Magnetic Island and the Waterfall Circuit

There is an old physicists joke, that goes like this:

Q: How many numbers does a physicist knows?
A: 3 numbers: 1,2 and infinity.

This is quite the same for a koala seeker.
Magnetic Island, just off the coast of Townsville, is a place to see LOTS of koalas. How much is lots? Well, when we speak about flies then a hundred can be quite a lot (although some would rightly argue that even one is too much). When we talk about kilometers, than 2000 can seem quite a lot when driving a car, but not when flying. If we speak about koalas, then lots means, like in the joke, more than 2.
Maggie, as it is called, is a small tropical island, and it takes no more than 30 minutes to get there by a ferry from Townsville. There are shuttle buses that connect all the important points on the island, at least twice every hour. But the most popular vehicle there is a mock - a funny jeep-like vehicle the size of a carting car.
We slept at a rather noisy backpackers hostel in Arcadia beach. We didn't waste our time and went for a walk called "The Forts". In World War II, Australia was attacked by Japan and Townsville was at the front line. Magnetic Island was fortified and prepared for war, and some of the remains of the forts that were built still exist. This walk climbs to the tallest fort, with great views on the bays at the north and east. This, however, was not the highlight of the walk. During the two hours walk we were lucky enough to see two koalas on the trees. One of them was so close that we could almost touch it and cuddle it (which is basically the only thing that you want to do when you see a koala).

At night we sat in the bar and watched a game of... we actually don't know what game it was. There are two very similar games in Australia. The first is Rugby, which looks like the lawless cousin of American football, and the second is Australian football (Footie), which looks like the lawless version of Rugby. Needless to say that none of them have any relation to real football (which the Australian call "Soccer' like in the US), since there is only little use of the foot, and the thing that they throw is definitely not a ball!
These games are known for the brutal and wild violence that you can inflict upon your opponent, which is followed by a handshake and a friendly tap on the back. Just think how will Christiano Ronaldo would have reacted if tackled that way.
Whatever game it was, it was rather a dramatic one. One of the teams, who was far behind most of the game, managed to tie the score at the last minute and win in overtime. Whatever the sport is, that's how we like it!
Lilya didn't feel well on the next day so Oren went to hike alone on the trail leading from Arcadia to Nelly bay. This wasn't such a lucky day, so all Oren saw was one koala sitting on a tree close by and another female koala. How did he know it was a female koala? He knew that because it had a baby koala grabbing its fur and cuddling in her lap. This was such an amazing sight! The mother was holding the cub and both of them looked like a two face fur ball. Oren didn't need anything more that day.

But this day wasn't over yet. On the afternoon, after spending some time at the beach, we went to see the rock wallabies. Each day before sunset they are being fed at a place near our hostel. The party had already started when we came and the place was crowded with wallabies grabbing every food available from the tourist that were feeding them. We could photograph them from any angle doing their wallaby stuff. When we returned to the hostel we saw 3 kukaburras waiting for their food. You can say we had a good animal day!

Usually, you have certain expectations about the people you might meet in a backpackers hostel. Oliver, which we met that night was nothing like we expected. This Irish born, Sydney resident, ex French cook, retired lad, had lots of amazing stories about his travels around the world. Lilya liked him immediately, since he wore a Chelsea shirt, and indeed he was a long time Chelsea fan, that even climbed Wembly stadium to sneack into a game once.
Oliver was in 90 different countries around the world and he has a notebook to prove it. In his notebook he recorded all the cities and countries he visited with the dates when he did it. This list includes places like Afghanistan, before the soviet invasion, and 15 seconds in Lebanon in 1978, when it was still possible to jump over "the good fence" from Israel and return quickly.
We sat with Oliver for hours hearing his stories about the places, the travels, and especially about the ladied. Like a sailor, for every place there is a girl and for every girl there is a story. Oliver actually came to Maggie to write his book about his travels, but after he found out that the house he wanted to use (another fine story about a girl) was already in use, he stayed at this backpackers hostel. He also made friends, and introduced us to his room mates - a loud bunch of overly drunk Ozie boys that had also some funny stories to tell. Eventually, the owner of the pub had to kick us out, since we stayed very late (which in Australian standards is 10:30pm).
One the next day we returned to Townsville, took our car and drove to Wallaman falls, at the Wooroonooran national park. On the way we threw away 40$ when we decided to enter to the Mamu Mamu treetop walk. This is a highly accessible trail that has some nice balconies at the height of the treetops and a tower above the forest. However, we thought that the price was really exaggerated compared to what we saw there, and that the free walk in Lamington national park was as good.
We arrived on the afternoon to Wallaman falls, the highest falls in Australia. You don't usually think of Australia as a land of waterfalls, but these are really impressive, with a drop of about 340 meters. We went down to the base and up again. This is a very recommended place if your there.

Atherton tableland, between Townsville and cairns, is the home to few other falls, which you can see in a half a day of driving in the "Waterfall Circuit" that starts near Milla Milla. The most famous (and the most beautiful) are the Milla Milla falls, that has become the symbol of this area.

However, they are overly crowded at all times, so come very early if you want to catch them without people. We took some photos of the falls, and continued to Cairns - the great vacation city of Australia.


Tip 1: Go to Magnetic and take the time to take a walk there. You'll have a good chance to see a koala or 2.
Tip 2: The Mamu Mamu is much too expansive for what it gives, in our opinion. However, it is very accessible for disabled people.
Tip 3: Allow enough time in Wallaman falls, the trip down to the base is a must (and then you have to go back...).
Tip 4: There are a lot of organized trips from Cairns to the waterfall circuit but they cost to much. You can rent a car with a friend and do it in half a day for less than half of the price.

Pictures

Picture from Magnetic Island:

And from Wallaman falls and the waterfall circuit:

Guest Pictures

See Itay's perspective on Whale watching, Fraser Island and Eungella:

And another album from the sail in the Whitsundays:

Back to the tropics - Eungella and Airlie Beach

On the day we left Hervey Bay we did two important things: we drove 700 km north to Mackay, and took out our shorts from the bags. Yes, we were back in the tropics, and no one was more happier than Lilya, who could finally defrost her bones.
Mackay itself is not an interesting town at all, but we did have to spend half a day there for arrangements. We slept in a caravan park which looked very cheep which indeed it was, or at least we thought so. We arrived late, so we called them and got a price for 3 people. In the morning we discovered that this price is only for one tent and they charged us double for having two small tents. At least we got to meat a Kiwi (New Zealander) that works in the mines near Mackay, and didn't stop complaining about this "damn owl" that disturbed his sleep. We never saw an owl until then so it was a good chance to see one. We did empathized with the Kiwi guy, since the owl was quite annoying, making loud noises all night long.
We didn't arrive to Mackay to see owls, though. We wanted to visit the Eungella national park in the mountains near the city. Again, like in Lamington, we drove on a winding road climbing up into the rainforest, but this time we were on a mission. Our mission was to track down and photograph a platypus - one of the strangest creatures among the already strange bunch of animals that gathered in Australia. The platypus is an egg laying mammal. It looks like a small beaver, with a strange mouth that looks like a duck's beak. Unfortunately, its strange appearance made it to be the the rejected kid in the animals school (animal kids can be soooooo cruel sometimes...), so the platypus became very shy. It can mostly be seen just after sunset or before sunrise, and only by the luckiest of people. Since we were very lucky until now, we became arrogant, sure that we are about to see at least two mating platypuses, a mother and a cab and at least three males fighting. Instead, when we came before sunset, we saw, well, nothing. One splash of water, far up the stream was claimed to be a diving platypus but we can't be sure.
We went to sleep in the most amazing campsite we've been in yet, on the edge of the mountains above Pioneer Valley, which is, as Lilya defined it, the most perfect valley. We woke up an hour before sunrise to go ambush the platypus again. This time we were much more patient and more humble, and we were rewarded with a glimpse on a small platypus not too far away.

We came back to eat breakfast ("Brekky" as the Ozies call it) which took us much longer than we planned, because, as happens many times during the trip, we met an Australian guy which was very happy to share his life story with us. We talked about anything from weather to sugar cane economy. We had little time so we did only a short (but incredibly beautiful) hike trough the rainforest, before getting back to the coast and driving to Airlie Beach.
Airlie Beach is one happy little town, which is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands. Although it is not large, it has a really crowded main street full of tour agencies, backpackers hostels and pubs.
Whitsundays are a collection of small, beautiful islands not far from the coast of Hervey Bay. There are many cruises that go there, you just need to pick the right one for you. Since we were less interested in drinking and vomiting on the deck, and more interested in diving, we picked a company that offers just that. A 2 days and 2 nights cruise on a new catamaran with 25 other tourists. During those 2 days the vessel stops in 4 different reefs and you can either dive or snorkel there.
The crew of Wings2 were a treat by themselves. There were 3 lovely girls, two were Dive Masters and one hostess who prepared all our food and took care of other logistics, and one skipper. All of them were young and very fun.
All the other passengers were tourists from different parts of Europe, all in their late twenties/early thirties. We were considered to be very exotic, and were called "Team Israel". We didn't have the chance to get to know all of them, but the ones we did get to know were really nice. We even made friends with a group of Austrian scientists who came to Australia for a conference. So we had a small science club there.
The accommodation was somewhat claustrophobic (what can you expect from a boat). We slept on a triangular bed that was placed inside one of the two hulls of the catamaran. Right above us was Itay's bed. Besides us there were beds for 5 other people in the same tiny room.
The journey started with a long but humorous briefing by the crew members. One of the important rules on the boat is to sign some paper every time you come back to the boat (after diving and such). If you don't sign on time you will be forced to eat a full spoon of Vegemite. Vegemite is a dark brown paste made from yeast. Australians love it, but all the rest of the world doesn't, so that was a quite efficient threat.
During our 48 hours on the boat we had 4 dives in 4 different sites. Surprisingly enough most of the others didn't have a diving license, they only came to snorkel.
Few days before the cruise Avi and Liron (Lilya's friends) got married, so we wanted to take a special picture of a greeting for them. Before going on board we prepared a waterproof greeting and took it with us on the first dive.

The dives themselves were a bit disappointing. In this area the currents can be quite strong, which makes you struggle all through the dive, and even worse than that, it makes a very poor visibility. We did, however, see two really big cod fish and a ray. But the time we spent on board was so compensating that we didn't mind. The food was good and very diverse. The guys around us were really great too and we couldn't imagine that lying on the deck doing nothing while the sun is gently roasting you can be so pleasant. "This is how life should be..." we said to ourselves, and ourselves agreed.

The evening of the first day was also the evening of Rosh haShana (the Jewish New Year). Even though we were on a lovely cruise we didn't forget that. We brought with us some honey and few apples and after dinner shared them with all the rest. That was really exotic for them!
On our second day we visited the famous Whitehaven Beach. On the way there we tried to sunbath on the deck while nasty clouds kept interrupting us. At some point it even started drizzling. But at the second we got to the beach the sun went out again, enabling us to take lots of classical pictures from the amazingly white sand with the perfect clear turquoise water. We spent there about an hour, and when it was time to leave the skies became dark gray and it started raining, pretty heavily. How many times have you stood in a pouring rain while you are wearing nothing but your bathing suit?

On our last day we were in the water at 7:30am, even before breakfast. That wasn't easy at all especially for people like us who like to take it slow in the mornings. In the afternoon we were back in Hervey Bay, tanned and happy.

Tip 1: Oddly enough, in Australia the prices at the tourist agencies are much cheaper than the ones you will get from the tour operator itself. So it is batter to look for a good agent.
Tip 2: If you are looking for a cruise with a great atmosphere, try Wings2 or Wings3. Even if you don't dive, you'll have a wonderful time there.
Tip 3: If you are going to visit Whitehaven Beach take a very good care of your camera, or even consider not taking it with you. The sand particles are so small that they can enter the camera and destroy it.

Pictures

Pictures from Airlie Beach and the sail to the Whitsunday Islands

Pictures

Pictures from Eungella National Park, including one very rare (and not very good) picture of a platypus

Fraser Island

Fraser Island is the size of "Mishor haChof" (for the non Israeli readers it's a part of Israel, come and see) and it is largest sand island in the world. Since there are no roads, only sandy trails, you can only access it by a 4WD vehicle. Most of the time the paths are so narrow that only one car can pass at a time. The drivers on the island have a special game. The first to give way to the car in front of him is the winner. So if you see a vehicle 1km away coming in your direction, you should quickly jump into the bushes or climb on a tree so the other car will pass safely (defeated, but safely). It took us some time but at the end we got pretty good at this game. The important thing we need to remember is not to bring those silly games back home to Israel. People will not understand.

A lot of the tourists take an organized tour to visit the island. Which means jumping up and down with another 20 party people inside a huge 4X4 bus. At the same price you can rent a regular 4WD and drive it yourself. That's what we did.

So we left our 1st hired car on the mainland and drove our 2nd hired car (Toyota Land Cruiser) to the ferry. After about 40 minutes we got to the island. There are two different parts of the island: the beaches and the inland. You can drive on the beaches only few hours a day during the low tide. That's why you should plan the route carefully.

We spent our first afternoon driving inland and visiting lake Wabby. At night we stayed in tents on the beach. While preparing our dinner a nice dingo came to visit. If we weren't in Australia we would've thought that that was a regular dog. There are a lot of dingoes on the island. Once they had a great relationship with the humans, who were more than happy to feed them. But then the dingo population grew extensively and eventually one dingo killed a child. Since then the dingoes are the outlaws of the island. There are scary signs with their faces on them every place you go. Another example of humans irresponsible behaviour that leads to the punishment of the animals.

On the following day we got up before sunrise and started driving north on the beach with the first light (more or less). On the way we stopped near a beatiful shipwreck and took few dozens of pictures. After about 60km we reached the northern point we could reach with our rented vehicle - Indian Head. A strange name for something in Australia. Indian Head is a hill from which you can see a great deal of the ocean. In the ocean we spotted few small sharks, few Manta-Reys and a large sea turtle. Now you can understand why swimming in the ocean is prohibited. On our way back we also saw few whales and dolphins deep in the sea.

After the tide became high again we returned to the inland and visited few more lakes. The famous Lake McKenzie was closed so we went to swim in lake Birrabeen which is supposed to be as beautiful. We spent the second night in the central camping ground surrounded by lots of goannas, just like the one we saw in Noosa, only much smaller.

Since we already visited most of the planned attractions and we still had half a day until the ferry we tried to explore the western side of the island. But sometimes there is a reason why some places are less popular than the other. We spent most of the time trying to walk on the very rocky beach. While doing that we spotted several huge colonies of tiny crabs hiding between the rocks.

Fraser Island is one of the popular tourist destinations in Australia, famous mostly for its lakes. After spending 2 days there we though that the lakes are not that impressive and that the beaches are much nicer. We also enjoyed the sometimes challenging driving. So if you don't like that part, maybe you should reconsider your visit there, or if you don't mind the jumping while someone else is driving check the organized tour option.

Tip 1: If you are into the self driving tour (sort of car rental) check the "Safari 4WD hire", 102 Boat Harbour drive, Hervey Bay. Together with the car you also get a full camping equipment.

Tip 2: Things on the island are much more expensive that what you would imagine. Buy all you need on the mainland

Pictures

Pictures from Fraser Island

Hervey Bay

As we have already mentioned once or twice, the Australians are really nice people. Sometimes they are so nice that it makes rough Israelis like ourselves a bit uncomfortable. For example, if you walk around the caravan park and you meet another person, who you never met before, it is nearly obligatory that you will stop, say hello and ask them how are they doing today. Now imagine what happens when the caravan park is full with people. Fortunately for us, we arrived in most caravan parks very late (at 7pm) after most of the campers went to sleep. From the last few lines you might think we didn't enjoy that niceness, but the opposite is the truth. We met a lot of very interesting people with very interesting life stories.

Australians also love camping, especially the seniors. In fact, it looks like every citizen, when he reaches the age of retirement gets a caravan from the government, finds himself a caravan park in a nice location and stays there for the rest of his life.

In Hervey Bay we found the caravan park with the friendliest environment. Most of our senior neighbors were so lovely that one couple almost adopted Itay as a grandson. The staff was also very pleasant and very helpful.

There are two excellent reasons to visit Hervey Bay. The most popular one is that this is the departure point to the famous Fraser Island. To the second reason most of the people are not aware. Apparently, Hervey Bay is the best spot for watching whales. Every year the Humpback whales make all the way from Antartica to the Whitsundays area in order to mate and to breed. Since they pass all the east coast on their way, many tour operators along the coast offer whale watching tours, where seeing whales are garanteed, but the greatest amounts are in Hervey Bay, which is the whales resting area.

So on our first day there we booked a whale watching tour. A small bus picked us up and took us to the harbor, there together with few dozens of other excited tourists we boarded on our catamaran. This time all the three of us (me, Oren and Itay) carried cameras

The catamaran was going very fast and surprisingly smoothly. On the way we passed few very beautiful white sanded beaches, but unfortunately the sky was partially clouded, and when the sun was hiding everything was much less impressive. After about an hour of sailing we saw our first whale. Luckily for us, most of the whales show interest in boats like ours, so the big guy came closer in order to explore us. The tourists on the boat ran from one side to the other, trying to get a better picture of the large fellow.

Most of the time all we could see is the small hump on their back and the famous splash. Once in a while we could also see their beautiful tales as well. Later on we stumbled upon few more single whales, two males fighting over something (probably football) and a mother with her small (just few tons) baby.

Some of the whales were curious so they followed us, the others didn't show special interest so we followed them. And then at some point we met a pack of dolphins, and everything got crazy. At that point all the boat was surrounded by action. There were dolphins jumping in front of the boat, few swimming right next to it an whales from both sides.

Apparently, the whales love the dolphins (who wouldn't...) and they were really effected by the dolphin's playful mood. No matter where you stood you could get a great picture of one of them, from really close, so everyone were really busy doing just that. And then all of a sudden , out of no where, one of the whales jumped high out of the water with his whole body, and on hiss way back made a huge splash. The crowd was so amazed that no one got a picture of that (not even Oren). I think that my heart stopped beating at that moment. I was too excited to speak, not talking about taking pictures. It felt like this 40 ton creature gave us the most precious gift. It was exactly a month after we saw a sloth. I wonder what will we see on the first of October.

On the way back we saw a magnificent sunset. Or maybe it wasn't that great... everything looked magnificent from that moment on.

On our next post we'll tell you all about the second reason to go to Hervey Bay, Fraser Island.

Tip 1: Our lovely caravan park is called “Australiana”. It is located on the main road crossing Hervey Bay. Among other very good facilities there is a free Wifi for few hours everyday. They can also help you book tours.

Tip 2: Go see the whales! It's money well spent.

Pictures

Pictures from whale watching in Hervey bay:

Guest Pictures

Itay's beautiful picture album from Noosa and Rainbow beach

Noosa and Rainbow Beach

The Great Sandy national park is a huge sand dunes park, that has unique vegetation and wildlife. It has three parts – the Noosa section in the south, the Cooloola section in the middle and Fraser Island in the north, and we decided to visit them all.

We slept in Noosa (the town) so we could hike in the Noosa section of the park. This part of the park has a unique combination of rainforest and open mangrove forest, that grow on a large sand dune surrounded by amazing coasts from two sides. We spent half a day walking through the park, but the real attraction was only at the end. In the main car park, up on a tree, completely ignoring everyone around it, sat a large koala.

Itay, who didn't have the chance to see the koalas in Daisy Hill, got his chance now.
We took lots of photos, sat down to eat lunch, and took lots of photos again, since the koala changed position once in an hour. We also took some nice photographs of a guana, a 1.5 meters long local Australian lizard, that caught some sun in the parking lot. Of course we saw it 10 minutes after Lilya declared that she would like to see one in the wild.

We drove from there to Boreen Point, right on the shore of lake Cootharaba, saw an amazing sunset with a rainbow over the lake and set our camp there. While cooking dinner, we saw some possums that came to see if we have any leftovers for them.
We drove to Rainbow Beach, on the northern part of Cooloola section of the park, on the following day. As the name suggests, the town Rainbow beach sits near a beautiful coast with colored sands. The most beautiful point there is Carlo Sandblow – a huge sand dune above the shore. We went through the dune and found a path trough the sandstone cliff down to the beach, or ,shell we say, the highway. There are so many 4X4 vehicles on the beach, that they had to place traffic signs like speed limits along the beach. However, the beach itself is beautiful, with the colored sand, and especially the deep black sandstones.

Our time, as always on this trip, was short, so we decided not to spend the night in the lovely town and drove all the way to Harvey Bay.

Pictures

2 albums this time:
Noosa


Rainbow beach

Lamington to Noosa

Road trip in Australia. The best way to see what exists in between. Between the cities, between the bus stops, and between the mountains. Distances are amazingly large, and there is something to see everywhere. Going somewhere is a matter of choice. The hard part is to choose, and since we like being out in the nature we turned the car south towards Lamington national park.
Itay had to fly to Melbourne for few days so we were just the two of us. The road to Lamington is a steep and winding road and Lilya, who was driving, had at least almost two close encounters with wallabies that decided to cross the road. No wallabies were hurt, though, because practice or evolution had made them quite good in this game of road roulette with the coming cars. The final part of the road is a drive through a narrow road, sometimes only the width of a single car, that winds trough the thick rainforest, like a tunnel made of trees.
We slept there in a windswept campsite, high in the mountains. Actually, the word “high” gets a new meaning in Australia. After being in altitudes above 4000 meters in Peru, we had to rescale our definition of high. In Lamington, high means above 900 meters, but nevertheless, very windy and cold.
Though it was cold, we weren't too lazy to prepare dinner – fine steaks and rice. That's true. Steaks. Being a country with a huge population of cows and huge ranches, it is no wonder that in Australia, beef is one of the cheapest ingredients. Even the chicken costs more. That is why steaks and hamburgers are very popular dinners in our road trip.
We woke up to a beautiful morning full of wallabies. The smaller cousins of the kangaroo look like a big rat and a small rat that were glued together in the middle, and like rats, they like to search food in the campground. However, since wallabies are hundred fold cuter than rats, Oren spent the breakfast time chasing and photographing them and especially one mother with a cab in her pocket.
Apart from wallabies there were also wild turkeys that proved to be a real hassle. They tried to steal our food all the time and even succeeded, taking with them some of our bread.

We did a beautiful 17 km trail inside the rainforest. The trail starts with a tree top walk – a boardwalk hanged from the trees that took us through the canopy. It might not sound like much, but how many times have you looked on a tree from above? The canopy is one of the most important parts of the rainforest and lots of plants hang to the trees and climb up towards the sun. The birds also like the canopy and there is a chance to see some of the birds that it is always possible to hear in the forest.

The trail continued trough the thick rainforest until we reached a lookout at the far end of the McPherson range overlooking Tweed valley that serves as the border between New South Wells and Queensland. From there, the trail descended along a river, passing near 3 beautiful waterfalls, before climbing back up to the car park.
We drove to a town called Surfers Paradise, on the long shoreline south of Brisbane, known as the “Gold Coast”. Lilya, after learning to surf in Brazil (so she could do it in Australia) wanted to try to catch some waves there. We figured that a place called Surfers Paradise might be a good place for that. The town itself is as touristy as it gets. A mixture of Las Vegas and Eilat (much more Eilat than Vegas, though), and a lot of restaurants and bars centered along the main street. Definitely not the relaxed and laid back surfers village as the name suggests.
Anyway, paradise or not, the weather wasn't very good on the next day, so we gave up the surfing option. Instead, we drove to “Daisy Hill koala sanctuary”, which is about half an hour drive south of Brisbane.
There are a lot of zoo's in Australia, and too many of them have a “hands on” approach towards the animals, which means that you are welcome to cuddle, pet and feed the animals. Since we believe in the “eyes on” approach, we worked hard to find a place where no one cuddles the koalas.
In Daisy Hill there are more than 40 koalas that live on the trees in the rather large park. In the park they can be safe from the surrounding urban environment. There is, however, only a small chance of seeing them, since there is about one koala every 100,000 square meters. No cuddling either, unless you can climb a 20 meters eucalyptus tree for that.
In South America we discovered that Lilya has a certain gift. All she needs to do is to REALLY want to see an animal, and than we see it (remember the sloth?). Well, this time Lilya REALLY wanted to see a koala in the wild, so it was no wonder that after walking an hour and a half with our eyes in the tree tops, we got a pain in the neck...
We also saw a koala, eventually, and quite by accident. After wrongly identifying about a million tree termite nests as a koala, we tried to figure if another one of them is a koala or not when something else on another tree moved, and turned out to be the koala we were looking for. It does seem, however, that termite nests can be found everywhere you want to find an animal on the trees, weather a koala, a sloth or a monkey, and their sol purpose is to distract us.

The koala we saw was high on the tree, eating leafs and minding its own business. We took a lot of photographs, of course, but he didn't seemed to mind. This was actually the third koala we saw that day but the first two were in captivity in the visitor center (where they promised us that they will be released soon back to trees), so they don't count.
When Oren was in Australia, 8 years ago, he didn't see any koalas in the wild, so we felt pretty lucky. Koalas are really the cutest creatures, looking like big furry dolls. This one, with his large ears looked like Chiburashka. (here's a link for our non Russian speaking readers).
We drove north from Daisy Hill, picked up Itay from the airport and slept near the Glasshouse Mountains north of Brisbane. We did some walks in this volcanic shaped landscape on the next day. The mountains are actually hot spots of volcanic activity that occurred 25 million years ago. The lookouts around the mountains has great views of the peaks rising from the flat land around them.

We slept near Noosa in the Sunshine coast, which is a collection of coastal towns that popped out of a lifestyle magazine. Small bays surrounded by large homes and expansive cars, with an unusual amount of fancy restaurants that serve crabs and lobsters.

Pictures

Pictures from Dazy Hill kuala sanctuary and Glasshouse Mountains, on the way from Brisbane to Noosa

Pictures

Pictures from the beautiful Lamington National Park: