July
26-28 L.A.X.
– Auckland Transit
Area – Brisbane [rented car]
July
28
Brisbane north to Hervey
Bay (Woolshed Backpackers)
July
29
Hervey Bay north and west
to Emerald (Central Inn)
July
30
Emerald area (car)
July
31
Emerald area – Blackwater (Bedford
Weir campground-car)
August
1
Blackwater
east via Rockhampton to Emu Park (Emus Beach Resort)
August
2
Ferry from Rosslyn Bay to
Great Keppel Island (GKI Holiday Village)
August
3-7 Great
Keppel Island (GKI Holiday Village)
August
8
Ferry from Great Keppel Island
to Rosslyn Bay (Emus Beach Resort)
August
9
Emu Park north towards Byfield,
then south to Agnes Water (Cool Bananas)
August
10 Agnes
Water/1770 (backpackers)
August 11 Boat
from 1770 to Hoskyns Islands. To Bundaberg. (Cellblock
Backpackers)
August
12 Bundaberg
south to Brisbane
[returned car] (Banana Benders)
August
13-16 Brisbane
(Banana Benders)
August 17 Brisbane. Ferry from Cleveland to North Stradbroke Island
(Manta Lodge)
August
18-21 North Stradbroke
Island (Manta Lodge)
August 22 Ferry
from North Stradbroke to Cleveland. Brisbane
(Banana Benders)
August 23 Brisbane
– Auckland Transit Area – L.A.X.
Report on the
2009 Queensland Expedition
Rationale
and Overview
After 20 years in DC and after grinding through
the very
long and intense 2008 presidential campaign in I determined that it was
time
for a break. During the grinding days of
the campaign, I had envisaged going as far away as possible once it was
over. I wanted to go overseas.
August is sweltering in DC, and it is a good time
to get out
of town. However, in the southern
hemisphere it is winter. Although
I flew in and out of Brisbane on Air New Zealand. The flight from L.A.X. to Auckland takes
about 12 hours and 40 minutes, there is a layover of several hours in
the
transit area, and it is another 2 hours and 30 minutes to Brisbane. (Brief glimpses of New Zealand coming and
going into Auckland looked very tempting.
I asked about adding a stopover, but it would have cost too
much). Arriving in Brisbane, I rented a
car for two
weeks and set out immediately. I did not
want to sort through
I had some notions of driving up to Cairns, a distance of about 1,681 km (1,043 miles). The vast majority of the driving was on two lane roads, with opposing traffic oncoming at 100 km/h (62 mph). I learned the meaning of the phrase “the tyranny of distance.” Queensland is a little larger than Alaska and slightly more than four times the area of California. I did not get much further north than the resort city of Yeppoon, less than half the way to Cairns, and only saw the southern part of the reef. (The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority produces 18 zoning maps that cover the reef starting north of Bundaberg and going up to Cape York at the northern tip. The places I visited were covered by the bottom two maps and further south, out of the Park). All told I drove 2,691 km (1,672 miles) in 15 days.
My plan was to stay in hostels or backpackers. These typically run about A$26 per night and offer dormitory style accommodations and kitchens. Many of hostels have bars and promote a fun party scene; I tried to avoid that. Because of snorers, I generally did not sleep too well.
Hostels are largely populated by young people
traveling
around the country on working holiday visas.
This program, begun in 1975, allows people aged from 18-30 to
work and
travel for a year.
In addition to the backpacker scene, I encountered several other types of voyagers. Sailing is big. People will take some weeks and sail from the Brisbane area up to the Whitsundays. I met a couple of people who built their own sailboats (for example a 65-foot catamaran). On land, many retired people like to go caravanning. They don’t seem to use RVs as much as in the States, but rather pull one of the trailer-thingummajiggies.
The hostel route was not the only alternative. Camping might have been cheaper, although it requires a bit of planning as one has to make reservations at least a short while in advance over the internet or by phone. With proper planning one can even camp on some of the islands of the Great Barrier Reef. In any event, I didn’t have camping gear. Also some of the campgrounds require driving over unpaved roads; I didn’t have 4-wheel drive and didn’t want to get charged for dings and scratches. Another possibility would have been to rent a van or camper and sleep in the back. There are several companies that do this. The most noticeable are the Wicked vans, which are painted with graffiti-type art and sometimes vulgar slogans. Another possibility would have been to buy a used car. In some of the hostels one could find ads for used cars, often with well over 100,000 or 200,000 kilometers on them.
As one can fly from the
Context
The political scene in Australia is quite different from when we were there in 1980-1. At that time Malcolm Fraser was prime minister leading a Liberal-National (i.e. conservative) government. Bob Hawke (Labor) and Paul Keating (Labor) followed him. John Howard (Liberal) served for over a decade, starting in March 1996. The Howard era was transformative for Australia in a way comparable to the Reagan or Thatcher years.
An article The Monthly (March 2006) argues that the Howard government accomplished not quite the Americanization of Australia, but the dominionization of Australia, in the sense that Australia used to be a dominion of the British Empire. Howard supported President Bush’s war on terror, and his government negotiated a free trade agreement that left some Australian agricultural interests displeased. Howard also took a strong stand against illegal immigration. This largely co-opted a nationalist movement that had arisen in the late 1990s under the leadership of Paula Hanson (One Nation Party). The Liberal government was ousted in the federal election of Nov. 24, 2007. Kevin Rudd (Labor) became prime minister, and he has led the government since.
A major topic of discussion during my visit was the carbon pollution reduction scheme (CPRS), which was being debated in the Senate. The opposition argued that the scheme is ill-designed and would hurt the nation’s economy and that Rudd wants the bill as a plum he can take to the climate change conference in Copenhagen this December. Rudd in turn said that the opposition did not have a clear policy and has offered nothing more than a “magic pudding.”
State government has also changed since 1980-81. Joh Bjelke-Peterson (National), a legendary and autocratic figure, served as premier from 1968-87. He ended up caught in corruption. Anna Bligh (Labor) became premier in September 2007, and was elected in her own right in March 2009. In Queensland there is just one opposition party, the Liberal National Party, following the merger of the Liberal Party and the National Party in mid-2008; this has not occurred in other states or nationally.
The population of Australia has grown from about 14.8 million in 1980-81 to 21.9 million today; the population of Queensland is 4.3 million. Australia and Queensland seem largely to have escaped the global economic crisis that has afflicted the United States and other countries. Unfortunately the U.S. dollar was at its lowest point in one year. I had to be very careful.
Aug. ‘08 |
Jan. ‘09 |
Feb. |
Mar. |
Apr. |
May |
Jun. |
Jul. |
Aug. ‘09 |
1.134 |
1.484 |
1.543 |
1.503 |
1.401 |
1.310 |
1.246 |
1.243 |
1.198 |
(I also learned that it is not wise to exchange all one’s money at the airport; there are places in the city that give a better rate and do not charge fees).
In other respects the timing of the trip proved to be excellent. The temperatures were moderate and on some occasions getting into the mid-20s degrees C (close to 80 degrees F). This was winter; it must get quite unbearable in the summer. When I was inland it did get a bit cold at night. It only rained a couple of times, briefly, while I was there. The winter school holidays, which run from late June to mid-July, were over so crowds were small. Also of note, in 2009 Queensland is celebrating its sesquicentennial, marking its independence from New South Wales.
Fossicking
Given the state of the dollar, my first objective was to find a giant gold nugget or gem. I determined to go fossicking. The day I arrived in Brisbane I drove north to Hervey Bay, and the next day I went further north and then inland to Emerald, about 300 km from the coast. This is coal country and there is also sugar cane and cotton. The drive went past the Carnarvon Gorge, which I should have visited as it is supposed to be spectacular. Emerald is on the Capricorn Highway. Going further west one can get to the true outback; to the east, towards the coast is Rockhampton, the beef capital of Australia.
I stayed out in the Emerald area a couple of days looking for sapphires. There are a number of outfits that will help people look for these gems. Keith of Fascination Gems offered the set-up that seemed most authentic. He has been bringing folks in to work along a dry creek in the Glenalva Fossicking Area and has equipment set up and ready to use. All one needs to do is pick away at the dirt, shovel it into buckets, screen out the bigger rocks, and then run it through a Willoughby. You put the dirt on a couple of screens and use this device to dunk it up and down in a barrel of water. The action has a sorting effect similar to panning for gold. Then you flip the screens and look for the sapphires, which resemble broken glass. I found some tiny sapphires (“bordering on the ridiculous” and “ant’s earrings”), and got some blisters on my hands.
I seemed to do better at first, and not so well later on, and I noticed this may have been the case with other people who were there. Early on one digs at the top soil and below it, but later on there is a tendency to carve out deeper, on the theory that the heavy sapphires have sunk. In retrospect, I think it would have made sense to focus on the middle or upper middle area. Or maybe it just wasn’t a good area to look.
Reef Visits
Now I wanted to get out to the reef.
Driving east on the
Great Keppel Island is about a 12 km off the coast
of Yeppoon/Emu Park, which is about 500 km
north of Brisbane. Captain James Cook
sailed through
For some hundreds of years the Woppaburra
people lived on several of the
Goats were introduced and sheep were raised until the early 1940s. In addition to the goats, which remain, I saw an opossum, small lizards and butterflies. More than 80 species of birds can be found on the island. Habitats range from open eucalyptus forest to wetland with mangroves.
I went snorkeling several times. Although the water looks nice and clear, it is a nippy 20 or 21 degrees C. A wetsuit is a good idea. I had difficulties with water getting in the mask, and after I finished streams of water would flow out of my nose. It was difficult to tell how healthy the fringing reefs were. The colors were somewhat muted and the diversity probably less than up north. The predominant coral was a brownish staghorn coral. A few more colorful and distinctive coral types were scattered around, and there were plenty of colorful fish and sea creatures to observe. Occasionally a small ray would dart away over the sand.
The Island has a number of lodging places and some
vacation
houses, mostly on the northwest side.
The biggest, Great Keppel
The place I stayed, Great Keppel Island Holiday Village, is billed as “the quiet alternative.” You have to bring your own food, and they turn off the generators each night. During my six days here I only saw the front of one newspaper, heard no radio or TV and never went shopping. For all but the last day I was the only person in my room. If I didn’t have to return the car, I might have stayed here longer.
Returning to the mainland I drove through Rockhampton and south to
The tours to Lady
Musgrave seemed too touristy, and the boat to Flinders Island wasn’t
running,
so I chose a smaller outfit, 1770 Undersea Adventures.
Their boat, the Narcosis, a 48’ West Coast cray boat outfitted for
diving, was going out to Hoskyns Islands. There were about 18 people, half diving and
half snorkeling. The two Islands, East
and West, are about 32 km from shore; it
takes two
hours to get out there. It was pretty
amazing to go all that way and come upon these islands.
The boat stopped the water 6-8 meters deep in
two different places. I went in several
times. The water was again in the 20-21
degrees C range. The island itself is
off limits to protect turtles, but one could swim in to where it was
less than
a meter deep. The sparser growth and
more dimly lit scene in deeper water gave way to a crowded and more
brilliant
ecosystem closer to shore. When I got
out the final time, a swarm of small but harmless jellyfish were all
around the
ladder. There were manta rays and turtles
in the area; I did not see any when I was in the water, but from the
boat I saw
one of the rays gliding away.
The boat
returned to the marina at low tide and it was necessary to take a
tender to get
to shore. I then continued driving
south, overnighting in Bundaberg. Bundaberg is famous for aviator Bert Hinkler
and for sugar and rum. Sugar production
in the area has actually been declining as the rich soil is good for
other crops. Backpackers find a lot of
work doing fruit
and vegetable picking. The next day I
drove through to
City
I spent about
five days in Brisbane staying at Banana Benders backpackers near the
Victoria
Barracks and Caxton area. There are many
hostels in the area and it is within easy walking distance to downtown
and a
big Cole’s supermarket. The city feels a
bit like
I took in various attractions--the cultural area (Queensland Library, Queensland Museum, Art Museum, Museum of Modern Art), South Bank, the West End, the Queen Street mall, the view from Mt. Coot-tha and the Botanic Garden, and the Castlemaine-Perkins brewery tour. I wanted to go to the Ekka (Royal Queensland Show), but it was quite expensive; fortunately someone gave me a ticket. I did not make it the port, however, as it proved to be quite inaccessible without a car.
Straddie
Wanting to get out of the city, I decided to go on a four-day mid-week special to North Stradbroke Island in Moreton Bay off the coast. Another option was Moreton Island, which has some boat wrecks one can swim around, but the Stradbroke package sounded the better deal. Straddie extends over 27,500 hectares, and is, after Fraser Island to the north, the second largest sand island in the world. One can take the train from Brisbane to the end of the line at Cleveland station, and then catch the ferry out. More than a dozen ferries run each day. On the ferry, I learned that the aboriginal name for the island, Minjerribah, means “place of mosquitoes,” but they were not much in evidence. Many people come out from the Brisbane area to Straddie to go fishing or for holidays. The population of the Island is about 3,200, but during the holidays it swells to the tens of thousands.
The package included a snorkeling trip to Shag Rock. Although the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park does not extend this far south, there are still reefs in the area. The water was still cold, in the 20 to 21 degrees range. The underwater highlight was a Wobbygong shark. The water was very clear and one could swim right up to where the waves were hitting the island and peek up at the birds. On this third time snorkeling I finally managed to do it without getting water in the mask; Vaseline helped. Had I been out there a bit longer I would likely have taken a scuba diving course.
Straddie is a good place from which to observe whales. From the shore early one evening, albeit at a considerable distance, I saw humpback whales splashing their flippers and jumping as they made their way north. The island has a variety of wildlife. There are dugongs and koalas and swamp wallabies, which I did not see. I did see a dangerous but not too happy looking snake on Main Beach, and a large lizard rapidly climbing a tree and some flattened toads on the road near Brown Lake.
There is a significant sand-mining operation on
the island,
and during my visit the main
All in all this is a nice island, at least when it is not in the peak of the tourist season. If I had known about it earlier, I might have stayed out there longer.
Closing Notes
I wanted to get away from the news and was generally successful in this. I bought only three or four newspapers during the whole trip. I occasionally listened to the radio when driving. American news does feature fairly prominently; the headlines would often include one story from the States. I listened to the debate in the Australian Senate on climate change legislation, and I heard a bit of the Ashes (Australia versus England cricket match).
I did not get as much reading or drawing done as I would have liked. I think the dormitory style of hostels is not quite my cup of tea; it is definitely not conducive to sound sleep.
My camera gear was wholly inadequate. It would have made sense to take a functioning digital camera along rather than the erratic film camera I had. For shooting underwater, the disposables simply do not cut it. A professional set up with a professional underwater flash is necessary.
The highlights of the expedition were the visits
to the three
islands and the snorkeling. The water was
rather cold, and it took some practice to do snorkeling properly, but
seeing several examples of
reefs, coming at them from different approaches, and taking in the
diversity
was extraordinary. Wow.