Tasmania, heaven down under.

Weaponed with a jacket for the cold climate and a fishing rod, that I already kept with me since shark bay but never used, we stepped in a brand new rental Hyundai I20 to drive from Hobart to Launceston along the west. Then we would hire a bike and drive it back to Hobart along the east coast!  It was so nice to drive a normal car with automatic gear, after 3 months hitting my van from 1984. We headed to the Hobart West-side National park for a 3h walk to the top of a mountain. There was a lot of fog but that made the landscape only more magical.

La Goon

Back on the mainland Gilligans was booked out, so I checked in at Nomads on the esplanade. I thought I was adapted to the land right away until I took a shower and the walls started making me landsick. In the night we had a dive-reunion party at the Courthouse and the Woolshed. Some people from the boat showed themselves a lot more active on land than in the sea, maybe it was because now we were not drinking tea.  

Finding Nemo: whitsundays & great barrier reef

We had a day and a half to do 800k till Airlie beach. From there we left the next day for a 3 day sailing tour along the Whitsunday islands, my first big meeting with the world heritage great barrier reef. We entered Apollo: a retired competition sailboat who has many victories on his name. I helped raising sails to head off far far away from the mainland. We first started snorkeling and it was amazing how many fishes we could see in the clear water. The reef was stunning and the little beach where we could have a quick rest to clean our masks from fog was made out of old coral that had turned into stone. It was a masterpiece by its own!  I was surprised the most by Elvis, a 150y old rastafish moving slowly his big body through the reef. He didn’t seem to care to go on the photo with me and looked me in the eyes with his I don't care attitude. 

Into the wild: up to the east coast.

 

After saying goodbye to my travelgroup in Brisbane I had to leave the dildoracing to be on time for the bushcamp 2 days later. I slept in Caloundra on Kings Beach with a lot of free barbie's and a new esplenade along the beach. I got back on track to get on Noosa where I would meet Tovi again. Noosa has a lot of surfable beaches, but we stayed out of the water. A walk in the National Park let us see a big leguan, some kind of big wasp eating a spider, another hundsman and a lot of acrobatic stunts from the surfers in the water.

5 cheezy monkeys on the road: from Sydney to Brisbane.

Sam, Louis and me went on Sunday from Sydney straight to Palm Beach. There we spent 24h playing “home and away” on the beach waiting for Johnny and Maxime who followed a day later. Unfortunately Louis had been to greedy with his sunscreen and made it difficult for us to see the difference between him and a red lobster. The next week he found it hard getting sleep and found out how it was to be a snake changing skin.  On palm beach we tried my aldi-6$ kite and did some bodysurfing. 
The next day we continued the road singing every classic Samson en Gert song (my soundsystem is from the 80's) until we arrived in a small National Park in Port Macquirie or Coffs Harbour: I don't remember. Before the dark we had a walk in the park with too many mosquitos and giant insects making an incredible loud lovesong. We swom in a warm lagoon just in front of the ocean to end the day in van playing shithole.