The Land Down Unda

Knowing Australia is as big as it is, we did not even attempt to see all or most of it. Our travel cadence after the frequent stops in the RV in New Zealand also had us craving less movement. We flew into Brisbane and spent one week on the Gold Coast, then flew to Northern Queensland to spend another week in Cairns (pronounced ‘Canes or Cans’ if you are trying to fit in). 

Gold Coast

The Gold Coast is famous for its sun, beaches and surf - we got lots of the first two but had to settle for watching the pros surf rather than do it ourselves at this stop thanks to a strong rip tide that would have sent us floating back to NZ if we weren’t careful. Playing in the waves was a great consolation. We rented a place in Surfers’ Paradise two blocks from the beach where we found every attraction the kids could possibly imagine - amusement parks, treats, the beach and overstimulation galore. We also found some nice opportunities for the adults to grab some supplies at the local mall and enjoy a couple nights exploring the town sans children. The apartment had a local grocery store in the building giving us a chance to stock a fridge and cook some nice meals - Ian even found his favourite store to shop at - Costco!

We spent a full day at WhiteWater World getting our adrenaline flowing, we were (re)introduced to a myriad of interesting people watching and hair styles at the waterpark. We had never seen so much upfront business with backend partying before(the mullet). Crazy to think this hairstyle from the 80s is making such a comeback-our observation for our entire time down-under is that this hairstyle resurgence is centred in Australia. As well we enjoyed a few days recovering at the beach and pool. One day we travelled down to Snappers’ Rock in Coolangatta for a day to watch the pros handle the point break there; this peninsula is famous for many surf photos of full pipe surfing. We caught it on a 'relatively' tame day when the surf was only 10’ - great inspiration for us in advance of our next surf camp experience coming up in Bali. 

Eating passion fruit

Enjoying a Vietnamese sub

We spent another day driving into the nearby rainforest in Springbrook National Park, hiking to two stunning waterfalls - Purling Brook Falls and Twin Falls - the second of which offered a swimming hole under the falls for a much needed cool down. The hiking path that led us to the waterfall followed a series of switchbacks down the steep gorge through some caves. We were met with some local wildlife, the highlight being a 6 foot long wild lizard similar to a Komodo dragon that wandered across our trail. We were unfortunately so surprised and wondered by this magnificent lizard that we neglected to photograph it. A path around the back of the waterfalls allowed us to circumnavigate the swimming hole for an amazing view. Once at the bottom of the gorge we enjoyed the refreshingly crisp water, onlookers thought we were crazy because the water was sooo cold, that was until they found out we were Canadian and it all made sense. Crazy Canucks!

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Behind Twin Falls

Cairns

Our friend Seann met us in Cairns for the week - a long planned and much anticipated visit we were all looking forward to. We splurged on an apartment a block from the ocean with a pool right off our deck that provided hours of entertainment. Cairns is in the Tropical Wet zone of Northern Queensland and we experienced rains befitting of the rainforest throughout our time there (it is not uncommon for 100mm of rain to fall daily there, and we clipped the end of the wet season while there). This part of Australia is made up of 2 million hectares of wet tropics - less than 0.3% of Australia’s landmass but containing its highest level of biodiversity of plants and animals in the country. This area boasts the Great Barrier Reef (one of the seven natural wonders of the world), and the world’s oldest rainforest (over 180 million years old), the Daintree just north of Cairns. In fact, the reef and the rainforest intersect making for a uniquely rich and diverse ecosystem. 

Learning about project management

Bartender showing off

We spent two days hiking in the tropical rainforests - one to Barron falls and the other to the Daintree followed by exploring the cute streets of Port Douglas for lunch. We learned that depending on the season, rainforests can capture up to 40 percent more moisture by harvesting it from clouds - a process called cloud stripping. We spotted a Boyd’s Forest Dragon(lizard) in the Daintree thanks to some helpful locals.

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The magnificent Barron Falls

The Great Barrier Reef

We fulfilled a major bucket list item for all of us with a snorkelling trip out to the Great Barrier Reef. This once in a lifetime adventure lived up to the hype and then some. We visited two sights - Saxon Reef and Hastings Reef to explore crystal blue waters, brilliantly and varied coral species (fluorescent blues, green and pinks, boulder coral, soft and hard corals of all kinds), giant clams, fish of all shapes, sizes and colours. We all got suited up in very attractive (not!) suits thanks to visiting during ‘Stinger Season’ to avoid the potential of encountering any of the venomous and potentially deadly jellyfish (we did not see any). Seann and the Sharp boys dove in without hesitation - snorkelling all around the first reef themselves, and then joining the advanced ‘snorkel safari’ to the reef wall in the afternoon (this is a 90 metre drop off where larger fish species and more elaborate reef formations can be viewed). They met Frank the Fish up close too - a very big and friendly resident of the second reef with his own instagram following. Some of you may know Erin has long suffered from a fear of snorkelling (being in the depths amongst the fishes and who knows what else have largely been the stuff of her nightmares rather than dreams since she was a kid). She overcame that fear by snorkelling with the reef tour and surprised even herself (along with all the other Sharps) to not miss this adventure. Thanks Seann for making this amazing memory happen and for all the effort to come meet us. 

The fish are THIS big!

Frank! (not our photo)

Frank coming in for a closer look

Seann’s visit gave us a good excuse for some lovely dinners out - some with kids and some without - and to partake in Cairns’ vibrant nightlife. Jasper and Finlay both got to eat crocodile and kangaroo for the first time on our final night out. Tropical Cyclone Narelle added a bit of extra forecast watching to the end of our stay; it ended up making landfall several hundred kilometres north of us but still delivered some spicy rain and wind as far south as Cairns. The rain provided a good excuse to visit the Cairns Aquarium on the final day - luckily this was the only place we saw a shark up close. 

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Jasper

My favourite part of Surfers Paradise was the water park (Kate’s idea). My favourite slide was the green room when my mom’s face was so funny she kept her eyes closed the whole time. There was a big drop and that was the one spot she screamed - she did better than I thought.

Seann is the best house guest in the trip after our grandparents. He helped me with my homework and we even started a new project. We went to the great barrier reef with seann where we saw a turtle, frank the huge fish and lots of other cool fish -  thank you for bringing us with you. 

Finlay

I loved Australia where we went to 2 places. The first one, Surfers paradise, is an amazing city located near Brisbane. It has four amusement parks and four waterparks in a city around the size of Canmore. We went to one of these, a water park. It was a pretty good waterpark with a whole bunch of straight down drops, the best kind of waterslide.

The second place that we visited was Cairns near the great barrier reef, one of the natural great wonders of the world. While we were there we got visited by a friend from Calgary - thanks Seann (and yes that extra n is meant to be there). While we were there we visited the great barrier reef and some of the most amazing fish. Frank the fish, a giant one meter long fish, is really cool. You can search him up on google.