28/12 - Weather

Ho... the weather is getting worse and worse.
It is unbelievable, the end of December is the middle of the summer here in the Southern Hemisphere, but the weather has some different plans.
A great cyclone storm cancelled our plans to go to Fraser Island - One of our "musts" in Queensland, we have to go on and travel in the rain, it is raining here all day every day since we arrived to Gladstone. That wasn't in our plan, but we could not do anything about it.

At the nice town - Bandenberg we found shelter from the drops in a cooper's place (the one who makes the barrels for wines or rum), had a nice dinner at KFC (for the first time here in Aussie) and spend hours on an Internet service, all the ways just not to be under the rain.

In Childers we met a nice lady at the visitor information center who showed a lot of care and respect to Israel, later on we tasted one of the best Ice creams in the world (Ginger Ice-Cream) !

We arrived to Mariborogh while the sky were so dark you could think it was night time by mistake, we visited a really nice museum, it functioned as a grocery store for 100 years, all the products are still in the shelves, everything so antique. very interesting, very recommended, we probably asked the Lady who worked there a million questions about the time back than.

Eventually we arrived to the Sunshine Coast while there was no sun shining of course, but that is for another post.

We added some photos, check it out...

have fun,

Efrat & Yoni.

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20/12 - WhitSunday

Hi All,

people say that WhiteHaven beach in Whitsunday island is one of the most beautiful beaches in the world! it is part of the Great Barrier Reef (for those who never heard of it, look it up in Google or something), well, it's true! it is an amazing beach, but the only frustrating thing about it is that you can not go there by yourself, there are no self transportation to the island, the only way you can reach there is with an organized tour, which makes it:
A-very very touristic,
B-very very expansive.





At Airlie Beach, which is the place you book for a tour and from there the ferries go to the islands, we had a lot of second thoughts whether to take this tour or not, eventually we decided to go for it.
Beside the beach we did some snorkeling, here we found out that Great Beerier Reef is a wonderful place to snorkel, everything here was so colorful, so rich with fishes and corals, Yoni got really lucky during that time, he spotted a big sea turtle and followed him. the experience was hard to describe in words, swim beside a sea turtle, that is something you don't get to do everyday, does it ?



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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19/12 - Hideaway Beach

We arrived to Hideaway beach after a warm recommendation by Denny, at this un-touristic place we found out that we are the only people in the beach, it is only 50 km south of one of the most touristic places in the east Australian coast and the differences were unbelievable.

The beach was beautiful, we enjoyed it very much, and we take this opportunity to say thanks to Denny.



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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18/12 - Magnetic Island

Hi All,
The first island we visit in Australia, in this continent the prices for ferries are unreasonable, a one way and return would cost the normal guy 23 (Australian) dollars, while the same journey with a car on the ferry, would cost 150 dollars !!! that's a rip off. Anyway, now you know why we traveled in this island for the first time since we bought it, without our portable home.

We got a little bit disappointed from the tracks and from the snorkeling, the 2 main reasons why we came to this island.
We have picked the longest track in the island, it was called - "West Point" and it is 16 km return, during that time we couldn't see the ocean, the route was not exactly a typical bush route, the walk was mainly on the vehicle gravel road, and to do it return ? what's the point at that if you don't see interesting things on the way ? BUT, the beaches at the end of this track where one of the best we have seen in Queensland.





At Florance bay we went to snorkel, "this is the most beautiful place to snorkel" we have been told, so after we rented the snorkeling equipment we found out this is a nice place but nothing more, the reefs and corals at Thailand are much better than here, in Yoni's opinion.



The atmosphere in the island itself reminded us a bit of Thailand islands, everything was lay back and everybody seemed to have all the time in the world.

that's it for now,
Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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26/12 - Agnes Water & 1770

Hi All,

The main reasons we arrived to these twin beach towns were:
1. Learn how to surf
2. Go for a sailing cruise to one of the Great Barrier reef islands called - lady Musgrave.

Due to the stormy weather, we couldn't do any one of them.
There are some short tracks here, nothing special, we did some of them, but these are beach towns, and people come here to lay in the beaches and not to hike.



we spent probably 24 hours here and got out while the weather was getting worse.



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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25/12 - Gladstone

Hi All,

We thought the best way to celebrate Christmas is to do it with a local family.
Chiburim organization is a group of good Christiane people who love Israel and willing to host the Israelis around the world. We found Kerry,Esmond and their daughter - Sarrah through this organization's web-site, they agreed to host us and it has been a pleasure for us and a wonderful experience.
The timing was excellent since we arrived to Gladstone after a long wet night in the car, we found some leaks from our sun-roof and we got covered with water all night long, at the morning our bed was soaking wet. Over Kerry and Essmond's place we could dry our stuff and re-organize for the next rain to come (including fixing the roof).
We had many long conversations about Christmas, Christianity, Judaism and the similarity between them.
We definitely spent good time in Gladstone, we got to see the town and it's Christmas lights in the Christmas eve. and the day later we visited their church.



have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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23/12 - Eungella

Hi all,

People mainly come to Eungella National Park to see the very interesting animal - The Platypus.
It seems this is one of the most unique animals in the world, it is a mammal which lay eggs, it has feet of a croc, body of a mole, it swims in the water as a duck, it has hair of a horse and god only knows what's his purpose in life ...
well, we couldn't see this animal, it is very hard to spot it, you need to be very quite for a long time during night time and than maybe you get lucky and see it for a few seconds ... we didn't get this luck (ran out probably in Whitsunday island)



BUT - the walking tracks were impressive, most of them go in a humid tropic forest. We enjoyed this place although got bitten by leeches (needed to carry salt or matches in this place), the walks reminded us the trek in the Indian Himalayans 2.5 month ago.



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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16/12 - Townsville

Hi All,

This city declared the ending of the outback (the dry desert) and welcomed us to the very touristic west Australian coast, which represented by a tropic climate.
Nevertheless, we liked this place, we liked it a lot. we think this is the second most enjoyable city we have visited so far in Aussie (after Perth of course).
The city is very beautiful, it's strand ("Tayelet") is very clean, peaceful and impressive, we have seen many families spending a wonderful Sunday afternoon (it's the beginning of Christmas here) walking, eating on the Barbecue free facilities, playing at the water park and much more.



After a long day of exhosting procedures (trying to hook up with some "lifters"- partners), we visited "Castle hill" which showed us some breathtaking panoramic views of the city: Ross river which cross it as a snake form, the sea and of course Magnetic Island at the background (our next destination).



At ReefHQ - a big Aquarium which contains artificial coral reef, we have seen so many sea animals like sharks, colorful corals, snakes, poison blow-fishes, and many other kind of fishes which we can't exactly remember their names. we focused on the "deep water" section where we discovered for the first time glowing fishes (the glow is created by a special bacteria which they are born with) and a very rare crab (lives at the bottom of the ocean).



Have fun,
Efrat & Yoni.

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