Author: Michael Eaton

I woke up in the morning and boy, was I happy to check out of the hotel. After three days cooped up in that small room, I was ready for my escape. I found a cheap car for rent and I decided that I was still going on a road trip for a few days. 

My original plan was to rent the car in Adelaide and drive east towards either Melbourne or Sydney. But the day before I decided to rent the car, Victoria introduced a new permit pass system to cross into the state.

Because I had been in Brisbane recently it was going to be impossible for me to cross into Victoria. I could have lied but I really didn’t feel like doing that. The last thing I wanted to do was get myself in trouble during my final few weeks in Australia.

My first alternative was to cross the border into New South Wales, driving all the way to Sydney. But I decided that it’d be best to stay in South Australia and see what I could here. I think at this point it would be risky to rent a car in one place and try to return it in another place because of everything that’s going on with COVID.

So I went down to the hospital for my second COVID test and then I bounced quickly to Hertz. My first stop was Deep Creek National Park which is about an hour and a half drive south of Adelaide. My desire was to go to Kangaroo Island but that ended up not working out. The ferry was too expensive and there were no return trips for the dates I was looking at anyway.

I got a Deep Creek a little after lunch time and I did one of the hikes down to a waterfall. But because it hadn’t rained recently the waterfall is not very full. Still a nice little spot though. I decided to meditate for a bit and then I walked back up to car park.

That was it for the day, to be honest. I found my camp spot, which was not great compared to what I’ve been used to. I got spoiled in Queensland because the national parks are free and camping is only $7 at all the parks.

In South Australia, you have to pay an entry fee to get into the park, which is about $11, and then you have to pay $16 for the campsite. Not much flat ground at this campsite. It’s hard to sleep in the tent if you don’t have any flat ground but I made it work.

The next day I woke up early and I did one of the hikes near the campsite. It was down to Deep Cove. The hike itself was pretty nice. I saw a ton of kangaroos on the way down to the beach. It was early in the moring and they like to feed at that time.

The first cove wass really awesome and I sat there for a bit meditated. I had to scale another hill to get to the next cove, which was the cove that the hike was intended to lead you to. But after getting to the top of that hill I saw that the climb down was extremely steep. I’ve done worse but I was on my own and I decided that it wasn’t worth it and I turned back.

I went over to the other side of the park soon after that and had some lunch. There’s a picnic spot on top of the hill that offers some great views of Kangaroo Island. At the bottom of the hill, there’s a hike that goes down to Blowhole Beach. My intention was to go down to check it out and have a swim. But I didn’t realize that to get there you need a 4WD car. There is a hike but it was supposed to be one of the longer ones in the park. There was another hike that I wanted to do that was also pretty long. And I decided that I wanted to walk that one more.

The other hike is called Aaron Creek Trail and it was really chill. Nothing too crazy. Again, I saw a ton of kangaroos. There are different types of kangaroos in different parts of Australia. These kangaroos were bigger than the ones I had seen in Queensland and New South Wales. I also saw this really cool white bird that had a red underbelly and red wings. It looked really rare but now I’m realizing that they are everywhere around here.

I left the park after I finished up with the hike. I beelined for Cape Jervis, which is where the ferry for Kangaroo Island leaves from. But honestly, there’s not much there except for a modern looking lighthouse.

Up the road from there is a place called Second Valley. This spot was actually really cool. There was a nice little beach and I was able to take a swim and kind of wash up a bit. The cliffs along the coast were really spectacular.

That night I camped at Rapid Bay, just south of Second Valley. Both were very similar. The campsite was right on the beach and the cliffs towarded above the area. I took a walk along the beach and down the jetty.

There is this animal called the leafy sea dragon that lives in the coastal waters here. It is extremely rare and can only be seen in this part of the world. It’s kind of like a seahorse but way cooler. Part of me wished I had some snorkeling gear just to try and see one. The water was freezing though.

I don’t know what happened because the first couple of days that I was in Adelaide it was 95° outside. But my first two days on the road have been much cooler. About 65° each day. I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be hot or cold in this part of the country. I mean it is summer so I figured that it would be hot. But yeah, it’s been pretty cold.

Anyway, I got up pretty early and went to Onkaparinga National Park and did a short walk to a lookout point. It was a good way to start the day. Stopped off at one of the beach towns just south of Adelaide but didn’t swim. Just too cold out still.

I drove a good deal that evening towards Port Augusta to this place called Melrose. It’s close by to Mount Remarkable National Park. I found this small rest area off the side of the road and it made a decent free camp.

I’m sitting in a hotel room in Adelaide right now. I’ll have to stay here for another couple of days. I got my nose raped by a cotton swab just a few hours ago. Life is good.

I decided to leave Brisbane on Thursday and I booked my flight that morning. My plan was to fly into Adelaide on Friday, stay around for a few days to check things out, and then I was going to rent a car and drive down to Melbourne. There’s a fair bit between the two cities, especially the Great Ocean Road, which is one of the biggest tourist attractions in all of Australia.

Fast forward to Thursday night. I’m sitting around hanging out with a few friends and someone mentions that there was someone with COVID in Brisbane. The UK variant at that. A cleaner working at one of the hotels picked it up and went about life as usual for a few days before she knew she had it.

So we wake up on Friday morning and the news from the Queensland government is that Brisbane and a few surrounding areas will go into lock-down starting at 6 PM on Friday. They want some time to figure things out and trace down anyone that may have made contact with this woman.

Thing is, my flight leaves Brisbane Airport at 6:15 PM. So at this point I’m not even sure if my flight is going to be allowed to take off. I look it up online and it still says the flight is scheduled to depart on time.

Which is great but then I need to figure out if I’m going to have to go into a mandatory 14-day quarantine once I touch down in South Australia. After a bit of research I find that anyone traveling from Queensland to South Australia that gets in before midnight Friday (so I guess you can say Saturday) won’t be ushered into a hotel for a government-mandated quarantine.

I find that I’ll need to get a COVID test and remain isolated for a few days before I figure out what the results are. Hence the whole locked up in the hotel ordeal.

When I landed I was told there would be a COVID test provided at the airport. But our flight got in too late (around 10:30) and the nurses were closing up shop at 11 o’clock. So I wasn’t able to get one.

I ended up going to the hospital and getting a COVID test this afternoon. Twenty-four to forty-eight hours before I get the results. I’m sure I’m fine to be fair. I feel good. And Brisbane did a bunch of testing over the last day and no confirmed cases thus far. But you don’t want to be the one guy that ends up on the news because he moved the virus from one state to another.

I checked in last night with no issues. But the manager spoke to me this morning and she was not happy to hear that I was coming from Brisbane. I don’t blame her. But it’s not very fun to be treated like a leper. But there’s nothing else I can do. Staying here was a better idea than bee-lining for the hostel.

So I guess it’s just a wait and see game. I have some things to keep me busy. It’s times like these that I’m happy to have the ukulele. And I’m grateful for having somewhere to write. I need to finish catching up on my entries from November anyway.

I started a new show also. The Queens Gambit. It’s a good watch. You should check it out if you haven’t already seen it.

It’s about time to get out of Brisbane and to be fair I haven’t done all that much to see the rest of the parts of the city over the last month. I’ve decided to make my way to South Australia for a few weeks. So the last few days I’ve made a real effort to see some of the things I’d like to see before I leave.

On top of my list was the museums. There are three: The Gallery of Modern Art, The Queensland Art Gallery, and the Queensland Museum.

The last few days were extremely hot. It’s really feeling like summer here in Australia. So it was the perfect few days to go exploring the museums. Air conditioning on a hot day sounds lovely. Especially because the air conditioning at the hostel is dog poop.

First up on the list was the Modern Art museum. There were three exhibits. One featured objects that were either created by Aboriginal peoples (shields, boomerangs, etc.) or were influenced by Aboriginal culture. I really enjoyed the shields, as the patterns painted on them really tickled my fancy.

The second exhibit featured this artist named Gordon Bennett. He is Australian but he found out later in life that he actually is of Aboriginal ancestary. A lot of his art focuses on the struggle of Indigenous peoples in a European dominated culture. He also had a number of paintings that focused on the 9/11 terrorist attacks. So that hit close to home.

The last was focused on pop culture icons and images and how artists us them to create art. Nothing really noteworthy here.

After going to the museum I took a walk along the south bank of the river towards Kangaroo Point. One of the more popular lookout points in the city. It’s right by the Story Bridge, the largest bridge in the city.

It started raining and I ducked into a train station to escape getting soaked. I had nothing to do. So I pulled out the ukulele and started playing. Singing and all. It’s something I’ve been doing the last few days. Going to a public place and just practicing.

It has pushed me outside of my comfort zone which is what I’ve need lately, to be honest. I have been low on confidence and doing this along with making a few other changes has made a difference.

I’ve been surprised. People will sit by and listen. Or walk past and smile or wave at me. Some people have come up to me and complimented me on the way I am playing. It feels good to spread happiness in this way.

Kangaroo Point was nothing special to be honest. The view from the hostel roof top is actually much nicer. But it was nice to just check out a different part of town. I caught a free ferry (which I didn’t know existed – wish I had known about this before) back to the CBD and that was the end of my night.

The next day I went to the Queensland Museum which I understood was something akin to a natural history museum. And I wasn’t wrong. But again it was super small. Much smaller than I was expecting. There were three exhibits.

The first was an exhibit featuring dinosaur fossils found in Queensland. They also discussed some of the larger animals from the past that have gone extinct. Megafauna they call them. We’re talking large kangaroos and wombats. Way bigger than exist today.

The other exhibit touched on Aboriginal dress. But it was only a small room. Nothing to really talk about here.

The last was my favorite. It was basically just a taxidermist exhibit featuring most of the different animals you can find in Queensland today. Birds, insects, reptiles, mammals, and fish. All of it really. It was cool looking through everything and finding which animals I’ve spotted in the wild over the last few months.

It only took me an hour or so to see everything there. I was originally of the mind that there was only two museums in the area. But I realized when I walked out of the Queensland Museum that there was another art gallery near by. So I headed over there because I had nothing else to do with my afternoon.

I went out to the cafe first and sipped on an iced latte and just read from my Kindle (thanks Mom!). I’m reading two books right now. 1491 is about Native American history pre-Columbus. It’s pretty interesting because the book discusses a lot of things we don’t learn in school. The other is called The Brothers Karamazov. It’s a classical novel from Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky. I like reading the classics, just to see what all the hype is about.

Anyway, I enjoyed the Queensland Art Gallery. Probably my favorite museum out of the three. It was the biggest and it had a variety (not a wide variety but a variety) of art types. Some modern art. Some classical art. It was just nice to walk around and be in the space.

Afterward, I went down by the river bank again and played some ukulele. I think I am getting quite good actually.

Not much going on in Brissie the first few weeks of December. I checked into City Backpackers after recovering from my illness. This was the hostel I stayed in when I was in Brisbane in August. It was nice to reconnect with a lot of my friends who were still staying there. Especially my Irish buddies Seb and Brendan.

I didn’t really do much during this time. It rained most of the time here and there wasn’t really an opportunity to get out and do anything. Just hung out and started thinking about what my plans for the future were going to look like. At this point, I wasn’t sure if I was going to stay in Australia for longer or if I was going to return home. I was just probing around trying to find different solutions. I was a bit confused to be fair.

We did make it out of Brisbane into the Glass House Mountains on December 20th for the Jupiter and Saturn conjunction. The two planets crossed paths in the night sky and they created one very bright looking star. These two planets cross paths every so often. But for it to happen in the evening is rare. It hadn’t occurred in close to 800 years so it was pretty cool to get out and see something like this.

My original plan for Christmas was to fly down to Sydney and meet up with my American friend, Carter. He has a car and we were going to do a road trip from Sydney down to Melbourne. Exploring the coast along the way. But just a few days before Christmas Sydney had a bad COVID-19 outbreak. Bad for Australia at least. So I had to cancel my plans because a road trip to Victoria became impossible at that point.

Thankfully, I still had a lot of good friends in Brisbane to pass the holidays with. My friends from the Cape York trip arrived in Brisbane only a few days before Christmas. They had brought a few friends along with them from Cairns. And we decided to grab an AirBnB for a few days.

We had a really good time and I was happy to get out of the hostel for a bit. This group was a really fun time and I appreciated the fact that they adopted me for the holidays. I didn’t know a majority of them but they were friendly to me from the start. And that made me feel very welcome.

Lucinda, one of the girls from the group, had grown up in Brisbane and she invited us over to her parent’s house on Christmas for a big dinner. Each of us made something different and we had a big feast. It was really awesome to be in a situation that felt very intimate. It felt that I was surrounded by family. Which is exactly what should be happening on Christmas.

New Years’ was also a good time. To be fair I usually don’t like celebrating NYE super hard. I’d much prefer to have a low key night and wake up the next day refreshed and ready to go on the first day of the year.

We ended up going to a house party somewhere outside of Brisbane. One of Lu’s friends was throwing it. Nothing too crazy. I preferred it over going to a club or something. Fair, I didn’t know most of the people at the party but it was still a good time anyway.

At this point, I was ready to leave Brisbane. I had the itch to get moving again and I wasn’t totally sure where I wanted to go. I floated a few things out there but I knew I had to get going somewhere because I was getting seriously bored. I kind of felt like I was in a rut to be fair. And when you feel like that you need to make a change.

It’s been the road trip of a lifetime. We’re talking roughly 5,400 kilometers (that’s about 3,350 miles for all you Americans out there). Which translates into sixty-four total hours of driving. By far the longest road trip I’ve ever done. And probably the longest road trip I will ever do. But I’m not committing to that. You really never know.

I think my body was ready to break down for a bit because I got sick two hours away from getting to Brisbane. I woke up at the campground in Noosa with a sore throat and body aches and things just went down hill from there. We were supposed to spend one more day in Noosa before heading back to Brisbane but I just couldn’t make it. My friend Alex was understanding enough to drive me back to Brisbane that same day.

So what did I learn from this experience? I would say a fair few things.

The first is that you don’t need a car to get to some really cool places. You just need some friends with some cars. It’s not that I’m meeting people and making friends with them just because they have cars. I’m trying to meet people and learn from them. But it’s amazing where you can get to without a car if you’re willing to talk to people and keep your plans open.

Secondly, everything takes longer than you plan on it taking when you’re on a roadtrip. When we decided to go to Cape York we said it would take us a week to get there and back. Maybe a week and a half tops. It took us three weeks. You find beautiful places and you spend a few days. Cars breakdown and you have to repair them in the scorching heat in the middle of a Woolworths car park in a small fishing town. You just lose track of time. Any schedule you have just trash it. You aren’t going to follow it. I promise you.

Third, living out of someones car that isn’t yours is a cause for a lot of frustration. As I’ve gotten older I’ve become more organized (a fact that my sister and my mother would be quite happy with). And when you live out of somebody’s car you can’t exactly tell them to get their act together. It’s amazing where you can go without a car but at the same time you sacrifice a lot. You have to live on someone elses terms. You have to adapt to their level of organization. You have to adapt to their schedule. You have to adapt to them as a person. And sometimes that isn’t very fun.

Four, I learned that I like a little more structure and that I prefer the freedom of traveling by myself. When you’re in a group of 6 (and eventually it got up to 12) it’s difficult to make decisions on what to do and where to go. I will admit at first I was frustrated because I wanted to move a lot faster. And it seemed that everyone else was pleased with moving a lot slower. It’s hard to voice these concerns without seeming like a little bitch.

It can be difficult to manage everyone’s personalities in a large group too. Thankfully we had a good group of guys and girls that were aware enough to keep the energy positive and drama free. We only had one problem and that was resolved eventually. But even so, it can be a bit of work keeping things that way. When you are by yourself or with a small group that drama is not even possible or at least it is less likely to appear. And maintenance of the social environment doesn’t seem like that much of an effort.

It really was the adventure of a lifetime. I never would have imagined making it to where I made it. No shot. And I’m proud of how open minded I was to just jump in the car with a person I met two weeks prior and join in a group of people I didn’t even know.

Would I do it again? Absolutely. I think we got extremely lucky because of the people that were involved. It just takes one person to upset the balance of the group. But I wouldn’t trade this experience for anything. I understand how lucky we got here.

We were pretty beat up after the bush party. It might not have been the most amazing I’ve seen but we were still exhausted the day after. We made it down to Rainbow Beach anyway.

Fraser Island is right across the bay from Rainbow. There was a large bush fire on Fraser Island at the time and the island was closed to visitors. It wasn’t our original plan to head over that way so it didn’t change our plans at all. But it changed everybody else’s plans.

Rainbow Beach and the surrounding campsites were very busy. Everyone stayed on the mainland that were supposed to go to the island. I kind of felt bad for them because Fraser is such a great place. I know I’d be a bit bummed if I was in their shoes.

Scottie ended up meeting us the first night we were camped there. We were nestled up next to the beach at one of the national parks. Really nice camp spot to be fair. We set up a campfire but quickly realized that no one else was having one on account of what was happening at Fraser. So we put it out. Camping is kind of lame when you can’t make a fire.

Rainbow Beach is famous for its tall beachside sandstone cliffs and its 4WDing along the beach. The last time I was here I only had a little Toyota Yaris. So it was cool to experience this place in a different way the second time around.

We drove up and down the beach for most of the afternoon stopping at a few spots along the way. There’s a small cape and we drove through this small track to get to the beach on the other side. We stopped off at the hiking trail and walked up to the lighthouse. That was really nice. But it was so damn hot! Australia is no joke during the summer.

We realized sometime during the afternoon that we could drive along the beach all the way to Noosa Heads. That was our next stop anyway. So that’s exactly what we did.

Normally this drive takes 2 hours over the normal roads because they go so far inland. I think we did it in a little over an hour on the beach. When we got all the way to the end we were sitting on a small piece of beach looking back towards The Spit.

The Spit is a bay beach in Noosa Heads. It the best place to watch the sunset in Noosa. When you’re watching a sunset there you always wonder how you can get over to the other side of the bay. There are always people over there. And now we know.

We chilled there for a bit and then crossed the ferry inland. We wanted to watch the sunset at The Spit and we made it just in time. Met a few people there and then made our way to the campsite

It was a bit out of town and also it was a bit shit. Noosa is not very camper van or camping friendly. It’s a richer area and they don’t want the vans everywhere. The camp was packed because there was nowhere else to go that was close enough to town.

Anyway, I was starting to feel a bit sick that evening and when I woke up I had a full blown sore throat. Our original plan was to take another day or two to make it back to Brisbane. But I was in no shape to travel any more. So we made a beeline to Brissie. All I wanted to do at that point was sleep and get well.

It didn’t take us too long to get down to Agnes. Another spot that I’ve been to before on my way up to Cairns. The beaches here are pristine and it has a really laid back vibe. Even more so than Yeppoon. It is super small too. They didn’t have a paved road coming out this way until the 90s is what I’ve heard (but I’m not totally sure on that point).

Alex had a friend that he wanted to visit here and that was the first stop that we made. They met each other in Melbourne when Alex was living down there last year. Rick was managing at a popular club in the city and Alex used to party there pretty frequently. Alex, being the trouble that he is, made Rick’s acquaintance before too long. And they’ve been friends ever since.

Rick and his girlfriend were renting a house just outside of town and it was an amazing property. Pretty cool to see what you can get for the price out this part of Australia. For the same price as an apartment in Melbourne CBD you can grab a huge house with kangaroos jumping all around the property. I guess the same thing happens back in the states, less the kangaroos.

We crashed at his place the first night in town and it worked out really well. Super comfortable bed honestly. We had been very lucky on the road trip down. There always seemed to be a bed waiting for us wherever we went.

The next day we moved down into a hostel and just chilled pretty much. Went down to the beach and did a few of the walks nearby.

There were a few 4WD tracks that we hit in the national park and it was fun to do a little exploring that way. But the few days we were there it was extremely hot so we didn’t spend too much time just hanging around the beach. Always looking for shade.

There was a bush party thrown on our last night in Agnes Water and we were pretty pumped to check it out. It seemed everyone we met around town was talking about it.

The night came and to be fair it was pretty damn disappointing. Don’t get me wrong, the set up was great. A stage with a big sound system. A huge fire pit. They even had food.

But not too many people ended up showing up. It really was just a local party but we still had a good time. Megan and a few of my friends were there. It was cool to bring my friends together with Alex’s friends and have a night to let loose a bit.

We did meet this character of a guy while there though. Most people have vans or trucks that they throw a bed into and travel around Australia in. This guy (I wish I remembered his name) built out an entire apartment on wheels in the back of a moving van. We’re talking like the largest size UHaul you can rent type of truck.

It really was a sight to see. This thing was mint. Hard wood floors and wood cabinets. Painted ceilings and a bed platform. Art hanging on the walls. I mean you think it’s possible but you don’t think someone would be crazy enough to actually do it until you see it.

I wish I had taken some pictures but it was just enough to hang out in there for a bit. Besides, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to remember to take pictures in the first place.

The next day we got up early and made our way to Yeppoon to see my American friend. Yeppoon is a small beach town only 30 minutes away from Rockhampton. I had stopped there with Simon and Chris when I was making my way up to Cairns but we only spent the morning there. 

This time I got to see my friend Megan who is spending some time there with her boyfriend. She was one of my better friends when I was staying in Byron Bay. She has such a positive attitude and gives love wherever she goes. It’s actually quite contagious. 

It had been a while since I was in Byron Bay. At that point maybe 5 or 6 months. We had been in contact for some time and we were always keeping each other updated as to our whereabouts. It took a while but we finally got together and I was very excited about it.

When we arrived Alex realized that he had a pretty serious oil leak coming from his car. We didn’t really know what the problem was. Megan’s friend helped us find a mechanic while we ventured around town.

We hung out at Megan’s place for a while and then we headed down to the beach for a swim. It’s really all there is to do in Yeppoon. Just a small, chill, laid back beach town. There was so much seaweed in the water though. But it was a fun time.

From there we grabbed a bit to eat at this new spot that Megan and her friend wanted to try out. I got a burger and it was the first time I had eaten meat in while. I’d been eating more vegetables and fruits since I started driving down south with Alex. He is a vegetarian. But road tripping, in general, has convinced me that I don’t need meat as much as I used to.

My plan isn’t to go vegetarian or anything. I think humans were meant to eat meat. I just don’t think as much as we’re eating right now. When I was growing up there was meat at almost every meal. This is the story for most people from North America and Europe. You could throw Australia and New Zealand in there as well.

But if you just change your mindset and understand you don’t need meat at lunch and dinner you can cut out a lot of meat from your diet. If you eat meat at lunch or dinner then you’re going to be cutting your meat intake by half. And that’s a pretty big deal.

Anyway, after lunch, we parted ways. But we figured out that we were both going to be in Agnes water at the same time so we planned on meeting up again. We drove up to Rockhampton afterward to go to one of the mechanics that had some time to look at Alex’s car.

We figured out that it was an oil leak from the differentiator. I’ve learned a lot about cars since I’ve started traveling and today I learned what a differentiator actually is.

Alex was worried that the gearbox was fucked. If that was the problem he was going to be out of a lot of money. And to add to that, the parts we would need to correct that problem were going to be difficult to get a hold of.

Thankfully, it was just the seal that was broken and that’s why the oil was leaking all over the place. There wasn’t enough time to do the entire job that day because we got there in the early evening. So we had to come back the next morning so the mechanic could fix it.

That night we drove out of town and literally camped on the side of the road. It was along a river so it wasn’t that bad. But it didn’t compare to any of the campsites we were used to staying at.

We got up early in the morning and it took about 2 hours for the mechanic to fix the car. No issues and we were back on the road in the early afternoon. Next stop – Agnes Water.

After Magnetic we continued south towards Brisbane. Scottie wanted to stop off at Airlie Beach to see his friend Cal. And Alex was all for it because he had never been there before. It wasn’t ideal for me because I had been to Airlie on the way up to Cairns. But when you’re the only person without his own car you can’t influence the plan all that much.

Honestly, nothing really happened while we were in Airlie. Unless you’re going to the Whitsunday Islands there isn’t too much to see. Perhaps you can do a few hikes but we mostly just chilled. So between Magnetic Island and Airlie Beach, we were just hanging for the most part. I’m not complaining but looking back on it I think we could have made better use of our time and explored a bit more.

The good thing was that we were able to stay at Cal’s apartment. He’s a super nice guy actually. We met on the boat trip (he works on the boats that do the tours) and we really hit it off. They had a couple of extra beds that they let us use.

The only noteworthy thing we did was drink. I’ll admit that Airlie is a cool spot for nightlife. It is small but you can have a really fun night out there if you want to.

I ended up running into another friend of mine from Byron while we were out in town. Looking back on it, I’ve run into a lot of people from Byron Bay in random places throughout Australia. This time it was my Argentinian friend, Salva.

He was working on one of the boats and getting a Master Diver license at the same time. it sounded like a pretty amazing gig, to be honest. He is making money and diving in one of the best spots in the world for that sort of thing. And all for free basically.

I was happy to get out Airlie once we were on the road again. I wasn’t really in the party mood at that point in time. I wanted to see some new things and get back to Brisbane so I could figure out what my next adventure was going to look like.

We started camping again once we left Airlie. The first spot was extremely nice but I can’t remember the name of it right now for the life of me. It was right on the water’s edge and I met an Aussie guy there who was surprisingly really amped-up about Donald Trump and the election. It’s always fun to see what Aussies think of American politics. Everyone has an opinion here.

But the night there was a bit scary. We were on the cape with basically no cover so the wind was extremely strong. I woke up in the middle of the night and it seemed like there was a hurricane going on outside. I thought I was going to blow away in my tent. Even Alex said he was frightened. He has a rooftop tent and he thought he was going to get blown off of his car.

The next day we went out to this place called Stanage. This really small fishing town way off the main road. Honestly I didn’t really care for it because I wanted to get to Rockhampton to meet a friend. But one of the guys we met the night before said it was a great little place to camp. So we took the drive.

The drive itself was good fun. Off the beaten track sort of thing. A dirt road through a bunch of cattle ranches. The town itself was, well, as small as the guy said it was going to be. We did find the campsite with no issue. It was free and nestled up along the tree line close to the beach.

I explored a bit of the coast along where the campsite was but there wasn’t all that much to see. The most interesting thing I found was a washed up boat that seemed to be turned into a house of some sort. It would have been a great place to fish but we didn’t have any rods.

I was happy because I was able to sleep on the beach and look at the stars through the opening in my tent. It’d been a while since I was able to do that. Can’t get away with that in north Queensland because of the crocodiles. Facing east, I was able to wake up to the sunrise as well.

Nothing really doing that next day. We drove down to Mission Beach, just to check it out. The beach itself was quite nice and we chilled there for a bit. We ate some watermelon that we picked up from one of the farms on the way down and laid out in the shade.

That was one of the better things about North Queensland. You encounter so many farms driving through the country. And a lot of them have stands filled with fruits and vegetables. No one is attending them either. Not that we stole anything. You just take what you want and drop some money in the box. Watermelon, papaya, jackfruit, pumpkin, and all kinds of veggies. We ate very healthy on this trip.

We tossed around the idea of renting a boat for a few days. There are a ton of small (and big islands) off the shore here and it would have been pretty cool to check them out on our own time. But that never materialized. Not having service out in the bush hurts your chances of finding a rental. You can’t arrange anything.

We drove for most of the day and arrived at Toomulla just as the sun was setting. This put us within shouting distance of Townsville. We drove over there in the morning and jumped on the ferry over to Magnetic Island.

When we were in the Daintree we met Alejandra (the lady with the super pimped out van). Long story short, she has a friend who just moved to Magnetic Island who recently bought a house there. She had been fixing it up for a few weeks at that point so she could start renting it out as an AirBnB.

We got to talking to her and mentioned we were thinking of stopping over. She told us to stay over at her place while we were on the island. For free no less. So that made our decision extremely easy.

We decided to take the cars over because we weren’t going to pay anything for the accommodation. It made our lives quite a bit easier to be fair. We were able to cover almost every inch of the island.

The house itself is pretty nice. And she got it for a very good price too. This woman, Frankie is her name, is self-made. She moved to Australia over ten years ago on a working holiday and just stayed around, applying for all different types of visa along the way. Got her permanent residency and eventually her citizenship.

She is a graphic designer and built a multi-million dollar graphic design organization. She’s also been investing in real estate and converting her properties into rentals for a while now. We really had a great time with her. And we even helped out with the place where we could.

I was pleasantly surprised because most backpackers you talk to say something about wanting to go to Magnetic Island. You see a lot of advertisements for it too. But it’s not really all that touristy when you get there.

Perhaps COVID had something to do with it. But you can tell normally it doesn’t have that touristy feel to it. Not many restaurants, hotels, or hostels to be fair. But this place will blow up eventually. So this investment will probably work out quite nicely for Frankie.

Anyway, there’s not a whole lot to do on Magnetic Island as far as adventures go. There are a few hikes that you can do and there’s one 4WD track that was actually pretty gnarly. It’s very famous for its snorkeling. But it was extremely windy while we were there and the visibility is not good. The water is not calm and you can’t see much.

The most famous hike is called The Forts Hike because it takes you through various World War II bunkers and other buildings. Magnetic Island was heavily fortified during the early 1940s due to the threat of a Japanese invasion.

The best part about this hike was the koalas. We saw a few of them in the trees on the way. Maggie Island is famous for its koalas. It was my first time seeing one outside of the Australia Zoo. If you want to see a koala in the wild this is the place you want to visit.

The 4WD track, promptly called Radical Bay, was pretty damn radical. It was a road at some point in the past but it’s fallen into serious disrepair. Now it’s just potholes. It really looked like some just bombed the place. Alex’s car is an absolute unit though, so we made it through with no problem.

There wasn’t really much doing when we got to the end of the track. A beautiful beach, so we chilled there for the afternoon. I actually ran into a few friends from back in Byron Bay that hiked all the way to the cove. It really is amazing where you run into people in Australia.

There were a few small hikes around the track and we got some really cool pictures. Scott even found a beach with good enough waves for surfing. Normally, north Queensland doesn’t have good surf because of the coral reefs. But this spot had some pretty big waves.

All in all, Magnetic Island was a pretty relaxing time. Besides that, we just sat by the beach and had a ton of iced coffees. We found this one spot in Horseshoe Bay that made some pretty wicked ones. With ice cream and all. It was fairly addicting. Partly because they were so delicious and partly because there wasn’t much else to do besides sit by the beach and relax.