Sun and Fun

April 16, 2000

Hello everyone,

Sorry we have taken so long to send an update. Please keep your emails coming, we love to get individual responses and apologize we can't send more detailed replies. We miss everyone very much and will be home in about 5 months. Scary.

We have had a blast traveling up the East Coast (the English backpacker party route-we really don't fit the traveler profile-they drink a lot). Anyway we've had a lot of fun at both the beaches and the hinterland bush country. Mike has gotten a lot of surfing in and really enjoyed having his wetsuit to keep the strong sun from frying his pale body. Luckily no shark attacks, but he still has a lot of salt water dripping randomly from his nose.

We enjoyed the inland towns, not as touristy and lots of great bush walking and really Aussie people to meet. We floated down dangerous Bellinger River full of rapids and tree limbs, and climbed thru rain forest to the peak of Mt Warning (a magma chamber of an extinct volcano, eroded over the last 20 million years, beautiful views).

We spent 4 days on Cabarita Beach, the southern end of the Gold Coast, where Mike got to hang out with the local and visiting Australian surfers, great experience for him, lots of good tips and big waves. Beautiful, undeveloped spot, soon to be taken over by the chaos of the Gold Coast/Surfers Paradise high rises.

We crossed the New South Wales state line into Queensland, and lots of sugar cane fields, great for making rum! We spent a few days at the beautiful resort town of Noosa Heads, hiking in the national park and surfing and boogie boarding the great waves.

We met up with 4 friends (Jeanette and Peter from Holland and Mike and Carol Brady from Manchester, England-lots of football (soccer) talk between the 2 countries) and rented a 4 wheel drive ex-army jeep to explore Fraser Island from Hervey Bay. The island is the largest sand island in the world and a world heritage site, because of its 45 perched lakes (crystal clear fresh water lakes on sand dunes), the beautiful coastlines and mangrove and rainforest reserves. It is full of backpackers driving in dangerous deep, soft sand. Lots of warnings and stories when you rent it, but we were very confident in Mike's 4wd driving experience. The first day was a wet one and 20 minutes onto the island our jeep stalled and the 6 of us were pushing it thru the mud in the pouring rain to get out of the way of the parade of 4wds following us. Always an adventure. We learned to hand start the thing, and when the weather cleared we were off again. It was wonderful to drive along the beautiful, wild beaches, the ocean is not safe for swimming, due to the large number of sharks, but there were plenty of lakes, rivers and ocean pools to swim in. We checked out the MAHENO Shipwreck (Mike liked that!) We walked on a 5km long sand blow, it seemed to go on and on. It was an incredible experience and a lot of fun riding in the jeep, especially when the sun was shining and we took off the canvas top!

We are now in Airlie Beach, another backpacker mecca and gateway to the beautiful Whitsunday Islands and further off the Great Barrier Reef. No more surfing, we now snorkel and dive. This weekend (our 1 year wedding anniversary and Easter) we are going on a luxurious dive boat, the OCEANIA, for 10 dives off of the outer reef. We will dive the YONGALA wreck, supposedly one of the best dives in the world, plus 2 night dives. It should be an amazing time and a real treat.

Last night Linda, in an effort to fit in with the backpackers, rode a mechanical bull at one of the crazy bars. The atmosphere here is comparable to Spring Break in Ft Lauderdale, without the Americans.

Cheers and goodbye to the next note,
Love Linda and Mike

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