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

Cassowary-spotting & Birthday in the rainforest

First off... thanks for all the awesome name suggestions for our van! Somehow along the way, she just became "Daisy" (sorry Adrian), which was Geneva (from the Gazette)'s suggestion. A good cow name, and rolls off the tongue well when we're coaxing her up the hill :) But I think she could use some middle and last names! Lots of updates in our videos, so be sure to check 'em out!

So the big trip began on Friday (August 17) when we woke up just down the street from our old apartment...in our new "apartment", Daisy the van! Thought we'd try our first stint at camping-in-a-park, down at Four Mile Beach in Port Douglas. It was a little odd (kinda felt like we ran away from home, only to pitch a tent in the backyard) but worked out fine. Worked out a couple of glitches (ie. our freshly-painted kitchen cupboards were stuck shut!) but a little sanding and we were off.

Everyone in Port Douglas was always talking about heading north to Cape Tribulation, a jungly/white-beaches kind of place that's a national park and World Heritage-listed, and where Captain Cook's ship originally ran aground in 1770. Since we worked too much and never got around to it, we thought it's about time! All geared up, we started the trek north though sugar cane fields and with the mountains on our left and the ocean on our right, it was a pretty, windy-road drive that put Daisy's gears and Adrian's manual driving skills to the test. We crossed the Daintree River (a wide, croc-infested, densely-forested 5-minute ride on a "ferry", or a moving platform for cars), and visited beaches along the way. Cape Kimberley was the first stop, a long deserted beach with squishy sand, and then we stopped for the night at Cow Bay (Daisy comes home!), where we saw a snake slither across the parking lot and it was so dark and windy that we hid in the van for the rest of the night from yetis and other creepy forest beasts.

Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to our legit campsite in Cape Trib, right by the beach as well. We got to use out Hello Kitty toaster (yay powered site!) and had a long walk up the beach, trying to find this mystical Beach cafe that we really don't think existed. We did a lot of walking and kept our eyes out for cassowaries (none yet) but Dayle got a cute stuffed one from the general store, which Adrian named "Dong-aleeza Rice" (for the quandong fruits we kept seeing everwhere, which these crazy dinosaur-like birds like to eat). She's our trip mascot for the Far North now! For the evening, we had this wonderful plan to have a campfire and wine and cheese on the beach that night, but then we found out (A) fires are probably illegal in a National Park and (B) as soon as we got there it started raining. Yarrr! So much for that.

Sunday was Dayle's birthday and we woke up to a grey day... no suntanning for us! Instead we had some lazy breakfast and hit the Bat House, a local sight that sounded like it'd be chock-full of bats everywhere (or as they call them here, flying foxes), but there was only one out, a funny-looking thing up close named Pushkin, who was flightless due to a hole in his wing. He was a squeaky thing who kept wrapping his leathery wings around himself everytime we tried to get a picture with him! Later we went for a walk on a boardwalk in the rainforest and that's when it started pouring rain... and it was no quick tropical shower... it kept raining till the next morning. It was brie and red wine under a quilt in our van, till we finally got out the umbrellas to hunt down a restaurant... quite a spooky walk in the pitch-black (there's no power lines in Cape Trib-- just solar-power and generators running the place). But we made it to the Dragonfly cafe, an art gallery/restaurant with a huge porch and a turtle pond, the perfect place to have some food and chocolate cake in the jungle. Yum! A happy birthday feast!

Of course, the day after Dayle's b-day was sunny and gorgeous... and we went for another rainforest boardwalk in the arvo (that's afternoon!). And we were lazily strolling, reading plaques about mangroves and forest, when we both jumped when a huge creature crossed the path ahead. Hearts pounding, we look at each other and whisper, "CASSOWARY!" and scramble for the camera. It was so scary... way bigger than expected, with a big black feathery butt, HUGE feet, bright red wattle and a bright blue head. When it turned to look at us, we immediately thought of the veloceraptor scenes from Jurassic Park. We had read you should back away slowly and make lots of noise if it seemed like it would attack, since this thing is known to disembowel humans with its foot-claws. It was EEK! and YAY! at the same time-- there are thought to be only 1200 left in the world, an endangered bird that's so prehistoric and rare,and we were seeing it in the wild, not even at a zoo. So we had to stick around, and video and snap it (Check it out on our video and photo links), with some other tourists. And then, just when we lost it, we found a tour group on the path who were following ANOTHER cassowary-- a young one. It was about 5 ft tall, and not as bright. And it grossed everyone out with a huge reddish poop of still-intact rainforest fruits on the trail (and yes, we giggled and snapped a photo of that too). Late on we saw the dad (or the mom?) lope down a swamp, and it felt in a funny way like we were moose-spotting in Algonquin.


Cassowary in the Woods! from BigQuestionMarks and Vimeo.

Now we're back from the Daintree (in Mossman, the sugar town that neighbours Port Douglas) and soon it'll be off for the outback and for the coast south of here. Queensland is a huge state and I think we'll be exploring it for a while. We'll be posting more on the blog now that our lives are a little more exciting (on the road!) and hope we can hear/read your updates too. miss you all lots xoxoxo A&D

Big Questionmarks--on the road

And we're off! Today's the day the hit the road for real. No more tourist towns like Port Douglas... at least for a good couple of days. We're heading north... into the jungles of the Daintree, a World Heritage rainforest filled with all kinds of awesome nature. Daisy, our trusty campervan, gets to do what she does best... navigate the roads of Australia!
We'll keep you all posted as we travel the east coast of Oz...

Yay Van!!!

COWS!
Originally uploaded by bigquestionmarks.

OK, we know it's been a while, but we're back and here's what's up...
And we’ve got some wheels and itchy feet!
Yes we are now the proud owners of a 1985 Toyota HiAce PopTop! It’s an awesome van, we have a sink, a stove, and a futon bed so we can sit or sleep with plenty of foot room. Lest we forget the cow patterned seat covers, (they were kinda nasty so we washed off all the hippy patchouli oil, now they’re awesome). It’s a manual, so Adrian has been trying to master the art of stick shift. It’s a little jumpy now, but he’ll smooth out with time (hopefully).
It’s a pop top too, that means that we can push the roof up so we can stand up straight inside, plus it helps to ventilate the van so we don’t cook to death.

The only thing we need for the VAN is a NAME, so get us your suggestions for our VAN NAME! Dayle is set on “Daisy”, while Adrian is gunning for “Thorzon the Overseer”, or “Figgins the Mute”.

Some good fortune has fallen on our heads! We got into ‘Cane Toad Racing’ at the Iron Bar (the local pub/restaurant). It was a lot of fun, basically if your number is called you get to race a toad, (there are 3 races per night). There’s a bit of a ritual when you get to the podium, first you need to fish you toad from a bucket then give him a kiss and put him into another bucket. Then the race is on, armed only with a party blower (those kazoo things), you need to get your toad to the side of the table and onto your hand – then get him to the bucket across the room to win big prizes.
Adrian lost his first race, his damn frog wouldn’t move no matter how hard he blew, so he came in dead last.
Dayle’s frog was eager to please and jumped right off the table after a couple nudges, but he jumped off the far side of the table and freaked out some old lady. After some ‘icky’ faces she got the toad and came in 3rd.
The last heat Adrian was back up, this time his from was more cooperative, from the first blow the frog jumped from the table, Adrian scooped him up quick, and came in first.
To our surprise he won some awesome prizes: a reef snorkel trip, a trip to a croc zoo, and a hat with cane toads on it.
It was an awesome time, so if you’re ever in Australia try to catch the famous Cane Toad Race!