Australia 2002

We left for Australia on Friday, August 23rd. We flew to Brisbane and spent the night there. The next morning we flew to Proserpine and then took a shuttle to Shute Harbor. From there we went to South Molle Island were we stayed until Friday, August 30. We spent the night in Brisbane. The next morning we returned home. We had a warm, sunny, relaxing, wonderful time. It is a beautiful country and I hope that I can see more of it in the future.

Brisbane

We didn't have much time in Brisbane. It was getting dark when we got in. We got to our hotel, put on some shorts and then walked to the dock where we could catch the City Cat which is kind of like a water bus that goes up and down the river. We went to downtown and got some dinner. It had a different name, which I don't remember now, but we basically ate at Burger King. Graham was getting tired so we went back to the hotel and to bed. The city seemed very nice and we were looking forward to exploring it some more when we came back through at the end of the trip.

Tami and Graham on the plane.

Proserpine Airport and Shute Harbor and places in between

The airport was very small. We just kind of landed in the bush. We were the last ones off from the plan since we had to deal with toxic waste produced by a small boy. Scott was fascinated with the airport and kept taking pictures. The shuttle driver was waiting for us and he sent us around to where the bags could be picked up. No fancy baggage claim here. We took the bags right off from the carts that they brought them on from the plane.

A field of sugar cane

We got to Shute Harbor a little after 2 to find out that the boat that we thought was leaving at 2:30 had just left since they recently changed their schedules. We had to wait until 4:30 for the next boat. There isn't anything at Shute Harbor but a few shops. We got some lunch and then tried to entertain Graham. Scott found a walk way to the top of a hill over looking the harbor. We stayed up there for a while. Graham ran around and collected rocks.

Shute Harbor

The island is mostly nation park except for the resort. It has 16 kilometers of walking tracks. That is the primary reason that I chose this island. Both Scott and I like to hike. Included in our package was the non-motorized water sports, tennis, archery, and the golf course. There was a swimming pool that we didn't use much and the beach. Not quite the beach that I hoped for. It looked like they had shipped in the sand, but it was nice just the same. Graham really like it. He would play in the sand or throw rocks in the ocean. The first night we got there (or maybe it was the next morning) Scott and Graham were out wading. Graham slipped and went under and wasn't too happy about that. He didn't go out into the water too deep after that. I guess he doesn't like to get his face wet. I think that we need to look into some sort of swimming lessons. I don't want him to be scared of the water. There was always activities planned for each day. Some were each day like catamaran hints, fish feeding, and bird feeding. Other seemed to be just kind of random and strange like coconut throwing and beach cricket. Okay maybe not so strange. Archery was every other day and we did that a couple of times. We like it, but they only did that supervised. I guess I can't blame them for that. We didn't do too many of the water sports. We took out a paddle board one day. That was fun. It was a double and Graham sat in the middle with us. I don't think that he moved a muscle. I think that was about it for our water fun. We meant to take out a catamaran, but most days it was too windy and we didn't know how well Graham would deal with it. We also meant to play tennis and golf but never managed to do that either. We walked almost all of the trails and had a good time doing that. The last one we didn't get to finish because it was starting to get dark and we had to turn back. We spent most of our time relaxing or hiking. A typical day would be get up, have breakfast, go play in the sand, go to fish feeding at 10, either hike or take it easy, have lunch, either hike or take it easy, feed the birds at 3pm, have dinner, watch a movie, go to sleep. I think that we really wore Graham out. He was asleep by 7 or 7:30 most nights. We didn't get to do any of the late activities because of that. Not that I minded. We did go play pool on night after dinner. Scott brought his laptop so he could work a little on his lectures. He did get a little bit of work done, but I think that we used the computer more to watch DVDs then do computer work. We would usually watch an episode of Lexx after Graham went to sleep then head to bed ourselves. If Graham got up before we really wanted to be up, Scott would put in Thomas the Tank Engine for him to watch and that would keep him happy for a while. Our meals were included in our package. Buffets three times a day. Woo hoo. Good thing we were walking a lot. I think that we only put on a couple of pounds. Not as bad as I feared. The food was okay, but not spectacular. The nice thing was no cooking, no dishes, no cleaning for almost a week and a half. I am ready to go back!

The resort

The view from our room.

Graham got quite good at napping anyplace.

From the walking tracks.

Sand

Someone needed to be buried in the sand and I was volunteered. It wasn't too bad until Graham started throwing sand in my face.

Bird Feeding

Bird feeding was at 3 or 3:30 every day. The birds are Rainbow Lorikeets. You could never tell what they were going to do. The first day the trees were full of them before the bread came out. They were impatiently waiting for their snack. The other days they were very shy and it would take a while for them to come down out of the trees. One day we were the only was still waiting for them when they finally came down. The birds would eat for a while and then they would all take off, fly around in a circle and then go back to the food. I almost got a picture of them flying but I was a split second too slow. It is just that slow digital camera. Yeah that is it. Scott really enjoyed feeding the birds. A couple days he went to see them alone while I stayed with a napping Graham. He always managed to come back with bird poop on his shirt.

The bird feeding area

Graham and Scott enjoy the birds.

Graham isn't too happy when a bird lands on his head. The day before one bit his finger. He still seemed to like seeing them.

Flora and Fauna

Helicopter, Beach, and Reef

When Scott finally took an interest in where we were going, he found out that the bungalows had spa tubs in them. Our room, not being that expensive, just had a shower, but we did have a nice view and we weren't too far from the beach. We kept thinking about upgrading our room. I was going to ask about it when we checked in, but they seemed busy and never did. Once we got settled into the room we had it didn't seem that big of a deal. We had one big room with a double bed and a single bed for Graham and the bathroom with a shower. The door outside was a sliding glass door and it opened out on to a deck complete with chairs. Graham could open the door and get out so I had them put a gate up on it. They also brought a little chair for Graham. We were quite comfortable and switching rooms for a bath tub didn't make sense to me. I took the money that we would have spent on a room upgrade and bought a helicopter ride out to the reef for us. Graham is just fascinated with helicopters and I thought that he would really enjoy it. He enjoyed it so much he feel asleep. Oh well, Scott and I had a good time. We got to see a lot of the Whitsunday Islands. We stopped on Whitsunday Island to see Whitehaven Beach. Now there is a beach. Beautiful white sands. Whitsunday Island is all nation park. No resorts, no hotels. On one end of the beach the boats drop anchor. On the other, there are some hiking trails and camp spots. I think if I ever get back to this area we will camp a night or two there. It would have been great to have more time to walk the beach and play in the ocean a little. We did have time to drink champagne. I guess that is what you do when you land there in a helicopter. From the beach we headed out to the reef. It was out further then I thought. We saw some turtles and a stingray on the way. The pilot said that he hadn't seen any whales for a the last couple of days. I really wanted to see the whales, but it didn't happen. The reef was spectacular We stopped at one of the pontoons there and had some lunch and then went out in the glass bottom boat. After that I tried to snorkel, but didn't have any luck. It was windy and the water was very choppy. I am not a strong swimmer and I had a hard time relaxing and couldn't get the breathing thing going very well. I wanted Scott to have a chance so I went back to watch Graham and let him have a go. He didn't have any problems. He had suggested trying it in the harbor or the pool the previous day. I should have taken his advise. Graham and I went to get some seasick pills for the cruise back to the island. I tend to get seasick. Scott doesn't. I didn't know what Graham would do, so I gave him the medicine. I really didn't want to deal with a barfing boy. None of us were sick on the way back, although many on the boat was. It was pretty rough. Graham slept most of the way back. It was a good day.

Going Home

We caught the 9am shuttle since we were told that the shuttle to the plane would leave at 11 and then next shuttle wouldn't go until 11:15. The people taking us to the airport picked us up at the harbor and took us to Airlie Beach and let us wander around for a hour or so. Airlie Beach seems like a big tourist trap. It does have a very nice walk along the ocean and a laguna area that is free to the public. We didn't realize this at first. We walk down the main drag and checked out the shops. We stopped and got ice cream and it was really good. Graham got to play on the slide for a while, then we headed back to the meeting spot. The shuttle was a little late and when she got there she said that our flight had just been canceled, but she had talked to someone at the airport and they had reserved us seats on the next flight that left around 3:30. So we had until 2 before we had to leave. We walked around again and went by the laguna when we were looking for a toilet. That is when we realized that it was free. Graham played on the slides for a while and then we stripped him down to his diaper and let him go wading. He had a good time in the water. At about 1 we went in search of food and then back to meet the shuttle. Apparently there was mechanical troubles with the 1 o'clock flight and it never left Brisbane so there was never a plane a Proserpine for us to catch. The people there waiting for the plane were put on the bus and sent to Mackay to catch a plane there. I am glad the we got on the later flight. We got into Brisbane at about dark again and decided to not go exploring since we had to be up early the next morning for the flight to Dunedin. We had a nice dinner at an Italian restaurant and then called it a night. It was sunny and 15 when we got to Dunedin which was nice. We didn't feel like we had to find warmer clothes. We stopped at the grocery store on the way home. By the time we were done shopping it was getting cold. We went home and put on warmer clothes. Oh well. It could have been rainy and cold and miserable. They actually had some nasty wintery weather while we were gone. I am sure glad that I missed it.