Airlie Beach to Townsville, Queensland

Driving up north from Airlie Beach we stopped at Bowen, North Queensland's oldest town and the place of the "Big Mango". It was declared a town back in 1861 its history predates that many years aboriginal people inhabited this region long before the first white settlers.
Bowen is widely known for its murals they are displayed throughout the streets. We could not take photos because the camera ran out of battery.
Furthermore some shots of the movie Australia were filmed in the local pub and a building used by the Queensland government.
As usual we found the local bakery; we had a very nice coffee and a cake, bought some Jackman's special pies, bread for dinner and continued our trip to Townsville.
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Bowen

We arrived to Townsville, after setting-up at the caravan park we went to explore the place.
The Strand is along the shore line it is a very busy place with restaurants and a very nice park right on the beach and a large rock pool which looks more as a swimming pool.
Located in the middle of the city is a large mount with 360 degree views of Townsville and the ocean.
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Townsville

We put the truck on the ferry and went to Magnetic Island it is a popular destination; you can take your car or hire a "topless car" or a "mini moke" to move around the island. There are more than 20 bays and beaches around the island with good places for swimming or snorkelling. More than 60% of the island is a national park with a great variety of wildlife; we found some "black tail rock wallabies"
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Magnetic Island

Kilometres travelled up to date 3349 km

Fantasy Island

We were recommended to visit Hamilton Island, after Reefworld, the catamaran dropped us at the island. We learnt that originally it was known as a Passage Island and it was used firstly they had sheep on the land. In 1922 the land was taken over by another person for cattle grazing, in the mid 40's someone else took over the lease and it wasn't until 1976 that Mr Keith Williams became involved in the island now called Hamilton. In 1982 Mr Williams commence building his dream, 2 years after he opened the place to the public, but development and building kept on going and forging ahead. 70% of the island is still national park. There is an airport built on reclaimed land, the marina has been completed dredged and the resort is on the eastern site.
Hamilton Island is the major resort in the Whitsundays and the largest offshore island resort in Australia.
The place is magnificent, there are only few cars in the island, some shuttle buses and hundreds of golf buggies, we ended up calling the place "Toon Town".
The Hamilton Island Outrigger Cup was on and the place was very busy, we found a nice pub, had some drinks and had dinner.
The next day we explored the island and found lots of breathtaking views and dwellings, the marina was spectacular with all of the yachts, we even picked ours. It is a very unspoiled place with a large variety of birds. The man-made landscape through out the island is just beautiful unfortunately, late in the afternoon we had to stop dreaming and went back to the caravan park and sleep in the off road granny flat.

Hamilton Island

FINDING NEMO

After our brilliant experience from the air we could not resist to go and find Nemo, we went on a trip to Reef World on The Great Barrier Reef. We went in a nice and big high speed catamaran they offered us morning tea and lunch, we stopped at Hamilton Island to drop off and pick up some passengers, it takes about 3.5 hours from Shute Harbour to the Pontoon at the Barrier Reef.
During the 4 hours that you spend on the pontoon you have the option of snorkelling, riding a semi-sub or simply wonder around being part of living nature. We did a guided snorkelling tour because we had no idea what was all about, also Rosario was very scared and needed to gain some confidence; at the end it was worth it because the instructor who is a marine biologist gave us a very good explanation of corals and marine life.
It is amazing to see the different types of fish, the corals, gigantic clams, a marine turtle and we even touched some of the big fish and they were not even scared, we bought a waterproof bag for the camera and Gabriel enjoyed taking lots of underwater photos which you can see if you click on following photos.
PS. We couldn't find Nemo, the turtle told us he went to Cancun, Mexico.

Barrier Reef Under the Water

WOW....WOW...WOW

We decided to see the Great Barrier Reef in a different way, we booked a scenic flight so we could see the 74 Whitsunday Islands, named by Captain Cook in 1717, when he arrived to the area according to the catholic calendar it was during Pentecost Whit Sunday. Also we were told we were going to go across the Coral Sea to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.
It was very beautiful looking the islands, Whiteheaven beach with its incredible white sand but when we approached the Great Barrier Reef it's overwhelming, but when we saw the perfectly shaped Heart Reef we felt goose-bumps and said wow...wow...wow
Looking at the Great Barrier Reef from the air....priceless

CLICK ON THE PHOTO TO VIEW A SLIDE SHOW

Barrier Reef from the Air

More driving

Our admiration and respect for all the truckies and everybody who has done a big trip, the distances are immense, Rosario has set herself a challenge, every time we are on the road on long distances she is going to do some crocheting and believe me is getting bigger and bigger.

Gabriel enjoys his driving and a little bit of speeding but don't tell  the "candy car driver", yesterday we had problems with the chip he had installed to the engine and we had to removed it, this was an unexpected delay because we had to find a mechanic and by the time the truck was ready it was 2 pm, we didn't want to spoil our schedule therefore we kept on going the rest of the afternoon into the evening so we could  reach our next destination.....Airlie Beach.



We arrived around 11 pm and the party in town was on, the main street was packed of people, music and backpackers, we just set up and went to bed.

We got up a bit late, we visited Cedar Creek Falls at Conway National Park there wasn't water, it was just a big pond and the creek was dry, after we headed to Conway Beach were the tide was very low and the ocean very far away it is impressive to see all this extension of  beach.

Went to a placed call Proserpine is a little town which their main industry is sugar production, the sugar cane harvesting starts this weekend and will be a festival on Saturday. 

To finish our day we drove back to town and  walked around the "tourist paradise" were there are lots of shops, restaurants, cafes and pubs.






Kilometres travelled to date:  2687 Km.

Sydney to Gladstone

This trip is very rejuvenating, we walked around the caravan park at Coffs and the average age is 65, this is good!!!........Heading up north and the weather is already getting warmer; it is amazing to see a lot of caravans on the road.
Next day we kept on going arriving to Noosa in the evening for a nice dinner on the beach with a drink or two, the following morning we had breakfast with a beautiful ocean views, walked around town and dreamt of owning one of those fantastic houses, back to the caravan park, hooked the van and took off to Gladstone.

We drove the tourist drive from Ballina to Byron Bay and visit Lennox Head to see the damage done by the twister, that hit the place few weeks ago, while on the road we saw a lot of people looking to the ocean and Rosario spotted something that looked like a whale, we stopped the car and with binoculars and camera in hand off we went to the edge of the cliff and they there were, five magnificent whales putting a big show for us, it was amazing.




Arrived to Gladstone late and had dinner, next day we went to visit the Bundaberg Rum factory, it was amazing to learn there are more than five million litres of molasses in the factory to be fermented and to see the vats containing the rum for aging for two years and worth six million dollars each (and there were heaps) prior bottling.



The factory premises were impregnated with that special sweet aroma mixed with rum at the end we had some "Bundy Rum" tasting; more incredible knowing 97% of the production is consumed in Australia....go aussies!!!!!
Gabriel mentioned, he never thought he was going to use the air conditioning system in the car during winter, bye bye winter clothes!!!.

ALMOST READY

This is the first post in our travel blog page, we are ready for the journey, “The Off Road Granny Flat” (caravan) is ready and packed, the four wheel drive is also ready;

To keep you up to date, we will try to write on this travel blog as many times as possible.

Later on, we will be posting some photos of our trip.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank the people from our club for teaching us all the skills we will be using during the trip.

Special thanks to Ben Fullagar, Julie and Michael Rush for their advice during the trip planning, also thank you to Heidi Lawson and Brian Flood for lending us their "maxtrax".

A big thanks to Mark, John, Scott, Carl and Richard from ARB ST Peters for the advice and all the work done to the 4x4; they really did an excellent job.

Furthermore we would like to extend our appreciation to the helpful people from Jayco Sydney, specially their service department manager Steve Vella.

Kilometres travelled to date: 0 Km.