After all my croc hunting excursions I was finally on my way to the next stop, Cairns. Cairns for me is just a useful stop to sleep, eat, say goodbye to my rental car, and get ready to fly to my final destination in Australia. There’s not a whole lot to do here. That doesn’t mean I didn’t do anything though. I spent a day riding the Skyrail over the rainforest. The Skyrail extends for almost five miles over the…
This next chapter of my Australian adventure is way up north in what is believed to be the oldest continuously surviving rainforest in the world, the Daintree. How the heck do they even know that? Apparently, because they found a type of plant here, Idiospermum, in 1971, that was previously thought to have been extinct. Before that all we had were fossils. Anyway, It was not a long drive at all from Innisfail up here, so I broke up my…
I hope you are all ready for another waterfallapalooza, because that’s all I did at this stop. Continuing my journey north through Queensland, I based myself next in Innisfail on the coast. The highway that heads directly west from there is sandwiched by a few national parks, lush rainforest, and a whole bunch of amazing waterfalls. I started with Tchupala Falls in Wooroonooran National Park. I can’t say either of those names without stuttering. The hike made it’s way through…
Wow, I have been a busy busy traveler since I left Brisbane. The bulk of it, however, has been a lot of driving to a series of one or two night stops all over central Queensland. So, this post is going to be a mish mash of all those. First, from Brisbane I drove roughly nine hours west to Carnarvon Gorge in Carnarvon National Park. It was a very long day of driving and I arrived to my camp right…
The next stop on my Australian adventure is gonna give me a little break from all the hiking. It also marks the start of seeing a new state, Queensland. Welcome to Brisbane! It’s Australia’s third city, at least that’s what I heard it referred to as. There’s really not a whole lot to see here, but I thought there was enough to spend a day wandering around the city. I actually spent three days here, but only one exploring the…
It was a really long drive from Coonabarabran to Bellingen almost all the way back to the coast. Bellingen is a really small town, but there’s a great hostel next to the river and a handful of cool restaurants to eat at so it’s the perfect base to explore the Waterfall Way. This town completely shuts down at 7pm every night though. If you haven’t eaten, bought your groceries, or done whatever else you have to do by then, you’re…
I flew to Tasmania from Sydney and from Tasmania straight back to Sydney to pick up where I left off. I immediately rented another car and drove north to my next planned stop, Port Macquarie. As I was leaving Sydney it started raining, then it started raining harder, and harder, the whole four hour drive. The weather in Port Macquarie was like a typhoon, crazy high winds and pouring rain and it wasn’t predicted to stop for about another week….
This bonus post is a little hodge podge of really short stops I made before and after Cradle Mountain. When I left Port Arthur I had an extra day. In retrospect, I could’ve spent that extra day in Cradle Mountain and had plenty to do, but I didn’t know that at the time. Instead, I drove up the east coast and spent one night in Bicheno. I arrived around sunset, so I just made a quick stop to the Bicheno…
On this stop, I’ll be hiking around a few different national parks, some state reserves, and several random sites. And I’m not really based in a city, I’m staying in a camp/hostel similar to my place in Port Arthur, but the main attraction in these parts is definitely Cradle Mountain National Park and that’s how everyone refers to the whole area, Cradle Mountain. I figured I’d start there. There are several trails around that can be combined into however long…
My next stop in Tasmania wasn’t very far away at all. It turns out Tasmania isn’t really that big. So, after the animal sanctuary up near Hobart, I also had time for a short hike to see the Tessellated Pavement. I didn’t fully understand it all, but silt flows from the rivers and collects and hardens near the ocean and over time, it dries and salt dissolves at varying rates and you get these bread loaf looking formations. I thought…