Day 94-95: LONG Train to Cairns

Not a whole lot of photos from this section of our trip.  After catching the ferry to the mainland again, Molly found that someone had used her Debit Card number to rack up $3,000 in charges to Habbo Google (whatever that is) in $4-$9 increments before the Bank of America stopped it.  Good times.  That took some sorting out, but should be good.  (PS.  Bank of America, your customer service sucks.  It's not fun to get hung up on 4 times when you are calling from overseas.)

In any case, we were supposed to catch a late evening train to Cairns from Rockhampton.  Our bus dropped us in Rockhampton at 5, which left us 6 hours to bum around and wait for the train.  Except everything seems to close in Rockhampton at 5, so there wasn't a lot to do.  We managed to find some Thai food, but no grocery store to buy provisions for the train ride.  Oh yeah, and some locally made rum.  I prefer whiskey (bourbon, really), but we had been travelling through sugar cane on the train for so long, I went with the local thing.

Our train was scheduled for 11:40, but by 12:30AM, there was no sign of it.  Eventually, we boarded, exhausted from a long day already, at 2 AM.  This was not a good sign.

Somehow we managed to get some sleep on the train, and around 10 AM, awoke.  It was a lovely day, but somehow the train had managed to lose another hour along the way, and by 3 PM of our scheduled 16 hour ride, had lost another half hour to wait for the southbound train to pass.  

In any case, instead of arriving in Cairns at 4PM, with plenty of time to find a place to stay for the evening, we pulled into the station at 7:30, in the dark, and had to scramble to find a hostel for the evening.  We got lucky, and found one not too far from the station, and passed out for the evening.  

The fun stuff starts the next day, when Mary and Monroe arrive, and we get ready to head out to the reef.

Day 91-94: Great Keppel Island

Things one can do on a mostly deserted, tropical island.

Enjoy your new home.

Follow all the trails to all the places.  (They were sandy, so not exactly the easiest to walk along, though.)

Enjoy the oversize maps of the place.

Be amazed that somehow a resort managed to not survive here, and that the infrastructure from that resort is rapidly crumbling.

Enjoy the views.

And the sun shelters by the views.

I mean, seriously.

Totally worth the trip.

We eventually did go to the above beach for a day, but I neglected to take pictures.  It is exactly what you think it looks like:  Long white sand beach.  Clear water.  We took snorkeling gear and saw a bit of a small reef.  Molly saw a jellyfish the size of her face, and I saw a turtle.

As evening fell on the second day, it was clear enough that we were treated to an Australian sunset on the water.  (I apologize, because I have taken, and will take many many more pictures of sunsets.  And of course, pass them on to you.)

We originally planned on staying for only 2 nights, but when I tried to book a train for the third day, I found to my (not really) dismay, that the train was fully booked.  So I booked it for the next evening, and we had to hang out for another day on the beach and snorkel, and stand up paddle board, and just be lazy.  Life was hard.  We hung out with a great Moroccan couple, who were flying out the same day we were taking the ferry.

All things must come to an end eventually, though.  The last evening, we had a beer at the only operating business on the island, a cafe/restaurant/bar, and got ready to leave the next morning.  We probably would have stayed even longer, but had really only brought food for 3 days, which we stretched to 4, just barely.  Also, we had a train to catch to Cairns, and a booking on a boat to see the Great Barrier Reef.

Solid pieces of wood 14 feet long built this table and bench. Sorry about the blurry photo, though.

Day 91: Great Keppel Island

While New Zealand is rightfully known for its mountains and interior, Australia is known for having lots of crazy people living in a desert...er...I mean...is known for its coasts.  Compared to NZ, with it's dynamic and striking topography, Australia is essentially flat.  But the coasts are amazing, and the area in Northeast Oz, with the Great Barrier Reef nearby, is no exception.

Our plan for the day was to ride a ferry to the Great Keppel Island, a bit of sand and rock 5 miles or so off the coast.  So first, a bus ride to the marina.

Molly is excited about the boat ride.  I am, too.

A calm start, behind the breakwater, but when we get outside the wall, and pick up speed.

This woman's face says it all.  It was deliciously bumpy, and a great ride.

Looking back at Yeppoon, and the mainland.

After half an hour of cruising, this is the view from behind the boat.

And this is the beach we were approaching.

With a small harbor, filled with yachts and other private vessels.

Upon arrival, Molly's comment was, "I didn't think places like this existed.

That is, places like this where ordinary people, just like you and me, can go visit.  There was an island resort here, but like many expensive places, in went belly up in 2008.  Now there is just the empty buildings, plus a few other places to stay.

We had called Geoff at the Keppel Holiday Village.  It was a cluster of a few small buildings, some cabins, and some larger tents set up under covered roofs.   We had reserved a tent, and decided to try slightly fancier camping than we normally had.  The tent even came with its own Possum.

So yeah, it was a bit of a tropical paradise.  And Molly loves the beach.  The water, as you can see, is crystal clear blue.  Quite lovely.  We settled in for a long, hard stay on a beautiful beach.  More pictures soon.

Day 89-90: Train Rides North, Hervey Bay, Australia Day, Headed to Yeppoon

At least for the short term, we are doing a little splitting up.  Molly and I managed to get a great "hop on, hop off" train ticket to Cairns, where we will go see the Great Barrier Reef, and Mary and Monroe will spend a bit more time in Brisbane and other parts of the Queensland coast before flying there.

Molly and I first stopped in Hervey Bay, about a 4 hour train ride north of Brisbane.  It's a nice beach town, and we stayed with a great family we found on AirBnb.  The husband is a homebrewer, and so Molly and I got to taste some of his beer.  At the time, he had Obama's Honey Ale on tap, and had done the beer quite well.  

The night we spent there was uneventful, and the family invited us to join them the following day for Australia Day, the 26th of January.  Eager to share in some local culture, we said yes.

What do you do on Australia Day?  Well, in Hervey Bay, you go to the beach and kayak:

And fish:

Enjoy the pier:

Fish some more:

These are essentially one clawed freshwater lobster, what we would call crawfish or crawdads, but not the Aussies.  Theses are yabbies.  And they make great bait.  (Crawfish are something different to the Aussies, but I'm not quite sure what)

Molly baiting a hook for the first time in her life.

Oh yeah, you also dress up in ridiculous outfits on Australia day.

And spend as much time on the beach, or in the water as possible.

Well, except me.  I like just sitting on the beach and watching Molly have a great time on a borrowed Stand Up Paddleboard.

But we couldn't stay too long.  We had decided that our next stop would be the Great Keppel Island.  Remember the card from the last post?

Yeah, that one.  Jason from our BNB in Brisbane said to check it out.  So back on the train we went.

As night fell, we saw fireworks.  We were staying in a very cheap AirBnb that night, and planned on catching a ferry to the Great Keppel Island early the next day.  A decision we would not every regret, as you will see in further posts.