Fraser Island

 

We took this ferry from River Heads to Fraser Island

Kingfisher Resort on K'gari (Fraser Island)

    Fraser Island is a UNESCO-listed world site based on its unique indigenous culture and biosphere.  Its sand dune systems are still ever-changing and have rare dune lakes and tall rainforests.  Fraser (or K'gari) as the indigenous Butchulla folks call it, is memorable because of these unique differences.

    Named after an officer serving with European explorer, Captain Cook when he discovered the island, the island was home to the Butchulla as a hunting and fishing source and was simply known as K'gari meaning paradise.  The unique feature of the trees growing there led to logging in the 1860s which lasted as a thriving industry until the 1970s when the government woke up to the fact they were destroying something special. It is now a heavily regulated place.

1200 year old Satinay and Brush Box trees

Staghorn Fern Parasite growing on the Pine trees

   We drove northeast and took a forty-five-minute car ferry ride to the Kingfisher Resort before checking into our two-bedroom condo provided to us almost free by Don's Australian family friends.

Our wonderful Kingfisher Resort home thanks to Anna and Mick!

We watched these Kookaburras from our deck

    We spent the first day exploring the eastern shores of the island on a four-wheel drive bus, with our driver/guide for rainforest walks, beach driving, and swimming in Mackenzie Lake.  Since the land is comprised of only sand, a four-wheel vehicle is the only way of negotiating the various trails to access the 75 Mile beach.  The beach is the island's main highway and is patrolled by Queensland's finest.  A highlight was coming face to face (inside a bus) with a wild dingo.  The island's dingos are the genetically pure dingos found in Australia.  They are very cute and look like small dogs but we were warned that if you tried to pet one, they would take your hand for lunch.  We settled for viewing from the bus. We were also fortunate enough to see a Bryde's whale offshore.

Four-wheel-drive bus tour along the beach and over rocks

Tourists float down knee-deep Eli Creek that flows out to the beach

We spotted this purebred Dingo on 75 Mile Beach

There is nothing in Lake Mackenzie that can harm you!

   Since words are a poor way to describe K'gari, we will let Deborah's pictures tell the story.

Fraser Island is entirely sand-based

The Maheno shipwrecked on Fraser Island in 1935 cyclone

An evening walk on the jetty

Another night shot of the jetty

We highly recommend this tour on Fraser Island

 

Brisbane

    We were up early Saturday morning and after saying our goodbyes and final thanks to our hosts Jeff and Ray, Jeff kindly drove us on the hour's journey into the city.  We dropped Don and Wendy at a car so they could drive south to Sydney to rejoin their family and take up some grandchild care duties.  We waved goodbye to Jeff after he dropped us off at our Pacific Hotel overlooking the Brisbane River and its tourist walk encompassing culture and dining.

    After dropping our bags at the hotel we ventured out to explore.  We first stopped for a couple of flat whites at the courthouse gardens before venturing across the river to the Queensland Museum.  We hit it on a free day and enjoyed the museums' natural history displays of flora and fauna.  Deborah enjoyed it all except perhaps the stuffed venomous snake display.

We've been enjoying our flat whites

We loved the beautiful walking paths flanking the Brisbane river

    After a short break for lunch, we entered the Queensland Art gallery and wandered the many rooms displaying local historical art.

Sheep station painting of the ever-capable Australian woman

    Day two was spent shopping in the morning and arranging a rental car for our own coastal drive south to rejoin Don and Wendy at their daughter Mollie's family home in North Narrabeen in the northern beaches suburb of Sydney.  Only after much persistence on Deborah's part did we secure a car at a reasonable price.  We learned a few things, it is cheaper; to rent online rather than in a brick-and-mortar shop, and to book a rental through a third party rather than direct. It was worth Deborah's effort.  She managed to reduce the cost from an initial $1200 to $190 after much research.

Sunset over the Brisbane skyline

    On Ray's advice, we had dinner at the Little Greek Taverna in the West End adjacent to the Theatre District.  We took a short walk after a memorable meal to the Brisbane Performing Arts Center to watch the musical Hamilton.  Deborah enjoyed the entire experience.  I did as well but was glad to have researched the story and characters to keep track of the story that can be challenging to understand without knowing United States history.

View from Queensland Performing Art Centre

We saw the fabulous Hamilton musical

Fish Alley street art 

    We were up early the next day to pick up the rental from the airport and leave the city on the coastal drive south.

Airlie Beach and Whitsunday Islands

     

    A visit to this part of the world is incomplete without a visit to Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands.  This is truly one of the most beautiful places we have had the privilege of traveling.

    When walking around the small beach town the visible divide in the age groups strikes you.  Airlie Beach tends to be the place the greying generation and families stay before jumping off to the various Whitsunday Island excursions while the rest are much younger and there to enjoy the various bars and nightclubs that come to life after yours truly have retired for the evening.

    We did enjoy walking around the 800-meter town center street in the evenings before choosing a restaurant.  We also enjoyed the Bicentennial Walk along the seashore seeing the beautiful yachts and different well-night-lit paved walks and footbridges.  We especially enjoyed a sunset dinner at the west end of the walk overlooking the Marina.

    After a good night's sleep at the Airlie Guest House, we were up early to catch the bus to the harbour to board the Nancy Wake for a full-day cruise of the Whitsunday Islands.  We were encouraged by our guesthouse host Mick to book the more expensive but far more comfortable Sea Link’s Big Island Day Tour.  The MV Nancy Wake accommodates 280 passengers but the tour company limits their trips to 74.  Ours only had 48 souls on board.

    The tour is especially popular with the grey nomad market who like to go at a leisurely pace, and also the families who enjoy the space and comfort inside the air-conditioning.  The gourmet food and relaxed pace were our main calling cards for us.  The tour proved to be as good as advertised and created a memory that will stay with us forever.

Morning Coffee Break

Gourmet Lunch

Afternoon Tea 

    Our day started with a cruise between some of the various islands that make up the Whitsundays complete with a running commentary describing what we were seeing.  

    The island chain was named after the explorer, Captain Cook who first sailed the island waters.  The first day of exploration coincided with the Whitsunday Christian holiday back in Great Britain, hence the island's name.

    The first stop was a guided tour/hike to the South Whitehaven Beach Lookouts accessible from Hill Inlet. The commentary focussed on the history of the environment and was informative.  The views were fabulous.

We hiked to the Hill Inlet lookouts

    The next stop was Whitehaven beach.  Whitehaven Beach is a pristine, award-winning beach on Whitsunday Island, the largest of the 74 islands in the Whitsundays. Whitehaven Beach stretches over seven kilometers and boasts brilliant white silica sand that is among the purest in the world.  It was well over 30 degrees Celsius but incredibly the sand was cool enough to walk on comfortably.  The pure silica in the sand reflects the sun and doesn't absorb the sun's heat.

We hiked to this lookout over Whitehaven Beach

    We hiked to the lookout over the beach and then donned our "stinger suits" for a dip in the pristine waters.  Deborah's pictures will tell a better story about the suits.  Suffice it to say I had a greater fear of a shark mistaking me for a fat seal than I did the deadly jellyfish.

Stinger suits were mandatory apparel

    Our second day was much more relaxed.  We took a leisurely one our drive to the Cape Gloucester Resort, located in the Gloucester Passage overlooking the crystal blue waters of the Whitsundays, It has a beautiful beachfront dining restaurant where we relaxed with a drink and lunch while being serenaded by a live musician followed by a stroll of the beach.

We enjoyed a lazy Sunday on Gloucester Bay

    Our final full day was split between a trip to the Great Barrier Reef and the discovery of a local waterfall/swimming hole.

    We had almost convinced ourselves that the disappointment of not getting out to the Reef due to the weather in Cairns was okay and we were over it.  Turns out Deborah was not and easily convinced me to book a flight over the Reef.  We bussed to the nearby town of Proserpine's airport and boarded a ten-passenger single-engine plane to the Reef.  The pilot gave us a running commentary as we toured more Whitsunday Island resorts and gave us a 500-foot cruise over the very heart (center) of the 2000 km Great Barrier Reef.  Deborah's pictures will tell a better story.

7 mile-long Whitehaven Beach

Flying over the Great Barrier Reef - river running through the reef

Heart Reef

The rest of the afternoon we spent driving out to George's 50's dinner at Conway Beach only to find it closed early for the season.  We had to be content with a bag of chicken-flavoured chips and ice cream bars.

George at George's Diner at Conway Beach

    After our not so succulent lunch we made our way to Cedar Creek Falls State Park.  The falls were something to see and were clearly a favourite with the locals seeking the cooling waters for a swim on a hot day.

Cedar Creek Falls - no crocodiles!

    We finished our day with a fine meal overlooking the marina and enjoyed the sunset while toasting our experiences on this stop.

Sunset over Airlie Beach Marina

    We left the next morning for our 1200 kilometre drive to the Sunny Coast.

The Drive from Cairns to Airlie Beach

    

 We picked up our Renault Koleos SUV rental first thing in the morning from Avis in Cairns and entered the Bruce Highway (also named the A1) headed south by 9:30 am for our 8-hour (650 km) drive south to Airlie Beach.  The drive itself was thankfully uneventful and there were little signs of the extensive flooding that had closed the rail and interrupted bus service.

    The countryside was emerald green for most of the trip.  The highway snaked its way through continuous sugarcane plantations punctuated with the occasional banana farm.  The road is crisscrossed with several narrow gauge railways that are used to transport the sugarcane harvest to the processing mills.  Sugarcane is a fairly low-maintenance crop.  It grows like grass in a field.  There is no need for fertilization or irrigation and the farmers only have to wait for the crop to ripen and get two harvests per year.  The work is in the cutting.  In the days of less environmental awareness, farmers burned mature sugar cane.  This solved two issues.  The chaff was burned away leaving the actual canes to harvest as well as driving the snakes and vermin from the fields to ensure the safety of the harvesters.  Crops are now harvested by machines.  Farmers only have to till the soil and replant it every 5 or 6 years just to replenish the soil.

Cane fields

    The Dividing Mountain range runs north to south over 4000 km and remained visible off our right (east) side along the way.  The highway strayed near the coastline occasionally for glimpses of the beach.  The skies were covered in blue and the temperature hovered around 30 degrees for the drive.

    We stopped in Townsville for lunch and gas ($1.77 per liter) at 2:00 PM and arrived at Airlie Guesthouse in Airlie Beach at 6:00 PM.  Our host Mick was there to greet us and we settled in for our four-night stay.

Here we are in Airlie Beach

The view from our deck at Airlie Guesthouse

Another view from our deck