Diving the Great Barrier Reef

We finally ticked this item off our bucket list - yay!!

We started our exploration tour of the reef in Town of 1770 (Captain Cook is definitely not winning the award for most creative town names...) with a tour out to Lady Musgrave island on the Southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.

Lady Musgrave Island from the ferry

Lady Musgrave from above (Thanks to Google Images)

Our next trip was a 3 day vacation from travelling on Heron Island, another little island paradise. We managed to dive 8 times in the time we had there and absolutely loved it! Warm water, excellent conditions and plenty of wildlife - sharks, turtles, mantarays, bullrays, lots of tropical fish, etc. It truly was diving heaven!

The dive boat which took us out 8 times - all dive sites were only a 5 minute boat ride away

The dive center on Heron Island

Pool area

Heron Island Paradise :)

Heron Island from above (Thanks to Google Images)

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Our villa

Reef Sharks around the boat jetty

We then drove on to Airlie Beach and decided to now experience the reef from above by booking a 1 hour flight over the Whitsunday Islands and the reef. It was absolutely fantastic!!

 

 

 

Ready to fly over the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef

Mansion next to Whitsunday airport; the larger garage on the right is for your plane.

Awesome looking golf course on Hamilton Island

Hamilton Island Airport

Hill Inlet

Heart Reef

As it was so pretty - Heart Reef again :)

Great Barrier Reef

Whitsunday Islands

Whitsunday Islands

Whitsunday Islands

Airlie Beach

Airlie Beach

Our next items on our itinerary are diving the wreck of 'Yongala' in Ayr on Tuesday and then a 4 day Liveaboard (=living on a boat) from Cairns starting on Thursday. So, you won't hear from us until we're back on land again :)

Byron Bay to Fraser Island

In Byron Bay we did our first two dives on this trip at ‘Julian Rocks’, a fairly small rock formation not far from the coast. Coral-wise it was as pretty as the dives in Perth, most amazing though and completely new to us were a few leopard sharks around that dive spot - completely harmless in case you got scared for us ;)

The next days we drove up via Gold Coast and Brisbane (where we met with Sibylle) to Mooloolaba where we were booked in to dive the HMAS Brisbane which was purposely sunk in 2005 to create an artificial ‘reef’. The wildlife has truly taken over the sunken ship and covered it in corals and sponges. Two very cool dives again. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t great that day so the boat ride to the dive site was very, very bumpy and not very pleasant but thanks to my magic pills all was good; maybe I’m also getting used to it?!

We then made our way up the coast via Noosa to Hervey Bay from where we boarded the ferry to Fraser Island. Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world. But despite of all the sand, Fraser Island is covered in very diverse vegetation; tropical and tempered rainforests and over 40 freshwater lakes are found on the island. We had booked a 3 day tour which started Wednesday morning by hopping on the ferry. On a bus with 40 other backpackers (It’s official now, we’re old.) we set out to explore the island. Here are a few highlights:

Swimming in Lake McKenzie's crystal clear water

Wreck of the 'Maheno'

Rescuing a stuck bus on the world's longest sand highway

Champagne Pools

Dingos on the beach

More swimming in Lake Burraween

Sandy hike to Lake Wabby

Canberra & Coastal New South Wales

Leaving the Alps we were on our way towards the Australian Capital, Canberra, mockingly also called 'Canboring' as people say there's not much going on here. We already heard the same about Adelaide but in the end we ultimately loved Adelaide so we were quite curious how Canberra would stack up.

The trip didn't start too well as Wookie didn't wanna start in the morning, the battery seemed to be flat although we couldn't quite explain why. As all other people on the campground were too afraid to jump start us (apparantly there's a risk in ruining your own battery by jump starting another car..??) we had to call a mechanic and pay him $80 to get us going again. So off we went. On our way to the Capital Territory we visited a little country town called Gundagai, known from various Aussie songs (This is our favourite :) http://youtu.be/XxYSegLL3Fk) and its landmark, the dog on the tuckerbox.

Dog on the Tuckerbox 5 miles from Gundagai

The first morning in Canberra, Wookie didn't start again and as he was due for a service anyway we took him to the nearest garage and in the meantime we went off to the city. On our schedule were the Parliament and a few museums. As the weather was starting to look very gloomy again, other options as a bike ride around the city's lake were ruled out again. The Parliament was quite interesting, lots of information about the Australian Government, which we thought will come in handy for our upcoming citizenship test (given the Austrians will give their OK soon). After the Parliament we made our way to the National Gallery and then walked over to the city center which we found completely deserted. The only place were we could get some food and a drink was an Irish Pub - thank God for the Irish :) - but other than that there was really not much going on.

Parliament House

War Memorial - Hall of Names of all fallen soldiers

We then picked up Wookie from the garage; turns out his second battery was broken and was interfering with the main battery. Other than he was all good. Friday morning, we again woke up to rain, rain, rain, so we decided to visit the National Museum (which was pretty disappointing and a little boring) and the War Memorial & Museum. We actually also wanted to play another round of Minigolf but due to the weather, we decided to move the Australian Capital tournament to New South Wales.

Pacific Drive South of Sydney

The following days we travelled up the New South Wales Coast, stopping at a few little towns along the way. Unfortunately the weather was not great again with rain every few hours so we didn't stay too long in each place. As we've already been to Sydney twice, we circumnavigated the city driving straight to Newcastle which is a pretty little town North of Sydney with great beaches AND very close to the Hunter Valley - the last wine region on our to-do list.

Hunter Valley

 We spent the entire Monday tasting our way through the Hunter Valley, known for its Semillon and Shiraz wines. At McGuigan Wines we tasted the 'World's best' Semillon (according to the International Wine Show). It wasn't too bad... :)

Port Macquarie Coastline

Sunset in Port Macquarie

After doing a few more km's up the coast via Port Macquarie (where we had a lovely picknick by the sea) and Coffs Harbour (home of the 'Big Banana'), we're now in Byron Bay. And all of a sudden we're in the middle of backpacker heaven, camperbuses, blond beach girls and surfer boys everywhere. And the weather's pretty nice and warm again as well. You can feel we're close to Queensland. We're currently sitting in our van trying to organise the upcoming few weeks, researching the best dive spots and Great Barrier Reef tours - pretty overwhelming as there's so much to do and see.

View over Coffs Harbour

The Australian Alps

Yes, it's true, there are Alps in Australia, a little less high and spectacular as their European counterparts but still (and surprisingly) beautiful. After our Mini Golf Tournament we decided to not go along the coast (being pretty spoilt with pretty coastline in WA anyway) but to take the 'Great Alpine Road' which should lead us through the Alpine National Park in Victoria and the Mt Kosiuszko National Park in NSW. Our first stop was a little village called Omeo where we could already see some first signs of being close to skiing resorts (ski hire shops and chain fitting stations). In the evening we had a few beers and a meal at a closeby pub. It again was pouring down that evening so staying inside with a logfire blazing was pretty comfy.

The next day lead us further into the mountains to Falls Creek, Victoria's most expensive skiing resort apparently, in summer completely empty though. We didn't stay long, just took a few photos of the lift stations, had a bit of a chuckle about what Australians think a proper skiing slope is and on we went on the Great Alpine Road through Mt Beauty onto Bright where we found a nice brewery. Surprisingly enough it was not raining today so we made our way up to Mt Buffalo National Park and as time allowed also climbed 'The Horn' from where we had a fantastic view over the entire alps and all the highest peaks of Australia.

Falls Creek

On Top of 'The Horn' (Mt Buffalo National Park)

And of course, the next morning we woke up to pouring rain again. Our plans of doing a few more walks were hereby cancelled again. Instead we made our way towards the Milawa Gourmet Region, had a nice cup of tea and some cake, and tasted our way through the area, olives, mustard, cheese, wine, beer, cider, you name it. In Beechworth we found another little brewery where Stefan was in tasting heaven again with almost too many beers to choose from. We also met the owner of the brewery who turns out to be from Austria - no wonder the beer was fantastic :)

Thredbo Ski Resort

Monday we didn't do much other than drive to Thredbo, another popular ski region, this one already in NSW. And we were surprised as Thredbo looked a lot 'better' than Falls Creek with a lot more slopes and lifts and quite a number of apres ski bars and restaurants. The normal population of Thredbo is about 300, in winter it increases to over 10,000. From Thredbo it is also possible to climb Mt Kosiuszko, with 2228m Australia's hightest mountain. Unfortunately, we arrived there too late on Monday to start the climb, so we searched for a nice little rest area close to the village and next to the Thredbo River to have a little picknick and enjoy the scenery.

9am the next morning we were already on our way up the mountain. To say we 'climbed' the mountain is actually quite exaggerated. The first few hundred meters are done with the chairlift (with $33 per person not really on the cheap side...) and then there's a steady slightly inclining 6.5km boardwalk all the way to the top. So not the most exhausting climb, but still, we made it :)

On Top of Mt Kosiuszko

We rewarded ourself with a Hot Chocolate at the cafe at the chair lift station (Eagles Nest - Australia's highest cafe, lol). They actually also had proper Schnaps (e.g. Obstler, Baerenjaeger, Jaegermeister, Feigling, etc) but with $9 a bit too expensive we decided.

On our way out of the Alpine Region we were listening to a local radion station which happened to talk about a closeby Schnaps destillery, so of course we had to go there. And i don't know if this stuff is meant to be, but the owner of the destillery was again Austrian, Monika, who then also convinced us to stay for lunch as they had proper Austrian food on the menu. Gulasch for me, and Schnitzel for Stefan, on the day we climbed Mt Kosiuszko - happy happy! And the story won't end here! The radion show talking about the destillery was actually broadcasting straight from there out of a little caravan, and while we were enjoying our lunch Stefan got asked if he wanted to do a Schnaps tasting live on air in exchange for another pint of beer and a discounted bottle of schnaps. I don't have to tell you what happened next... :)