What the Devil?

This weekend was a whirlwind tour of Tasmania as my time in the land of OZ winds down so much faster than I would like. Next week is my last week of classes and I can hardly believe it! But first, Tassie.

Tassie has a culture of its own, even more personal and laid back than mainland Australia. The size of South Carolina but the population of less the half of Charlotte (500,000), the island’s natural beauty remains intact and flourishing as ever. And of course it is home of the Tasmanian devil, the inspiration for the Looney Toons character Taz. Devils have the strongest jaws per pound of any animal as they chew straight through the bones of their prey. And yes, they do sound as crazy as Taz.

I got up early on Friday morning after a fun night at UNSW’s Oktoberfest for our 7am flight to Hobart, the capital of Tasmania. Charlie, Eddie, and I wasted no time in getting to the famous Port Arthur, Australia’s largest and most advanced convict settlement from when Australia was used as England’s prison. The highlight of Port Arthur was definitely the late night ghost tour. We were guided around by a Port Arthur historian between the cell blocks, the warden’s house, into the solitary confinement chamber, and ended at the lunatic ward that had to be built because of the number of prisoners who went insane during their time at the prison. The prison was completely silent and the inmates never saw each others' faces. They spent 23 hours of the day confined to their cells and the guards used sign language to communicate in front of the prisoners so that the prison could remain completely silent. We heard stories of ghost sightings of the daughters of the doctor and the only prisoner who committed suicide. After an eerie night, we made our way up to Strahan, Tasmania’s original seaport.

In Strahan we took a boat cruise down the Gordon River. The boat took us out to the Hell’s Gate, the riverheads going out into the Pacific Ocean, and then inland to a nature walk. We saw some of the oldest trees in the world, preserved in Tasmania’s temperate rainforest. We drank the freshwater straight off the top of the river as the brackish saltwater from the ocean rested below. That night in Strahan we made it to a local pub to watch the semi-final of the Rugby World Cup between France and Wales. Wales took the lead and beat France by just one point in an 8 to 9 match se they went on to face New Zealand in the finals. (Spoiler alert: New Zealand won the final.)

Next stop was Cradle Mountain. The drive from Strahan to Cradle Mountain was like going from summer to the heart of winter in about an hour. We got caught in a blizzard, sleet and snow coming down out of nowhere. Not what I had packed for in May when getting ready for Australia in the spring. We shacked up in a log cabin just outside of Cradle Mountain National Park. The next morning the blizzard had passed and we actually set our eyes on Cradle Mountain, easily the most beautiful thing I saw in Tasmania. We hiked up a nearby mountain and around the Dove Lake getting amazing views from all around. On our walk we ran into a friendly pair of bankers. One was a Kenyan pastor visiting Australia for his first time out of Africa. His companion was a native Tassie professional tree climber. He has competed all over Australia climbing the tallest of trees. It was refreshing to catch up on all of the current events in Kenya and was interesting to compare tree-climbing equipment to rock climbing gear.

 

Our last stop was Launceston where we stayed at the Batman Inn (no joke). The inn was actually where the founders of Melbourne, Australia’s second biggest city, met to decide to settle the city (more on Melbourne next week!). It was fun to explore the city, wander through the parks and a along the harbour, seeing the boats going to and from the mainland. We even saw the Launceston Basin before flying back to Sydney to enjoy a bit more of the sun and beach I had been missing (and some classes too).

Spring Break: The Jucy Experience

It’s been a while. Over the past embarrassingly long time since I last blogged, so much has happened. I’ve been SCUBA diving and rock climbing all around Sydney. I’ve been camping in the Blue Mountains and waking up before sunrise early to see kangaroos. I’ve been meeting up with old friends from Australia, New Zealand, and the US. My parents came to visit for a wonderful long weekend when I got to show off the wonderful city of Australia to them. We saw a show at the legendary Opera House, we climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge, we wandered through the Royal Botanic Gardens, we walked the beaches on the North Shore, and we saw Aussie furry friends at the Taronga Zoo.

Then came a week of “grueling” midterms, presentations, papers, and all of that school stuff I keep hearing about from friends back at Duke. And then before I knew it, it was Spring Break.

To preface this, you must first see this video of our luxury ride that took three friends and me on our 2000 km journey up the Aussie East Coast.

Gold Coast & Brisbane

Our trip started with a flight full of anticipation to the Gold Coast. As Johan, Victoria, and I said farewell to our home New South Wales and were welcomed into Queensland, we knew our trip had begun. After exploring the town, crashing on those wonderful auto deflating air mattresses, and picking up Tom, we made our way to the beach at Surfer’s Paradise (it’s Spring Break, what else would we do?).  After sufficiently feeling the hole in the o zone that sits right above Australia, we got on a train to Brisbane, Australia’s third largest city. Here we met up with Tori as she showed us around her tropical campus at the University of Queensland and showed us a night on the town. We mingled with locals, got called out by a crazy street performer, and were seriously tempted to jump into Brisbane’s very own beach. The next day we went straight downtown to pick up our beloved campervan: The Jucy.

Fraser Island

Before we knew it, we had filled up the tank, gotten groceries, driving on the left side of the road, and barreling out of Brisbane heading for Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island. Without maps or much of a plane, we boarded an early morning ferry onto the island and just started walking. We quickly realized that Fraser was a lot bigger than we had anticipated (the main beach is 75 miles long). Thankfully, we met a friendly backpacker and ran into a kind truck driver who gave us a lift to the trailhead for the most beautiful lake on the island: Lake McKenzie. Without too much trouble and only one blood-chilling scream from Victoria as a goanna crossed our path, we arrived at the lake. After marveling at the beauty, swimming around in the fresh water (first “shower” of the trip!), and marveling at how white the sand was, we hiked on to the center of the Fraser. Before we knew it, the sun was quickly racing toward the horizon. We hiked as fast as we could back to the ferry station where there was a huge resort. Being college students living on a budget, we opted out of the fancy resort, jumped the fence, and set up camp just in time for sunset and an early bedtime.

Next thing I know, I’m woken by Victoria nudging me saying, “John, John, I think something is out there!” It’s 2:30am at this point so I sit up and listen and sure enough there was rustling just a few feet outside our tent. I figure it is just a rodent but seconds later, I see the shadow of a four legged animal cross right over the door to our tent. Wild dingoes were eating our food. At this point the whole tent wakes up as we try to get the dingoes away from our food while trying not to get eaten alive. The next morning we had quite a site of all of our wrappers and food torn apart. Plus side? They couldn’t get into our Nutella.

Whitsundays

After escaping our close encounter with Dingoes, we got back in our Jucy mobile and drove to the Whitsundays where we began a three-day journey aboard the 80-foot Broomstick. We sailed, slept, and ate on board for three days and two nights, leaving the boat to hike, snorkel, SCUBA dive, and enjoy the surrounding islands. This was the first time we had actually interacted with people outside our group of four and especially since there were only three other people on the boat whose first language was English, we managed to meet some really interesting people. The highlight of the sailing trip was definitely going to Whitehaven beach, a spectacular sight with some of the most dazzling pure white sand. We saw about 50 rays and reef sharks relaxing on the ocean floor in the land of paradise as we explored the area and some of the less frequented but equally beautiful beaches.

Daintree Rainforest & Cape Tribulation

By Wednesday we were back on land, adjusting to the fact that the floor ground was no longer swaying beneath us and that no more gourmet meals would magically appear. We continued our journey north to Daintree Rainforest and Cape Tribulation. The Daintree is the largest forest on the continent and was quite a sight to see. We explored scenic paths through its swaps and rivers, seeing lizards and crazy trees along the way.

We pulled over to a beach near Cape Tribulation, named for the troubles it had given Australia’s first European discoverer, Captain James Cook. We quickly stumbled upon a massive stock of coconuts scattered around the high tide line of the beach and we all had the same idea: lunch! After hours of throwing, dropping, smashing, and cutting open gigantic coconuts, we had all had our share of coconut milk and meat. After lunch, we finally faced the reality that we had to return our van and with it our 8:30 bedtimes and 6:30am mornings in exchange for something more along the lines of a typical spring break in Australia: Cairns.

Cairns

We quickly got settled in to the waterfront hostel, our new temporary home, and started meeting people from all over the world, including a few people who lived right down the hall in Sydney. We decided the Cairns Zoo was a must, who wouldn’t want to feed kangaroos and hold a koala (SO fuzzy)?

On Friday night I got entered into a dance off at one of the classic Cairns bars as part of a fun pub crawl that got us connected to a bunch of other backpackers to share stories with. We spent all day Saturday walking around the town and to Trinity Beach, running into some friendly wild kangaroos along the way. On Sunday morning, we took a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef to do some of the best SCUBA diving of my life. There were so many fish with such vibrant colors happily swimming around everywhere. I even found a little Nemo staring right at me from his little piece of coral.

Monday was our last day in Cairns, so we took it easy, right? Of course not! We went all out with the “Extreme” white water rafting on the Tully River. We had an amazing guide who made it his goal to throw us out of the raft as many times as he possibly could. Not only did we paddle our hearts out, almost have our faces smashed into boulders, and go down crazy rapids, we also jumped off of cliffs, dropped down waterfalls, and swam through rapids. It was the perfect end to an amazing trip.