East Coast of Oz 2005 – I Was a Dirty Backpacker

[Rural Surin]

Great pics and story Mobs! Wish I was still young enough and retained the amibition to still do such things. Done all the adventure traveling in my 4 lifetimes. OZ is quite the diverse place {especially the East Coast}....

[mobs00]

East coast is really crowded. Although I do love far north Queensland. Wish I had made it to the Northern Territory but guess I'll save it for next time.

South of Sydney is nice to. Got some family down in Moruya near Bateman's bay. Great area between there and the south east tip of the country.

[Happyman]

Scary billabong out back that is home to a Bunyip


Please excuse my Pom ignorance but WTF is a Bunyip ?

[mobs00]

^ Devilish creatures that eat marsupials, fish and platipi, occasionally the odd women or child.

[nedwalk]

Bunyip

i had one in me dam, but it got its foot caught in me yabbie trap, lucky enough i was home at the time so i managed to catch it with my mossie net and save me yabbies i gave me mates a call and we had a beaut 'bunyip' barbie with yabbie entree' while watching the footy, then the missus came home and ruined the whole day, apperently she had been feeding the bloody thing while i was at work, so she was really pissed off and i even saved the best bits for her! there is just no pleaseing a bloody woman, i tell ya..

good thread mate, i grew up in FNQ, your welcome to throw up a tent in back yard anytime, i might even throw in a hose so you can spray ya smelly merkin charm pits

[Happyman]

^
Translation please !

[nedwalk]

strueth mate, don,t ya speak straain

[peterpan]

Great beaches up that coast, I did pretty much the same trip in 1978 in an HR holden just like this.

Best 3 months of my life. That car never even hiccuped in all that time. Some pretty rough roads too.
Made me sick in the stomach with nostalgia looking at pics of those cars and wandering down memory lane.

Did the same trip in 71 with my EJ Holden, still remember some of it but mostly wacked out on beer and LSD (it was a long time ago)
Did pretty much the same trip, up as far as the Whitsundays anyway on my 40ft yacht "transformer" in the late 80's

[phuketbound]

Great thread! That fig tree is something else. This information is helpful for me, as I'm heading to Cairns and to Atherton Tablelands Park in the near future. I look forward to more pics. Do you have any pics of the Daintree Rainforest?

[mobs00]

^ yep.

[mobs00]

The Daintree

We made it to the Daintree river just a few short hours from Cairns. Big river this is and home to some fearsome salties. The locals seem to have been feeding them lots of cattle during the floods so some of them were growing quite large.

[mobs00]

We went to town just around the corner and booked a boat trip on the river. A great deal at $20 a person for a 2 hour tour. Turns out we were the only ones as the tour buses don’t arrive till after lunch so we had the whole boat to ourselves.

Saw a few baby salties. This youngin was only about 3 meters long.

[mobs00]

Some tourist was recently taken from his canoe out here. Who the hell would get in a canoe with 3-5+ meter salties about? He was German…..





Here’s the captain’s pet tree frog. Thing was huge; about the size of my hand.

[mobs00]

After the tour it was time to hit the road again. The only way to make it across the Daintree river is by car ferry.







Here we got to see our only Cassowary, otherwise known as the Australian Velociraptor due to it’s reputation for disemboweling tourists.

[mobs00]

Once on the other side it was a steep climb uphill to the top of a ridge with a great view of the Daintree River mouth spilling into the sea.

[natalie8]

Great thread, mobs. Where are you from? Being from North America, I was always envious and jugely jealous of people from countries that have real vacation time, not just one or two weeks.

BTW, this is a bunyip. My curiosity has killed me. It's a type of cicada

[mobs00]

The road was actually quite small and at times you really had to be careful for other vehicles, especially around the switchbacks where we had to actually put it in reverse and back up hill to allow a car to go around. There is a gas station on the road once you come out of the mountains and the sign says “last gas”. Sure we thought and continued on for another 45 minutes. We were running on fumes and had to turn around to go all the way back to the station. Blame it on Nimbin.

[Cujo]

Great thread! That fig tree is something else. This information is helpful for me, as I'm heading to Cairns and to Atherton Tablelands Park in the near future. I look forward to more pics. Do you have any pics of the Daintree Rainforest?

I was at that fig tree, no constructed platforms or paths then,
all that is so unbelievably familiar to me. It really is beautiful up there in NQ.
That spot where you got the ferry across the Raintree is a great fishing spot. It relly looks like you followed the same path we took.

[mobs00]

^^^ Umm, no that's not a Bunyip. Neddy knows....

[mobs00]

The Daintree and Cape Tribulation was one of my favorite places we went to. Rugged, remote, and wild.

There is a lodge/camp ground about 5 kms from the end of the paved road where we stayed a couple of days. From there the road continues on all the way to Cooktown. To bad Mit wasn’t equipped for the 4 wheel drive trek as that would have been a lot of fun.

Lots of Mangrove swamps around but they still had a great beach a few minutes walk from the grounds. Lots of croc signs up though so no swimming.

[mobs00]

How about living here? A small restaurant here where I had my first true aussie burger. Why the hell would you ruin a good thing by putting a huge slab of beetroot on a otherwise perfect burger? Guess I’ll never know.







After we stuffed ourselves it was time to see if we could cramp up in the great swimming hole out back. They assured us there were no crocs in it but look, if I was a croc I would be in it. Especially after fattening up the tourists on beetroot burgers.

[mobs00]

We drove to the end of the road the next day and followed a trail through the jungle to a nice creek. Again we were warned of the crocs.










As we were trekking we heard some loud noises and we just got a passing glimpse of a Yowie as it crashed through the bush off in this direction.

[mobs00]

It relly looks like you followed the same path we took.

Probably, There's not too many choices in direction. North or south really once you're up there.

[Cujo]

^^^ Umm, no it's not. Neddy knows....

You have to use a spinner just down from the ferry a little.
That beach above we camped there, at the time there were no facilities, just a track to the beach. We drove up the beach and then just drove the car up into a clear area in the bush that came right down to the sand. We had to have our own water and a shovel to dig when we needed to go.
At the time the area was infested with feral hippies living in the bush and there was a lot of protests about them even putting a road through. I imagine there'll be a few dissapointed hippies to see by your pics that the road has even been sealed now.
GREAT thread and great pics. Keep em coming.

[Cujo]

Do you have any more of this beach?