After a strong push starting in Taree to reach Gold Coast within a week, we had to pay a visit to the local bike shops and various DIY to pack up all our luggage and bicycle equipment within a plane-friendly dimension.

This means going from a tandem (over 3m), a trailer (almost 1,5m), a trailer-bag and six bike panniers/bags to one bike box of maximum 1,6m, one moving box and the trailer-bag … plus as much carry-on luggage as possible (that still needs to remain discreet enough – our airline only allows a 7kg handbag). Luckily, we are starting to have our organization optimized, but that still requires almost a full day.

Gold Coast being still over 100km away from Brisbane where my parents landed, we rented a car to meet them there after breakfast. They had to recover from the 10h time-difference so we spent the first day walking around Brisbane. Things that seemed almost normal to us after almost 2 months in Australia (and 2 months previously in NZ), was a novelty to them, like grocery stores and cities. Brisbane is not that amazing (sorry to say, but none of the Australian cities are top tourist sightseeing destinations to us…), so we ended our day after a short drive north to Noosa, a fancier coastal town and the beginning of our road trip around Queensland.

Brisbane

Looking out from Noosa National Park

Noosa is a great place with almost all the Australian clichés condensed in a peninsula: tropical rainforests, amazing beaches, kangaroos, surfers, and if you’re lucky enough apparently Koalas too (we weren’t!). Bonus, the water here is no longer too cold (like in NSW or Victoria at that time of the year), and not yet infested with crocodiles, sharks, deadly jellyfishes and other exciting Australian creatures.

From Noosa, we continued to Fraser Island the next day. Fraser Island is the largest island composed exclusively of sand in the world – something like 120km long and 15km wide – and that environment together with heavy annual precipitations has created some very unique landscapes and wildlife ecosystems. Still recovering from the jetlag and not confident enough to drive a 4WD into steep sand hills, we took an AWD bus tour around the island, and noticed how exhausting transcontinental flights can be when Philippe fell asleep whereas everyone else was desperately trying to catch anything to not be ejected from the seat on the bumpy tracks!

Happy for Fraser Island

A cool dip at Lake McKenzie on Fraser

The SS Maheno shipwreck

Dingos

The Carlo Sand Blow at Rainbow Beach

The next following days were a lot of driving, combined with smaller visits and other national parks along the way. The road number 1 basically goes in the middle between the ocean and the dividing range (the Australian mountains that stretch all along the east coast), so if you stay on the road you’ll see most of the towns, if you take an exit on the right side there’ll be some beaches and coast, and if you turn left that’ll be for rainforests, mountains and national parks! So, we went during the next three days across Bundaberg (sugar cane and rum capital of Australia), Rockhampton (steak-country music-city or also cattle-nightmare-city: depending if you arrive in the town on a cattle truck) where we officially entered the tropics, then we visited a wildlife rescue center in Yeppoon to finally spot a Koala, the Capricorn Caves and a platypus reserve.

Bundaberg downtown

Another stop along the coast at 1770 (yeah, that’s actually the town name)

Inside the Capricorn Caves

Searching for platypus at Finch Hatton Gorge

Philippe recording the waves at Cape Hillsborough

Views over Cape Hillsborough

After those few days in campsites and cheap motels, we went a bit more upscale at Airlie Beach for a full day of complete splurge (thanks dear parents!): a flight over the coral reef (and the iconic heart), then a boat tour around the Whitsunday islands including some coral reef snorkeling and amazing beaches (Whitehaven beach particularly).

One of the Whitsunday islands

The heart reef

The Hill Inlet

Back on the road heading north again, with a series of rainforest national parks on the left side (in the mountains): Conway conservation park, Paluma NP, Wallaman Falls – or right side in Bowen and Horseshoe Bay where we saw some Dugong (some kind of mutant animal, half-cow and half-dolphin… similar to a manatee) and sea turtles.

Cédric’s “half-cow, half dolphin:” the Dugong

Horseshoe Bay in Bowen

Looking out over Townsville on Castle Hill

Paluma National Park

Wallaman Waterfall from the top…

… and the bottom

We settled in Cairns for 4 nights to explore the surrounding area without having to think about a new place to find an accommodation. From Cairns we thus first went to the Kuranda market and the impressive Barron Falls as it was rainy (forget your image of Australia being a huge red desertic place, it seems like it rains every single day in northern Queensland!), then on the second day visited a Crocodile/fauna reserve to see a few of these crocs who forbid any swim on the northern Australian coast before finishing the day in Port Douglas where we had a thought for our friend Marssi who had worked there a few years ago. From Cairns, we also got to see the oldest forest in the world – with a rainforest have continuously grown in Daintree for 135 million years! We finished our stay in Cairns with a full day snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef – a rough ride 70km off the coast to reach the reef with amazing underwater scenery: all sorts of fishes across the whole color and size spectrum, small sharks, some green turtles, and corals everywhere! Philippe, being worried days before the boat trip, took the maximum number of sea-sickness pills allowed all day long… I am sure that he got to see even nicer and cuter fishes with those chemicals… Marie-Claude however joined the group of motion sick people hoping to see the shore as soon as possible on the way back!

The Kuranda markets

The Barron Falls

More koalas!

A wallaby getting some attention from Philippe

A jungle trek through the Mossman Gorge

A wild boar (look closely on the path) that nearly attacked Cassie

A cassowary

A male cassowary with its young (the males do all the child rearing)

A green sea turtle

From Cairns, we had to make our way back to Brisbane and decided to take a different route through the inland of the country and get to see the (in)famous outback. That meant even more kilometers, but a completely different scenery. Going inland, the rainforest disappears on the mountain divide to first fruit orchards, then cereal fields, soon after comes the savanna and cattle farms, and the further inland you get, the less trees there are… until the landscape becomes an endless view of burnt grass with very sparse cattle farms spread over hundreds of kilometers. It is amazing to see that people live in such remote areas – and difficult to imagine how it may have been when the first settlers arrived without modern communication tools (we got an overview of their life at the Stockman’s Hall of Fame in Longreach). Along the road, some towns appear – either farming centers and a cow-boy atmosphere, or more mining communities. We hiked through a few national parks: the remote Porcupine Gorge, the Millaa Millaa waterfalls, the Carnarvon NP or the Australian Dinosaur Fossil center.

A curtain fig tree near Yungaburra

The waterfalls near Milla Milla

Downtown Charters Tower

Exploring Porcupine Gorge

An outback morning with emus

Cleaning up some old dino bones found near Winton

Exploring Carnarvon Gorge (yes, another gorge)

Original Aboriginal rock art

Although that’s not going to change financial status much, we also found a few Sapphires while prospecting in the Gemfields area! The first challenge was first to figure out how does a Sapphire looks like… cause while paying attention to the pile of sand, a lot of small stones look really cute (but are for sure completely worthless). Some of the Sapphires we found are worth to be polished and Marie-Claude even found a small one that could be cut by a jeweler: the bigger challenge might now be to find a jeweler able to actually cut a sapphire!

We finished our trip in Queensland back on the coast off of Brisbane, on the North Stradbroke Island for a last snap of the Pacific Ocean, the tropical forests, the endless empty beaches, and the kangaroos pausing for the pictures!

The beard really works here

Roma’s Big Rig

Cédric trying to open a coconut

Happy that he at least got the outer shell off

Checking out North Stradbroke Island

After a night drive back to the Gold-Coast, we decided to spend our last 24h relaxing in the area – no cycling, no driving, not much but walking around and along the coast, and catching a last glimpse of Australia before our early flight the next day.

Out last Australian beach walks for a long while

Those three weeks have been an enjoyable break from our daily routine of cycling, camping, eating. Even though, it was a little difficult to adapt the two rhythms of us and my parents at first, especially after their jetlag and our 5 months habits touring, we managed things better and better over the days – and finally the three weeks went by extremely fast (that was also the first time in a decade that we had been that long together!). It was also a good thing to catch up news in Europe – the few online messages and cutting skype conversation not being always very easy.

Since we had so many people taking pictures of us, we had them use our camera too

Disappointment on Cédric’s face upon seeing that we can’t have a quiet lunch – and Cycling Paulie in the background!

The next day, Cédric and I biked our last stretch of road going slowly down the Mt Warning valley, dodging aggressive farm dogs patrolling the roads, then through sugar cane fields and finally our last Australian hills before ending up in Tweed Heads, where we spent the afternoon and next day relaxing, cleaning up and preparing the bike for our flight to Singapore.

Mt. Warning, the peak on the right

Views of Gold Coast before making our final descent into Tweed Heads

Lunch on the shores of the Tweed River

Our reward for making it to our destination – Mexican dinner and a beer!

Due to Cedric’s parents early arrival (the strikes of Air-France made them prepone their flight two days earlier), we had to bike much longer distances from Taree – and averages over 90km/day instead of the usual 70-75km. Taking the inland road did not help with a much hillier route. That left the bike not very well maintained, body tiredness and a growing medical issue of saddle-sore (solved after several days of not riding). We spent the two days in Tweed Heads solving the different problems, replacing the saddle (the Brooks took an earlier flight back to Europe after 10000km), changing the chains (which is a big challenge for the front one on the Hase Pino), tires, break-pads, etc.

Ocean views from Pt. Maquerie

Boarding yet another ferry

Break time on a quiet dirt road

After quickly packing the bike the next morning, Cédric and I joined the Pacific Highway for a few kilometers before turning off on a much quieter road that lead towards Macksville. As we continued north, it became very apparent that we were entering a tropical climate because we passed by multiple road side stands selling coconuts, pineapples, and bananas. At one spot, we stopped to buy some bananas from a field, but we chose ones that weren’t ripe enough – which was a surprise for the first bite – a mouthful of banana flour! It was along this stretch of road, between Macksville and Coffs Harbor that we noticed an uptick in koala crossing signs but didn’t see one (we had very little hopes of spotting them on 30m high Eucalyptus forests, while riding our bike). We treated ourselves to a motel that night, but we couldn’t quite kick our camping habits and Cédric got yelled at for cooking noodles on the stove outside of our hotel door: apparently, it’s okay to do a BBQ in an Australian motel, but not to boil water for noodles.

Running away from the mosquitoes

The bike lane on the highway… we’re not the only ones doing this!

We go bananas for farm stand bananas!

Our lunch table with the traveling kilo of hummus

Checking out Coffs Harbor by night

Although our initial plan was to continue cycling up the coast, we noticed that there was no highway shoulder on our way into Coffs Harbor (we noticed this from a bike path next to the highway). Instead of attempting another few kilometers on the highway, which was unavoidable on the coastal route into Grafton, we decided to take the inland route, which was a hillier option. Taking the inland road also meant staying away from the coast almost all the way to Gold Coast the next days. From Coffs, the tropical vegetation melted into eucalypt forest as we passed by many small towns along the way. Since the day cycling was exceptionally long and hilly, we treated ourselves to ribs and pizza which we had delivered directly to the tent in a corner of the campground (somehow one more night of noodles doesn’t sound so great when you’re exhausted).

Refreshed after a night in a motel

The big yellow dog

Pizza and ribs delivered straight to our corner of the campsite

The next day, we decided to continue avoiding the highway by cutting inland once again in the direction of Casino (although no casinos there). To reach Casino that day, we needed to cycle well over 100 kilometers through uneventful eucalypt forests. Sometime while cycling, we caught the attention of an old surfer hippy who stopped twice to take pictures/videos of us from the side of the road. After the second time he stopped to take pictures, I told Cédric to stop so we could jokingly ask him for beers in Casino. (Whenever we are filmed while cycling, I tell Cédric that the person owes us a beer/coke/coffee because they were doing this without asking us). As I got off the bike and approached the guy, he immediately knew what I was after and gave us a bag of kale chips and handfuls of almonds from a garbage bag (he told us that he takes the bag with him when he surfs, so he can snack in the water). We also got into a discussion (at least tried) with him about our route for the next few days and he started rattling off the names of towns and his tips (ex. “the Gold Coast is pretty freaky,” “the Hare Krishnas have a Sunday feast in Murwillumbah,” and something about Mullumbimby). He then continued a 10min monologue about towns in the area that sounded to us more like funny sounds then anything we would remember on a map “you should go to bimbim bulum bambalam wolom and bulumbimbi…”. He continued his performance, never looking at either of us but instead always looking up the trees, which made us think that he was also probably expert in local funny mushrooms and was most likely talking to our auras. To break his monologue we told him that we really had to leave before sunset. Since we were sure his mind might have been medicinally altered at that point, we let him drive off first before we continued riding our magical rainbow machine to Casino, where we stayed at a campsite that was hosting the Australian Avan caravan annual meetup.

A good example of what we saw the whole way between Grafton and Casino

Coastal views from Terrigal

The coast of Newcastle

The next day, Cédric and I were waved off by Pippin as we boarded our next ferry, the Stockton in downtown Newcastle, to cross the Hunter River. Although the coastal region between Newcastle and Nelson Bay looks quite sparse, Cédric and I were again surprised to find the roads busy and multiple ‘over 50’s lifestyle communities’ scattered along the side of Nelson Bay road. As we made our way up to the next ferry, we were again wondering how there could be so much traffic for a road that essentially goes nowhere. When we boarded the ferry in Nelson Bay, the captain told us that the bike and trailer needed to be stored on the roof of the ferry (it was a small vessel), so we had a few entertaining moments of hoisting and lowering at the beginning and end of the trip. As we had feared, the bike did topple over on the journey to Tea Gardens, but luckily nothing was damaged, and the bike didn’t get a swim in the ocean. Our night was spent at a campsite on the shore.

Taking a quick ferry across the river

Bye bye Newcastle!

Enormous bats, ‘flying foxes,’ hanging from the trees

Boarding the second ferry

The view from our campsite

Cedric and I awoke the next day and continued cycling up the coast in the Myall Lakes National Park, stopping every now and then to take pictures of the beaches and lakes. As our host Scott had suggested, we turned off the main road onto a 4×4 trail that continued hugging the coast. Lucky for us (and not the people who had 4×4 vehicles), the road was gated, so we had 20 kms of trails just for ourselves. After our roadside lunch, we continued up the road to a campsite in Tiona.

What is this, a drinking fountain for ants?

Dinner hiding from the mosquitoes

For our second stop of Tour-de-McLeod, Cédric and I planned to stay with Andrew’s brother Hugh in Taree, so we continued cycling up the coast through Forster and Tuncurry until, unfortunately, there was no other option besides the joining the highway -this time for 9 kms. We had wide enough shoulders, but still didn’t enjoy the traffic and noise. Once we get off at the Taree exit, Cédric and I stopped at McDonald’s to reward ourselves with a “survival coffee” (name written on signs on the roads in Australia to suggest getting a coffee before falling asleep on never ending highways – for us the survival coffee was more about sharing the highway with intense high-speed traffic…) before heading into the city. The rest of the day was spent chatting and walking around Taree with Hugh.

Since Cédric and I were on a time constraint, we work up early the next morning and headed out in the direction of Port Macquarie. To avoid the highway as much as possible, we first headed into the farmland (and passed the Big Oyster – Australia has a thing for large novelty architecture), before rejoining the highway for another few kilometers. As soon as we could, we joined a road that took us to Crowdy Bay National Park. Along the road that goes through the park, we were met with swarms of bloodthirsty mosquitoes every time we took a break to eat and drink. We also stopped to check out a beautiful beach near Diamond Head and were surprised to see multiple kangaroos eating grass right next to the beach. The kangaroos were so preoccupied with eating that they didn’t mind if we approached them to take pictures. We spent the rest of the afternoon cycling the undulating road up the coast to Port Macquarie, where we stayed for the night.

That’s a big oyster

Realizing how much we’ve done and how much we have left

From Gunning the next morning, Cédric and I took detours and back country roads to stay off the Hume Highway for as long as possible. Although biking on the highway seems like the most illogical and unreasonable thing to do, it’s apparently acceptable in Australia since there is a paved shoulder that’s the width of an entire lane (there are even signs on the highway alerting drivers to cyclists). We managed to only bike 6kms in total between Goulburn and the nearest country road on the highways and finished the evening camping on someone’s backyard.

Leaving the campsite in Gunning

Our seclude lunch spot: an old chapel and graveyard

Asking the information center in Goulburn if there was any other option to taking the Hume motorway

The next day, Cédric an I ventured into the extended suburbs of Sydney. Our morning started on rough and heavily corrugated country backroads, but they soon turned into heavily trafficked the moment it became paved again. As we rolled into Moss Vale for lunch, the day had a cool, crisp autumn feeling with some trees already turning red and ochre hues. Not too fond of the sudden uptick in cars and people, we turned back to what we believed to be a quieter region in Hill Top. However, as we climbed our last hill to Cole Vale, it became extremely apparent that we had entered the outer fringes of Sydney’s suburbs – although still 100km away from the downtown – and farmland became interspersed with typical suburban houses. As the sun was setting, we managed to find an abandoned cottage off the side of the road for the evening (as a bonus, it had a nice Blair Witch Project spooky feel).

Apparently the only picture we took that day

Once we woke up and packed our things, Cédric and I decided to end our day in Sydney. In order to do so, we’d have to make it to one of the train stations servicing the outer rim of the city. Luckily, we had gravity on our side (descending from 700 meters to sea level), so we managed to zip down through Picton rather quickly. From there, we climbed our only hill of the day, Mt. Hercules (which sounds scarier than it actually was!), before descending into Sydney’s suburbs. What remains of farmland steadily decreased as we progressed through Camden and its shopping malls and housing developments before reaching the Leppington train station (and still 60km from the iconic opera house!). Once in Sydney, we used up the remaining minutes of daylight to take pictures in front of Sydney opera house and find our hotel in Dawes Point, right under the harbor bridge.

We survived the night!

From the top of Mt. Hercules

Nothing better than beers and fries!

The next morning, Cédric and I continued our tour of Sydney by visiting the opera house, botanical gardens, and downtown business center. The skyscrapers, constant noise, and traffic overwhelmed our senses and we were happy to leave by midday. Sydney is a huge city, but a few hours was enough to see most of the main sights (the opera house is facing the main bridge and you have to walk through the business district and its skyscrapers to go from the first place to the second – that’s in short about all main places to see in Sydney). We took a ferry across the Sydney Harbor to Manly, where we had Warmshowers hosts. As we passed by many of Sydney’s neighborhoods on the shores, we noticed a black plume of smoke rising alarmingly close to our location for the night (it turned out to be controlled fires, that became uncontrolled for a while, before being re-controlled again, a few blocks from where we stayed). After getting off the ferry, we slowly biked to our host’s place, taking a few stops at the beaches along the way to watch the surfers and swimmers. That night, we were treated to kangaroo steaks and the wonderful hospitality of Scott (who cycled from London to Sydney a few years ago) and Helen (who may soon be convinced to take on bike touring) and their two budding cyclists.

All aboard the Manly Ferry!

The ‘controlled’ fire

The next morning, which happened to be Anzac (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Day, Cédric and I got off to a late start due to morning showers and some bike maintenance, but we were fortunate to have Scott join us for the first few kilometers. Afterwards, we rode north to try to catch the second east coast ferry in Palm Beach, but since we missed the noon ferry by a few minutes, we had to wait another two hours on the Palm Beach shore. Compared to the Manly ferry, this one required more maneuvering and balance on the narrow docks as we were loading and unloading the Hase Pino and trailer. Our day met another unexpected delay when we disembarked in Patonga (instead of Wagstaff, due to low tides), so that meant more distance and hills before nightfall. Around 5pm, Cédric and I stopped on the side of the road near Terrigal to figure out if we’d make it to a campsite near The Entrance before nightfall (realizing that it was still 20km away). As we were discussing possible routes, we were greeted by Anne, who ended up inviting us into her home across the street for both dinner and a bed. It was yet another time in Australia where we were blown away by the generosity of utter strangers and we’re deeply thankful for her and Pete’s kindness.

When we have to wait, we eat!

Our last picture before trying to get to The Entrance as fast as we can