50 shades of golden and blue

People call it the Sunshine State because it experiences over 300 days of sunshine per year. Besides the always present sun, Queensland has it all to compete in a contest for the best paradise spots in the world - the stunning and always changing nuances of the golden beaches and the blue Coral Sea are ubiquitous.

If the weather in Melbourne and Sydney looks like the one in Western and Southern Europe, respectively, the climate in Queensland will definitely remind you of Southeast Asia - wet (or rainy) and dry seasons instead of summer and winter. As a result, it is hard to visit many places in Australia in one trip as it will be a little bit cold in Southern Australia from April to November (it will be winter) and it will be pouring in Northern Australia from November to April (it will be the rainy season).

As each Garden of Eden has its snake, between November and April the most dangerous marine stingers on Earth make an appearance in the turquoise waters of the Coral Sea - the box jellyfish and the irukandji jellyfish! They are either transparent or too small to be spotted and have potent toxic stings which can cause serious illness and even death. You cannot miss the people wearing full-body lycra suits in the sea and the vinegar available along the beaches (even though it seems controversial whether this actually works when applied on the injury…).

It is scary and does not really give you the crazy desire to go for a swim during this period! The signs warning you of currents, sharks and saltwater crocodiles (known informally as ‘salties’) at some places definitely remove any desire at all!

On our way to the south we stopped in a paradise-like small town and, luckily after we had left, read in the guidebook that not so long ago they had found a saltie in the public swimming pool!!! This sounds like a great scenario for a horror movie to me!

No worries however - there are spots where you can swim with (almost) no danger, including the stunning Great Barrier Reef and the beautiful freshwater lakes of Fraser Island!

We started our road trip in Cairns which is the gateway to the Great Barrier Reef. In order to maintain the suspense, we first went to visit one of the oldest primary tropical rainforests in the world - the precious lungs of Planet Earth - not far away from the city, in the village of Kuranda.

The journey started on a small train initially built for the tin mines, the railway rising from sea level to 328 metres through spectacular waterfalls and bridges.

Once there, besides enjoying the relaxing boat cruise on the calm waters of the Barron River - home to freshwater crocodiles, turtles, lizards and tropical birds, you can visit the koalas sprawled on their trees.

You will probably also need to defend your backpack and camera against the mischievous parrots!

The return trip to Cairns is by a cable-car going down amidst the majestic rainforest with huge trees in different shades of deep green.

You can spot the battle for light as some of them have acquired the skills to use the trunks of the other trees to go higher, closer to the sun, in order to survive!

It was time for the mythical Great Barrier Reef - the largest structure on Earth made by living organisms which can be spotted from space. It is home to hundreds of gorgeous exotic marine creatures, including the worldwide famous orange and white clownfish most commonly known as Nemo because of the cartoon where it featured!

The colour of the water looks extraterrestrial and the world underwater is pure magic.

Whether you decide to dive or to snorkel, you will not know where to turn your eyes to.

However, the only way to get an idea of the grandeur of the Reef is from the air.

The heli will make you discover the stunning shades of blue and the variety of breathtaking natural compositions of corals, including one in the perfect shape of a heart in the middle of the sea!

It is stunning and unforgettable!

Still, your discovery of the Reef should not stop here. Further south, it is hiding its most precious gem and the most beautiful beach in the world - the Whitsunday Islands! It is paradise on Earth!

We had some trouble getting there as we had little time and broke the 'number one' rule in Oz - do not, at any cost, drive after sunset!!! The reason for that is that car lights can make the kangaroos at the sides of the road panic and they might jump in front of your car. Kangaroos are gentle but big animals and the collision will hurt them and will cause a serious, sometimes deadly, accident for you as well… And it gets dark pretty early in Australia!

We drove for an hour in the dark. We could clearly spot the kangaroos standing next to the road and were praying for them not to jump in front of our car! It was a nightmare but we managed to reach Airlie Beach, the gateway to the Whitsundays, without an accident (and to this day we are still thankful for that)! But then we discovered that it was impossible to find an open hotel at 8pm... That night we slept in the car and promised ourselves to never ever spend a day in Oz without having booked a hotel at the latest by 3pm...

All the crazy experiences to get there were worth it! The 74 wonderful white-beach Whitsunday Islands - most of them uninhabited - located in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef, were named by Captain James Cook (always the same…) who sailed there in 1770 on the day of the ancient British festival of Whit Sunday (the Seventh Sunday after Easter).

The best way to explore the islands is on a sailing trip with at least two days on board. Our vessel was the black beauty 'Silent Night' and there were only 12 passengers and 2 crew members on board.

It is an amazing experience to sail with the only force of the wind, admire the beautiful shades of the sea from aqua, turquoise and blue to crystal and indigo, and even help the crew with the ropes.

You will quickly get used to hopping from one secluded beach or bay to another.

The sunsets amidst the sea there are amongst the most spectacular ones we have ever seen. The colours will spread all around you on the endless horizon and you will feel like drowning in the beauty and serenity of the silence.

It is the ultimate relaxation, very close to nirvana!

In our opinion, the most beautiful beach in the world is there - the iconic Whitehaven Beach!

The first sight from the lookout of this seven-kilometre stretch of white silica sands and crystal clear waters going far away on the horizon will immediately explain the name - it is haven (or heaven!) indeed! It looks like the golden sands and the turquoise waters are dancing in front of your eyes in this subtle masterpiece of nature!

The second part of the experience is getting down on this heavenly beach and feeling the sand under your bare feet and the cool water covering your body.

It feels really surreal...

What clearly made the experience unforgettable were the people we travelled with who came from Austria, the US, Ireland, the UK and Australia. In the evenings we were singing, dancing and playing and it was just so much fun! Despite coming from different countries, all these native English speakers had so much in common from a cultural perspective like the same movies, TV shows and songs from their childhood or teen years. And it was great singing some Bulgarian songs for them, even though my voice was...no comment!

It was also entertaining to watch the Aussie guy making a gentle fun of the American guy when the latter said in an extremely serious tone that the US was the greatest country in the world! Or when the same Aussie guy was trying to convince very calmly with a poker face one of the girls that even though she had seen koalas on one of the islands, they were brought there by people as ‘koalas do not swim’. This still makes us laugh out loud - the girl looked so sure and the Aussie - so calm while patiently repeating ‘koalas do not swim’. It was simply hilarious. The delicious food freshly prepared by the crew on board also put a big smile on our faces.

However, the icing on the cake, the nirvana of the sailing trip, was when the captain left us on a sandbank in the middle of nowhere and visible only at high tide!

It was only the 12 of us on this impermanent piece of land covered by corals, watching the sky turning red and the seagulls sliding on the horizon...

It could not become more spectacular than that!

After the Whitsundays, we continued further south, coming across funny road signs, old wind turbines, trucks transporting houses or swimming pools, customised car plates and improvised zebra crossings for giant lizards (yep, lizards have priority in Oz)!

The houses along the road are all on stilts for protection against animals and floods and you can spot quite often a microwave used as a mailbox (the house of the owners is probably too far away for them to retrieve their letters on a regular basis and they need a larger box to store them for awhile)!

Our next stop was Rockhampton.

It is known as the beef capital of Australia and we had a traditional minced beef pie for lunch. The cheerful inscription on the coke bottle reminded us that it was summer in Australia and winter somewhere far away in good old Europe.

The city is beautiful with its 19th-century preserved buildings and the banks of the Fitzroy River but there is one thing you cannot miss - the Tropic of Capricorn passes right through the city.

Explained in a scientific way, the Tropic of Capricorn (its northern equivalent is the Tropic of Cancer) is the southernmost latitude where the sun can be directly overhead. In simple words, it means that at one moment in the month of December you will not be able to see your own shadow there! Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn also reminded us of the great Alfred Hitchcock's movie ‘Under Capricorn’ - a masterpiece of the Seventh Art, like all the other movies of this genius!

We made a short stop at the beautiful secluded town of 1770 (yep, this is its name!), named after the year Captain Cook arrived in Australia.

We also stopped at Mon Repos Beach to see the sea turtles coming ashore in the darkness of the night to lay their eggs and bury them in the sand. We thought we saw tears in their eyes… It was an amazing experience. We learned so much about the nesting - every turtle returns to the beach where she was born to nest, sometimes after many years and many kilometres, and even after having crossed twice the Pacific Ocean reaching as far away as South America - and the dangers faced by the young turtles who were going to emerge from the eggs eight weeks later. They are so tiny that they can easily become the prey of crabs and seagulls even before reaching the sea, and by fish and other predators afterwards. The guys at Mon Repos Beach are doing a great job trying to ensure that the highest number of turtles emerge from the eggs (including by covering them with sand when necessary) and reach the sea after being born!

After this miracle of nature, we continued further south to the largest sand island in the world (1,840 km2!) - Fraser Island, named after the shipwreck survivor Eliza Fraser.

The island is a pristine beauty - its Aboriginal name K’Gari means paradise - but once you have seen the signs warning you of the presence of wild dingoes, sharks, salties and currents and watched the movie about the dangers of driving on the sand at the rental company office, you might have second thoughts!

Comfortably seated in our 4WD, ready to drive on the sand and admiring the beautiful forest around, we did not suspect the nightmare that would unfold in just a minute! The island is only sand, everywhere! The inland roads are all-sand and the beach is actually a road with its own road signs!

And if you do not know your car (which is the case with a rental) or it is your first time driving on the sand, well... you will simply get stuck, like us. Getting a huge 4WD out of the sand is hell! The more you dig, the more your car sinks into the sand… Most of the time there will be no other cars around and you will just keep digging because the perspective of spending the night in the car surrounded by wild dingoes is horrifying!!!

Luckily, after what seemed like hours of digging (in reality probably just an hour), we got help from some great Aussie guys from Brisbane and, completely covered by sand, managed to reach the stunning Lake McKenzie - one of over 100 freshwater lakes on the island. The water was transparent and so cool and the sand around was so white - nearly pure silica - that we could stay there forever!

After having reached our hotel for the night without any more trouble but still shaken, we realised that it was completely ring-fenced. When we decided to go to the beach, outside the fence, to watch the sunset, we figured out why… There was a dog watching us a little bit like a predator is watching a prey… We felt something was not right and slowly walked back behind the fence. Later in the hotel we saw horrible pictures of dingoes who had attacked people and knew we had probably escaped something similar.

Dingoes are wild dogs vulnerable to extinction and those on Fraser Island are reputedly some of the last remaining pure dingoes in Eastern Australia. In order to prevent cross-breeding, domestic dogs are not allowed on the island. As dingoes are wild animals, they are normally scared of people. However, few of those living on the island had recently changed behaviour due to people feeding them or recklessly leaving food and rubbish out - easy food - which attracted the dogs and made them fearless. We read that some people were even trying to provoke reactions from dingoes while taking photographs. The dingo we bumped into was one of these people’s ‘victims’. Fraser Island is the dingoes’ home and the people are the intruders! It is our responsibility to ensure they remain wild animals!

In the morning, we had a very tight slot at low tide to drive miles and miles along the beach, which is also used as a runway for planes!

You can spot the gorgeous coloured Pinnacles sand rocks, the rusted Maheno wreck and the Eli Creek flowing into the sea.

We almost experienced one of the other dangers of driving on the sand - sometimes the puddles on the beach could be treacherous, appear shallower than they actually are and make your 4WD sink...

Luckily, we skipped this trouble successfully and just enjoyed the beauty around!

The colours of the sea, the sky and the beach were spectacular and there were hundreds of birds resting on their long journey close to the waves!

Our road trip through the Sunshine State ended in Brisbane and we got on the plane with a pang in our hearts! We had experienced some crazy nightmare troubles but this is what travelling is all about - nothing ever happens according to a plan! However, the beauty we had seen and felt by far outrunned the troubles, creating some great memories and stories to tell you today!

See you soon at our next stop at ‘The Place to Be’ - the state of Victoria in Southern Australia, and another Aussie iconic spot - the Great Ocean Road!