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Dunk Island Review

Jeremy — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 11:42:26 +0000

Dunk Island Visit and Review

While in Australia we visited a couple of Islands. We really wanted to go to Fraser Island and Lizard Island but never had the chance (there was a hurricane warning while we had the chance to go to Fraser Island and the island was closed) we ended up taking advantage of the massive waves and surfing instead.

We ended up visiting Green Island and Dunk Island. We had a blast at Dunk Island so that is why I decided to do a Dunk Island review.

We were living in Cairns at the time and drove down from Cairns to Mission Beach. The trip took about two hours, to get to Mission Beach but it is a pretty cool drive (lots of sugar cane fields and mountains) there are two ways to get from Mission Beach to Dunk Island that we knew of. You can take the ferry for $56 return per person and takes about 20 minutes to get there, OR take the Dunk Island water taxi which costs $30 return and only takes 10 minutes. For that price you cant lose! We met up with the water taxi on Mission Beach

The water taxi from Dunk Island to Mission Beach

After the quick ten minute ride we were ready to enjoy Dunk Island! The first thing we did was check out the beach (because that’s where we were dropped off )

Checking out the Beach at Dunk Island

Catamaran on Dunk Island

Dunk Island Catamaran

After seeing what the island had to offer, which is actually alot (they have a tonne of water sports, golf, tennis, a hotel, snorkelling, great walking trails and more) we decided to walk up to the top of the mountain! Ok it turned out the trip to the top of the mountain and back was going to take a long time (and we had to be back in time to catch the water taxi) So we just went on a hike for about an hour. There is a lot to see on the walking trails

walking trail on Dunk Island

Cool strangling vine going up this tree

Just watch out for the spiders!

Would NOT want to walk into this spider web!

Huge spider

Sammy thought that this was a pretty neat tree. It turns out this is a fig tree, but it wasnt the biggest fig tree we saw while in Australia! I’ll get to that in another post though.

A neat little fig tree

After enjoying the natural beauty of the island and dodging man eating spiders, the trail led out to a secluded beach, lined with coconut trees! Ahhhhhhhhhhh nice

A beautiful beach lined with Coconut trees

We took a little stroll down the beach

If you look hard you can find neat things on the beach. I found this little starfish (it looks like he's hailing a cab!)

After seeing all of the natural beauty on the island we were ready to do something a bit crazy. We decided to go tubing! Dunk Island has all kinds of water sports to try, but we only had time to sneak in one event so we went with tubing. The price was fair I think it was $59 for all three and we stayed out for quite a while!

We had such a blast tubing, we went on a three person tube and hung on for dear life

After tubing got our heart rates going we sat down at the beach bar, had a few beers and waited for the water taxi to arrive.

After having such a great time on Dunk Island none of us wanted to leave! If we knew the island was going to be this much fun we would have booked 3 nights at the resort. If we ever come back to Australia we will definitely re-visit Dunk Island.

The day did not end here though after the water taxi ride we noticed that there were massive Coconuts on the beach, which we collected and used to make some tropical drinks that night

Also one of the most exciting moments of our trip happened on the way home when we got to see a Cassowary in the wild! It was pretty exciting and I will put a post up about that later.

Thanks for reading, and leave a comment below

You can see some more pictures in the gallery below and view them full size.

Kuranda BirdWorld Visit and Review

Jeremy — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 05:39:00 +0000

Kuranda BirdWorld

A few months I visited BirdWorld in Kuranda with a few of my friends. BirdWorld is located in beautiful Kuranda about a half hour from Cairns. My girlfriend had been bothering me for ages to take her to Kuranda and time was ticking down to the day we leave for Canada, so I decided to rent a car and go. WAS I HAPPY WE WENT!

Kuranda offers BirdWorld, Koala Gardens and a Butterfly Sanctuary. We decided to visit all three but in this blog entry I will just cover BirdWorld. I thought Birdworld would just be like a zoo, where you go and look at some birds and that’s it, but I was wrong. Birdworld is completely interactive. After showing our tickets and getting a free bag of specially selected bird food, we were instantly greeted by a flock of parrots!

That white and pink major mitchell landed on me first. Then the other two Eclectus parrots landed on me and the white bird got jealous. He climbed down my shirt, down my shorts, hopped on the ground and started trying to attack my toes! Besides this one little trouble maker all the other birds were really friendly!

The parrots were so friendly that we even had a few that would give kisses! (of course a little bird seed was in it for them)

My favourite birds were the Macaw’s, however they were not as friendly as the other birds. I tried to get the Macaw’s to sit on my shoulder but they were happy where they were.

I think that if you are in Australia and have time and money it is definitely worth the trip to Kuranda. If you are in Cairns or close to Kuranda you HAVE TO GO. We went with a girl from Perth, Australia and she even had a great time so it isn’t just for tourists.

This is a great place to go for anyone.

The birds here are very friendly and look very healthy and colourful. These little yellow guys took a bit of coaxing before they would warm up to us, but we got them eventually.

We spent a lot of time meeting and greeting the birds near the entrance, but they have a path you can follow around to see other birds. They have a few interesting ducks, and even a Cassowary. I did not even know what a Cassowary was until I went to Australia but they are very cool birds and very rare. We were lucky enough to see one in the wild, which most Australians don’t even get to experience, but for now I’ll show you a picture of the one at Birdworld

We spent most of the day in Kuranda and stuck mostly to the markets, but Kuranda has many attractions to offer. After Kuranda there was still a bit of daylight left so we decided to stop by the Barron Gorge. We had an amazing time and have memories that will last forever. I recommend the Kuranda BirdWorld to anyone who can make it out there, and it would be great for a family.

I will post a blog and more pictures of the Butterfly Sanctuary and the Koala Garden where we got to hold a Koala Bear!

A Day in the Life in Australia

Jeremy — Sun, 10 May 2009 23:31:00 +0000

A day in the life in Australia

If you ever wondered what a good day in Australia is like this blog post if for you. I am currently living in Cairns which is a beautiful small city located in tropical far north Queensland. Most days are hot and it does rain quite a bit during the summer.
Lately each day has been hot and sunny and I have been trying to fill each day with a task to do. Last week I went scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef and yesterday I finally bought a didgeridoo. Today I do not have anything planned, so I am finally going to make it out to the local golf course to whack a few balls.

I slept in today, no big deal. Almost everyday is a sleep in day when I only work casually washing dishes. I wake up and make French toast with maple flavoured syrup, nothing compared to Aunt Jemima (or real maple syrup) back in Canada but it will do. After breakfast I book a tee time and then test out the new didgeridoo. It sounds great, but I need a lot of practice. Sitting out on the balcony, overlooking the mountains and playing a didge, now this is living.

I lounge around and answer a few emails until noon, time to bike into town. It is a short bike ride into town so I check the bus schedule to make sure I will make my Tee time (it’s at 2:00) The next bus comes at 1pm and it should take about 45 minutes by bus, no problem. I grab a sub from subway and fill my water bottle; it’s a scorcher out today. The temperature has been about 30 degrees for the last week and today is no exception. I filled my water bottle and put it in the freezer for the night to freeze, and by the time the bus gets to the golf course the water is warm. The bus ride to the course was beautiful, mountains to the left and beaches and ocean to the right. Hopefully the golf course is a good one. I check in at the Half Moon Bay Resort golf course and get my bottle filled with ice cubes at the club house. I buy a few tee’s and five used golf balls, hopefully that will last. I plan to sneak in a quick nine holes.

As I walk with my bag to the first hole a couple of sulphur crested cockatoos soar by with a loud screech. They land in a nearby tree and pose for pictures.

This is the first time I have golfed in about a year, so hopefully I have not forgotten anything. I tee up my first ball and swing. The ball goes about 200 yards and slices into the trees….nothing has changed. I can’t find my ball anywhere; I swear it landed here… I spot a couple of strange looking birds that are hovering around right where my ball landed, they look suspicious, I think they took my ball!

The scenery on the course is great; too bad the greens are not. With recent floods followed by scorching heat I can not complain though.

I meet an old European man on the course and we play a couple of holes together. He tells me about another course nearby called Palm Cove that is much nicer, maybe I will play there next week. For now I will finish up my game though. As I walk down the 8th hole I see a few coconut trees out in the rough. There are a bunch of coconuts in the palms, and a few that have fallen off. I wonder if they are ripe. I go in for a closer look and give them a shake. They sound ripe and look ripe so I decide to take a couple home with me.

After nine holes of golf, a long bus ride and a quick bike home I am sweating. This is a good time to jump in the pool. There are over 10 at our apartment complex so I have lots of options. I go for a quick dip and head up to the apartment. If you are wondering where this is the place is called CAIRNS ONE. It is THE NICEST apartment place we found in all of Cairns and it is amazing to live here. We have a two bedroom apartment (and an air matress in the dining room for our friend), My girlfriend and I live in one room, and my brother and his girlfriend in the other. If you take a look at the picture at the top of this post that is me. I wake up in the morning, walk out on the balcony and see the mountains. It’s nice!

I figure I should put the coconuts to good use and make myself a drink! I drain the coconuts, crack them open, add some pineapple juice, coconut milk, ice and a splash of rum. Just what I needed after a tough day and I got home just in time to watch the sunset with a cold drink in hand.

To wrap it all up I settle in bed after dinner and watch a movie with my beautiful girlfriend. Just another day in paradise! I better go to bed early though because I have to be up at 6:30. No sleeping in this time, I volunteer on a dive boat in the morning. But that is a story for another time. Thanks for reading!

Great Ocean Road Tour – Bunyip Review – Australia

Jeremy — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 13:39:00 +0000

Bunyip 3 day Great Ocean Road Review

This is the Great Ocean Road tour my girlfriend and I took with Bunyip yours, we decided to see it all and paid for the 3 day tour. I will sum it up as a great experience. I loved it, however I am the type of guy who loves camping and roughing it. My girlfriend on the other hand prefers 5 star hotels so she had a few issues on the trip. I will get to that a bit later, but first…. how about some pictures.

Our first stop was Bells Beach which is a famous surf beach in Australia. Sammy is obviously enjoying this. We expected a nice big bus to tour around in though, however what we got was a van with a trailer on the back to haul all of our luggage. At least it had air conditioning

The next stop for us was a rain forest. We had a very enjoyable walk though the forest, and even got to see a swamp wallaby drinking from the river. I thought that was pretty cool. The highlight of this stop was the waterfall which I decided to swim under (very refreshing)

After a dip by the waterfall we decided to snap a few shots in the rain forest. There is a few MASSIVE trees in there, and a couple of interesting ones as well.

There were a few other interesting stops along the way, but the next major highlight for us was at the otway campsite. As we were pulling into the camp we spotted a Koala bear munching eucalyptus in the branches, we were excited and wanted to stop but the driver kept on going. We really wanted to see a Koala up close and we would not be disappointed! We pulled up to our campsite and started unpacking our stuff and to all of our surprises (we were travelling with about 8 other people) there was a koala hiding in a bush just a few feet away from us! We were very excited and even managed to get it on video!

Here are a few shots of some other koalas that we spotted around the campsite.

Notice the baby koala on this mommas back!

We enjoyed (well at least I did) a night sleeping in a tent. They do have an upgrade option to sleep in accommodations but I imagine they would not be much better than the tents. It was kind of nice sleeping outside as you could hear the koalas at night and the kookaburras woke us up in the morning.

The next day we woke up to have breakfast. The food is fairly basic and everyone pitches in to help set up the table and clean up after. Don’t expect the star treatment on this trip

Our first stop on day 2 was Gibsons step, which is where I took my first panoramic

Looking the other way there is a pretty nice view of some of the twelve apostles.

This was a very scenic spot and gave us a chance for a nice relaxing walk along the beach. The cliffs were amazing and the views were great. Australia has done a great job of not wrecking the natural wonders with hideous tourist crap all over the place.

The next stop was a very nice swimming spot called the Loch Ard Gorge. This was one of my favourite stops, it seems like a good place for a pirate to bury treasure! The beach is surrounded by steep cliffs and if you look straight out you can see the water from the ocean crashing into rocks that separate the Loch Ard Gorge from the rest of the sea. To the right there is a cave which is a lot of fun to explore! I did not get any pictures of the cave though (you will have to go and explore it for yourself!)

As you can tell Sammy was very excited to visit this particular spot

The next stop was the London Bridge which had fallen into the ocean a few years back. This newly made island was once connected to the land by a narrow, natural bridge. As the story goes it fell into the ocean and two people were stranded on the rock. Both were married but not to each other The next day their faces were plastered across many newspapers and they had some explaining to do.

After a few more stops we ended up at a cool place in the grampians called the Asses Ears. They do quad bike adventures and camping. The place has a very cool set up and a sweet bar to relax at. I really wanted to take the four wheelers out and explore the grampians but we did not have enough time. In the morning we stopped at a indigenous cultural centre to learn about the indigenous people of Australia. We also got to see rock painting that had been done thousands of years ago.

The next stop was a tiring walk along steep rocky paths. Bring good shoes because this is an exhausting walk (but the view is worth it!)

I thought this would be the perfect place to ditch the girlfriend for good but she just wont give up! Haha just kidding.

There was another big rock underneath this ledge…pretty good optical illusion though eh!

After a grueling hike up and down the pinnacle we went for lunch and then for a little dip. The next exciting stop was Mackenzies falls. This is another spot you can go for a dip in freshwater and is much appreciated after the hike to the pinnacle!

After Mackenzie falls there is not much else. Bunyip tours advertises the gold booming town of Ballarat, however it is more of a drive through then a stop and a whole day could be used to explore this town and see the mines. Over all I really enjoyed the trip, I think it is well worth the money and you get too see quite a bit in a short stretch of time. The pro’s were all the cool places we saw and getting driven to each one (it’s nice not to have to drive yourself)

The cons are less freedom (if you do drive yourself you can stay as long as you want and go where you want) and if your not a people person you might not like being in a vehicle with 8 other people and preparing food with them. I think that it is a good set-up though. It makes the tour affordable and exciting. It has been a while since I posted a proper blog because I have been very busy, you may notice this blog is a month or two behind but that is just because I don’t have time to catch up.

If your interested what is to come I just finished a scuba trip to the Great Barrier Reef and will post some pictures and stories soon. I am also going to be travelling to Surfers Paradise and from Cairns to Brisbane and Back soon and stopping at lots of cool places along the way so stay posted.

Tiger and Lion Pictures Melbourne Zoo

Jeremy — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:58:18 +0000

Hey guys. I am an amteur photographer and Love taking pictures. I like to get feedback on my photos so I have posted a few Lion and Tiger pictures on my blog. I would like to get some feedback or advice if there are any other photography lovers out there.

Here is one of my Tiger shots

Tiger prowl

Here is one of my Lion pictures

Lion Close-up