Our trip to Australia wasn’t meant to be wild nor long as we were going for a congress. Yet we tried to include at least a tiny adventure before the formal part of the trip and squeeze everything into just one week (having sacrificed a previous week for a stop in India). Thus, our activities were very much conditioned by the location of the congress, the dates of the flights and the time frame in which we had to return back home.
Keeping all of it in mind we thought I would be a good opportunity to try out something different – a campervan trip, to give us more flexibility on moving around and reaching remoter areas. After an overnight flight from New Delhi, and with a scale in Sydney, we were supposed to arrive Gold Coast around 11 in the morning, pick up our campervan right next to the airport and immediately head towards the mountains. Our itinerary included 1 day in the mountains, 1 day in the beach and 1 day snorkelling with turtles. Not too bad given the circumstances.
However, travel gods had different plans for us… we had a very unexpected aborted take-off due to technical problem of an aircraft on our flight from Sydney to Gold Coast, having to disembark and wait several hours at the airport in a limbo, not knowing if the flight would be cancelled, or if we would get a new aircraft or would need to wait for a fix of that one. Eventually the aircraft was fixed and we had to take the same flight with more than 3 hours delay. It wouldn’t have been such a big problem, but it was a weekend and the rental company closed at 2pm, which meant we couldn’t get our van picked up that day, even if we tried to call them and look for options. No flexibility on their side… So all of the sudden we were in Gold Coast, with no car and no place to stay.
With the attitude “give me strength to change what I can, and give me beer to accept what I can’t” we booked a room close by, replanned the itinerary and went out for a walk and dinner in the civilized beach.
#OnlyInAustralia
Next morning we were waiting with our backpacks ready in the rental company 10 minutes before they opened, just to start the day as early as possible and to catch up a bit on the lost time. On the second day we were supposed to arrive Great Sandy National Park so we hopped into our van and off we went.
It was a long drive so we stopped on the way in Tinchi Tamba Wetlands Reserve to stretch a bit our legs and, maybe, see some wildlife. The park was a nice walk although nothing extraordinary or weird for our eyes, except for a couple of birds species we’ve never seen before. Although there were quite a few comments about kangaroos in the park, we haven’t come across any and a bit disappointed for that moved on to the next stop, grabbing on the way some food to cook for dinner.
We had a reservation in Noosa North Shore Beach Campground at Great Sandy National Park, which was something unusual for us to do as with the tent you normally don’t need to pre-book campgrounds in most of the places. It was a very lovely and remote camping right next to a beach, but required a boat crossing of a river to get there. For a change, everything went smoothly, allowing us to arrive the campground still quite early in the day.
We dropped the van quickly and went out for a short hike in the beach and Cooloola Great Walk. Aprox 5 km walking on the sand and the same distance walking back through the dunes and bushes. The beach was empty of people, but, surprisingly, full of cars. #OnlyInAustralia we saw a speed limit of 80 km/h literally in the beach.
Although it felt a bit weird walking in a beach highway, it was still a beautiful sandy coast that felt so peaceful after our crazy week in India.
Walking back through the dunes was a bit more exciting, hearing weird noises in the bushes and trying not to imagine giant snakes or spiders ready to jump on and eat us alive. Afterall, Australia is famous for its wilderness creatures.
The sun was staring to set, thus we hurried back all the way to the camping, enjoying the views every now and then of the nature reserve.
When we finally reached the camping, there was a surprise (finally) waiting for us – kangaroos! Lots of kangaroos!! Yuppy! Driving all day and not having seen a single one we were already thinking that kangaroos were just an Aussie myth to attract tourists. But there they were! Eating peacefully their grass and giving us an indifferent look once in a while.
We got so carried away staring at the bunch of kangaroos visiting our camping that the night caught us faster than expected. Thus, we had to make our Jucy bed and cook dinner in darkness, enjoying a friendly company of kangaroos just a couple of meters away.
Travel gods must be laughing at us…
The campervan experience was actually quite acceptable. We slept dry and comfortable, and the best part – was super easy to pack everything back in and leave the camping before even the sun came out. As mentioned, we had a snorkelling with turtles booked in advance to complete our experience, with a meeting at 7 am around an hour drive away from our campground.
We had a very quick breakfast in the camping with the company of some birds and arrived the meeting point on time. But the dock was weirdly empty… after worrying a bit if we were in the right place and 7am approaching very fast, we called the tour operator just to learn that the trip was cancelled do to stormy sea. They’d sent us the cancelation the night before but it went to spam, thus we didn’t notice it. What a bummer.
It was supposed to be a full day, 7 hours experience with a boat trip to an island and snorkelling there. Now all of the sudden we were in Mooloolaba Wharf in Sunshine Coast at 7 am not knowing what to do. At the end of the day we had to be back in Gold Coast, return the van and start the congress.
Not having many options to choose from, we decided to head back and visit some tiny mountains on the way, as we saw signs to viewpoints the day before.
First, we tried to go to the Wild Horse Mountain. We tried. And got lost. With a car… Sounds ridiculous but we really did get lost with a car in a forest. I’ll leave the rest for your imagination.
Once we finally managed to find our way out, we’ve decided to head to Glasshouse Mountains National Park instead, as it was sitting just the opposite side of the highway. This time with a bit more luck we parked the car and went out to do a circular hike. A lovely walk, nothing too special, but still nicer than sitting in the city – we were expecting the next 4 days to be super intense and civilized, thus breathing in some fresh forest air was all we needed.
The serious us
The time passed quickly and we had to close the chapter of (not very successful) adventure and move on to the next part of the trip – the congress.
As you can see, our not so adventurous clothes survived almost two weeks in the backpacks without a problem (vacuum bags were a good idea after all) and the 4 days of the congress flew by with barely seeing anything else than hotel walls, Sea World for gala dinner and then a quick flight to Sydney.
Good old tourism
Right before going back home, we still had one night and one morning in Sydney so we squeezed out the last bits of the time in Australia with an evening walk to see the famous Opera House and have dinner.
The last morning, we went for a another walk to see the city in a daylight, passing though the some parks and Botanical Garden, all the way to Mrs Macquarie’s Point.
Considering the time we had and the schedules of the ferry, we even managed to hop on one going to Manly, enjoying the views coast from a different perspective.
The beach in Manly was nice but clearly not as empty as in Noosa. After giving a quick look we went back to catch the ferry to Sydney, had our last drink while waiting for it to arrive and were back in the hotel to pick up our backpacks before 1pm.
It was a very short visit to Australia, and clearly not enough to get even a decent glimpse of it’s beautiful nature. We did try out a campervan experience which seamed to be acceptable for certain conditions. We also saw some wildlife (although only got to see koalas on the road signs). It is a huge country and the distances in it are tremendous, so to explore it properly one would need at least a month – something we don’t really have in our current life conditions. Maybe some day we’ll get back to give it a proper try and make peace with travel gods.
P.S. Only coming back home did we realize how freaking far away Australia is… arriving with a stop in India split the travel in two parts, but returning in one go was quite a shock, really… it took us more than 24 hours to reach home! At least we’ll keep that in mind when planning a trip to Tasmania and New Zealand one day!
Let's go wild! 