To anyone who’s ever dreamed of hiking 20km…

Stop! Take off your boots, and turn back right now. Give your head a shake (get those silly thoughts out) and get back on the couch. The number “20” looks deceptively small on paper, but it’s hella far once you’re out there actually doing it.

That’s how it all began for us—our Lonely Planet book was raving about this place called Carnarvon Gorge National Park (which we still can’t properly pronounce in Australian—something like “Cah-NAHH-Von”… we always end up sounding more like Bostonians when we try to say it as the locals do). The Gorge was said to be filled with ancient Aboriginal rock paintings, nooks and crevices, and beautiful scenery and wildlife. And, tired of doing nature walks in our flip-flops, we splurged and bought some hiking boots. After gearing up in Emerald, the city closest to the park (about 2 hours north), Daisy hit the road and we were zooming into the Outback.

The sun began to set when we were still a ways from the park—we saw our first emu (a baby one) walking really strangely through tall grass, and passed a roadside campfire with silhouettes of cowboys sitting around it (so cliché!). Poor Adrian had to drive a winding, pitch-black 40 km road to the park—20km of it gravel and all of it unfenced cattle road, playing “Dodge’em” with kangaroos. Yikes! But we made it by about 7:30—learning later we melted our highbeams—and got ready for our huge hike the next day.

We were told to start early, and to head straight to the end of the trail (9.7km) into Carnarvon Gorge, then check out all the side trails and sights on the way back. No worries, we thought, and set off at 10am with a few water bottles, cheese sandwiches, and full of energy. After a goanna (a huge lizard) scared the crap out of us right at the trailhead, we were off.

The trail followed Carnarvon Creek, crisscrossing it 22 times. We hopped from rock to rock, snapping photos of cliffs and kangaroos grazing in the bushes, feeling very much like something out of a tourist brochure. Around 8km or so, we started to get tired, and trudged to the end quite ready and excited for a picnic. The gorge had become progressively narrower along the way and we ate lunch by a rock pool under a sandstone outcrop, with a sneaky crow-type bird that kept skittering over whenever we let go of our sandwiches.

And then it was time to head back. Our feet screamed in protest as we made them follow familiar scenery in the other direction. But there’s still so much to see, we told them, and drowned their shrieks out with our chatter (about anything other than the long walk ahead). We saw some amazing things along the way, which just extended our distance another 5km or so—Boowinda Gorge, a side gorge that blew ice-cold air and was narrow enough to almost touch both walls simultaneously; Cathedral Cave, a huge white sandstone cave with walls covered in ancient paintings of hands, weapons and tools; Ward’s Canyon, a steep walk up to a palm-fringed waterfall and red-bottomed creek; the Art Gallery, another rock wall covered in carvings and paintings. With each trip off the main path, we hobbled a little more, picking up the pace as families with skipping six-year-olds hiked past us (how were those rugrats hiking this far??). With water bottles getting empty we were soon almost the only people left on the path—and it was another race with the sunset as it approached 6pm. We counted down the numbered creek crossings and even stopped caring about cute kangaroo photo ops along the way. The flies were circling us like they knew we were about to keel over, and the vultures were probably nearby as well. We were pretty close to collapsing on the pathway when we spotted—eureka!—the ranger station at the base of the trail. We’ve never been so happy to see Daisy in our lives…

It took us a few hours of laying around like vegetables, it took the rest of our energy just to stand to hit the showers. Our feet ached for about two or three days afterwards, and our toenails felt as though they would snap off at any moment. We’re recovered now (a week later) but remind us to retire our boots the next time we start talking crazy about 20km hikes again!

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

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!

Help! I need a bagel!

So Port Douglas is getting more and more crowded every week, especially in the building where the Gazette is located. Lucky us, we're right next door to the production crew office of The Pacific, that new Tom Hanks/Stephen Spielberg war miniseries that's being shot in town. While some may notice restaurants getting more crowded and apartment rental prices skyrocketing, it's hit me in a different way.

Those film crew bastards are eating all of Port Douglas' bagels! I'm sure of it.

Seriously. There's only two grocery stores within biking/walking distance of our home and work. And the bagel shelves have been empty for about the past two weeks. We may have to move out early if this continues. (Thanks a lot, HBO!) The problem is, I didn't have a bagel for months-- from mid-January to maybe even June-- so when I was feeling rich one day and bought the outrageously expensive four bagels for $3.69 package, I fell right off the bagel wagon again. I have a bit of Philly in the fridge that's just crying for a freshly toasted bagel. I think it might be about time to complain to the supermarkets. The only good news is we're heading to Cairns for a day this weekend-- Adrian to see Transformers and me for shopping and a haircut-- and I think I'll be piling up the little rental hatchback with as many bagels as I can find.
-xoxoxo, d.

Happy Canada Day

Happy Canada Day!
We started the celebrating on Friday night with a little party… complete with red-and-white streamers (we’re keeping them up permanently), some Canadian Club rye, and Canada flag tattoos. We don’t get any fireworks, or a long weekend, and it’s just about the chilliest Canada Day we’ve had yet, but there was a fabulous full moon (a blue moon, meaning the 2nd full moon in a month!) to enjoy from the beach. Hope you’re all up at cottages/boats enjoying the 30-degree weather, eh!

Things we’re excited about these days:
* Kangaroo meat: Adrian tried his first kangaroo steak last night, and he loved it! Check out the video, which we’ve posted online (from Our Videos link). He is definitely our food guinea pig for the trip.
* Champagne: Dayle’s fallen in love with what they call “champagne” in Australia. It’s probably not even the real stuff, or the fanciest stuff (we’ve heard it’s really just sparkling wine), but people here drink it on every occasion they can. We got some free from our former housekeeping gig, and sipped it at a lovely beachside picnic yesterday. Yum!
* The newsagency: Oz has them everywhere and it’s the place to buy newspapers, magazines, souvenirs, greeting cards, lotto tickets, and stationery items (possibly replacing the convenience store, at least in Port Douglas?). Adrian gets his Web Designer magazine there every month, and Dayle has discovered a fantastic Aussie magazine called Frankie. They even had Adbusters there yesterday! We’re going to have quite the traveling library in our van.
* Contests: Since making the Finalists list in the Lonely Planet video competition, we’ve entered some of our trip photos into Verge magazine’s (a Toronto-based travel mag) photo contest. We’ll see how that goes! This photo below is one of our entries.

* Getting a van: It’s getting ever closer. The road trip to top all road trips is coming… we still have about a month left of work in Port Douglas, but we’ve had a couple of close ones where we nearly put down the cash for a sweet set of wheels. We’re almost ready to commit… the trip plan at present is to do Queensland really in-depth, from top to bottom and inland a bit to the Outback; surfing, snorkeling, camping, sailing, and fossicking for gems… we’ll eventually land in Brisbane and plan to stay there for a bit if we’re into it. But if we still have heaps of money and are “over” Queensland, we’ve talked about heading to the big red centre and checking out Uluru before coming back to the coast. So many possibilities!