It comes with all the necessities including a microwave, fridge, sink, gas top stove, dishes, cutlery, and bedding and all for only 45AUD/day. Not too bad.
Things quickly got off to a rocky start as it had been a while since I had driven a stick, and assuming the car was in neutral, I started it without the clutch down. This was made worse by the fact that Sharon was half way in the car at the time. Besides a serious scare for both of us though, no one got hurt (including the van) and we got on our way.
Our first stop was the mall to grab some lunch and some groceries. Sharon was also super excited to discover that there was a Target in the mall and although she didn't find any good fashion bargains for herself, we did find a couple of new t-shirts for me. One was a Stars Wars shirt with design specs of an Imperial Walker on it (awesome, I know), and the other had an old school picture of Superman doing an upper cut on it with the caption "original fist pump" on it.
After stocking up on supplies, we drove a half-hour to a cute little beach town called Palm Cove where we found a small camper-van park right on the beach to spend our first two nights. We were really tired so we decided to take a nap and chill for the rest of the day and night in our new accommodations. After our nap, we decided to tryout our kitchen and make same Kraft Mac & Cheese that we had picked up...
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| Here I am very excited to make some delicious Kraft Mac & Cheese... |
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| "What the #$%@ is this!?!?! |
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| "This isn't the powdered processed cheese that I know and love!" |
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| "This just doesn't seem right." |
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| The finished product. Pretty tasty actually...after adding lots of ketchup of course. |
It was actually not that uncomfortable surprisingly enough. Unfortunately, the weather the whole time we were in Cairns area was horrible. It was hot, humid (like 100% humidity), and it poured most of the time we were there, which means that at night we couldn't even open the windows in the van because water would get in. It was hot. Damn hot.
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| "Oh how I love you my sweet, glorious fan." |
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| Eating breakfast after a bad night's sleep and a much needed cold shower. |
Fast forward to Monday as not too much happened on Sunday...just more heat, humidity, and rain. We got up early and made our way over to the marina in Port Douglas to begin our trip.
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| Me in front of our ride to the GBR. |
We ended up doing three dives at different spots along the reef. The weather wasn't nice, but when you're under the water, you really have no clue what's going on above on the surface. On our first dive a storm came and went and we were none the wiser, even though they had to call in all the snorkelers above us. Each dive was about 20 to 30 minutes long and because we weren't certified, we couldn't go any deeper than 12 meters.
The reef really was quite spectacular, even though I'm sure it would have been even more so if the sun had been out to make all the colours even more vibrant. Unfortunately we didn't take any pictures while on the dives, so you'll have to be satisfied with this picture which pretty much sums up what we saw while we were down there:
Seriously though, we did see a Nemo fish (a clown fish) in an anemone, a Dora fish (blue tang fish), a Gil fish (a moorish idol, the fish with the scar in the fish tank in Finding Nemo), and many other fish not found in the movie.
We had a great dive instructor named John, who reminded both of us of my favourite Starfleet captain, Jean-Luc Picard (aka Patrick Stewart).
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| Sharon, me, and John...who boldly took us where we have never gone before. |
While taking a pit stop on our way back we heard that due to all the rain, that the only two ways back to Cairns were closed. The way along the shore was blocked by a landslide and the route through the mountains was closed due to three rivers that had flooded. We were told to stop at the police station in a town nearby as they would have the latest details on any closures. We stayed positive, thinking that there must be a way to get back for our flight tomorrow, but when we talked to the officer at the station he said the latest that he heard was that they would be closed for 2 to 3 days. Shit. We had no idea what to do.
So we decided to head to Port Douglas to see if they had any more news about the roads. Along the way though, we decided to turn around and to go take the mountain route in hopes that the flooding may have subsided enough for us to make it through. So I pulled into a side road to make a three point turn and unfortunately my back tires just went off the pavement and onto the grass at the top of the ditch on the side of the road, and nothing we could do could get us back onto the pavement, and slowly but surely the back of the van made it fully into the ditch. Shit x 2. What were we supposed to do now?
Thank goodness for the wonderfully nice people who live around Port Douglas. Within only a few minutes of being in the ditch, a young woman drove by on the highway and saw us in the ditch on the side road, and then turned around and came back to help us out. She called her dad who lived close by who had a truck and a tow rope, and within 10 minutes we were back on the road. Thank you Sierra and her dad for being our saviours that day, and also the 5 other cars who also pulled over to see if we needed any help.
So after further advice from Sierra and her dad to try the mountain route, we made our way towards the three flooded rivers in hopes that eventually they would recede enough for us to make it to Cairns that night, even though the weather forecast was calling for more rain that night. One thing to note, is that when we first rented the van, we were specifically told not to drive the van through any flooded rivers because the engine could take an water and get completely ruined, and that our insurance would cover any of this damage. Fantastic. But we had a flight to catch...
So we eventually came upon the first flooded river which was covering the highway for a good 50 meters, and at its deepest was about 20 to 25 cm (8 to 10 inches). We waited a few minutes and watched a bunch of 4 wheel drive vehicles cross, and decided that our little campervan "Hamish" could make it. So I put Hamish into gear and we made it through with no problems. Piece of cake.
Not too much later we came upon the second river, and this one had flooded the road about the same length as the first, but was a little bit deeper. It was around 30 to 35 cm deep (12 to 14 inches) based on the measuring sticks located on the side of the highway. Again, we watched a bunch much sturdier vehicles make their way across the flooding, but this time the bottom of their undercarriages were definitely getting wet. We waited quite a while not knowing what to do, but eventually I was like what the heck and screamed "Leeeeeroyyyyyy Jenkins!!!!!" and put Hamish into gear and drove him into river. It started okay at first, but eventually we started to hear a lot of gurgling water noises coming from beneath our feet. But we kept plowing on hoping for the best and Hamish did us proud and made it through to the other side. For a while after we crossed, we were a bit worried as Hamish was making some weird noises, especially while in third gear, but eventually they stopped and we felt like we were in the clear.
The third river had the potential to be the scariest as the crossing was a pretty narrow bridge, but fortunately for us the river had receded to the point where only a thin layer of water was over the bridge. We crossed it with no problems, and were in our campervan park in Cairns by 8pm that night.
Unfortunately, due to the stressful nature of the experience, we almost took zero pictures of our adventures that day, except for a few afterthought pictures after we had already made it through some of the flooded rivers. Here they are:
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| After successfully making through the second flooded river Sharon took this picture. |
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| This was just some minor flooding we had to cross between the 2nd and 3rd rivers. |
Overall, Sharon and I both enjoyed our little campervan adventure in the Cairns area, although it would have been a lot better, and probably a little less exciting and stressful if the weather had been better. Here are a few parting pictures of some of the campervan parks we stayed at along the way:
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| Waiting out the pouring rain at our campervan park in Port Douglas. |
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| Awesome. The first sunny day we've had in Cairns and it's time leave. |
