Just to let you all know I am fine and discovering lots of places in New Caledonia. I have finished a 10 day tour around the main island (Grande Terre) and discovered many beautiful spots. Tomorrow I am heading to Ouvea, one of the Loyality Islands and "as close to paradise as you can get"!
No more pictures and no info on my time in Sydney for the moment: internet access here is horribly expensive and the keyboard completely different to what I am used to = it takes ages to write a sentense!
My last stop on the east cost before Sydney was Byron Bay. Warmly recommended by my sister, who spent a year in Australia a few years ago, I just had to stop here - and enjoyed myself a lot. Next to the lovely beach, the place itself is nice as well. Lots of small restaurants and boutiques - anything to take the money from all the tourists walking up and down the streets...but I got some very nice food. Top was probably my sourdough toast with tomato, avocado and lime topping - yummmh!
As advised by my sister, I set off early for a walk, equipped with my swimmers, a pick nick and "The tears of the Moon" by Di Morrisey. After a nice and leisurely breakfast, I set of through the forest, along the hill, up to the lighthouse. Every bench (almost) I stopped to read a few pages of the book I had with me: it is set in Broome and the region I had visited there a few weeks ago and I just had to continue reading this story as well as enjoying the scenery here in Byron Bay....
The views in Byron Bay are stunning - high cliffs, big waves, people surfing, long, sandy beaches,... and lots of whales swimming in the ocean: you just had to look out at the water and you could see them blowing and coming out of the water - impressive!
I slowly made my progress around the lighthouse, then down to the cliffs, which represent Australia's mainland most easterly point. There I realised how far I have travelled over the last few weeks: mid-August I was at the most westerly point - and Australia is big, very big.
I made it to first beach, went for a swim, had my pick nick, read on my book. Then moved on to the second beach and finally to the third.... this little tour took me all day and I got to see a colorful sunset on the main beach, watching the seagulls eating what they could find, straight out of the water.
All in all a perfect day, enjoying myself, the wonderful countryside and a good book!
After the Whitsundays, I spent two days, one night on Fraser Island. As many of you probably know, Fraser Island is a huge sandy island. All the vegetation and sights are dominated by the sand. But it is not all one big dessert - there is of course the beach, but also forests and fresh water lakes formed within the sand dunes. This all creates wonderful landscapes - and all very different from each other!
Transportation on the island is by 4x4 cars - all driving happens on the beach or on sandy tracks - no paved roads here. Unfortunately this has become an attraction by itself - loads of people come for the "self drive tours on Fraser" - and some of them get pretty stuck in the sand... (but maybe that is just a comment from somebody who went for the boring, guided option!) Traffic happens in the middle of activity: there are people fishing, then people driving and then people camping - all on the same beach, next to each other, with the cars slaloming around the fisher and the people. It works, but it also looks scary at times!
In the two days we had time to go for walks in the forest, watch the views and go for lovely swims in the fresh water lakes. I especially enjoyed lake Mc Kennzie: crystal clear water (you could see the sandy bottom even several meters down), surrounded by trees and the beach was white, white, white!
As usual, I believe the pictures tell more than what I could ever do:
The end of the trip was a bit sad and scary: there were uncontrolled bush fires in the south of the island. To get back to the ferry we had to drive along the burning area - in the end we all came out safe, but smelling of smoke and coughing... and the pictures of the sunset are a bit unusual as well....
