We recently spent a week tripping around Queensland...the Sunshine State. Naturally, we'd planned a lot of outdoor activities including a week of camping, bombing over to Fraser Island and even some vineyards in the South Burnett area.
The only bummer with an area that prides itself on outdoor activities is that you can be a little screwed if it rains.
Which it did. On 5 out of 8 days. Hmmm!
Arrived in Brisbane at 9am Aussie time following one of those cute early morning flights. Picked up our rental car and headed out to grab our tent from a local shop. It was warm and a little windy in Brisbane as we headed out to the Sunshine Coast. Where it got windier. And started to rain.
Eventually made it to the
Tewantin Big 4 - a nice campsite just out of Noosa. Pitched the tent (in between rain showers) and poked around Noosa a little. It looks like even the ultra-touristy super-moneyed town of Noosa is struggling to grab the tourist dollar with the recession.
The tent and terrible rental car
Mistake #1 - Oz Trail tents are not designed to work in the rain as we discovered the next day with a lot of wet gear from leaks overnight.
Still, the locals were interesting (even the noisy kookaburras!):
Due to the ongoing rain, we decided to bust out of Noosa and headed north to Hervey Bay. To allow the gear to dry out, we grabbed a luxury cabin (complete with spa bath!!) in
Fraser Lodge. A really nice camp ground although very few tenting options. Most people were in caravans although there were a few large campervans.
Hervey Bay was nice and larger than expected with beautiful beaches which we couldn't enjoy to the fullest courtesy of the weather. Although there were some breaks in the rain, it seemed stupid to spend $175 AUD each for a day getting drenched on Fraser Island, so we decided to head further north again.
Mistake #2 - planning outdoor activities in Queensland!
Toured up towards Rockhampton via Bundaberg and the town of Seventeen Seventy. Bundaberg was significantly affected by the Queensland floods earlier this year and we struggled to find the signage to the distillery which was disheartening so we left! Seventeen Seventy was cute - a small beach front town that marked the spot where James Cook entered Australia. There was more evidence here that Australia has been hit by the recession when you saw the shells of uncompleted beach-front property being reclaimed by nature.
Rockhampton was a surprise. Although it was also seriously affected by the floods and is clearly a junction town, the architecture was pretty by the water front. The food was excellent. We had drinks and then dinner at the
Heritage Hotel and I had one of the nicest eye fillets I have ever eaten...after nibbling on crocodile spring rolls of course! We were a little disappointed by the drive out to Yeppoon, a small sea-side town on the Capricorn Coast, although the mood may have been affected by the weather clouding over again. Unfortunately we didn't have time to visit the
Capricorn Caves however that would have been a good couple of hours.
Statue of Rod Laver - Rockhampton's tennis claim to fame. Bit of a self-promoter - he helped to unveil it himself...
Having dried out again we thought we'd give the tent another go and headed inland via the A3 towards Cania Gorge. We were hoping that unlike the M1 and A1 north there might be more to look at from the road rather than scrubby trees. Unfortunately, this road was just as dull with an absolutely shocking road surface - to the degree we got air off some of the bumps. Queensland specialises in MAMBA - miles and miles of bugger all.
Mistake #3 - expecting interesting sights from the road. Although we did see a number of dead wallabies and a very large lizard making a break for the other side.
We stopped at a campground in
Cania Gorge National Park. Not a bad effort however we were glad of the decision to self-cater - options were a little thin for food. The only snake we saw was squished on the road up to the campground! Unfortunately the weather-proofing system for the tent (a tarp cover) was so noisy we took it down at about 11pm...then it rained again! We took that as a sign to give up on camping.
Mistake #4 - camping in Australia.
The tip of the gorge is Lake Cania Dam...note the rain!
There are a number of bush walks around the gorge - this is the Two Tier rock trip route:
Following another disappointing night we decided to high-tail it back towards Brisbane with the hope that the weather had cleared out enough to go to Fraser Island (it hadn't). Instead, we grabbed a lovely
apartment in Bribie Island for three nights.
Bribie has nice beaches however lacked the typical waterfront eateries. It was a nice place to visit and take time out (something we actually needed!) however not a place you could live long-term. The number of fast food joints here was pretty scary - has no one heard of cooking local produce?!
Woorim Beach:
Toddled over to the Australian Zoo (of Steve Irwin fame)...once again in the rain. This one is even too touristy for a zoo! Taronga Zoo in Sydney is better. Still - the koalas were cute :)
This is a perentie apparently!
Overall we spent very little time in Brisbane although cruised through Scarborough
and then Mt Coot-Tha on the last day for some views of the city.
Overall? A mixed experience. We covered about 2000km during the trip and there was very little to see on the major roads. It was evident that any off-roading needed proper kit - most of the 4x4's were kitted out with extra tyres, roo bars/bumper replacements etc. It was striking how few campervans and tents were on the road or in the campgrounds - the campgrounds were primarily full of caravans and people were often quite hemmed in. The car was a shocker too although would have been better if we'd actually got the manual we asked for instead of an auto. The Queensland roads were really bumpy which may have been related to the floods in January.
Other striking problems were the lack of good cafes to eat on the way - apparently Queenslanders survive on Maccas and Red Rooster - and many of the towns were much smaller than expected. We were hamstrung by the weather which altered many plans - not much point camping in the vineyards if your tent keeps leaking! There were some nice days though, especially in Bribie, and Rockhampton was a surprise.
What would we do differently? For starters, I think we've given up on driving around Aussie at present which is a shame as its something we generally enjoy. The endless miles of nothing interesting to see were unexpected. I think we'll give the camping a miss too - plan for motels/hotels/cabins etc instead. Local travel via rail (seems a little variable) or more likely domestic flights makes more sense - we had considered making it to Cairns or Townsville however the distance was just too much (Cairns is 1700km by road from Brisbane!).
I think we'll go back to basing ourselves in one place and travelling from there which has been the more typical pathway in Aussie e.g. tripping around from Sydney. If we went back to Queensland, we'd probably use the cities as a base to see other areas e.g. the Whitsundays or Port Douglas.
Still, for once we've actually wanted to leave Aussie! The Sunshine State hasn't won me over.
The Rose
