Driving Australia

My new way to explore: by car, but it's got the wheel on the "wrong" side!

OK.. here we go! Car travel.  And it's got the wheel on the "wrong"side! I've got to learn a new set of driving rules. We decide to rent a car for a couple of weeks to get around and see the sights of Queensland, Australia.

The Glass Mountains have spiritual meanings for the Aboriginals

Our new friends, Nikki & Frank plotted out several road trips for us to explore the near mountains just west of the Scarborough area. We head for Glass Mountain lookout and Kondalilla National Parks. The views from the Glass Mountain look out over the coastal plains is awesome! We get some Aboriginal history at this sight...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians http://www.nprsr.qld.gov.au/parks/glass-house-mountains/

Glass Mountains

Our first glimpse of a family of kangaroos in the mango groves!

What was amazing to us was as you go north "out of town" 30 miles...there is nothing! Open wide, flat country in every direction! We've read enough books by Bill Bryson (the travel writer) to know that Australia is a HUGH country with miles and miles of open spaces. But to really see this from a lookout vista is amazing! We're not even in the outback, yet!  Most of the population lives near the coast and this you can plainly see from a high vantage point like the Glass Mountain look-out. We pass through Beerburum and Beewah State forests...23 million hectares are planted in sustainable timber for harvesting in 2020...amazing facts you learn while being a tourist!

Tourist in Australia overlooking the Glass Mountains at Mary Cairncross State Park look out

Our first stop overlooking a orchard of mangoes and we see our first "roos"! A family with nursing baby hopping around! It's far away, but I still get a picture. We hope to see more up close and personal.  A local says you will..they hop right out in front of the cars, on a death wish..so be careful! Just like the deer back home. The Australians have many national and state parks to preserve its nature.

Rainforest walk down to water fall and pools

Hiking the trail down to the waterfall past eucalyptus trees and ferns

We heard many kinds of birds  calling to each other, but didn't see a one! The rain forest hums with the sounds of lorakeets and insects. We did see a Wombat scouring the leaves and a monitor lizard sliding by...that was cool!

Fig vines that wrap around and strangle trees are interesting

Strangler Fig vines strangle host trees

The pools at the bottom of trail. Fresh water eels are swimming here...not me!

English Pub in Monteville

After our hike, I reward John with a  stop at an English pub for a brew.  It is VERY English around here and you can see the influence of the English, who were the first peoples to settle Australia... want some pork knuckles or a meat pie with your scooner? (the size of beer glass is pot, scooner or pint)

Skywalk through the top of the rain forest

....there is a rain forest because it rains every day!

The next day we drove south to Mt Tamborine National Park outside of Brisbane.  This is a park known for it's rain forests and is very "touristy" because of it. There are many shops, wineries and restaurants near the park. We chose The Skywalk attraction.  This is a gang plank high off the forest floor allowing you to see the top of a rain forest. Pretty cool idea, but pricey entrance fee.($20)

High up in the canopy of the rain forest!

Catwalk- looking down to the forest floor

Looking into the jungle tops

Stag horn ferns have a symbiotic relationship with the trees

Refreshment time at the Mt Tamborine micro-brewery!

We stopped at the  local micro-brewery and enjoyed a flight of their home brews!  We are finding some really good beers! After  a lunch, some live music and a brew we head back home. Boy, we REALLY are tourists!

Pork belly with salad

That's all for today! We have  more road trips planned. Stay tuned...

No worries, mate!

Fishing boats in Moreton Bay, Scarborough

 Exploring the peninsula as it’s called, the suburbs outside of Brisbane, includes the upscale “beach front ” towns of Redcliffe, Scarborough and Woody Point. We walk from our Moreton Bay Boat Club Marina  (M.B.B.C. ) slip along the docks to the fish markets with the local fishing boats parked outside. This is quite the crowded fresh fish market with a huge variety of catch!

Big bugs for sale at the fish market!

Fish head for sale!

Green lip mussels...yumm!

One day we rode the bus the entire peninsula to get the lay for the land” ..we ARE  old people! Riding the bus for adventure! We stopped at the Redcliffe Museum and learned of the early English settlers, a mix bag of convicts, soldiers and families who first tried a go of this swampy land. After only 8 months they moved the settlement south to Brisbane...the deserted homes were called "dead houses" or "oompie-bong" by the Aboriginal natives..and the name Humpybong stuck!

Strange names...

Breakfast in Scarborough this morning along the  Redcliffe open market promenade with new “host” friends, David and Lanie.  These are the folks we met in Fiji who offered us rental of their boat slip for a few months.  They keep their 42 ft sailboat on the dock in front of their home in Newport,  a high end suburb complete with  private docks- boating canals.

David and Lanie,  our Moreton Bay "hosts".  Cruisers we met in Fiji.

  Moreton Bay Boat Club was their first boat slip until they bought a new home that included a private dock at Newport. Now, they try to rent the old slip…that’s where we come in… happy to have a place to land for a few months!  David and Lanie have been very gracious hosts inviting us to join with friends and showing us the sights.

Our "home" away from home!

Did you remember the BEE GEEs , the rock group of the 70”s?  Turns out they immigrated from England and grew up in  the Redcliffe area. The town has a whole outdoor wall of photos commemorating them! Amazing, guess a town has to claim fame from something...whatever!

The baby Bee Gees!

A whole photo wall  devoted to the Bee Gee's ...funny.

Marina walking...

Moreton Bay

Redcliffe area is where we are on the map...

Brisbane and north in the state of Queensland, where we are. 

Rains every afternoon with thunder and lightning!

But, clears into the evening...

More adventures to come as we explore the Queensland peninsula...

Brisbane, Australia

Upriver Brisbane Central District

We took a high-powered catamaran ferry uptown to Brisbane's central business district. What a fun ride!

Fast catamaran ferries service the Brisbane river.

Million dollar homes along the waterfront!

Tourist in Brisbane!

Downtown Brisbane

Many waterfront cafes

Walking along the well used river promenade

The river front walk-way

We meet up with Mark from S/V Compass Rosey in downtown Brisbane. He has completed his delivery of Compass Rosey (from the Marquesas!) and is waiting for the owner to take possession of the boat. He's moored at the public moorings off the Botanical Gardens five miles upriver. While it's nice to be downtown within walking distance of beer, food and sights, I would hate this anchorage because of the daily surge and river current that sends a boat squirreling around at anchor!

I'm happy to be on land and exploring new places! Tomorrow we move the boat up the coast to Moreton Bay Boat Club out of Scarborough where we will live aboard for a few months while land traveling to Syndey. Let you know more later...

Are we there, yet?...Passage to Australia

Wizard sailing in Marquesas! Seems sooo long ago....

11/8 Friday
Seven days passage from New Caledonia to Australia
The vastness of the ocean is hard to explain to one who has not seen it and been on it for days on end. The ocean goes on for miles and miles the sameness, the blueness…it’s like a desert…it’s unimaginable until you experience it.  It’s lonely and barren and the chances of seeing another boat are rare…so, when we came upon S/V “Stork” floating on the horizon we were surprised.  We thought we’d left them at the dock in New Caledonia? We hailed on the VHF to find they were having engine problems, so we “stood by” as is mariner’s custom until they got it sorted out and waved us off.  We both motor/sail into the sunset, each of us laying for Brisbane, but on slightly different headings.
The weather window we chose to leave on had a few days of calm in the forecast.  We have been motor-sailing for two days solid.  I for one am enjoying the motion of no motion.  John wants more wind to sail as we can “tic off the miles” faster under full sail.
11/9 Saturday
Only 120 miles left to the 763-mile passage! Yahoo! | I just can’t wait for the end! To tell the truth, this seven-day passage has been almost boring. No it is boring. I’ve read all the books I brought. I’m tired of our music choices and I don’t want to cook or clean anymore.  I’m re-reading old Latitude 38 magazines because I’ve nothing else to read!  In fact, I’m just staring out at the “big blue” with no thoughts and nothing to think about. Crazy.
Watching the clouds, now…look up the different formations to learn that the flat blanket -white-across-the-sky is Cirrus Stratus. If the shapes start to get holes, turn into puffy white shapes, then evaporation is happening and a change to fair weather is coming…these are the things we study and think about on passage.
We’ve been motoring for two whole days…not enough wind to push the sails.
4:00pm
 See a sailboat on the horizon…it’s S/V “Stork” dead in the water with engine failure…we “stand by” ready to assist if needed…what are we going to do? Luckily, after 15 minutes, the engine fires back up…away they sail headed like us to Brisbane.  Makes me thankful that our engine is super and never failed (well, one time crossing to Marquesas) and if it did, what a LONG passage it would make while waiting for wind!
8:00pm
 Clear skies, winds start to freshen up… 20knots… were sailing again! But with beam swells hitting us, it’s a bumpy, lumpy ride!
-See a tanker on the horizon…. using our AIS locator we learn the name of vessel; it’s speed, destination and hour of impact if it were to cross our path! I hail the vessel on VHF radio…”Do you see the sailboat on your port side?”…again, I must be waking these Captains up…No , he does not SEE us on his instruments until I ask him to look …Yes, and he sees us. Luckily, I have 3 miles to get this acknowledgement. Again we have plenty of ocean room for passing. This happened three times this night!  Three more tankers need to be called! Later we learned we were crossing the shipping lanes out of Brisbane, Australia, a major exporting port!
1:30pm
John is hand steering and we are both up on watch, me calling freighters and he trying to hold a course. There is too much “weather-helm” for the Monitor wind vane to hold a course.
11/10 Sunday
6:00am
Land Ho! We see shapes of land -Australia in the distance! Rough choppy seas heading for North West entrance to Moreton Bay….20 miles to go!
I’m excited to land in Australia! Never did I think I would sail here! Amazing. The entrance to the Brisbane Harbor through Moreton Bay sounds intimidating. It’s just a big shallow bay spilling out from Brisbane River with many shoal areas. There are many past wrecks marked on the charts!
We are navigating by an app from Navionics  loaded on my ipad! The electronic charts we bought for the South Pacific have ENDED at Australia! Just a big brown blob of land with no details. Apparently, Australia is not part of the South Pacific! We knew we were going in minus paper charts, so we are very happy to report the Navionics App on ipad is very detailed and awesome!

Docked at Rivergate Marina, Brisbane, Australia

5:00pm
 Docked at Rivergate Marina for Customs and Immigration. We are on a locked, gated dock unable to go ashore until the custom officers inspect the vessel. This will be in the morning as we arrived late Sunday evening. We are five miles up muddy Brisbane River, passing the industrial port, riding the tidal flow upstream with cement factories, gas terminals, loading freighters, billowing smoke stacks pouring brown gases over the booming city of Brisbane.

New and modern Rivergate Marina is the Customs and port of entry.

We tie up at dockside under a huge circus lighted freeway bridge with airplanes flying over and the rumble of city noise going past. We did it! We sailed to Australia! We “high-five” each other and just can’t believe it!  Time for many beers!

Our night-scape at Rivergate Marina under the freeway bridge!

Reflections:
Have I enjoyed this sailing adventure? Yes! I’m glad I did it. It has satisfied my dreams of visiting far off places. We've met so many interesting people, experienced so many new customs and cultures while "pushing my comfort zone" many times!  Would I do this again? No, I’m done for now. At least, with sailing adventure. We both have had our “fill” of the unknowns…and maybe even traveling. I’m ready for home and routine and yes, maybe it will be boring, but I'm ready for that now…
John and I have been talking about what we’ll do when we get home. This really is the end of a long adventure and we both really want a break. The sailing part of our lives is over. What we’ll do next? Let’s wait to see…

Australia is really the "Land of Plenty"! Our first stop is to re-supply at Kmart!

Back to the land of plenty...Australia is much like the US in abundance and quality!

It's Christmas time in the land down under!

Christmas decorations on Wizard!

The next few days will be spent resting and preparing for a small sail up the coast to Scarborough and to the Moreton Bay Yacht Club where we will be "sub-letting" another cruiser's boat slip. This will be our "home" for the next few months while we travel by caravan to Sydney to see the sights!