We flew from Sydney to Cairns, in northern Queensland for the next part of our trip. Most parts of Australia that I'd already seen are quite flat, so it was quite surprising to see so many hills in the area surrounding Cairns. There's not an enormous amount to see in the town itself and on the first afternoon we headed out to Fitzroy Island, about 30 km south-east of Cairns. We'd been told we could dive there, however visibility was pretty bad and the organiser had forgotten weight belts so in the end we gave up. Fortunately our other dives in Queensland went much better (see more about them here)!
Fitzroy Island
Cairns has an extensive foreshore promenade, however you're not allowed to swim in the sea there due to risk of crocodile attacks. Between November and late April there's also a risk of being fatally stung by jellyfish, and the rashguards rented by companies that offer snorkelling excursions tend cover the whole body.
sign at Cairns waterfront warning of the risk of crocodile attacks
After spending a day diving on the Great Barrier Reef, we took possession of the camping car we'd rented for the next ten days, and started to head south.
our camping car in Queensland
Due to the tropical climate there's quite a lot of sugar cane cultivation, like Reunion. However unlike the enormous lorries in Reunion that carry the sugar from weighing station to factory, in Queensland small - but very long - trains are used.
a train carrying sugar cane crossing the road
a train carrying sugar cane crossing the road
a very long sugar cane train in Ingham, Queensland
controlled sugar cane field fire, near Ayr, Queensland
After stopping at Alva Beach near Ayr to dive the Yongala, our next stop was Bowen, well known for its mangoes, and home of two giant mangoes.
the 'little' mango, Bowen
the 'big' mango, Bowen
Our next stop was in Rockhampton, in Central Queensland, and as it was a Friday evening we found ourselves at the Great Western Hotel (established in 1862), where a bull riding event was taking place. Apparently every Wednesday and Friday you can eat dinner and watch the bull riding at the same time.
bull riding, Great Western Hotel, Rockhampton
As we hadn't been aware of the event we hadn't booked a ringside table and would have ended up sitting inside, however an Australian couple we'd got talking to in the queue while waiting to pay for our food very kindly suggested we share their (ringside) table, so we got to see the bull riding up close.
bull riding, Great Western Hotel, Rockhampton
bull riding, Great Western Hotel, Rockhampton
Rockhampton promotes itself as the 'Beef Capital of Australia' (see further below) and the Great Western Hotel is apparently the only place in the world outside of Texas where you have a bull riding arena incorporated into a hotel and restaurant.
bull riding, Great Western Hotel, Rockhampton
bull riding, Great Western Hotel, Rockhampton
The next morning shortly after leaving Rockhampton we stopped at the sign marking the Tropic of Capricorn, latitude 23° 27' 30"S. (The last place we'd been at such a sign was in Namibia, about 18 months previously). The Tropic of Capricorn is the the southernmost latitude at which the sun reaches its zenith. This happens only once each year on the summer solstice (about 22nd December).
Tropic of Capricorn, Queensland
In Roman mythology Capricornus was the sea goat into which Pan was changed to escape from the terrible giant Typhon. It's also the name given to the constellation resembling it, and when the December solstice was first observed the sun was situated in this constellation, hence the tropic was named Capricorn.
Tropic of Capricorn, Queensland
Kigelia (aka Sausage tree)
lunch stop
Our next overnight stop was at the unusually-named locality of Seventeen Seventy in the Gladstone region of Queensland, built on the site of the second landing in Australia by James Cook and the crew of HMS Endeavour in May 1770 (this was Cook's first landing in what is now the state of Queensland).
Memorial marking Cook's landing at Seventeen Seventy
(lee = downwind, or downward)
After the big mangoes came the big bottle of rum! We stopped at the Bundaberg distillery, but didn't take the tour as it's something we've already done in Reunion more than once.
outside the Bundaberg distillery
Nearby is Maryborough, famous as the birthplace of PL Travers, author of the Mary Poppins books.
Mary Poppins statue, Maryborough
After diving at Wolf Rock off Rainbow Beach, our next stop was at Glass House Mountains, on the Sunshine Coast about one hour north of Brisbane. These 'mountains' (the highest is 556 metres) are a group of 13 hills that rise abruptly from the coastal plain. The modern non-Aboriginal name was given by Captain Cook as the peaks reminded him of the glass furnaces in his home county of Yorkshire.
Glass House Mountains
We then had lunch and took a walk in the nearby Mary Cairncross Reserve, a conservation park where there is sub-tropical rain forest as well as good views of the Glass House Mountains.
at Mary Cairncross reserve
bird in Mary Cairncross reserve
bird in Mary Cairncross reserve
We then arrived in Brisbane, which was to be our home for the next five nights as I was attending a professional conference there. We visited the city on the first day before my 3-day conference started on August 3rd. Brisbane is the state capital of Queensland, and the third largest destination in Australia.
At the start of the conference I got to see a Welcome to Country ritual ceremony that is often performed at many events held in Australia to highlight the cultural significance of the surrounding area to a particular Aboriginal clan or language group. Indigenous Australians are believed to have lived in coastal south-east Queensland for 32,000 years, with an estimated population between 6,000 and 20,000 individuals before white settlement
Welcome to Country ritual
On the first evening of the conference we also got to do a 'showboat' cruise on the Brisbane River.
Kookaburra evening cruise on the Brisbane River
After leaving Brisbane we then hired a car and headed down to Sydney over the course of three days, along the New South Wales coast. Our first stop was at Cape Byron, the most easterly point on the Australian mainland. (The name comes from John Byron, a renowned navigator in the 1760s and grandfather of the poet Lord Byron).
Tallow Beach, Cape Bryon
As August is whale season (like in Reunion), we got to see plenty of pods of migrating humpbacks.
whales off Cape Byron
whale off Cape Byron
the sign says it all!
Cape Byron lighthouse was built in 1901 and is an easily recognisable local landmark.
Cape Byron lighthouse
Cape Byron
Near Port Macquarie we finally managed to see koalas in the wild!
koala in the wild, Port Macquarie
But we also visited the nearby Koala Hospital to see some more.
koala at the koala hospital
To get to our accommodation at Tea Gardens, further down the coast, we took a tiny ferry at Myall Lakes National Park. As it was early evening and there was a full moon it was quite atmospheric.
ferry across Boolambayte Creek
moonrise and pelican, Boolambayte Creek
Our final stop before reaching Sydney was at Newcastle, the largest coal export harbour in the world. The Newcastle metropolitan area is is the second most populated area in New South Wales.
view of Newcastle, NSW from the top of Queen's Wharf Tower (30m high)
Then it was back to Sydney for one more night before flying cross-country to Perth, and then finally back to Reunion via Mauritius.
On our trip to Australia we managed to fit in three days' full diving. We started at the Great Barrier Reef, a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site, and first tried to dive at Fitzroy Island, near Cairns, but the visibility was pretty bad, so we gave up. We headed out the next day with Tusa Dive to Hastings Reef on the Great Barrier Reef, where we did two dives at a site called Fish Bowl, before heading to another site called Coral Gardens at Saxon Reef for our third and final dive of the day.
diving at Hastings Reef, Great Barrier Reef
The diving was good but visibility was so-so, and as we're used to diving in tropical waters a lot of what we saw was similar to our Indian Ocean diving. As August is (southern hemisphere) winter, temperatures were similar to Reunion at the same time of year (23-24°C), even though Cairns is further north (16°N).
diving the Great Barrier Reef
We didn't take our own wetsuits, and the 5 mm ones they supplied us with were long-sleeved but short-legged - something I'd never seen before!
with a clam, Hastings Reef
Hastings Reef
Hastings Reef
me with a turtle, Saxon Reef
spot the ray! Saxon Reef
Two days later we were about 450km further south near Ayr, to dive the Yongala with Yongala Dive. The SS Yongala was a vessel built in 1903 that sank during a cyclone on 23rd March 1911 en route from Melbourne to Cairns with the loss of all 122 passengers and crew aboard . It created one of Australia's most intriguing maritime mysteries, as she lay undiscovered for more than half a century, until 1958.
diagram of the SS Yongala
Today the coral-encrusted wreck has become home to an incredible array of marine life: giant gropers, giant trevally, cobia, sea snakes, turtles, batfish and moray eels. Everything we saw there seemed larger than the same marine life seen elsewhere.
We did two dives, and frustratingly another group of divers who came up from their second dive a few minutes after us had just seen a bull shark.
looking back from the bow§, SS Yongala
The wreck is 109 metres long. The bow points in a northerly direction (347°), and although she lies listing to starboard (right), the vessel's structural integrity has been retained.
SS Yongala
The depth of water to the sea floor is approximately 30 metres, with the upper sections of the wreck 16 metres below the surface.
SS Yongala
Although the Yongala lies within the central section of the Great Barrier Reef, the sea floor surrounding the wreck is open and sandy, so it has become an established artificial reef, providing a habitat for a wide range of marine life.
moray eel, SS Yongala
As there was loss of life on board the vessel when it sank it is now a protected dive site and you are not allowed to penetrate inside.
spot the turtle, SS Yongala
Our final Australian dives were probably the best! We dived with Wolf Rock Dive off Rainbow Beach in southern Queensland, a full thousand or so kilometres south of Ayr (latitude 25°S). What makes Wolf Rock special is that grey nurse sharks (also known as sand tiger shark, spotted ragged-tooth shark, or blue-nurse sand tiger) are found there all year round.
map of Wolf Rock
The numbers of sharks vary according to their lifecycle and the largest amount are always seen from spring through to autumn (the dive club has counted up to 54 in one go).
grey nurse sharks at Wolf Rock
We did two dives and on the first dive saw a handful of sharks, plus several manta rays, an eagle ray, a Queensland grouper (also known as giant grouper) and schools of batfish and barracuda. On the second dive we hit the jackpot and saw 16 sharks! We also saw an enormous green turtle and a manta ray during our safety stop.
grey nurse sharks at Wolf Rock
shark's tooth in the hand of the our dive guide
Despite many of the sharks being pregnant females they didn't seem to be perturbed by our presence, however they did react a little agitatedly to a free diver during our first dive.
manta ray, Wolf Rock
Wolf Rock is actually a set of four volcanic pinnacles two kilometres north-northeast of Double Island Point in Cooloola, Queensland. It is said the rock was named for one of Captain Cook's crew who first saw the rocks on rounding Double Island Point. There was certainly an Archibald Wolfe on Cook's voyage, but Cook doesn't record the rocks, nor anyone in particular seeing them (or the point) first.
manta ray, Wolf Rock
Wolf Rock is considered by the Queensland Government to be Queensland's most important habitat area for the critically endangered grey nurse shark.
we saw many (unidentified) jelly fish during our 2nd safety stop at Wolf Rock
