After hang gliding, Sara and I stayed at a rest stop about 20km north of Byron Bay. Why backtrack? Sara learned there is a farmers market in neighboring New Brighton every Tuesday. The Yelgun Rest Area was the busiest we’ve seen! I attribute it to the fact that camping is highly restricted in Byron Bay so everybody leaves town each night. In the morning, we left the crowd in search of the farmers market. Luck was on our side and a few minutes later we were strolling the tents. It was a wonderful little market where we found some local bread, cheese and hummus (it’s too bad we were already stocked on veggies). After I finally pulled Sara from the market’s grasp, we saw a post office in the general store and were able to mail a box of goodies home. Hopefully this box will arrive unopened. Our last shipment home (from New Zealand) arrived opened with several items missing and broken!

Even after the productive morning, we were able to start our long drive south reasonably early. Our destination was the Blue Mountains right outside of Sydney. Sara had been there many years ago and wanted to show me Continue reading →

My family had mentioned that Fraser Island was a must-see in Australia after visiting several years ago. We headed south from Central Queensland and arrived to the Fraser Coast on a rainy afternoon. We stopped at a couple of i-site locations to research options for exploring the island. Our preference (with anywhere) is to find ways to explore on our own – self drive or maybe rent bikes, kayaks, or even hike to see the island. But Fraser Island is a massive land of sand with very little infrastructure so there was no way we could take our camper. At over 100 miles long and 10 miles wide we would not see much exploring on our own. So we bit the bullet and signed up for a tour which was 3 times our daily budget. To offset the financial impact, we used a cash gift received before we left to sponsor the day trip.

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The literature we picked up in Agnes Waters mentioned that the best place to see a platypus is Eungella National Park. Along the drive, Sara found a free campsite in Gargett – excellent! The drive inland to the park was really neat. For miles there was nothing but sugarcane lining the roads. Sporadically there are narrow gauge railway crossings for the “Cane Trains” that weave through the fields.

After spending a night in the tiny town of Gargette, we stopped in Finch Hatton to find a shop that specializes in rainforest scuba diving. We drove through the town twice but didn’t see anything so we stopped at the only open store for directions. We missed it because it’s apparently in someone’s house! Unfortunately Continue reading →