![\"\"](\"http:\/\/talkie-walkie.us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/DSC02288-e1528893434368.jpg\")
<\/a>Brisbane<\/p><\/div>\n
Looking out from Noosa National Park<\/p><\/div>\n Noosa is a great place with almost all the Australian clich\u00e9s condensed in a peninsula: tropical rainforests, amazing beaches, kangaroos, surfers, and if you\u2019re lucky enough apparently Koalas too (we weren\u2019t!). 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.<\/p>\n From Noosa, we continued to Fraser Island the next day. Fraser Island is the largest island composed exclusively of sand in the world \u2013 something like 120km long and 15km wide \u2013 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!<\/p>\n Happy for Fraser Island<\/p><\/div>\n A cool dip at Lake McKenzie on Fraser<\/p><\/div>\n The SS Maheno shipwreck<\/p><\/div>\n Dingos<\/p><\/div>\n The Carlo Sand Blow at Rainbow Beach<\/p><\/div>\n 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\u2019ll see most of the towns, if you take an exit on the right side there\u2019ll be some beaches and coast, and if you turn left that\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n Bundaberg downtown<\/p><\/div>\n Another stop along the coast at 1770 (yeah, that’s actually the town name)<\/p><\/div>\n Inside the Capricorn Caves<\/p><\/div>\n Searching for platypus at Finch Hatton Gorge<\/p><\/div>\n Philippe recording the waves at Cape Hillsborough<\/p><\/div>\n Views over Cape Hillsborough<\/p><\/div>\n 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).<\/p>\n One of the Whitsunday islands<\/p><\/div>\n The heart reef<\/p><\/div>\n The Hill Inlet<\/p><\/div>\n 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\u2026 similar to a manatee) and sea turtles.<\/p>\n C\u00e9dric’s “half-cow, half dolphin:” the Dugong<\/p><\/div>\n Horseshoe Bay in Bowen<\/p><\/div>\n Looking out over Townsville on Castle Hill<\/p><\/div>\n Paluma National Park<\/p><\/div>\n Wallaman Waterfall from the top…<\/p><\/div>\n … and the bottom<\/p><\/div>\n 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 \u2013 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 \u2013 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\u2026 I am sure that he got to see even nicer and cuter fishes with those chemicals\u2026 Marie-Claude however joined the group of motion sick people hoping to see the shore as soon as possible on the way back!<\/p>\n The Kuranda markets<\/p><\/div>\n The Barron Falls<\/p><\/div>\n More koalas!<\/p><\/div>\n A wallaby getting some attention from Philippe<\/p><\/div>\n A jungle trek through the Mossman Gorge<\/p><\/div>\n A wild boar (look closely on the path) that nearly attacked Cassie<\/p><\/div>\n A cassowary<\/p><\/div>\n A male cassowary with its young (the males do all the child rearing)<\/p><\/div>\n A green sea turtle<\/p><\/div>\n 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\u2026 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 \u2013 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\u2019s Hall of Fame in Longreach). Along the road, some towns appear \u2013 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.<\/p>\n A curtain fig tree near Yungaburra<\/p><\/div>\n The waterfalls near Milla Milla<\/p><\/div>\n Downtown Charters Tower<\/p><\/div>\n Exploring Porcupine Gorge<\/p><\/div>\n An outback morning with emus<\/p><\/div>\n Cleaning up some old dino bones found near Winton<\/p><\/div>\n Exploring Carnarvon Gorge (yes, another gorge)<\/p><\/div>\n Original Aboriginal rock art<\/p><\/div>\n Although that\u2019s 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\u2026 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!<\/p>\n 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!<\/p>\n The beard really works here<\/p><\/div>\n Roma’s Big Rig<\/p><\/div>\n C\u00e9dric trying to open a coconut<\/p><\/div>\n Happy that he at least got the outer shell off<\/p><\/div>\n Checking out North Stradbroke Island<\/p><\/div>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n