Fraser Island

We went to Fraser island, twice.

First time, we didn't quite understand how to get there, so we booked ourselves a way too expensive day tour. We spent that day on a big 4WD bus together with a group of grey nomads that kept us entertained with stories of how fat the biggest fish was they've ever caught, including yellow wallet pictures of them holding the beast.

A couple of days later, someone told us that it's also possible to discover Fraser by yourself, so we went again and believe it or not, we had a little bit more fun than the first time!

Fraser Island is an ecological curiosity because everything on this 120 kilometer long island (including rain forest), just off Australia's east coast is 'built' on sand. It's also know for its big population of dingos and the whole island is fenced to keep them away from humans. We got to see one though, lost and alone on the beach but as we were high and dry on the bus the 'monster' wasn't particularly dangerous to us.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Today is marsupial day on the blog! Heaps of pictures of cute furry friends!

We visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary in Brisbane, the only place in Australia where you can cuddle koalas. Holding big Byron for 20 entire seconds has its price, 16 dollar to be precise, but aren't we adorable together?? 

Apart from koalas there are plenty of other Australian mammals, birds and reptiles. With my huge snake phobia, I wisely decided not to go greet the last group. 

We saw animals we'd never -or maybe vaguely- heard of before, such as the wombat (the one that looks like a little brown bear), the tasmanian devil (I'm sure you'll know which one it is when you see his picture) and the platypus. The latter is some sort of tiny beaver with a long beak, hard to describe it even after I've seen it. He was swimming super fast in a very dark fish tank, so impossible to take a decent picture but you have to google it, it's the most extraordinary little creature!

We probably had the most fun feeding the kangaroos at Lone Pine. They're domesticated and eat anything out your hand which gave us the opportunity to take some pretty cool pictures. Have a look!

Brisbane

Brisbane, our first serious city to visit in Australia! With almost two million inhabitants, it's the country's third largest city and it's very modern yet quite relaxed and green. When we went for a little boat ride on the Brisbane river, we were thinking of a miniature version of London. 

We stayed four days with Sarah and Clare, two lovely Australian sisters we had met in the south of Cambodia. They live in a beautiful house in a suburb not too far from the city center and staying in a real house, with a real bed and shower felt so great after living out a van for the last three weeks. We really had time to recharge our batteries during these days; we visited the city a little, went to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary (next post on the blog!) and ate and slept a lot.

After the kangaroo meat, we had our second typical Australian dish. Sarah and Clare prepared us pavlova, a desert made of meringue, cream and fruits. First time they made it but it was a big hit, delicious!

Pacific Highway

Returning Dirty Sachez didn't mean the end of our Australia trip, we still have four weeks left in this amazing country! In Sydney we picked up a new van and we decided to take our time before returning it in Brisbane. The van wasn't as cute as the previous one, also the inside was a bit rudimentary but as temperatures had gone up, we didn't really care. We drove a bit more than a week on the Pacific Highway (voted the worst highway in Australia for the second year in a row) but got off quite a few times to enjoy beautiful beaches and lovely coastal towns. I could see myself settle down in any of these pretty places! At the moment it's 'winter' in Australia, but it's nothing like a European winter. Temperatures of 22 degrees and up during the day and lots of sun make it the ideal season to travel! All of the beaches that we've seen between Sydney and Brisbane are stunning, not crowded at all and super clean. One morning we went for an early walk and saw a group of dolphins playing and jumping close to our beach. Totally unexpected (that's why we don't have pictures of it) but so cool!