Iris and snuck them into our trailer park and now we're groggily waking up to head for the hills (we hear there's some gorgeous waterfalls in the mountains).

We're still pretty excited about cassowaries, but spent our time in the last week checking out crocs instead... we used Adrian's winning pass to Hartley's Crocodile Adventures and spent a day there, oohing and aahing at all the cool "salties" (saltwater crocs) and freshwater crocs. We met our first koalas (they made the WEIRDEST noise, we'll put up the video) and saw some cool poisonous snakes. But it was definitely weird seeing all these animals in pens after seeing so many in the wild in the Daintree.

What else? We found a heavenly deserted beach and spent some time there, and even saw a pair of doplhins skimming the waves. I guess we've been catching up with old friends before leaving them for who-knows-how-long. And now it's time for the open road.... don't forget to check out the full lunar eclipse that's coming on August 28 (I'm assuming it's worldwide). Miss you all lots! xoxoxo