Australia Archives - family_tripz

Coral Bay – We live by the Ningaloo Reef!

Wiola & Mike — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 11:53:28 +0000

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Work and Holiday Visa

In November 2016 the regulations for visa 462 holders changed. As a result, the holders of Work and Holiday Visa can apply for prolonging their stay for another year if they meet the certain criteria. The most important one is working for the minimum of 3 Months in a remote part of the Northern Australia. We were lucky enough to had been already employed in a remote Curtin Springs roadhouse in the middle of the desert of Northern Territory. By working there, we were able to not only apply for the second year visa but also save money for our future adventures. In addition, we could visit the famous Australian landmark, located nearby – aboriginal monolith Uluru.

Ningaloo Reef

Waters of Ningaloo Reef

The return to Australia

In the beginning of 2018 we came back to the Land Down Under after a year full of traveling and amazing adventures. This time we wanted to look for a job by the sea, close to the incredible beaches. We chose to look for a job in a remote corner of Western Australia as this region is famous for its beauty and it is far away from the big city’s hustle and bustle. Before our arrival we had sent out some emails with our resumes, but we did not hope for much. The plan was to buy a car in Perth and head North looking for a job on the way. Working in remote locations have some advantages. One of them is that most of the employers provide food and accommodation for the employees at a discounted price. That makes saving money so much easier. Our online job hunting turned out to be more effective than we assumed and we got a job offer in Coral Bay. After just few days in Perth, we booked our flights North to the Learmouth Airport, where we were picked up by our new employer.

Amazing shoreline

Coral Bay

Coral Bay is a small settlement inhabited by only about 300 people. It is located by the picturesque bay. In the high season a lot of tourist flock here to enjoy the scenery. They can chose from variety of accommodation. There are 2 hotels, backpackers hostel and 2 camping grounds/caravan parks. There is a small supermarket, a bakery, 2 cafes and 2 restaurants. We are working in one of them called Bill’s Bar. There is quite a few young travelers working here with the similar mindset to ours. Right after our arrival, we participated in the staff party. It took place on a boat and swimming with manta rays and snorkeling with sharks was a part of it. So incredible! The busy season is linked with the presence of marine life which seasonally visit local waters.

Panoramic view of Coral Bay

Ningaloo Reef

We have been to Coral Bay in Ningaloo Reef during our honeymoon road trip, 2 years ago. We had a time of our lives back then when we swam with the biggest fish in the sea – the whale shark. They come here every year between February and August. In addition, from June to September humpback whales migrate along the shore. So we knew that we won’t be bored in our free time. The Ningaloo reef is accessible straight from the beach. When it comes to the Great Barrier Reef in the East which is 15-30 km away from the mainland and you need a boat or an expensive boat trip. In Coral Bay, you can marvel at the underwater wonders everyday. All you need is a mask and a snorkel. In the shallow waters of the bay you can see a lot of fish in different colors and sizes. Near the beach we can often spot a blue dotted sting ray.

Two worlds of Coral Bay

Underwater highway

Snorkeling Ningaloo reef

Stingray in the shallows

The Circle of Live

Visiting Coral Bay at a particular part of the year brings some extra wildlife spotting opportunities. From September to February at nearby beaches accessible by 4wd track you can spot turtles hatching. Little ones rush towards the sea to avoid predators lurking on land and in the air. If you walk North along the shore from Coral Bay after more or less 700 meaters you will make it to the next bay known as the Skeleton Bay. Over there young reef sharks spend their juvenile months. They grow up in the shallow waters of the bay and venture towards the ocean once they adult. You can spot them from the shore from October to March. If somebody enters the waters they tend to run away, so by staying dry-footed you secure the best view. The best time to go is during low tide and when the water is calm. It guarantees the best possible visibility of the young carnivores.

Small Turtle, Five fingers Reef, Coral Bay

Shark highway

Baby Sharks

Chilling with Baby Sharks

Skeleton Bay

Beyond the reef…

Coral Bay is a place where Australian Outback meets the Coral Reef. You can not only enjoy underwater activities, but there is also a fair bit to do on land. You can enjoy the company of kangaroos which come to the beach in search of the food. In the evenings the sky is ablazed when the sun drops under the Indian Ocean. Sunset is not the end of photography opportunities, because the night sky is illuminated by billions of stars. The dry ecosystem and no light pollution creates a perfect viewing conditions for star gazing. You can easily spot our home galaxy – the Mily Way. In conclusion we are very lucky and greatful to be here. It is yet another proof that if a person sets his mind on a goal it eventually becomes reachable.

Beach time everybody!

Golden Sunset

Galactic Core

Amazing clouds on humid day

Milkyway and Magellan Clouds

Meet the locals

Time for little romance

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The biggest fish in the sea!

Wiola and Mike — Sun, 11 Mar 2018 00:11:00 +0000

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Ningaloo Reef in Western Australia

Whale shark snorkelling in Exmouth

So it finally happened! After a little chasing carousel around the globe (attempts in Maldives, Seychelles and Mexico), we managed to find this perfect spot! Ningaloo reef, located in the Western Australia Coast, by the Exmouth Gulf. This place seems to be a perfect, seasonal feeding destination for hundreds of whalesharks – true all you can eat buffet.

These animals still remain a huge mystery for humans. We only know they grow large (up to 18m). Those in Ningaloo are mostly juvenile males with average lenght of 5 – 7meters.

How they reproduce and most of their life cycle is still unknown and has been widely speculated by the scientists. These secrets make it clear that it’s all the mother nature that rules this world.

4 whale sharks spotted!

With this little introduction we can finally say that we saw 4 different whale sharks and swam with them, following their gentle moves at the back of their tails! This was a beautiful time filled with grace and melody provided by the elegant giants. They have an unique white dot pattern characterising every single one of them. They seem to be the absolute bosses of the ocean crew. Since they are wild animals the interaction with them is restricted by the australian law, which aims to minimalize the human impact on their daily rutines and mantain freedom.

Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia

Whaleshark, Exmouth, WA

Whale shark snorkelling

Are the whale sharks going to be there?

What are the chances of spotting the whale shark while on the boat?

In Australia, Ningaloo reef, it’s all directed from the sky! Every morning the plane takes off and starts to search for the shadows of the majestic creatures. As soon as they are located, the boat gets the updated directions of the whale sharks as well as the number of the animals present at the moment close to surface.

The whale shark rules

One of them can be interrupted by one boat only at a time, with a small group of people. When turists get their snorkel gear ready for the whaleshark fun, they jump into water asap and follow the animal.

It’s super important to stay behing its the side fins and no closer then 3 meters. It allows the whale shark to swim gently and do its own thing without disturbing it. If irritated, the fish can dive 500m deep and disappear.

The time with the boss of the ocean is limited. An hour would be the max! It’s enough though as the creature moves pretty quickly so you need to work hard to catch up! Experience of the lifetime guatanteed with the minimum risk! We highly recommed it! Our honemoon goal has just been fulfilled!

A selfie with the gentle giant

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Perth – We are back in Australia!

Wiola & Mike — Sat, 03 Mar 2018 02:45:29 +0000

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Beautiful South Perth

Just like 1,5 years ago, when we first came to Australia, we arrived to Perth again. The capital of Western Australia is a big city with its downtown filled with skyscrapers, but it still has this charming, cosy, little town-like atmosphere. We spent most of our time in South Perth. As usual, we were very lucky with couch surfing. We were staying on the edge of the park witch covers the entire South Bank of the Swan River. We could see the downtown towering in the distance at any time of the day. It is perfect spot to relax and marvel at the downtown. We did that while we had our morning coffee, when we went for a sunset walk and even when the big city lights illuminated the night. Whenever we wanted to go to CBD we just hopped on the ferry and after 5 minutes we were already in the downtown. The South Perth neighborhood was trully charming and if we ever visit this city again, we would love to stay there one more time.

Morning coffee time!

Sunset over downtown

Parks of South Perth

Beach by the Swan River

View from Kings Park

CBD at night

Oceanfront relax

Perth is well communicated with the nearby beaches. This time we chose to visit the famous Scarborough Beach. It is a long stretch of white sand at the coast of the Indian Ocean. Perfect! It turned out to be a windy day, but the local kitesurfer could not be more happy about it. There were a lot of them speeding across the choppy waters, everywhere we looked.

Back in the Land Down Under

We are full of hopes and very excited about being back in the Land Down Under for the second year. We are planning to visit Broome and the Kimberley Region. It is the only region we did not visit during our grand road trip because it is very remote. First things first ,we need to repair our budget a little bit, therefore we are heading to the Coral Bay by the Ningaloo Reef. You will hear more about it soon!

Western Australia Coastline

Kitesurfing time

Seaside relax

Scarborough Beach

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Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park

Wiola and Mike — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 08:44:00 +0000

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Ayers Rock

Uluru has been an inspiriation for travelers from around the globe to visit the land down under for over 60 years. That is right, just 60 years. The national park has been formally known as Ayers Rock but the original tribal name is now official one.

We were lucky enough to work on the Cattle Station Curtin Springs, which is located close to the famous rock. (you can read more about life in a dessert here)

We have learned from our bosses that when they came here back in 1950’s to start the cattle business, there where only 6 visitors come down the road in a whole year! It is really hard to imagine it now, knowing that the Ayers Rock resort – Yulara is visited by hundreds of thousands tourists each year.

It only has been late XX century when the touristic business escalated, road has been paved and all the hotels and amenities had been build.

Red Centre of Australia and Uluru

Amazing rock formation, Uluru

Uluru during sunset

Don’t mistake Mt Conner with Uluru!

With all that knowledge you can imagine how much the environment has changed in last decades for the local people living here. The Uluru Kata Tjuta National Park is located on aboriginal land and their people actively help to run in. To get here, you can fly in to the small airport at the resort, or take the Lesseter Highway from Alice Springs or unsealed road from Western Australia. If you are driving in from the East do not let Mt Conner fool you. It is not the Uluru that you see already. In fact, so many people mistook Mt Conner for Uluru that it earned a nickname Fooluru.

Watch Uluru at sunset or sunrise!

As you get closer to Yulara you will notice the huge, red monolith rising from the flat desert-like landscape. It is especially magnificent at sunset and sunrise when warm beams of the soft light bring out the colour of the rock. In fact, there are designed areas meant as the best spots to marvel at Uluru as the sun goes up or down. However, they may get little busy, so if you would like to have your own spot it is quite popular with people to just stop on the side of the road. As long as you do not do it in forbidden parking zone, you should be able to have Uluru just for yourself.

Uluru with the green surroundings after the rainy season

Uluru just for ourselves

Beautiful, peaceful landscape

You can take a walk around The Rock

There is a path leading around the base of the Rock which is over 10km long. We took a walk around to see the monolith from every angle. Speaking from the experience, we would recommend renting a bike for that path or going early in the morning or with Seagway tours. It is because the sun has no mercy and you need plenty of water for the walk. Besides, the landscape does not change that much during the walk, so it can get a little dull. Some of the most popular parts of the track lead to the waterhole and aboriginal rock paintings. As it goes for climbing to the top the park is working on closing it permanently. It is not only dangerous, but also offensive to the locals who consider Uluru the sacred place. You can learn much more about aboriginal culture and art in the visitor center located inside the park.

blooming flowers at Ayers Rock

Beware of kangaroos!

the sacred Rock

Water Hole at Uluru

The Valley of the Winds

Further West within the park are the rocks of Kata Tjuta. The 36 domes are creating some wonderful deep valleys and gorges. There are two great walks there. First one, which should take you less the an hour, runs between 2 rock walls at the bottom of the gorge. As you walk alongside the cliff face you might get lucky enough to spot some rock wallabies. The second trail is called The Valley of the Winds and is a bit more difficult. It runs for over 7 km and takes you across the domes to beautiful shaded valleys. 2016 was a very wet year. They reckon there is enough rain for flowers to bloom every 7 years. We were really fortunate to see a lot of them.

kata Tjuta with blooming flowers

Valley of the Winds walk

Desert laughs with flowers

Valley of the Winds

Kata Tjuta domes

Kata Tjuta

Be sure to visit both: Uluru and Kata Tjuta!

If you come to this area you should really spent at least a day at Kata Tjuta as well and do not your visit to be limited only to Uluru. The park entrance fee is 25$ for 72 hours per person. There is abundance of activities, tours, restaurants and hotels at Yulara. You can chose to visit Uluru on the back of the camel, on a seagway, or even on a plane or helicopter. But nothings beats simple sitting and watching Uluru turn intensive red as the sun makes its way below the horizon.

Milky Way above Uluru

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A journey across the continent

Wiola and Mike — Fri, 24 Feb 2017 08:58:00 +0000

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Stuart Highway

Stuart Highway is streaching for almost 3000 km from Adelaide in the South all the way to the Darwin in the North across the Red Outback. You should plan to take it slowly as there is planty to see on the way. We started from the top end after our visit to Kakadu National Park.

Here are some of the things that you can do while travelling this amazing highway:

Katherine and Nitmiluk National Park

The first stop for us was Katherine and nerby Nitmiluk National Park. This is a great place where the river created some spectacular georges. You can either take a boat tour or kayak up the river or just take the hike to the rim. As we were there some of the trees were crowded with bats. Preatty amazing and quite noisy creatures.

Bats in Nitmiluk National Park

Bats flying around

Katherine Gorge, Nitmiluk National Park, Northern Territory (NT), Australia

Mataranka hot spring

There is nothing as relaxing after a long day drive as a bath in a hot spring. You can do it for free in Mataranka.

There are 2 springs here. One over at the camping site. This one is more organized and have some concreate stairs and walls. The other one called Bitter Springs is a stream in the middle of the forest. You can just float all the way down in cristal clear water among the palm trees. Splendid!

Bitter Springs, Australia

Devils Marbles

Just south of Tennant Creek you can find Devils Marbles. These are some unique rock formations which are in spherical shapes. It is a great experience to walk among them and marvel at creation force of nature.

Devils Marbles

Great rock formations on Stuart Highway

Alice Springs

Alice Springs is the second biggest city in the territory but it is not very large at all. You can go a top of ANZAC hill and take a look at the town from the top. There is a busy airport. South of Alice Springs at roadhouse Erldunda you can take the turn to Uluru and Kings Canyon. This is one of the iconic Australias natural wonders, but we are gona tell you all aout it in saperate post.

Coober Pedy

The first mejor town in South Australia is corky Coober Pedy. It is famous for its opal fields. People from around the globe are coming here to try their luck in the searching. There are plenty of ditches and holes around the place. The town looks like the surface of the moon and is full of quite excentric people. To protect themselfs from the heat of the day, locals started to build homes underground, in caves. Today you can stay in an underground hotel and visit underground church.

Coober Pedy underground Church

Coober Pedy

Lake Hart

As we were driving south the land started to become greener and greener. We drove by magnificent salt lake called Lake Hart. If you are there, do not miss the opportunity to walk on to the edge of the water so you can see that, what seemed to be the beach from the distance is, in fact, a filed of salt flakes.

Almost like in Bolivia - Lake Hart

Lahe Hart, Australia

1 journey 1 life 2 people

Lake Bambunga

As we got close to the coast we could see Flinders Ranges rising on the East. There were quite a few pink lakes such as Lake Bumbunga which appered to us really extraordinary.

Pink Lake on a desert, AU

Lake Bambunga

Pink Lake in South Australia

Port Augusta

The highway finally made it to Port Augusta. It was a great feeling to see the sea again after experiencing so much sand in the last week.

Port Augusta Jetty

Adelaide

Finally the route ended in Adelaide. The city itself has a very european flavour to us. Maybe it is because of brick, victorian style churches which remind us of England? There is also a great hike to the summit of Mount Lofty. From there, you can see the South Australia capital streaching by the sea shore and enjoy a view of the setting sun.

Waterfall on a way to Mt Lofty

Sunset over Adelaide

Adelaide

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3 reasons to visit Kakadu National Park

Wiola and Mike — Fri, 17 Feb 2017 02:54:00 +0000

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Kakadu National Park

One of the most famous National Parks in Australia is Kakadu National Park. We were really excited about visiting this place. It is home to thousands of species of water birds, plants and animals. All of them do incredibly well it this wet, tropical climate. It is truly one of the Australia’s most extraordinary places. Still not convinced to go?

Here are our top 3 reasons to visit Kakadu National Park:

1. Landscape.

As you drive through out the Park you will see a variety of different landscapes. First wetlands surrounding river catchments. They are full of birds and extraordinary vibrant green colours. Secondly, you will come across rocky plateux, where after a brief hike you can see the endless land surrounding you. You eyes can see so far and the bush spreads all the way to the horizont. It is trully magical to just stair at this tranquil, aincient land while sun goes down. Unforgetable. And finally the third part of the landscape – waterfalls and billabongs. Best known of them all is Jim Jim Falls, which flows only in the wet season and during that time it can be only reached by the scenic flight. In dry season you can get there by sandy 4wd route.

Kakadu fire

Exploring Kakadu

Yellow Water, wetlands of Kakadu

2. Aboriginal Rock Art.

There are two main rock art sites in Kakadu – Ubirr and Nourlangie Rock. Both of them feature extraordinary galleries of paintings. Some of them are believed to be more than 10000 years old. It makes you feel the stron bond which Aboriginal people have with their homeland. If you are into cultural and art experiences you can find out more informations in visitor centers

Aboriginal Art in Kakadu

3. Wildlife.

Kakdu is filled with wild animals. You can see thousands of birds of many different species practicly every time you get out of the car. But Kakadu is also one of the best places to see wild crocodilles in their natural habitat! River crossing to Arnhelm Land is the by far the best spot! You can find out in the visitor center about high tide times. Than make sure you get to the crossing early enought to save yourself the best spot on the viewing platform right next to the riverbank.

As the hight tide comes the water in the river starts to flow upstream pushing the fish across the rocky crossing. In just a few minutes water level rised more than a meter. Sneeky crocodilles just wait with their jaws open. At some point we could see up to 14 of them.

We took some great snaps of the moments when fish is unable to fight the current and just falls into the toothy trap. It is amazing to watch reptails hunting. They seem so calm and slow and suddenly ther move as fast as a lightning to catch their prey. After an hour water starts to fall down again and crocodilles cross back downstream. This is such a extraordinary spectacle. Only such a great director as mother nature herself could have prepared it for us!

fresh snak into crocodile's jaw

croc in action, Kakadu

Crocodile passing the street

Alligator River

sneaky crocodile

just go with the flow

waiting for some good lunch

just waiting patiently

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Darwin and the Top End

Wiola & Mike — Sun, 29 Jan 2017 16:27:27 +0000

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Darwin

The Northern Territory Capital is situated in a remote top end of this vast state. The city is surrounded by the tropical, ancient landscape. The downtown is surrounded by the beautiful harbour. The waterfront features a beach, waterpark and an artificial wave pool. This is a pretty sweet spot to relax.

If you visit Darwin in the dry season, make sure to pay a visit to the Mindil Beach. Every Thursday and Saturday the place tranforms itself into a busy market full of delicious food stalls, local craft and handmade goodies sellers, performers and musicians.

Folks buy some yummy stuff and gather at the beach to enjoy the flavours together with the spectacular view of the sunset.

Darwin Waterfront.

Darwin - Top End Capital

Darwin - waterfront

Crocosaurus Cove

Right in the city center you will find Crocosaurus Cove, a place where you can take a closer look at the famous top end crocs. Besides them, you can also see some other local reptiles and fish. The place itself is rather small, but it hosts a great attraction called “Cage of Death“.

This allows you to sit in the same pool as a huge 6m crocodille. Do not worry, you will be safe as you are in a cage made of bulletproof glass as long as you do not stick your fingers outside! From the inside you can take a really close look at this predator. Our new reptile friend was called Chopper and it was poking our cage, staring straight at us. Staying in the cage is really exciting. First, you can enjoy the crock’s company and marvel at it cruising right next to you. You can see its sharp teeth as well as the colour of its eyes! Then, it is feeding time!

Chopper gets its treat delivered on the fishing rod and jumps out of the water just a few centimiters from our faces! It is amazing how quickly this animal moves! it seems it is just slowly drifting around but do not let that fool you, it can suddenly attack in a blink of an eye! Such a great experience!

This is the Cage of Death

Let the adventure begins!

Cage of Death

Chopper getting his snack

Crocosaurus Cove

hello from Darwin

Lichfield National Park

129 km south from Darwin (which is considered really close in the NT) you will find the Lichfield National Park. This is a perfect place to cool off in amazing crock-free pools and waterholes. Some of them are situated just by the waterfalls! Florence falls and Wangi Falls are just splendid! Your time there will be surely extraordinary. Some other attractions of the park are Magnetic Termite Muds. They are so called as they point North-South. This allows insect to control the temperature inside as only the smallest part of the wall is exposed to the sun! Hell yeah mother nature!

Magnetic Termite Mounds - Litchfield National Park

Wangi Falls

Florence Falls

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The Savannah Way

Wiola and Mike — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 09:11:00 +0000

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The Savannah Way

The best way to travel in Australia is by car. It allows you to go in your own pace and spend as much time on the road as you want to. The roadtrip possibilities are truly amazing in the Land Down Under. One of the famous routs is called The Savannah Way, which takes you from Cairs across the red outback all the way to Broome. There are some variations on the way depending on how well your vehicle is handeling the dirt tracks. We drove Eastern half of this route on our way from the Queenslands coast to Northern Territory.

Millstream Falls National Park

We left Atherton Tabeland behind and set course to the West! Our first stop was the Revenshoe and visited the waterfalls just outside of town in Millstream Falls National Park. A short walk takes you to the viewing platform situated just above roaring falls.

Australia’s outback

As we go west we are getting deeper and deeper into the Outback. The termite muds start to surround the road. And the road itself gets more and more narrow, sometimes it is just a single line which makes it little difficult for our small town car to pass huge australian roadtrains.

Empy Road, Outback

Termite muds, Aussie outback

Gulf of Carpentaria

After hundrets of kilomiters we made it to Normanton. It is the biggest town in the region. Here the Savannah Way splits to adventerous 4wd track or endless paved route through mining town of Mount Isa. We are forced to chose second option. But before we continiue West we decided to have a short detour to Karumba. This is only paved acess to the Gulf of Carpentaria.

The landscapes are magnificent and they have a certain feeling of remotness from other places on Earth, from the heist and everyday bussiness of today’s world. Here you can marvel at endless, flat waters of the gulf, you can be amazed by countless birds and animals. This is the place where one can truly rejuvenate.

Savannah Way Wildlife

Wildlife

Watch out for crocks!

Gulf of Carpentaria

Heaps of kangaroos

This small and quiet town is also headquoters to big prawn and fish industry, so you can enjoy some of the local delicatessy. The region is abundant with kangaroos and wallabies. Especially around dusk and down and in the night they are litarally swarming on the side of the road which makes driving really risky.

Sunset time - Kangaroos get very active

Kangaroo Party

Hello Mate

Kangaroos crossing the street

QLD – NT border

As we were heading to the Northern Territory we had to pass Mount Isa. There you can visit the biggest mine in Australia. The boarder of the Northern Territory is not much further. We are saying goodbye to Queensland…at least for now.

QLD and NT border

Welcome to NT

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Tropical North Queensland

Wiola and Mike — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 07:37:00 +0000

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Northern Queensland is a tropical paradise. Here ancient reinforest meets world’s biggest reef. It is an amazing region full of natural wonders and picturesque landscapes.

Townsville is Queensand’s second largest city. Among other attractions you can visit Magnetic Island – One of the few reef islands with significant permament population. Today it is officially suburb of Townsville.

Drive north to Cairns from there is trully magnificent and you should make sure to book yourself plenty of time for all the wonders lurking just a short drive off the main road. This includes waterfalls, swimming holes, broad beaches, wetlands and tropical rainforests, just to name a few.

A short detour will take you to the elevation of 540 meters where you can stare at Australia’s tallest single drop waterfall – Wallaman. On you way there the meanding road will take you to the top of the hills where you can enjoy views of vast open land. You should drive slowly tho as it is a territory of endangered giant bird – cossowary. If you are into hiking you should definitly take the steap, muddy trail to the bottom of Wallaman fall. The view from down below is as breathtaking as from the top and yet, it is a whole new experience as the wind throws a wet breeze from 250m above to cool you down after hiking in these tropical conditions. You should be also able to see the rainbows as the sun shines on the water drops scattered in the air. This is an amazing spot!

As you press forward to the north you will pass some lookouts to the Hinchinbrook island which is largest island national park in Australia. It is famous for beautiful Ulysses butterfly which lives in this area. Next stop is Mission Beach where 14km golden sand beach is set against a rainforest backdrop. The place is popular with variety of activities such as windsurfing, snorkeling and skydiving. The sand is full of small holes which are crabs appartments.

To the west from the shore laies Atherton Tableland which rises sharply from the costal plains of Cairns. Rich volcanic soil makes it a famous farming ragion. It is also abundant with waterfalls. The 15km waterfall circuit will take you to 4 of them but there is much more of them in the neigbourhood. You can also visit the green crater lake of an extinct volcano – Mt. Hypipamee.

Both Cairns and Port Douglas are main tourism hubs that offers wide range of excursions, trips and boat rides to the Great Barrier Reef. It seems to be difficult to pick the best operator and the best reef to visit when there are so many options to chose from. It is a good place to try out diving too. We did it for the first time here and it was brilliant, we hope to do some more of that soon! Unfortunatelly when we were in Cairns it was very low tide so there was no water at all in the bay, which made the city look preatty creepy.

Between Cairs and Port Douglas there is a streach of the shore full of smaller villages, resort and tranquil beaches. Some of them are more popular like Coral Cove and Trinity Beach and some of them hardly have a name of their own. You should be able to find your own perfect spot!

Further north you can cross the Daintree River with a ferry to get to the national park with the same name. It is claimed to be the oldest rainforest on the planet. The river itself is popular for crocodile cruises and it is quite common to spot those animal there. The rainforest is home to cossowarys and countless species of plants, animals and insects. You can enjoy the one of a few available boardwalks to see them from up close. Cape Tribulation marks the end of the sealed road. From there straches one of the last untached wilderness in the world which covers entire Cape York. As we were driving the small city car this was the end of our journey up the coast. It is time to head west. More about that in the next posts

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Whitsunday Islands – East Coast at its Best!

Wiola and Mike — Fri, 02 Dec 2016 01:24:00 +0000

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Whitsundays Islands

One of the most wonderful stops on our trip through the East Coast of Australia was the famous Whitsunday Islands. The mainland gateaway to the archipelago is Airlie Beach. This is backpackers and holidaymakers mekka. You can spend the entire day in a free, public lagoon which is a type of an open air pool, for every visiors’ use.

Other than that, the town has some amazing views as well as leisure shops, cafes and restaurants. You can also decide on a trip to a luxury Hamilton Island, which is a private resort island in the middle of this paradise.

Hello, mr Turtle

Airlie Beach, Queensland

Public Lagoon

Good times, guys!

Sunset

Cedar Creek Falls

Short drive outside of town will take you to the Cedar Creek Falls. After a quick journey through the unsealed road you will get to the parking lot. From there it is only few steps more and you can enjoy a super refreshing swim under the waterfall in a tropical scenery. That is definitly worth doing.

Cedar Creek Falls

refreshing swim

Cedar Creek Falls, hidden gem!

Airlie Beach, the gateway to Whitsundays

While visiting Arlie Beach, you can choose your own way of witnessing the beuty of the Whitsundays. You can either:

ago on an overnight sailing cruise,
take a scenic flight or
book one of the single-day excursions.

We chose the last option and went out with the company called Ocean Rafting. You can decide on a trip which includes more time on the marvelous Whithaven Beach or to do more snorkeling. We wanted to spend more precious time under water, exploring the wonders of the spectacular reef. We were taken to two amazing snorkleling spots with a pontoon. The first one was more shallow and we saw some amazing corals and turtles. The second one was slightly deeper but abundant with colourful fish. This is the inner Great Barrier Reef at its best, we even saw some whales on our way too!

Waters of the Great Barrier Reef

Awesome snorkel at Great Barrier Reef

Whale and the Ocean Rafting pontoon

This is how you travel with Ocean Rafting company!

The most beautiful beach in the world?

After that, we finally arrived at the marvelous Whitehavn Beach. The sand over there is pure silca and it is amazingly soft, white and squeeks under your feet. Scenery is just breathtaking! This is the time for the group to enjoy the lunch served on board, yet we were too busy with taking pictures to think about the food.

Whitsundays, QLD

Honeymoon perfection

Whithaven Beach

Hill Inlet Lookout

After a while we gathered to do a short hike to the magnificent Hill Inlet Lookout from which you can see the famous swirling sands of Whitsundays. It all depends on the time of the day and tides. On low tide, it is getting more and more spectacular with every minute as the water slowly disappears and the sand dunes become visable. From all the places around Australia that we have been to, this is the one we can not wait to go back to. Awe-Inspiring!!!

Awe-inspiring Whitsundays!

Hill Inlet Lookout, Whitsundays

50 shades of blue

Hill Inlet Lookout, Whitsundays

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