From Cape Leveque to Cape Augusta, WA

Attention please..... Wade, Sarah and Monty are alive and well despite the huge lapse in time since our last blog! I apologise for the rather extended delay since our last blog but thanks to everyone for bugging me to get it done, it’s nice to know that you haven’t all forgotten us just yet!



So much has happened in the past two months and with only 4 weeks remaining until we need to be home and back to life in Sydney I thought I should probably update the blog as best as I can for such an eventful period of time!


In order to get some of the minor (and sometimes major!) details out of the way, I thought I’d try to sum the past two months up in a few facts and figures.


Since our last blog, we have......


• Driven over 9000km – this included a trip to the incredible Bungle Bungles, 4wding the famous Gibb River Road and travelling the entire western coast of Australia from Cape Leveque in the north to Esperance in the south

Cape Leveque, WA - where the red dirt meets the sea

• Spent more than $2500 on fuel – ouch!

• Crossed one state border – sounds minor but Western Australia is bloody HUGE!

Us at the WA border

• Had two tyre punctures – both far more disastrous than they should’ve been!

Wade having a laugh about our first flat tyre of the trip - this was before the jack moved during the tyre change and Monty came crashing down onto the axle..... no more laughing after that!

• Visited at least nine unique and beautiful National Parks

• Walked approximately 60km in National Parks, gorges and bushwalks

• Taken more than 2000 photos

Just another tough day on the job!

• Seen plenty of wildlife including humpback whales, blue whales, camels, brumbies, emus (with chicks!) plus all the usuals!


• Had one injury

My oh so attractive "cankle" after I stacked it 1.5 hours into a gorge walk and walked the 1.5hrs back out!

• Visited three (soon to be four!) World Heritage Listed sites/regions

The Bungle Bungles, Purnululu National Park, WA

• Had our first rain since April – and then spoke too soon and in total we have had approximately 15 days of rain

• Spent four fun filled days in Perth with awesome friends

Gibbo, Fruit, Blake and I catching up over shots in Perth!

• Experienced temperatures ranging from 38 degrees to 5 degrees!

• And spent more than 40 incredible nights under the stars seeing the amazing west coast of Australia!

To pick just a few stories or memories out of the last 2 months is almost impossible because every day has been an amazing adventure in a new and exciting place.


So that said, we are now on perhaps our most remote leg of this trip as this morning we began “Australia’s longest shortcut” aka the Great Central Highway from Laverton, WA through Alice Springs, NT to Winton, QLD and then finally home to Sydney!


I’d like to finish off this blog with some funny (but all real) signs that we have come across during our travels. While some of them are just new to us city slickers, others are hard to believe and a few are simply bizarre! Enjoy!

We thought this was funny til we had to usher cows off the road for hous on end!

Didn't your Mum tell you not to ride in the back of the ute?

No alcohol, i can live with. But specifically no Emu Bitter??? Geez! (Emu Bitter is WA's local beer)

Doesn't exactly fill you with confidence - and as irony would have it, because of this sign, everyone stops to look up and see the boulders that could potentially fall on them!

Not only do the genitals on this spirit frighten me, but I am also concerned about the fact that he "eats females after striking them with a yam"..... slightly worrying

As if the stingers and crocs weren't enough, now the rocks are trying to kill us too??

We missed the sign on the east coast so we made sure we got it on the west!

Might have been handy if Monty could reach that sort of speed!

As sad as it is that this amazing trip has to come to an end, we look forward to catching up with everyone when we arrive home in about 4 weeks. So until then, keep your fingers crossed for no more flat tyres!!

Wade, Sarah and Monty

Long Time... No Blog! It's a long one!

Friends, family and significant others...... Wade, Sarah and Monty have arrived in the Northern Territory!!

Yes folks, it’s been about 6 weeks since our last blog and we have covered some serious ground in that time!


Our expedition to the tip of Australia and the Cape York Penninsula was incredible and a huge accomplishment in more ways than one. I am in the process of creating a page on this blog purely for the “Cape York Expedition”. It was such an awesome trip and we have so many stories and photos to share that i’m going to need a bit of time to collect everything before posting. Feel free to annoy me until I get it done though, it’s well worth it!

Us at the tip of Cape York Penninsula

So it’s now been about a month since we left Cape York Penninsula and Wade, Sarah and Monty continued on their Aussie Adventure! We started by heading West along the Savannah Way which is a highway that goes all the way from Cairns (in QLD) to Broome (in WA). Our first stop along the way was Undara Lava Tubes and Kalkani Crater. The Undara Lava Tubes were created some 190,000 years ago when Undara Volcano in North-Western QLD, erupted and lava burned its way across 160km of savannah plains. Over time the lava cooled and left a huge network of tunnels beneath the ground, some of which have collapsed in places leaving an entry into these awesome caves.

Undara Lava Tubes

We woke up at sparrow fart the next morning to do the2.5km walk up to the top of and around the rim of Kalkani Crater. The view was incredible from the top, especially when we read that all of the surrounding mountains are actually extinct or dormant volcanos.

Us at the top of Kalkani Crater

Kalkani Crater from the top (we didn’t see it from this view I got the photo from a website)

Upon leaving Undara, the real lengthy driving began. Long stretches of red dusty highways, ant hills and cattle as far as the eye can see and petrol prices of $1.70 (on a good day) and we knew we’d hit the real Aussie Outback!

Gotta watch those cows!

We arrived at our first stop along the Savannah Way, Normanton, where we took our photo with the “Big Crocodile” (See the BIG Things page). The only problem is that Krys, the 8.63m croc, is actually a replica of the biggest croc ever killed and recorded. It was shot on the Norman River, Normanton in the 1960’s and had an estimated weight of 2 tonne.


Normanton is also home to the World Biggest Steak (that’s my claim anyway!). For $18, this thing was about 800g of meat and the best steak of my life.... unfortunately I couldn't hold up my end of the deal by finishing it, would’ve taken me about 3 days to eat it all!


We spent the night in Karumba on the Gulf of Carpentaria and did a fishing charter the next day. Four baby bronze whaler sharks later and we came home empty handed... once again! At least this time the owner of the company gave us a nice big King Salmon fillet to make up for the lack of fish.

Monty watching the sunset over Karumba

We spent the night camping on the banks of the Norman River (the same river where Krys the croc was shot!) and in the morning after sending Wade downstairs with a knife to check for crocs, we made our way back to the Savannah Way and headed south to Lawn Hill National Park.

Although the name might sound more like a cemetery than a National Park, this place is home to Lawn Hill Gorge which is a beautiful gorge with a crystal clear blue/green river running through it some 30m below the walls of the gorge. The natural limestone and calcium in the water give it the incredible water colour. When we heard that the river is croc-free, we couldn’t pass up an opportunity to canoe our way up the gorge and back. After ironing out a few paddling/coordination issues and me trusting that Wade wasn’t going to whack me in the back of the head with the oar, we took off upstream.

The new Grant Kenny and Lisa Curry-Kenny

Before long we were making Iron Men look like amateurs but we still managed to take time out of our strict canoeing rhythm to take in the incredible gorge we were paddling through.

Lawn Hill Gorge

We also did a walk to look at some Aboriginal rock paintings which were pretty cool but unfortunately they ask that you don’t take photos – superstition got the better of us when we heard stories about photos turning out strange so we stuck to the rules.


After such a great day at Lawn Hill National Park, we hit the road slightly later than planned but thought nothing of it as we had our next few legs of the trip all mapped out. After driving for 2 hours on a corrugated and pot-holed dusty road and crossing one rather deep river, we found ourselves driving into a somewhat dodgy Aboriginal community and also running low on fuel. We still had another 100km to drive before arriving at a roadhouse along the Savannah Way called “Hell’s Gate” where we had planned to stay and fill up with petrol but suddenly we began doubting whether or not this place actually existed. Our trusty HEMA Map, didn't have Hells Gate listed in it and we passed a sign that said “LAST FUEL FOR 500KM” but was closed for the night! This servo also had steel roller doors covering the bowsers at night so we thought it was best not to wait here til morning!


After a very nervous hour and a half of driving and not passing a single car, truck or person, lights appeared in the distance and we finally pulled up out the front of Hell’s Gate! It turned out, the place was closed for about two years up until 12 months ago so our up to date guide books still had it listed as closed. Either way we were both very relieved to see human life and hit the hay before another long day of driving ahead of us.


First thing in the morning and we had another momentous occasion. We crossed the border from QLD into the Northern Territory!

Wade, Sarah and Monty at the QLD/NT border!

Overall, the drive from Hell’s Gate to Daly Waters was pretty uneventful. We drove through some ridiculously HUGE cattle stations where you constantly have to get out of the car to shoo cattle off the road and open and close gates to these massive properties. We also saw two choppers who were mustering cattle on the station we were driving through.... and then spent the next 2 hours talking about how we were going to buy some ridiculous amount of land and run a cattle station. A totally reasonable plan for our future of course!


After staying at a roadhouse in Daly Waters we continued our journey and headed north to Katherine via Mataranka. We went for a swim in some natural Thermal Pools in Mataranka, did some grocery shopping in Katherine (bit of an eye-opening place!) and before we knew it another day had gone.


Monday morning arrived as we entered Kakadu National Park. Now no matter how many times we’ve heard the term “Kaka-don’t” nothing was going to ruin “Kaka-DO” for me! We followed some instructions from our Moreton Island pals Tim and Michelle and went straight to a waterfall and camping site known as Gunlom Falls. After the last few days of non-stop driving, Gunlom was a sight for sore eyes. The main waterfall cascades down a rock face that stands about 100m above the pool below it, but that is only the start of it.

Gunlom Falls from the plunge pool

There are also smaller pools at the top of the falls that feed the main waterfall and in some ways these small pools are even more spectacular. We had planned to walk up at sunrise on Tuesday morning but decided to do it on Monday arvo as well just to check it out so we knew where to go in the dark of the morning. Yeah, it my awesome idea to do the 1km walk directly up the cliff face TWICE. Let’s just say it’s a good thing that there are pools at the top cause the walk up was a BITCH of a climb! But good golly was it worth it!

Pools at the top of Gunlom Falls - Natures version of an Infinity Pool!

That afternoon we had an awesome fire raging so we could cook a roast lamb and vegies for dinner in the camp oven. I don’t know if it was the hard work that went into the fire and the preparation but that roast was amazing! We finished it off with a glass of wine and decided that overall we’d had a pretty unreal day. We went to bed dreading the 5am alarm that I’d set so we’d be up to do the 30min walk to the top of the waterfall in time for sunrise. It was good fun and we got some great photos but the best part was that there was only one other couple up there compared to the 30 odd people the afternoon before.

Sunrise at Gunlom Falls looking out over Kakadu

Gunlom Upper Pools at sunrise

We eventually left Gunlom Falls and headed deeper into Kakadu National Park. We spoke to a ranger at an info centre who told us that unfortunately, Jim Jim and Twin Falls (two of the most popular waterfalls within Kakadu), are actually still closed because of the conditions of the road. It wasn’t til a day later that we also found out that the two 3-4metre crocs in the falls (where swimming is usually permitted) also had something to do with the closure!


Although we were a bit disappointed about the closure, we thought we’d make the most of what we could see by doing a cruise on Yellow Water, one of the major waterways in Kakadu. Once the guide had satisfied all of the loser bird watchers on the cruise, we finally had some time to do some croc spotting.

Croc at Yellow Water

Lillies on Yellow Water

We saw a few crocs both on land and in the water but still haven’t spotted any huge ones just yet. After the cruise, we stopped in at a Cultural Centre where we read all about the Aboriginal Clans who once lived in the area, some of whom now own Kakadu as the Traditional Owners and lease it to the Australian Government... sweet deal hey?!


Now our whole trip to Kakadu revolved around being at Jabiru (the random town in the middle of Kakadu) by Wednesday so we could watch the State of Origin.... wow, wasn’t that well worth it! We visited an amazing Aboriginal Art site where we could also see the rock escarpment that is basically the border between Kakadu and Arnhem Land. It’s quite cool the way this HUGE cliff face of rock that goes for about 200km separates the two areas. At the same time, not so cool cause you need a permit to enter Arnhem Land and the huge cliff means it’s pretty bloody hard to get in unless you do the right thing and enter via the proper crossing. That night we watched the State of Origin at the Jabiru Sports Club where Wade won a hat in a lucky draw and I think it almost took his mind off the pathetic game!


Now, you might be wondering why I haven’t written too much about our nights out here on our Great Aussie Adventure. Well, there’s a simple explanation. The mozzies up here are on bloody steroids! These things can bite through clothing and just the other day I woke up with a third butt cheek cause it turns out I’m slightly allergic to one of the types of mozzies. Wade’s been going mental slapping at them like a mad man. It’s better entertainment than TV! Needless to say, we’ve been having some pretty early nights, cooped up in our Shipp Shape escaping from the evil little bloodsuckers!


For our final day sightseeing in Kakadu, we had a cruisy morning laying by the pool in our awesome caravan park in Jabiru, because we were going to a rock “art gallery” on the border of Arnhem Land and Kakadu for sunset that night.


We left after lunch and headed to Cahill’s Crossing which is the river crossing from Kakadu to Arnhem Land. We’d heard a few days earlier that some guy was trying to cross the river during the night to get booze and drugs, but the river is tidal and being high tide at the time, it swept his grandfathers new Triton straight off the crossing and into croc infested waters! The lucky bugger managed to live but I doubt he’s learnt a lesson from it!

We went to Ubirr where we were watching the sunset and saw some incredible Aboriginal Art (we were allowed to take photos of these ones... although i reckon i would’ve anyway, i loved it!)

Aboriginal Art at Ubirr Rock Art Gallery

View from Ubirr Rock looking out to Arnhem Land

 

Apparently people other than us had heard that the sunset from Ubirr was worth seeing (maybe cause it’s in the visitor guide!?), cause there were about 50 other people vying for a spot on this huge rock for the sunset!

It was worth it though and Wade was pretty good to me by minding a good spot for about half an hour before sunset!

 

Sunset from Ubirr rock

 

The next morning we were pretty excited about arriving at our next destination – Shady Camp. Shady Camp is known to have the largest saltwater crocodile population per square metre.... IN THE WORLD! Now who wouldn’t want to camp on the river bank of a place like that!?

Within 10mins of arriving at Shady Camp we had seen 2 crocs. The second of the two popped his head out of the water and his head alone was about the length of the body of the previous croc!

 

There is a croc at the front of this photo (see arrow). We were waiting just in case he decided to attack.... would’ve been a good start to my photography career! What??

We spent the arvo fishing. Might sound stupid with all those crocs around, but shady camp is also known for its great barra fishing. In true style we caught nothing. After a good day, Shady Camp became hell at night. The campground is on the river banks behind some mangroves so the mozzies were beyond belief. They were HUGE and absolutely everywhere. Wade and I were literally fighting over the ladder to get up to the Shipp Shape and get away from the damn mozzies. Of course that wasn’t before going down to the river in the dark with just a mag light, so we could do some croc spotting. The minute the light hit the water we saw about 6 pairs of red eyes looking back at us! It was pretty awesome until paranoia struck and I started thinking of all the horror stories we’d been told about crocs and decided it was time to get into the safety of the Shipp Shape!

We left Shady Camp first thing in the morning because we woke up with mozzies covering the outside of our windows starting at us like an army..... and they wanted blood!

Without even realising it, we ended up in Darwin on Saturday night which also just happened to also be the weekend of the V8 races in Darwin! Great planning on our behalf. The first caravan park we pulled into was charging $40 a night for an unpowered campsite which was on a huge slope, so we thought we’d keep looking. Yeah, like that helped. Hotels that were usually around $150/night were charging $350/night! We decided to worry where we’d sleep later so we went to Sky City (Darwin casino on the waterfront at Mindil Beach) for lunch. I think Wade was also hoping to get the “Midas touch” and earn us some cash for a hotel room.... always a good plan! Needless to say, that afternoon we drove out to the highway and slept at a rest stop for the night, surrounded by Britz and Wicked campervans..... and about 10 million mozzies!!

The first thing we did the next morning was go to a camping store and spend $200 on a nice big fly screen tent so we could escape the bloody mozzies if they continued to be as bad as they were.

Darwin is a market-lovers paradise so understandably, Wade was thrilled to be there on a Sunday! We started the day by heading to Nightcliff Markets which were good but nothing extraordinary. The extraordinary part of the day was that we then took Monty to the carwash! It had been about 8 weeks since Monty’s last shower and he was looking slightly worse for wear!

The best markets in Darwin are supposed to be Mindil Beach Sunset Markets. We went there and realised that these awesome markets were not only famous for the sunset and the local art and craft, but for the food! We were bummed cause we had decided to treat ourselves to dinner at a restaurant we’d been recommended, The Jetty, but at least we got to smell it! One of the food stalls is called Road Kill Cafe. They serve croc, emu, roo, camel and buffalo.... it all looked good to me!

We left the markets and went to The Jetty for dinner. After a good feed in a great restaurant overlooking the water, Wade treated me to a lovely place to stay for the night. It’s known as Truck City and is a big carpark out the back of a Shell servo that’s for road train truckies to stop in at for a rest.... niiiiice place. After an awesome night filled with the blinding lights of road trains streaming through the tent and the orchestra of engines churning all night, we decided to say goodbye to Darwin. We did some quick souvenir and grocery shopping then hit the road again for Litchfield National Park. Litchfield actually gets more visitors every year than Kakadu but we reckon they both have some awesome scenery. We stayed just outside the National Park at a nice caravan park and for the first time in about 2 weeks we set up camp for more than just a meal and bed. We booked in for 3 nights and even set up our new tent! Wade gave it a test run by falling asleep on the floor of it within about 5 mins so I think it passes.

In the morning we went into Litchfield National Park. Our first stop was the Magnetic Termite mounds. These termites build mounds up to around 3m tall but the cool part is that the mound is virtually flat and it’s flat sides point east and west with the points facing north and south! Can’t really explain it but it has something to do with regulating the temperature inside the mound by having the sun on its flat sides.

Magnetic Termite mounds, Litchfield NP

We then visited Florence Falls where we had a great swim in the pool at the base of the falls. It was an awesome way to start a 35 degree day!

Florence Falls

The “Lost City” – huge sandstone boulders that look like the ruins of an ancient city (yeah a good imagination helps!)

That night we met a cool guy from the Gold Coast at our campsite and chatted to him all night over a few cans. It was a nice change to the Grey Army we’ve been surrounded by for weeks!

Finally, I’m almost up to date...... So, yesterday, we drove from Litchfield back up the Stuart Highway to Berry Springs which we passed on our way to Litchfield. Berry Springs is a natural spring, again with amazing blue/green crystal clear water! We swam there for ages and let the current take us from the top pools all the way through narrow sections of the springs and down to the bottom pools.

Berry Springs

After Berry Springs, we drove back to Litchfield to see an old historic tin mine and the last of the waterfalls, Wangi Falls.

Bamboo Creek Tin Mine

Wangi Falls

AND FINALLY....... TODAY!! Today we packed everything up at Litchfield and headed South to Nitmiluk National Park where you will find Edith Falls and Katherine Gorge. We did another great walk up the falls at Edith Falls to the huge rock pools at the top. It was hot work walking up this hill but the pools were amazing!

Top Pools at Edith Falls

After leaving Edith Falls, we went through the town of Katherine (one of Wade’s not-so favourite places). We watched as an Aboriginal woman reached into a bunch of trees on the median strip and pulled out a goon bag before walking off with it. Interesting place. I wonder where they get these trees.

Tonight we’re staying at Katherine Gorge Campground. It’s been the first time in a long time that we’ve had power AND internet at the same time! Sorry it has been such a long time since my last blog but I promise they’ll be coming hard and fast now that I’m back up to date! Sorry also about the extreme length of this blog and/or congratulations for getting this far reading it!

Well that’s about it up until now. I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to update and I promise I’ll try to have the Cape York Expedition up asap, but for now I hope all is well back home and hope I haven’t bored you with this ridiculously long blog!

Wade and Sarah

From Airlie to Cairns

Hello again family and friends! Yes we are still alive and well, however we have been very busy some days, and I’ve been a tad lazy about updating this blog every other day!



Since Airlie, we have been on the move a fair bit. We estimate that we’ve now covered over 4000km – yes this is only an estimate as sadly one of Monty’s not-so-working-parts is the odometer!


As you may have seen from the BIG Things page, we are now a long way past Airlie (my last blog update) in fact our first stop after leaving Airlie was a BIG Thing! The Big Mango and the 10 different murals painted on random walls around town, used to be the most exciting things about Bowen, but since scenes from the film “Australia” were filmed there, Bowen has become much better known and they are milking it for all it’s worth! When we stopped in at the Bowen info centre (also the home of the BIG Mango), I was given a map of Bowen with a few different places marked out for us to visit. We planned on having some lunch and spending an hour or so there and from looking at the brochure in my hand covered in white beaches and beautiful coastlines, we were looking forward to doing some exploring. We also thought we might as well go to the site where “Australia” was filmed seeing that’s Bowen’s new claim to fame. We followed my map down to the beach and to the big X marked at the place where Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman had stood and kissed passionately in the rain during a Darwin scene from the film. I think the arguments started on the 2nd lap around the block, when Wade insisted that I’d given him the wrong directions to the place of filming seeing we were circling a rather small vacant grassy block in a very non-descript part of town. Inside the info brochure on Bowen, there was a page that had photos and info on the making of the movie. We both snatched it up off the floor in a desperate bid to try and make some sense of where the movie took place. One photo was an aerial view of the set during filming. We looked at the photo and looked around us and realised that the tree in front of us (the only tree on this vacant block of land), was definitely in this incredible photo of movie sets and red dirt and bloody Hollywood trickery!


The site where the movie was made, although being spoken about by every person we met in Bowen, looks exactly the way it would have prior to the making of the film. Now I understand the principle of leaving a place exactly as you found it, but geez Bowen, not even a plaque or a cheesy tourist booth selling t-shirts saying “I stood where Nicole and Hugh pashed”.... NOTHING! It’s difficult to describe just how vacant and boring this block was, so here’s the proof.....

Us on the set of the film "Australia"

Anyway so that was Bowen. Done and dusted. We hit the road and headed for the home of the North Queensland Cowboys, Townsville. We spent the next 2 days getting the run around from mechanics trying to tell us what was wrong with Monty (he tried to kill Wade and I one day by shaking uncontrollably while on a highway), and we were given quotes ranging from $100 for a quick tune up to $800 for a range of items that i’m not even going to try to explain seeing I didn't understand anything the mechanics said after “hi”.

We had breakfast on top of Castle Hill. That’s right, my sister suburb, only this one actually has a huge red rock hill that pops up out of nowhere in the rather flat city of Townsville! We did the tourist thing and visited the Museum of Tropical Queensland where Wade wanted to kill me for deciding to come on the same day as about 150 year 3 school children... woops! And we stayed at a caravan park that immediately inspired me to begin writing “Rules when staying in Caravan Parks” (coming soon to this blog!).


We left Townsville on a beautiful morning and headed to a place called Jourama Falls. We didn't know what to expect after a few bum steers lately but this turned out to be an amazing place. The walk to the falls constantly had signs reading “Use caution when crossing rivers. Rocks may be slippery and rivers can rise suddenly. PEOPLE HAVE DIED HERE” accompanied by a nice picture of a stick figure slipping off some rocks to his death. (Don’t worry Mum, I’m sure they’re just joking.....hmmm)


The 2km walk to the falls was beautiful. We crossed rivers and creeks on little man made stepping platforms with a dodgy chain to hang onto if the waters did rise! Then we followed a walking track that just seemed to keep going and the sound of the waterfalls seemed to get further away. Right when we thought we must have taken a wrong turn, we got to a lookout that looked down over a series of waterfalls and swimming holes. It was well worth the life threatening trek!


We went for a swim before packing up and heading off again.


That afternoon, we drove through Ingham and stopped in at a small town called Lucinda to do some fishing. The view was awesome as we looked across to Hinchinbrook Island while the sun set.

Sunset over Hinchinbrook Island

We spent the next 3 days in El Arish (just inland from Mission Beach) with Wade’s Aunty Liz, her husband Martin and son Trent. We were treated to a comfy bed, a tour of Mission Beach and Tully and generally just good company! Thanks again Aunty Liz, especially for putting up with Wade’s snoring for 3 nights!


On Mother’s Day morning we said goodbye to Aunty Liz, Martin and Trent and headed to Atherton Tablelands where we hoped we’d get some reception to call our Mothers and tell them how much we love them..... awwwwwww.

On our way to Atherton we visited Paronella Park which was voted the #1 thing to do in QLD in a tourism vote last year. It is an incredible place built in the early 1900's by a crazy Spanish man who bought the most amazing piece of land in QLD and built a Spanish castle on it. The story behind it is amazing but I wont bore you with it now. Just look at the pretty pictures!

Paronella Park

The rainforest gardens at Paronella Park

 Atherton is home to Lake Tinaroo, a dam that started as a government trial when they began putting young freshwater Barramundi in the lake every year to encourage Barra farming in the area. Needless to say, we came here for the fishing. Now I’ve been given strict instructions not to harp on the following story but 10 mins into my Lake Tinaroo fishing and check out what I pulled out.....

Sarah with the monster Barra!

 Anyway, we left Atherton and spent the night in Port Douglas with a great day planned for the Wednesday to make up for the dodgy day fishing. We woke up early on Wednesday and headed to the Daintree and Cape Tribulation. Unfortunately, we found out when we arrived at Mossman Gorge that bad weather made the walk to the Gorge and the suspension bridge impassable but we continued on our merry way and did some walks around the Daintree and Cape Trib.

 I booked us into a fruit tasting and tour of an Exotic Fruit Farm which I have wanted to do since we started planning this trip! The fruits were amazing and all such bizarre but awesome flavours – one tasted like a sour warhead and another one like fruit salad all blended up together!


That night we went to a pub in Port Douglas where we’d seen that they do Cane Toad Races! My name was pulled out of a hat to be one of 6 cane toad “jockeys” and the first role of the jockey was to place a big wet kiss on your cane toad before racing it. Being the 5th jockey to kiss my toad, Wade was slightly disgusted at how little resistance I showed when asked to kiss my toad. I figured if I’ve kissed Wade, a toad can’t be too bad! Haha Love you honey bunch! My toad came third which was exciting but didn't get me the Barrier Reef cruise I’d been racing for!


Anyway we are now in Cairns, just relaxing and spending a few days doing repairs and cleaning everything before meeting up with Wade’s mates who we will be travelling with for the next 3 weeks as we tackle the difficult yet incredible Cape York up to the tip of Australia. Some of the routes we planned to take are still wet from the rainy season so we might be making some changes to our itinerary along the way but hopefully the trip will be a success with as few mechanical issues as possible! We’re both pretty apprehensive about the trip after meeting a guy yesterday and being told that only the toughest people will endure the trip and that he has seen grown men cry up there.... I’ve already prepared the tissues for Wade. We also both have a wary curiosity of the crocs as we’ve been told various horror and gore stories about run ins with the incredible saltwater crocodiles. Don’t worry Mum, we’ll be as careful as possible, trust me!!!


We will have very little phone or internet reception once we leave Cooktown (one hour north of the Daintree) but I look forward to telling you all about the trip when we return..... hopefully without any limbs lost to crocodiles!


Missing everyone back home, but that’s probably just cause Wade’s company is so crap! Na he has been the best travelling partner I could ask for and we are having the absolute time of our lives.


Bon Voyage for now and hopefully I’ll be able to update you all sometime during the adventure to the Tip of Australia!!It’s a 75cm Barramundi weighing approx 5-6kg! I had never caught a Barra before so it was pretty exciting to see it jumping around and tail-dancing while I reeled it in! Wade was pretty pumped to catch his own so he left me to fillet the fish (typical!) and I ended up getting 2 huge fillets out of it – enough to feed about 8 people! Wade spent the next 4 hours casting out into the same spot to the point where I was cold and hungry and he was bitter and cranky! We booked into a fishing charter on the lake the next day in the hope that we’d each bring in a fish to make mine look like a baby. After 6 hours on the boat, with our wallet $300 lighter, two very tired and frustrated young travellers stepped off the boat empty-handed. Not a word was spoken for the next 2 hours as we both thought of all the great things we could’ve spent that $300 on. Apparently the Barra in the lake are so well fed that they wont bite if it’s cold and just our luck, the day we hired a fishing charter was cold.

From the Sunshine Coast to the Great Barrier Reef

Well, well, well. I don't know where to start this post seeing it feels like such a long time since I've updated the old blog.

I guess I'll start where we left off. After an awesome few days spent at Frankie and Josh's beautiful new home, Wade and I decided we couldn't leave the Sunshine Coast without going to Australia Zoo! It was a really fun day out and was surprisingly quiet so we were able to really take our time and check everything out. At the famous croc enclosure, we both watched in awe as two huge crocs (one weighing in at 600kg!) followed us while we walked around the outside of their enclosure. It was all fun and games until we realised they had both been captured in Cape York..... a place we're going to be within a month! I dont think either one of us will be laughing when we come across one of those monsters without the fence between us!

After leaving the Sunshine Coast, we did a 50km drive up the beach in Great Sandy National Park, to Inskip Penninsula and Rainbow Beach. The sand on rainbow beach is incredible. It goes from normal yellowish sand to this crazy "outback-Australian-looking" red sand. The photo below was taken in Red Canyon, this awesome sand canyon with huge pillars of this bright red sand. It's so bizarre cause it totally just pops up out of nowhere.

Red Canyon, Great Sandy National Park

The three of us celebrating another beautiful day in sunny QLD

We camped at Inskip for two nights before we decided to make tracks. Partly because we were in desperate need of a shower but also because if I saw one more mozzie I was ready to seriously lose my mind! I took a photo of my mozzie bite covered body but Wade was worried that if anyone saw it, I'd go into quarantine, so unfortunately I wont be sharing that one!

The incredible sunset out the front of our campsite at Inskip Penninsula

After another romantic and peaceful night (NOT!) spent sleeping at a truck rest stop, we finally finished the painful stretch of road between Bundaberg and Mackay, we arrived in Airlie Beach on Sunday morning. We booked into a cheap hotel with an amazing veiw of the Whitsundays and decided to have a few drinks at a pub before going out for a nice seafood dinner. However, that plan went down the gurgler when we realised it was Happy Hour and Wade wanted to make the most of the $5 spirits! We had an absolute blinder of a night and didnt once think that maybe we should go home seeing we were booked to go on a cruise to Whitehaven Beach and the reef at 7:30am the next morning!

With sore heads and uneasy guts we boarded our cruise only to find out the winds were going to reach tops of 25 knots..... sea sickness almost took my mind off the enormous hangover! Even though we had to nurse eachother through the day, it was an incredible day out in a magnificent place. The colour of the water around the Whitsundays is simply breathtaking as is the white sand of Whitehaven Beach.

The incredible Whitsundays

So that's the story up until now. We are leaving Airlie tomorrow morning and heading to Townsville where Monty will be making a trip to the mechanic and we will check out the town and nearby National Parks for a day or so.

Make sure you keep checking the "BIG Things" page cause once again we've been scouring the country for inanimate oversized objects!

Hope life is treating you all well and hope Parramatta keep up their good form!

Peace Out!

More BIG Things

I promise I will spend some time updating you all on what we've been up to soon, but for now this is just a quick note to say that we've been busy discovering more BIG THINGS that the Sunshine Coast has to offer!

A big THANKYOU to Frankie and Josh who have been our wonderful hosts for the weekend in their beautiful new home. I'd be happy spending the rest of the trip here with them, but they keep mentioning this thing called "work" so I think it's time for us to run!

Wade and I are heading to Australia Zoo tomorrow, but we're also both pretty excited about another BIG THING we'll be visiting so keep checking our BIG THINGS page for updates!

Missing you all!

Frankie and I celebrating ANZAC Day with a beer for all our friends!