Aussie East Coast: Cairns

The Adventure of a Lifetime!

Dates of Travel:

4 - 8 April: Melbourne
8 - 11 April: Sydney
11 - 17 April: Brisbane
17 - 22 April: Cairns
22 - 30 April: Gold Coast

Doing the Aussie East Coast!

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Cairns

Spaceship Campervan

Our home for the next 6 days

We rented another Spaceship in Cairns after our wonderful experience in New Zealand. Check out this link on some tips and why I choose the Spaceship Campervan in New Zealand!

Rainforestation Nature Park

Address: 1030 Kennedy Hwy, Kuranda QLD 4881, Australia 

Tel: +61 7 4093 9033 

Opening Hours: 9 am - 4 pm 

Tickets: Big Nature Package (includes Koala & Wildlife Park, Pamagirri Aboriginal Experience and Army Duck Rainforest Tour) - Adult - $47, Child - $23.50 

Website: http://www.rainforest.com.au/

Explore Australia's World Heritage-listed tropical rainforest at the Rainforestation Nature Park in Kuranda. The park is set on 100 acres (40 hectares) of pristine rainforest within five minutes of Kuranda village, accessible from Cairns by road or by the Skyrail Rainforest Cableway or the Kuranda Scenic Railway.

Learning how to throw a boomerang 

This is the Pamagirri Aboriginal Experience! Get an insight into the world's longest-living culture, that of the Australian Aborigines. Hear the Dreamtime stories, watch a corroboree (traditional dance) performance and learn how to throw a boomerang or play the didgeridoo.

Army Duck!!

There’s no better way to see the rainforest than in an Army Duck. This all-terrain, amphibious World War II Army Duck will have you driving down dirt tracks and cruising the waterways. As you traverse part of the property on your unforgettable 45-minute rainforest tour, the knowledgeable guide will point out and explain the native flora and fauna. If you're lucky, he will point out humongous spiders and cute turtles to you!

Take a walk with the keepers along the boardwalks at the Koala and Wildlife Park for a close-up view of Australia's unique native animals. See crocodiles, wallabies and the shy cassowary foraging for food. You can have your picture taken holding a cuddly koala or even a small crocodile at an additional cost!

Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Queensland in northeastern Australia, is the largest living thing on Earth, and even visible from outer space. The 2,300km-long ecosystem comprises thousands of reefs and hundreds of islands made of over 600 types of hard and soft coral. It's home to countless species of colourful fish, molluscs and starfish, plus turtles, dolphins and sharks.

We booked a total of 3 dives. All snorkelers and divers will have to board the same boat and they will seat you differently for different briefings.

at the reef

The entire journey out was rather choppy and many people felt sick. G included. There's an indoor air conditioned and an outdoor area. Naturally, once the waves start hitting, the waves will be choppy and everyone sitting in the air conditioned area had to move outdoors.

lunch!

Buffet lunch was provided and it was scrumptious! I went all out with coffee, pasta, ham etc, and since G was quite sick he couldn't finish his food. So I helped! *pig icon*

duving gear

It was quite different diving in Australia and South East Asia as you had to gear on and off yourself (naturally, please do not expect too much) and in SEA, there's boatmen who will help you gear on and off! They will even wear your flippers for you. It was also perhaps due to the shear number of divers.

so beautiful

It was such an amazing experience! We got to see turtles, stingrays, nemos, super giant clams as big as my body, and tons of cute fishes and sea cucumbers! There was a total of 3 dive sites with each dive lasting from 45 mins to 1 hour!

last photo before we dock

Milla Milla Falls

Address: Millaa Falls Rd, Millaa Millaa QLD 4886, Australia

road to milla milla

 Millaa Millaa Falls is a heritage-listed plunge waterfall at Theresa Creek Road, Millaa Millaa, Tablelands Region, Queensland, Australia. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 5 December 2005.

beautiful scenery! 

 We went to Milla Milla Falls and it started raining. We decided that since we intended to swim and get wet anyway, a little rain will not stop us! What we did not expect is the cold from the falls and the wind! It was so cold we decided to go have lunch at the near by town first and wait for the rain to stop.

milla milla falls

 So we had a wonderful lunch of scones and tea and headed back to the falls once the rain stopped. However, to our disappointment, it started raining as soon as we arrived! We decided to just brave the cold and go for it since we were tired of waiting.

us and milla milla falls

It was beautiful, despite the cold. G actually swam to the falls itself and i just stood with the water up to my knees cos it was too cold, half the time screaming at him to be careful or he might get cramps.

Platypus Park

The Australian Platypus Park is home to a thriving platypus population. These wonderful creatures can be found in a spring fed pond surrounded by lush tropical vegetation.

still raining!

It was still raining when we visited. Because it was still raining, sometimes we were unsure if the ripples in the water were from the rain or Platypus. Nonetheless, the park boasts of it's 99% viewing success rate and indeed we managed to catch a glimpse of the animals!

Platypus pons

Gallo Dairyland

Address: Atherton Malanda Rd & E Barron Rd, East Barron QLD 4883, Australia
Phone: +61 7 4095 2388
Website: http://gallodairyland.com.au/
Hours: 9:30AM – 4:30PM

Gallo Dairyland

Gallo Dairyland is a family owned and operated business. Today the farm spreads across 1000 acres of rich red volcanic soil growing sugarcane and milking on average 350 cows twice a day. It is a licensed cafe, animal farm, cheese factory, chocolate factory, and dairy farm!

Chocolates!

 We decided to stop for lunch in their cafe and had 2 coffees, a cheese platter and some seafood platter. The cheese platter was generous and it came with lots of crackers and fruit!

cheese platter

 They also have free roaming animals like turkey and chickens!

Turkey

You get to pet and feed the calfs and they will lick you in return!

animal nursery

my new cow friend

Curtain Fig Tree

trail around the curtain fig tree

The fig tree is from the strangler fig species Fichus virens. The curtain effect results from one tree leaning against another tree on a 45-degree angle. The strangler vine then grew along the oblique angle of the leaning tree, dangling 15 metres to the ground to create the curtain affect

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Aussie East Coast Series:

Melbourne

Sydney

Brisbane

Cairns

Gold Coast

Tips: Campervanning in New Zealand

Choose Your Campervan

There are many types of campervans out there in the market. There's really elaborate ones which are huge, comes with a spacious shower, kitchenette and sitting area. There's also really simple ones, very much like the one we rented, which is basically just a simple car with a bed at the back.

Types of Camervans

It really depends on your budget, driving skills and need for luxury. For us, we choose Spaceships which is basically a seven-seater car with all the back seats removed. A bed and a mini fridge are placed in instead.

Despite having a license and driven a car with manual transmission, we were not experienced driving a manual car on steep mountainous slopes. We live in a city where everything is almost flat and we drive an Automatic car. We wanted something which will be easy to drive while navigating foreign land.

Camper with side awning.

Also, we've heard stories on how windy (and now experienced) New Zealand can be. We didn't want to drive a vehicle which is too high (and catches the win) and difficult for us to handle, on top of the mountain pass no less.

Besides, there were only two of us, and we felt Spaceship has sufficient space for us!

This being said, we were unable to freedom camp because we do not have a toilet attached to our camper.


Electricity

If you decide to get the luxurious camper, you will not have a problem charging your electronics. There are multiple electrical outlets for you to plug in and use! However, if like us, you decide on getting a simpler camper, there will be no electrical outlet.

Electrical outlets

You possibly could get those phone charges where you can plug into your cigarette lighter compartment, however, I had a camera to charge almost every night and no car mart had anything of that sort.

We rented an external power cord (240 volt mains plug) for NZ$60 for the duration of our trip. Park  in a powered campsite and you're good to go! As we had quite a few electronics, we stopped at the nearest DIY store and bought an extension cord so we could charge four electronics at once.

I didn't take a photo of our electrical cord so I grabbed this from online. *Sorry* As you can see, the power cord is the orange wire.

Cooking

The Spaceship rental comes with a portable stove, gas canister, pots and a kettle. As we had to park in a Camper Park every night, we had the luxury of a proper and clean toilet as well as well equipped kitchens to cook breakfasts and dinners. G insisted on getting an extra gas canisters as he was afraid that we'd run out of gas to cook our food eventually. We never used the second gas canister and barely finished the first one.

Cooking our dinner

If like us, you plan on staying in a Camper Park, forget about the second canister! You have proper kitchen facilities to use and wash up! We only used the gas canister and portable stove at the Camper Park at Lake Wanaka and Franz Josef because the kitchen was quite a distance to our camp lot (and also because we wanted to use the stove).

Also, we saved a lot on cooking our breakfasts and dinners! We grocery shopped about every two days, or if we felt like we were pigs and finished all the food the night before. We bought meat, fish, vegetables, lots of perishables! Don't be afraid that you can't find a supermarket. There are at least a well stocked one in every city!

Travel time

Because we basically lived in our car, our travel time is flexible. We could take a break anytime we were tired. We also didn't go through the hassle of packing a small bag every night, if we were to rent a normal car and stay in motels. The car was our home and it was so fun!

Looking for Campsites

If you get a camper without a toilet, you're not allowed to freedom camp. Obviously, there will be no place for you to shower and do your business. Such acts in public are highly frowned upon by locals and even the police!

Campers of all shapes and sized

You’ll also see signs stating ‘No overnight camping’. Some of these are situated in places that only very disrespectful people would attempt to park up for the night (and sadly have attempted), such as outside someone’s beachfront house on a private road.

Also, at the rental office, you will be able to pick up a guide book on the various campsites around the country where you can park for the night. It will include the location, address, phone numbers and prices. On occasions, we were undecided on which campsite to choose from, we just drove right up to the campsite, checked it out and just choose our favourite!

South Island on Wheels: Hampden

Click the link to see the summary of the trip!

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Moeraki Boulders Holiday Park

Moeraki Boulders Holiday Park

Address: 2 Lincoln Street, Hampden, Otago, NZ, 9410
Tel: +64 (0)3 439 4439
Website: www.moerakibouldersholidaypark.co.nz
Fee: $30 for 2 pax for powered site

Recommended by Ian from Glenmark Holiday Park, we visited Alex at Moeraki. We still haven't really seen much penguins and arriving at Hampden was our last hope.

The Holiday Park is very spacious and clean! It is located next to the beach, so the wind is always blowing and the temperature drops drastically at night. Gilbert was very impressed with the toilet actually, just because they provided a floor mat and a bench for you to put your stuff. The facilities are located in different buildings, so getting from the car to the toilet to the kitchen mean braving the cold and walking in the wind.

The kitchen has about 3 electric stove tops and just 2 large tables for dining. The kitchen walls are what made this holiday park so different. Lots of graffiti, drawings and messages were scrawled on every surface of the walls and ceilings.

One particular message was about how this family decided to escape the Christchurch Earthquake by having a campervan "holiday" away from all the disaster that have struck them.

Remember in Oamaru, we packed our chips from Fat Sally's to go? Well, a day's old chips are not edible, but we used them as bait!

Feeding the #seagulls. #NataBertinNZ #roadtripping #newzealand

A photo posted by Natasha Lim (@natatatasha) on Oct 10, 2014 at 6:50pm PDT

Yellow-eyed Penguin Colony

Location: Katiki Point, Moeraki Village
Fee: Free

We thought we could see the penguins come up to shore from the holiday park, but nope, we had to drive on a long, winding and narrow gravel road which leads up to a lighthouse.A short walk away from the parking lot, you'd reach a fork in the road. To turn right to head towards the lighthouse or to walk straight, past a fence and a door. We walked straight down the path instead.

Walking straight

 Well, that's what they say about the road least traveled! At first we didn't see any penguins, just lots of fat and lazy seals. Slowly, as dusk approaches, one by one the yellow-eyed penguins came up. What a sight to behold. They'd swim up to shore, waddle a little and shake all the water off. I was freezing my ass off, I didn't know how they took to just standing there air drying themselves.

Penguin Burrows

 As we walked along the path back up, we saw several burrows. In some, penguins were already nesting in them and building up their home with twigs and branches.

Moeraki Boulders

Location: Koekohe Beach
Website: http://www.moerakiboulders.com/

Moeraki Boulders are just located just 25 mins walking distance from the Holiday Park. Instead of walking, we just drove up to the beach in the morning. It's unique shape is formed by concretions that have been exposed through shoreline erosion from coastal cliffs that back the beach. They originally formed in ancient sea floor sediments around 60 million years ago.

Maori legend tells that the boulders are remains of calabashes, kumaras and eel baskets that washed ashore after the legendary canoe, the Araiteuru was wrecked at nearby Shag Point (Matakaea).

Alpacas

Moeraki Boulders also has a cafe, a gift shop and Alpacas! You can buy food to feed the alpacas and they're all really dense and greedy. We spotted them from afar and after shaking the bag of treats, they literally jogged to where we were.

We had a hard time squeezing our hand through the fence though and as the alpacas become more excited at the on sight of food, they'd bump our hands and the treats would drop to the ground. In the evenr that we were able to squeeze our hands through without them bumping our hands, they'd lick and use their thick lips to suckle every morsel from our palms.

TOO CUTE!

Saw @rumwolfe look a like! Jia lat. #facesoround time to eat less! #alpaca #NataBertinNZ #newzealand #roadtripping #derpface

A photo posted by Natasha Lim (@natatatasha) on Oct 10, 2014 at 6:54pm PDT

Scenic Drives

On our way to Dunedin, we stopped once again to take pictures of the magnificent view that stood before us.  How do you not love the blue sky and the mountains? I must say, in the pictures, everything looks so serene and like it is such a perfect weather, but in actual fact, the wind was howling and it was freezing!

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Read All About:

• Timaru
• Oamaru
• Hampden
• Dunedin
• Queenstown
• Lake Wanaka
• Fox Glacier
• Franz Josef
• Arthur's Pass

South Island on Wheels: Oamaru

Click the link to see the summary of the trip!

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Oamaru is a beautiful old town with amazing architecture. It is also the largest town in North Otago, in the South Island of New Zealand, is the main town in the Waitaki District. The locally plentiful limestone (Oamaru stone) lent itself to carving and good designers, such as Thomas Forrester (1838-1907) and his son J.M. Forrester (1865–1965), and craftsmen utilized it. By the time of the depression of the 1880s Oamaru had become the "best built and most mortgaged town in Australasia"

Old building around Oamaru

If you look around Oamaru, you'd notice most, if not all, of its building are made from stone instead of  traditional wood as forests and trees were scarce and building with wood would cost more than taking the stones from the cliffs. Oamaru also used to be a port.

Oamaru Public Gardens

You'll feel the magic of Oamaru Public Gardens the moment you enter the classical main gates on Severn Street. Started in 1876, these gardens are a botanical expression of Oamaru's Victorian history. Spring is in the air, and you can smell it! Fresh flowers are blooming and different sections of the gardens boasts different themes. We did not wander far from the main gate because we were running out of time, but we visited a section named "Chinese Garden". They should rename it "Asian Garden" because there was a mix of Chinese, Japanese and Korean relics and flora. Perhaps the Botanists were confused and lump all Asian flowers and decor as "Chinese". It probably seemed all the same to them.

Nonetheless, I've never been able to catch Sakura in full bloom when I was in Japan or Korea, and I was in awe of the magnificent sight that stood before me. I've never seen so many pretty tulips and daisies and so many beautiful flowers all at once!

Singapore's weather is just too hot and humid to grow such flowers and the flowers we get from florists wilt within 2 days.

I love Spring!

Lunch: Fat Sally's

Address:  84 Thames St, Oamaru 9400
Tel: 03 434 8368
Website: http://www.fatsallys.co.nz/

We were buying small knick knacks from a cute little budget store selling souvenirs and Halloween decorations and we asked the kind lady where she'd recommend us for lunch.

Fat Sally's it was!

I ordered Fish & Chips and Gilbert ordered an open Steak Sandwich. No Regrets.The table next to us ordered some mains and we saw how large the portion was. We were actually discussing what we'd eat from the plate and how we'd pack the rest back.

My Fish & Chips came with 2 large slabs of crumbed fish, green salad with vinaigrette and tons of chips. Gilbert's sandwich came with a huge chunk of beef slab on soft and toasty bread, green salad and TONS of chips.

We obviously couldn't finish the chips. We packed the chips for later!

Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony

PENGUINS!

Address: Waterfront Rd, Oamaru 9400, New Zealand
Tel: +64 3-433 1195
Website:  www.penguins.co.nz/ 
Tour: $10 student rate for day-time behind the scenes tour

Our main intention of visiting Oamaru was for penguins! We stopped by Oamaru Blue Penguin Colony to try our luck to spot some. Apparently, it was still too early to see any. Penguins only come ashore during dusk, and they return out to sea at dawn. Think of penguins as human workers, they leave for work in the day and return home only at night.

We went on a day tour to see the penguins through a viewfinder. That was the only way to see any Blue Penguins during the day time. There were chicks and a female penguin sitting on an egg!

Yellow-eyed Penguin Colony

Yellow-eyed penguins

 Address: Bushy Beach Reserve
Fee: Free

Bushy Beach

Because we didn't see many Blue Penguins, we wanted to see more! Headed to Bushy Beach Scenic Reserve. Admission is free as you're not guaranteed to see any penguins. The outlook is perched up high on a cliff and you look down on the beach. At that time of the day, there were NO penguins and not even seals!

After about 15mins, we concluded that we were too early for their return and left. There were plenty of farms with sheep and cows to entertain us though!

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Read All About:

• Timaru
• Oamaru
• Hampden
• Dunedin
• Queenstown
• Lake Wanaka
• Fox Glacier
• Franz Josef
• Arthur's Pass