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| Surfers Paradise |
The first glimpse we had of Queensland was
from Coollangatta (above left). Little did we know what we
had instore in this State. I had thought NSW was the best
place I had ever been that I had seen ever! This was also
the state where we were to be married. Better make the most
of single life. |
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| North Stradbroke Island |
Before going to Brisbane, we had been recommended
North Stradbroke Island so we took the ferry from Cleveland.
It turned out to be Brisbane's secret - uncrowded, unspoilt
and idyllic.
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| Frenchman's Bay |
| Not much else to do than walk the beaches and
take in the views. We were camped up about 10 metres to the
right through little passage where I saw my only wild snake
- a Carpet Python. We walked through Home, Cylinder & Deadman's
Beaches to Frenchman's Bay. Here we did a headland walk where
we saw turtles repeatedly diving and coming up for air. |
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Brisbane |
| Brisbane - time to do jobs. Met with our celebrant
and got a fitting for what I was going to wear on the big day.
We met up with Jo & Rich and Sam & Karen for some drunken
nights. |
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| Brisbane CBD |
| Brisbane was a great city. We took a tour and
watched the State Of Origin Rugby League decider. Bit of an
anti-climax as ended in a draw! |
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| Glass House Mountains
The remarkable Glass House Mountains are a series of steep-sided
volcanic plugs which dominate the landscape of the Sunshine
Coast hinterland. They are formed of rhyolite and trachtyte,
lavas which hardened inside the vents of tertiary volcanoes
that have been greatly reduced by about 25 million years of
erosion.
We took time out after visiting Steve Irwin's Australian
Zoo (he wasn't even there) to head inland to view these great
mountains. In the background you can see Mount Beerwah, the
highest peak, at 555 metres.
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| Feeding the Dolphin
at Tin Can Bay |
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We had heard that you could feed a Pacific
Humpback Dolphin by hand at somwhere called "Tin Can Bay".
So, we checked it out and in 'fairly cold water' at 8.00, we
waited for Scar to arrive and, true to form, she arrived (nearly)
on time. Holly and I fed her with fish although I did get burned
by a wise Pelican on one occasion as he snatched the fish from
me. She would come up to you and nudge you with her beak so
she could familiarise herself before accepting the fish. It
was spine twingling when she would approached, wondering whether
she would pick you. Fortunately, she did quite a few times.
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Fraser Island was beautiful, the largest Sand
Island in the world, it boasted jungle on sand and Dingos.
We hired a jeep and packed up with some good food and drink
and hooked up with Jo and Rich for the trip. We made sure
that we picked a 4 day window where England were not playing
in the World Cup. We visited Indian Head, Champagne Pools,
Lake Wobby, Lake Mackenzie and the Maheno shipwreck. We had
to be very careful about leaving food out as a boy had been
killed by a dingo recently and we always had a couple hanging
around our camping area. It was great to be camping again
in the fresh sea air and great fun exploring the island in
our jeep.
The interior of the island was a combination of rainforest
and gum forest. We saw our first migrating humpback whales,
turtles and a shark. It was sad to leave the island to go
back to Hervey Bay but we were in desperate need of a shower.
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| Airlie Beach |
| We had two things to achieve whilst in Airlie
Beach: watch England win the World Cup and get our wedding sorted.
It was a buzzing town with millions of British backpackers watching
the football every night. |
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| Sailing Trip |
Blagging a ride on sailing boat was surprisingly
easy. Turning up at the sailing club with a crate of Toohey
New beer seeed to be the ticket. We entered a race and came
second. Could get used to this life.
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| Hamilton Island |
The time had come to find out where we were
to be wed. Off we went on a boat to "Hammo". We were
a little disappointed and did not live up to what we expected.
We had a great day, but immediately rang the exclusive resort
island of Hayman to see what they had to offer. "Come on
over for a free day" they said.
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| Hayman Day Trip |
| Man, what an island. We were treated like royalty
chauffered around to see the island and the chapel where we
would get married. Glass backing overlooking the Whitsunday
Passage. We had seen obscene offers for accommodaton in Airlie
so we decided to try and get a deal as we would leave our $400
deposit with Hamilton Island. We accepted and our celebrant
and photographer approved. |
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| Eungella National Park |
| We were desperate to see some Platypus and
we found out that you had a good chance in the Eungella National
Park. We forced the Combi the 160 Ks inland and uphill and found
things were just getting better and better. This place was paradise
on earth. |
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| Fighting Roos |
3 or 4 Kangaroos lived near the Broken River
Mountain Retreat and on a couple of occasions we saw them fighting.
It was hilarious when one of them knocked the other one off
his feet and he crashed to the floor.
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| "Skippy was my
child!" |
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| Broken River Platypus |
We both were obsessed with getting as many
sightings of the platypus as possible. So every day at dawn
and dusk, we would go to the Broken River Bridge and just below
to check them out. I was able to video some unusual behaviour
of a couple having a fight. From 8 months filming, ABC Natural
History were not able to get this footage, so I submitted my
tape to them. It may well be included in a programme transmitted
in 2003/4. Eungella turned out to be one of the best places
we had visited. The people who ran the lodge were always too
willing to tell us about the wildlife and take us on guided
walks. The many Rainforest walks guartenteed you could see bird
and wildlife in abundance. 
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| Cape Bowling Green |
| We stopped off for a night here where there
was an myriad of wildlife just walking around. Roos, Scrub Turkeys,
Wallabies and turtles swam with and enourmous eels and fish
in the nearby river. We whipped them into a frenzy by feeding
them bread - I left the fishing rod in the van. |
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| Magnetic Island |
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| From Townsville we ventured to "Maggie"
by ferry to spend a few days after nearly nailing all the Wedding
arrangements. Hooked up with Chris (who was a VW mechanic who
sorted the Combi out) & Claire and had a few box wine evenings
with them. Usual walking and fishing trips along the beaches.
One night we spent watching a terrific sunset whilst wedge tailed
eagles circled above catching their last food for the night.
Bliss. |
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| Paluma Range, Atherton Tablelands |
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Again, we abused the Combi by asking it to venture
up even more hills and this time it was smoking badly from the
engine when we only halfway up the mountain. Ivy Cottage Tea
House was our afternoon stop and I was astonished as these tropical
sun birds would feast from jam and syrup from your table. The
most spectacular was definitely Victoria's Riflebird (far left)
- it's plummage was beautiful and when it flew down its wings
beat like ruffling velvet. It is one of only 4 birds of paradise
in Australia. I went on a bush walk whilst Holly rested in the
van to see if I could see some more of these types of birds.
No luck. Fortunately, it was not the last time I would see a
riflebird. We were dramatically caught in a bushfire as we descended
which I thought was brilliant. The heat was staggering, but
the paint was not stripped.
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| Mission Beach - Jono & Marianne
Arrive |
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| After exploring Mission Beach and spotting
another couple of Cassowaries (one bathing her chick in
a river), we all took a trip to the Billabong Sanctuary
outside Townsville. |
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| On the road trip down to Airlie Beach,
we again stopped off at Cape Bowling Green National Park
to check out the animals and have a spot of lunch with
Jono & Marianne. |
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| Martinique Apartments, Airlie Beach
- The Wedding Party Arrives |
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| After initially booking everyone into some cabins
on a campsite, we had found so many good deals locally in Airlie
Beach, we booked us all into Martinique. We all soon settled
in (especially us as we had been sleeping in the back of the
Combi for months) and chilled out. |
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| Stag and Hen Days, 22nd July 2002 |
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| The girls decided to do a diving trip to deserted
island near Hayman returning to the world famous Whitehaven
Beach on their return. They had a great day whilst me, Dad and
Jono chartered a boat for a day's fishing. Our guide really
knew where to go and after we caught some regular Wolf Herring
and Australian Salmon on our light gear, we decided to get stuck
into some big stuff. We started to try for Golden Trevally and,
my God, were we in for a fight! I hooked one which I had on
for 3/4 of an hour and we travelled nearly a mile. The fish
surfaced to be clocked at about 25 kilos (the Aussie record
for our tackle). Of course, it did get away and I was gutted.
Jono hooked a similar fish and he had the same arm sapping fight
on his hands that resulted in the same conclusion. A great days
fishing. |
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| The Wedding Day in the Stella Maris Church on
Hayman Island was great. We couldn't have expected anything
more. The church was idyllic, with the backdrop being the famous
Whitsunday Passage. The ceremony we wrote was only messed up
by me on one occasion and the photographer took some great pictures.
There is a page dedicated to the day where pictures can be viewed
and a more detailed description can be read. Click here. |
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| We decided to stay on Hayman for 3 more
nights and said a sad goodbye to everyone - we did not
know when we were going to see them again. We still had
a stash of champagne we had smuggled over from Airlie
Beach so we used this with room service to have a few
intimate dinners. We went Whale Watching on the Hayman
Yacht and saw a few breaching out of the water. Magical.
We returned to Airlie Beach and stayed in the Coral Seas
Resort where we bumped into Mum and Dad. Me and Dad did
some more fishing off the rocks below the resort. |
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| Lumholtz National Park, Wallaman
and Nandroya Falls |
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| We left Airlie Beach and,
having felt as though we had achieved what we had come
to do, decided to travel to the Far North of Queensland.
We bush camped in the Henrietta Creek picnic and camping
ground on the Palmerston Highway. This was a complete
contrast to what we had been staying in for the last 3
weeks, and it was great to back close to nature. The birds
in the camping area and on the Nandroya Falls walk were
phenomenal. It was getting dangerously dark when we returned
from our walk as I had made a real effort to reproduce
some of the excellent photos I had seen of the falls.
My hopes were dashed completely as the developers buggered
up the colour in 6 flims we had developed. They were still
quite nice though. |
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Wallaman Falls - 1191 feet high |
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Cape Tribulation - The Rainforest
Meets the Reef
Cape Trib was the furthest north that we were to travel and
it was so unbelievable and I did not want to leave. The Fan
Palm Rainforests skirted Mangroves Swamps and it is the only
place on the planet that two World Heritage Areas meet. From
exotic butterflies and birds of paradise to frilled lizards
and crocodiles, in one hectare of rainforest here, there were
more species of animals and plants than the WHOLE OF EUROPE.
I had never seen anything like it. We spent all our time doing
all the walking tracks through the rainforests and relaxing
on the beach. We visited Emmegen Creek that was as far north
as we could go without a 4WD vehicle.
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