Surfers Paradise

The last stop on my Wicked Road Trip through Queensland was Surfers Paradise. I hadn’t planned on doing much there but lounge and had no interest in surfing. But, since I was in Surfers Paradise I did feel obligated to try it. I had an extra day to kill anyways, so I booked a two-hour lesson. It was awesome!

Go Ride a Wave wasn’t answering their phone that morning, so I booked the lesson with Cheyne Horan School of Surf. They went through everything step-by-step but the style of teaching was primarily watch-and-copy.

What We Learned

1. Walk into the water until it’s up to your knees before setting the board down.
2. The “control position” is where you stand on the left side of the board and have your right hand on top of the dots at the back of the board and your left hand flat on the middle of the board as you enter the water.
3. Once you’re waist high in water, you get into the “wave catching position”, which is when you hold the edge of the right side of the board with your right hand and the left side of the board with your left hand getting ready to get on the board once a wave comes.
4. When a wave is right behind you, push the board towards the shore and get on it (tummy against board). Then, slide up the board so that your feet are at the end of the board.
5. Count three seconds after getting on the board before jumping into a standing position so that you have speed.
6. The “standing position” is your typical surfer pose with your front foot at a 45 degree angle and your back foot at 90 degrees.
7. Bend your knees while surfing and keep your eyes focused on your destination. Don’t look down at your feet otherwise you’ll lose your balance.

Trying very clumsily to stand up on the board

I hadn’t expected to have so much fun trying to surf even when it took me the entire lesson to get in the standing position (I got up on my own for the first time on the very last wave). It was worth the $45.

I talked to some girls who had taken the same beginner’s lesson at Go Ride a Wave and they described the same lesson we got at Cheyne Horan School of Surf, except they didn’t go over the basics of getting into the water. Instead, they were told to carry their board into the water and set it down when they were ready to catch a wave. You already get really sore arms from trying to catch a wave so this is just more effort and strain on your muscles. By going in using a “control position” you let the water do the lifting and can better avoid getting washed back by waves by tilting the board back and forth over each oncoming wave.

Tips for Travellers to Surfers Paradise

1. The prices for surf lessons are generally the same ($45 for 2 hours), but the prices for photos differ. If you purchase photos, check the CD before leaving! Cheyne Horan School of Surf has an independent photographer who comes in whenever he feels like it to take pictures and sells them on a CD for $20 each. Go Ride a Wave has a photographer who charges $15. Several people at Cheyne Horan (myself included) bought CDs that were faulty and wouldn’t work on PCs, and the girls I talked to who took lessons at Go Ride a Wave also had problems with their CDs. Not only did I pay $5 more for my photos, but I had to drive down to the beach and meet the photographer there to get a working copy of the pictures whereas the girls with Go Ride a Wave had their new CDs delivered free of charge to their hostel. This wasn’t the way I had wanted to spend my last day of my road trip.
2. If you’re travelling in a caravan and want to stay somewhere on the cheap, drive down to the Marina at The Spit and park in the parking lot overnight. They don’t ticket you and it’s right by the YHA which charges $5 per day for use of their facilities (toilets, showers, kitchen). I normally avoid YHAs because the one at Cairns was unfriendly, but the people at Surfers Paradise YHA were really nice. This YHA also has a free shuttle bus to and from the city centre.
3. If you really want to be cheap, you can park at the Marina at The Spit and use the washrooms in the mall rather than paying the $5 at YHA. They don’t have showers in the washrooms, but they’re super clean and are open 24 hours a day. Just be aware that the customers who visit this mall are rich and dress up to the 9’s so you will feel like a bogan visiting the mall just to brush your teeth at night.

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I couldn’t help myself. It’s a big sea of sand! You’ve gotta write on a big sea of sand.

After Bundaberg, I didn’t really have a set plan or list of places I had to visit before getting back to Brisbane. As I was driving back down South, I saw a sign for Rainbow Beach and remembered that my friend Richard had it on his list of places I ought to visit so I took the exit and made my way there. Ah, you’ve gotta love the freedom of roadtrips!

I drove up to the Great Sandy National Park Lookout point first because I thought it might be a good place to camp for the night. When I got there I found that it didn’t have any facilities, but since I was already there I decided to take the trail out to the Rainbow Coloured Sand Cliffs.

The trail starts out like any other with squiggly gum trees, basket spiders and the usual Australian shrubbery. A couple meters away from the end, you start to see some sand along the trail and then BAM. You’re faced with the biggest sea of sand you’ll probably ever see outside of an actual desert: Carlo Sand Blow Lookout. It was a bit of a ‘whoa’ moment.

Carlo Sand Blow Lookout at Rainbow Beach

When you walk towards the Rainbow Coloured Sand Cliffs and face the ocean, it too stretches out for what seems like forever. It reminded me of the first time I saw the ocean from the beaches of Vladivostok, Russia. You feel like you’ve reached the end of the earth and your mind just draws a blank. It’s fresh and you’ve come back to point O.

I walked around the sand for a while and couldn’t figure out why the place was called Rainbow Beach. I was expecting multicoloured sand on the beach and all I saw was a big sea of tan and a section of white. I saw some footsteps in the tan sand with some white sand mixed in there, but I thought it was from people walking across both beaches and dragging the colours across. When I looked closer though, I realized that the white sand hadn’t been dragged across, it was underneath the tan sand! I looked around some more and found that there was dark orange sand underneath some parts too. There are actually several different colours including grey, blue, green, red, orange, white, yellow and tan. It really is a rainbow coloured beach!

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A view from the mountains at Eungella

I was very apprehensive during the days leading up to my birthday on September 24th.  A lot of it had to do with superstitious reasons (I could write a novel just about the superstitious stuff surrounding my 24th), but it also had to do with being alone on my birthday for the very first time. I’ve always had family and friends to celebrate with, and now that the most important birthday of my life was coming up, I was and would be alone.

I decided that if I wasn’t going to have my family and close friends around, I wanted to be alone and take a little retreat into the wilderness for the day. I left Airlie Beach on the 23rd for Eungella National Park (pronounced “young gella”).

Driving up the mountains of Eungella reminded me of driving up to Kuranda. The roads wind this way and that and there are a few really tight corners to go around. The forests become fuller the farther you go up, and when you get to the little town of Eungella and look down, it feels… eery. It was as if I was stuck in time for a moment in a place you couldn’t get a hold of me (and you couldn’t really — I was out of cell phone coverage ). Eungella is above the clouds so when you look down, all you see is fog and mist.

I didn’t just pick Eungella to get away from everything though, I had a mission: to see a platypus in the wild. A lot of people go to Broken River (just past the small town of Eungella) to spot a platypus, but when I went I didn’t get the right feeling from it. My original plan was to go there and treat myself to a nice stay at a hotel on my birthday, but because it just didn’t feel right, I left to find a platypus at Finch Hatton Gorge instead. I ended up staying at the roughest (and cheapest) caravan park on my birthday: Platypus Bush Camp.

Platypus Bush Camp

Yummy birthday breakfast

I started my birthday off with a nice big breakfast at the only restaurant in Finch Hatton (which also serves as a convenience store). Then I checked-in at Platypus Bush Camp ($10 for a night) and went for a short hike up to Araluen Falls and Wheel of Fire Falls. They’re very small waterfalls and I don’t understand how Wheel of Fire got it’s name — there’s nothing wheel-y or fire-y about the place. Heck, the fall isn’t even a proper waterfall — it’s just a trickle down some rocks. It was a nice hike just the same though. I had worn my swimmers because there are swimming holes at each fall, but it was too cold to take a full dip.

After my hike where I saw the biggest goanas I’ve ever come across, several different butterflies (including a small Blue Ulysses), and a snake, I went for a dip at the swimming hole at camp and was about to have a rest in my Wicked Campervan.

Dee at Platypus Bush Camp

As I was getting ready for a nap though, the owner of Platypus Bush Camp (a hippy named Wazza) came up to the van and literally stuck his head inside and started touching the curtains and talking about random stuff. Not cool. He seemed harmless enough, but damn! Haven’t you ever heard of personal space? People need 3 feet of space to feel comfortable around a stranger and sticking your head into someone’s campervan while they’re inside and can’t get out because you’re blocking the entrance is VERY uncomfortable. Especially when they’re in pjs! This happened twice that day. The second time, I was writing postcards inside the van and he stuck his head in and picked up the postcards to look at them. So much for being alone.

After that, I decided to get an early start on my platypus stalking and sat quietly out at the platypus lookout area for over two hours. Just when it started to get dark, one came out from under the tree roots across the water and started dipping in and out. It was really hard to spot him because he’s dark and so is the water after sunset, but you could tell where he was from the ripples he’d make swimming across the water. “Hooray!” I thought, “I can finally cross this off my to-do list!”

My birthday cake

I walked back to the campervan and started putting the candles on my birthday cake. There were so many candles on this tiny cake that the icing melted and dripped into the table. It made quite the mess. But I had to have all twenty-four candles — it’s tradition. I made my wish, blew them out, talked with Auchey (a really nice French girl WWOOFing at the camp) over cake, and went to get ready for bed.

The place was pitch dark by then and I could barely see anything without my little hand-crank torch. There are no lights in the bathroom or even leading up to it, which made peeing a little awkward. On my way back to the campervan, Wazza almost gave me a heart attack because he appeared out of nowhere and said something like “I was wondering where you were. I didn’t see you around for a while.” I don’t know why, but I really don’t like it when people feel the need or expect to know where I am all the time. I feel like a claustrophobic person in a tiny closet, and I just want to run. I don’t remember what I said (something about looking for a platypus I think), but I hurried back to the campervan and shut the door so he wouldn’t be able to stick his head in. And that closed the chapter on 23.

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Thank you to everyone who left me voicemail messages, texts, tweets, Facebook messages etc for my birthday! I listened and read them all when I got to a place with phone and internet reception the next day. <3

Saying goodbye to Dee

During the first week of my Wicked Road Trip, I named my Wicked Campervan Dee. There’s a back story that goes with that name but it doesn’t make any sense unless you’ve been driving for five hours across nothingness on your own and can’t figure out how to tune the radio to a working station because somewhere along the line you pushed a random series of buttons and now it’s all static.

I had to return Dee a couple of days ago and it was a little sad to let her go. We’d spent the last month travelling Queensland together and had a good thing going. I checked her oil and water tank every time we stopped for fuel (which was pretty much every day), and she only had one minor hiccup during the entire trip.

Hiccup

Jammed lock

When I got back to Airlie Beach after leaving Paronella Park, I stayed with Tony from The Whitsundays Central Reservations Centre for a couple of days. It’s a good thing too, because the lock on Dee’s hatchback door jammed on the second night. We couldn’t get the door to close so I phoned the Wicked distress line. A woman picked up and said that I should tie down the door with some rope and drive the car to the Wicked mechanic at Airlie Beach the next morning. She gave me an address for the mechanic.

I knew that Tony would have rope, but I asked the woman what I could do if I didn’t have rope just to see what she’d say. Her answer was pretty much ‘tough luck.’ “Hrm, well that wouldn’t be much help if I were in the middle of nowhere” I thought.

Magic mechanic jiggling with a screwdriver

The next morning I was also glad I was at Tony’s because he was smart enough to think of checking the address for the mechanic before leaving. The address listed in the phone book was different from the one the Wicked distress lady gave me. I phoned her again to double check. She checked her address listings again and apologized — Tony and the phone book were right.

Off we went. We had thought that the problem was somewhere inside the door and that something between the key lock and the lock device itself had disconnected. We were wrong. It took the mechanic less than 10 seconds (no exaggeration) to fix the lock with a screwdriver. I was really surprised. I thought it would take at least a half hour to fix and had my camera ready to capture the process. I only had enough time to take two pictures!

Apparently a jammed lock is a very common problem in campervans. It just requires some magic mechanic jiggling and force to get it working again.

Random Tips for Road Tripping Travellers

1. 

   In contrast with most rental companies, Wicked Campers encourages travellers to write on the inside of their vans.

   Check your oil and water tank every time you stop for fuel or at least once every two days. There’s often a long distance between you and your next stop in Australia so it’s better safe than sorry.

2. To avoid hitting a kangaroo if you see one up ahead on the road, slow down, turn off your light (the light makes them stupid) and honk to scare them away from the road.
3. Rope is always handy. If you’re renting a campervan with Wicked Campers, check their “free stuff” table (where other travellers leave their unused stuff) for rope you can take on your trip.
4. Little things you’ll need: matches for the gas stove, dishwashing liquid, dishwashing sponge, bottles of drinking water, maps, handy wipes, and toilet paper / tissue. You can pick these up on your way, or you can save yourself a few dollars and find them on the “free stuff” table at the Wicked Campers depot. Also, when you pick up your linen, take an extra set of sheets and pillow cases so you can take a nap when the dirty sheets are in the wash. It doesn’t cost you anything to borrow extra sheets from Wicked Campers.

Have an awesome time!

Thank you to Wicked Campers for sponsoring my month-long Wicked Road Trip of Queensland, Australia!

Paronella Park Castle

On my last night at Undara, I got to talking around the campfire with a woman named Vineeta. We ended up talking for a while, and her kids showed me their scrapbooks of all the places they had travelled so far on their year long journey around Australia. Of the places they’d been to so far, Paronella Park was Vineeta’s favourite. I remembered hearing about it before on Queensland’s 150 Must-Do list, but I also remembered thinking “well that doesn’t look that interesting. I don’t get why it’s rated #1.”

But, I figured since it was rated the #1 tourist attraction in all of Queensland and Vineeta liked it so much, I really ought to visit it. Going there would mean driving up North again (counter-productive since I was already on my way down South), and also missing Charters Towers. “Yeah, alright. Let’s go to Paronella Park and see what all the hype is about” I thought. Man alive, I CANNOT believe I almost missed Paronella Park!! Seriously, I just kept repeating in my head as I left the place “I cannot believe I almost missed this!”

Now, I’m hesitant to continue raving about Paronella Park because I don’t want you to go expecting this grand spectacular castle and being disappointed. The castle is very small and so is the park itself. There’s not much going on around the area either. It’s the story behind it and the feeling that you get from being there that makes it special.

Paronella Park

Paronella Park Swimming Pool

As you drive towards Paronella Park from the interior (West to East), you get a whiff of something that reminds you of sweet corn (it’s a sugar cane processing factory), a couple of tiny little streets with a cafe or grocery store here and there, and some dirt roads. I wondered if I was going the right way since it didn’t seem like I was going anywhere that would accommodate large numbers of tourists, and I’m notorious for getting lost. The signs led me in the right direction though and soon enough I was in a little parking lot outside the entrance.

As soon as I walked in the door at the admissions office / gift shop I felt this happy vibe. Everyone was friendly and it just felt like the place to be. I paid the woman at the reception desk the $32 admission fee and she gave me a handful of stuff: directions to the caravan lot for the night (the admission fee includes a powered caravan site for the night), a pamphlet with a map of the park and history of the place, a booklet about the different trees in the area, and a little packet of food to feed the fish. She then put a sticker on my jacket, told me when the next day tours were and signed me up for the night tour as well (all included in the admission fee). I already felt like I was getting my money’s worth.

I drove to my caravan site and had a cup of instant noodles because I was absolutely starving. I joined the 3:30pm tour (it’s about an hour long), and my love affair with the place began.

Day Tour: Jose’s Story

The Entrance to The Tunnel from Lovers Lane

The day tours (length: 45 minutes to an hour) take you around the park and the guide goes through the history of the place. He’ll tell you about how Jose Paronella was a baker from Spain who dreamed of having his own castle one day and how he came to Australia and made a fortune buying and renovating land for resale. Once he made his fortune (a millionaire by today’s standards), he began building his castle. He built 70–80% of the main castle himself and you can actually see his hand and fingerprints in the walls! He also employed the help of men during the great depression in exchange for food and lodging.

Not only did Jose build his castle, but he also built a cottage for his family to live in, installed North Queensland’s first hydro electric plant to power the park, built a second castle that served as a refreshment house, and made all the surrounding walkways, tennis courts, and even a tunnel which was originally intended to be Queensland’s first underwater aquarium featuring exotic fish. He may have skimped a bit by using the steel beams from railway lines as support for his buildings (aka being resourceful), but he spared no expense when it came to getting a disco ball! LOL Yup, in the 1930’s Jose Paronella was 40 years ahead of his time and spent nearly a third of the cost of building his castles on a disco ball for the main hall. He was definitely a forward thinker and a little off the rocker.

Sadly, due to a series of floods and a fire, the disco ball is no longer around for viewing. Instead, the buildings are now decorated with soft green moss that gives a dreamy look to what remains.

In addition to an incredibly inspiring story, the tour included some wildlife viewing that I didn’t expect. The guide took us through a section of The Tunnel (the part that was originally built to be an aquarium) where we got to see dozens of little microbats who had made the tunnel their home and were huddled in tight groups trying to keep warm during the day. Remember when I told you I was a little disappointed that I didn’t get to see much of the microbats at Undara? Well, this totally made up for it! They’re so tiny and cute!! We couldn’t take pictures because the flash disturbs them, but our guide shone a light on a group of bats so we could get a close look. By close look, I mean less than half a meter away from our noses! Seriously cool.

All the dark spots in front are turtles and all the dark patches behind are fish

After the tour, our guide told us where we could go to feed some turtles and off I went with my little bag of fish / turtle / eel food. Again, I was surprised at how much wildlife there is at this place! I counted over 20 turtles just in my immediate line of vision all swimming around trying to get some of the food. There were also dozens of fish fighting for the same food.

After that, I wandered back to the camp site and barely had time to stuff my face with a paddle pop and granola bar before it was time for the night tour (also about an hour long). There was only about a dozen people on the day tour, but this tour had about 40 people. I was worried we wouldn’t be able to hear the guide or have a decent tour with this many people but everyone heard just fine (the guide was very loud) and had a great time.

Night Tour: Laputa

Before leaving on the tour, our guide gave everyone a flashlight and took attendance. It gets dark quickly and the flashlights were very handy. Though we visited the same places as the day tour and I happened to get the same tour guide for both tours, they were very different and the information never overlapped. While the day tour focuses on the story and history of Paronella Park, the night tour is about enjoying it’s beauty. And it is beautiful.

Look at how many there are!

And once again, I was surprised by the wildlife! During the day you can see the odd eel here or there in the water. At night though, it looks like the water is completely made out of eels! We stopped at the steps to the swimming area where our guide gave us bags of food to throw in to the eels. They just went nuts! Several eels looked like they were ready to squirm right up the steps for food! And to think, people went (and still go) swimming in there! :O

We also stopped at an area where there were little fireflies blinking above us. Our guide caught one to show us what they look like and let it fly off into the night when it decided it had enough of sitting on his hand.

The best part of the night tour though was when the smaller castle was lit up. There was a private tour going on at the same time with tourists from Japan, and when the lights went on they all “OoOOoohh“ed in unison. They played a lovely tune as we stared at the castle that made me feel as if we were in a giant open music box far far away. I wondered what the song was.

The picture looks spooky but it’s really pretty in real life

Our guide then told us that about 30,000 Japanese tourists visit Paronella Park each year and the reason why they play that particular song is because it’s the theme song to Hayao Miyazaki’s film ‘Castle in the Sky’ (in case you don’t know, Miyazaki is a very well known creator of many famous Japanese animated films). My jaw just about dropped to the floor. THIS castle was the inspiration for Laputa!!! Oh. My. God. I CANNOT believe I almost missed this!!! I’m a big fan of Miyazaki’s work so this just gave me a whole other bunch of reasons to love this place!

I just stared in amazement and a feeling welled up inside. It was neither happy nor sad, but longing. Thinking about how much conviction and motivation Jose Paronella had to realize his dream, and being reminded of what Miyazaki has been able to accomplish in his life made me wish I could do something great too (very Shizuku of me from ‘Whisper of the Heart’ ). It was an extraordinary feeling that I never want to forget.

The next morning before leaving, I took another stroll around the park to try to keep it all in my memory and I made a wish at the wishing well.

If you’re ever around North Queensland, I hope you’ll take a detour and visit Paronella Park. It may just be a small castle in the middle of nowhere, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

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Thank you so much to Vineeta and her family for convincing me to go! <3

Left to Right: Eastern Grey Kangaroo, Crocodile, Emu

I fed them, I played with them, I lay on the grass with them, I took pictures of them, I took pictures with them, I saw them as roadkill, I saw many of them as roadkill, I learned how to tell them apart, I learned how to avoid hitting them on the road, I learned how to shoot them, I learned about their habits, I took a tour about them, and now… it was time to eat one!

That’s right folks, nearly three months after my first encounter with a kangaroo I was finally ready to try eating one. The verdict: tender, juicy, but bland. I’ve heard that kangaroo is supposed to be gamey, but it didn’t taste that way to me. In fact, it didn’t taste like much at all. I also had emu and crocodile on the same plate and they were equally bland which makes me think it was the chef rather than the meat because the last time I tried crocodile it was delicious and full of flavour. Boo-urns.

Tips for Travellers Eating at Undara

1. Get to the buffet when it first starts around 6pm. You have to order your main dishes at the counter and the chef makes them one at a time. If you get to the dinner at 7pm or after, you’ll likely end up waiting a half hour before your meal is ready because that’s when everyone starts to arrive. There were a lot of hungry loud kids impatiently waiting for their food when I was there.
2. The buffet style dining will soon be scrapped for a la carte dining. This isn’t a bad thing. I’d recommend the Undara Volcanic Prime Rib Fillet (steak). It comes from the Collins family Spring Creek Station nearby. If they still have the same chef, order it one step rarer than you normally would.

Dinner at Undara

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You might think after looking at the pictures that I would’ve been full. At least, that’s what the chef thought. I didn’t really mind his jibes about my appetite but I certainly didn’t appreciate them either. I think people often underestimate how much I can eat because they think “oh, little Asian girl. She couldn’t eat much.” If I’m with company I normally don’t eat that much because it takes me a really long time to finish my plate and I don’t like to make people wait for me. But, if I’m on my own I take my time and I can end up eating quite a bit. After all the food you see in the pictures (which I finished by the way — I don’t like to waste food), I didn’t feel like I had eaten anything but the kitchen had already closed.

Bushwalking at Undara (I’m holding the information pages they give you about the walks)

Though I may whinge about tour guides and rough roads, I really did have a great time at Undara and I’m really glad I had the opportunity to go. I think the best part of visiting Undara is just staying there. It’s far away from everything but so close to nature.

Andrew gave me a tour of the grounds before I left, and pointed out all the things they’ll be upgrading over the next few years. Once they’re done all of that, I think it’s going to be a wonderful place for businesses to take their staff on team building trips, or school groups to learn more about the wonders of Australia. By then the roads should be mostly completed too so it’ll be easier to get to there.

In the meantime, Undara is still a great place to take the family. Even if you don’t have a lot of spending cash, there are lots of free bush walks you can go on and Undara Experience puts on some free live campfire entertainment each night too.

Tips for Travellers to Undara

1. Until they renovate the showers, avoid the last stall with the drain if you can. I used that one on the last morning and I swear someone in another stall peed while showering because all the dirty water drains in that last stall and I could smell it. SO gross.
2. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: INSECT REPELLENT.
3. If you have a head lamp or flashlight, put it on your head at night (just above your eyes) while you’re walking to your camp site and you’ll see lots of little glints of light. Look closer and you’ll find that they’re spiders (about 2 inches wide) and the glint is the reflection from their eyes. A 12 year old girl named Samantha taught me that — a very bright young girl!
4. Bring a camera everywhere you go! You never know when a pretty-face (aka whip tail) wallaroo will cross your path and decide it’s ok with staying still for pictures a mere meter away from you. I didn’t have my camera with me at the time because I was on my way to the loo. The kookaburras here are also very gutsy and aren’t the least bit afraid of humans so they’ll come within a few feet of you too. I don’t think you can get closer pictures of wildlife unless you went to a zoo where they’re forced to pose for you in a cage.
5. Watch your food. The birds here will steal it.
6. Bring lots of drinking water. The water at Undara is drinkable, but I avoided it because it’s full of calcium and if you drank that stuff for 60 years your liver would turn to stone. I figure if the water has so much calcium that they tell you not to fill your car’s water tank with it, you shouldn’t put it in your own tank either.
7. Stay a night. It’s a long drive between Undara and anywhere else. If you’ve come this far, you might as well stay the night and enjoy a nice bushwalk and brekkie in the morning.

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My Undara Recommendations

These recommendations are of course completely biased because they’re based on my own experiences, but if you get a chance to go to Undara I would say:

1. Spend at least one night there — you don’t have to spend a bundle on the carriages (though if you can, it’s kinda cool); the camp sites are between $20 — $30 per person for one night
2. Try the “bush brekkie” ($22)
3. Avoid the restaurant until they change chefs — the meats were bland and / or overcooked
4. If you have to eat at the restaurant, order the steak (the beef comes from the family’s cattle farm not too far away) — it’s much better than any of the other meats they have (kangaroo, crocodile, emu etc…)
5. Go on the two-hour The Archway Explorer tour — you seriously can’t go all the way to Undara and NOT see a lava tube! The four-hour tour wasn’t that great and it’s more expensive. It’s not recommended to try and visit a lava tube on your own because some of them can cave in and reception in the area is terrible so your cell phone won’t do you any good.
6. If you have kids under 10, take them on the Wildlife at Sunset tour and spend a night at the campfire area after dinner. The kids seemed to have a good time with those two activities.

Many thanks to Emily, Mark and Andrew for arranging my stay at Undara!

The end of a Lava Tube

On the day before I left Undara, I had the option to go on either the two-hour The Archway Explorer tour, or the four-hour Volcano Valley tour. Thinking that the four-hour tour would be better since you’re supposed to be able to see more of the lava tubes, I chose that one. I wish I had picked the two-hour tour instead. Why? Well, mainly because our tour guide kept telling us how much better the two-hour tour is (it goes to different sections of lava tubes that are supposed to be more “magnificent”). But also because we didn’t get to see that much on the four-hour tour and it was more standing around listening to lecture-style talk than anything else; we didn’t get to walk much.

The first tube we went down is called Misplaced Arch and it’s really tiny. Many sections of the lava tubes are caved in or inaccessible so the places you do go are usually just little short arches of tube that’ve stood the test of time. It was nice to get out of the sun and into a shady cool area, but there wasn’t much to it. We stood around and listened to our guide talk about the area, the varying thicknesses of lava tube, and the animal bones that were found in the lava tube. It was informative in that I learned things like how the wallaroos have a sharp bone protruding out of the front that they use to cut grass, but most of the time we had a hard time following what the guide was saying. The tour was lecture-style and we tourists were like students trying hard to learn but having a difficult time paying attention and were too chicken to ask the teacher to repeat what he had just said. There were a few times when we (literally) whispered to each other “what did he say?” “did he mean …?” “No, I think he was saying…” The poor kids on this tour were yawning.

The next section of lava tube was equally disappointing. This is when I thought “Oh shit, I’m going to have to write a bad review of this tour and they’ve been so nice to me!” We listened to the guide talk more about the varying thicknesses of lava tube and he finally explained how lava tubes are formed (I had been waiting for an explanation but was too chicken to ask).

The third section of lava tube in the Wind Tunnel Complex that we visited

Finally we came to the third section of lava tube and I breathed a big sigh of relief and smiled. THIS is what I’d been waiting for! An actual tunnel long enough to be dark on the other end!

I tried really hard to listen to the guide and even took notes, but I must’ve zoned out when he told us not to touch any of the walls because when I did a couple of my fellow tourists whispered that he said not to and reminded me that the guide had barked at them for stepping over the stones at the other tunnel (I think they zoned out too when he told us not to walk over the stones). Whoops!

The third tunnel had a big dome in the ceiling, creatively called “The Dome.” People speculate that it was created by hot gases rising up from the molten lava. It looks pretty cool and so do the multi-layered walls with its different colours ranging from earthy red to chalky white. We saw things like the candle wax effect on the walls from lava that had spat up and dripped down sections of the walls, and itty-bitty frogs in little holes in the ground.

After that, we had a nice coffee / tea break with scones at the picnic area near Kalkani Volcano and headed back.

I can normally take some lecture-style tours if I really feel like learning about the subject, but when it’s lecture-style combined with some of my greatest tour peeves (guides that keep telling you how much better the OTHER tour is and repeatedly saying that they don’t know anything about the topics they just brought up because not enough research has been done), I can’t say I’m a fan.

All in all, I’m really glad I got to see a real lava tube at Undara (you just can’t go to Undara and NOT see one), but I’d recommend going on the two-hour tour instead of the four-hour (the guide made that one sound really good).

Tips for Travellers Touring the Tubes at Undara

1. Bring a high power torch if you can. You can’t see much without one nearby.
2. Have a coffee before going. You’ll learn more if you’re awake.
3. Wear closed toe shoes and dark socks (or sandals if you’re ok with washing them afterwards). You walk through some areas with a lot of dusty red silt and it’s really hard to wash out the stains from white socks.
4. The Volcano Valley Tour says it requires a moderate level of fitness. You don’t need to be in great shape and you don’t do much walking at all on it. You must be able to stand around for long stretches of time though and I wouldn’t recommend sitting down on the rocks in the tubes because they’re covered in red dust. One girl had white shorts on and made the mistake of sitting down.

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My new ensuite office. It comes complete with a toilet, sink and shower!

Ok, I know I’m behind on my blog posts. Don’t blame me. Blame my lack of internet reception. BUT, I’m on my way to catching up with my brand spanking new office for the night! Hee hee

I’m in Bundaberg right now because I wanted to see the different hostels that offer farm work and interview a few people about their experiences working in Australia. I was hungry and a little tired after all that so I stopped at the nearest caravan park which happens to have ensuites for each caravan lot. It’s more expensive than most caravan parks at $28 / night, but when the woman at reception showed me an ensuite, the first thought that entered my mind was “OFFICE! My little table and chair will fit in the bathroom and it has a plug and window screens so I’ll have power AND be free from bugs. SCORE!” *giggles* I’m very pleased with myself right now.

The Best Part of My Day: Coffee.

On the Saturday morning at Undara, Andrew (Resort Manager at Undara Experience) invited me over for “Bush Brekkie.” Of the meal options available at Undara, “Bush Brekkie” is the best value for your money. For $22, you get fresh coffee and / or tea brewed over a campfire, bread that you toast yourself bush-style over another campfire, all the usual cereals, juices etc, and the real breakfast goods including a veggie bush stew, bacon, eggs, sausages and baked beans. It’s buffet style, so come hungry and leave happy.

If the breakfast just included the food, I don’t think it’d be worth the price. What you’re paying for is having the breakfast outdoors on wooden log chairs, making your toast and coffee using things like a “donkey” water heater, and watching the magpies and kookaburras snatch slices of bacon off a fellow tourist’s plate when he’s not looking. I’ve never seen kookaburras so fearless of humans.

As far as I know, this is the only tourist attraction in Queensland that offers a real bush breakfast made outdoors and over campfires. I really enjoyed the smell of the campfires and coffee in the morning, as well as the novelty of toasting your own bread using metal thingamajigs.

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