Little Life Lessons – A 10 Week Road trip

A couple of weeks ago, we returned from 10 weeks and 10,000 km on the road. We travelled the East Coast of Australia as far as Cape Tribulation in Far north tropical Queensland.

We had been researching and planning our way back south the whole trip up! It was the 2nd of August in the thick of Winter when we left Victoria, so we were keen to reach our most northern destination fast!

So, we stopped only for a week in Airlie Beach to explore the Whitsundays, but other than that it was one night in each stop (other than the beautiful Hervey Bay where we went Whale watching), til we hit the road again.

At Hervey Bay, we were lucky enough to have the most amazing Whale experience, where a young whale spent half an hour playing before our very eyes, breach diving and splashing… having a “whale of a time” 😉

We then were blessed to see a whole Pod of whales playing together who greeted us with such curiosity!

They literally came up to us and waved back to us with their fins! They even went under our boat! It was insanely beautiful! Not to mention a little scary… but such a thrill all the same!

After our once in a lifetime whale watching experience that even our Captain said he’d never seen to that extent… we headed further north.

We reached 12 destinations in 17 days until we arrived at Port Douglas, where we finally took another week’s pause.

Leaving Port, we were fortunate enough to be able to do a Dreamtime Walk – Guide tour of the Mossman Gorge where we were immersed in the most Ancient Cultural experience inside the most ancient rainforest on the world!

We made it our goal earlier in the year to go and explore the Daintree Rainforest and see the Cassowary responsible for it’s very existence and we were not disappointed by it!

Our minds were blown when learning about arrow trees and some of the powerful plants of the forest used throughout Indigenous history over the last 70,000 years!

It was an amazing walk to the Gorge and when we arrived, we were in awe! The first thing we saw in the wild, before we even reached the township of Port Douglas after the Gorge, was two adult Crocodiles off the side of a bridge on a river bank!

This really woke us up to the reality of where we were! We soon made our way further north to Cape Tribulation where we went on an incredibly insightful 4 hour Guided walking tour of the Daintree Rainforest… something we had been dreaming about for so long!

We were blessed to see 2 Cassowaries in the wild as well! To say It was something special is an understatement! We discovered that we were walking on the foot of the most pristine part of the most ancient tropical rainforest on earth.

We discovered and learned to identify some of the most poisonous, toxic and deadly plants of the rainforest as well, including cyanide, tropical stinging nettle and mace.

On our way back south, we did our very own Waterfall tour down the east coast including the stunning Atherton Tablelands. It was what I’de basically been dreaming of my whole life as a keen meditator! Anytime I would go to that special place in my imagination… it’s always been a waterhole at the foot of a beautiful waterfall!

So… finally I was able to visit some of Australia’s most beautiful waterfalls and swimming holes, each with their own unique story and significance. All in stunning wilderness of National Parks, some were literally World Heritage listed sites!

We went to the biggest waterfalls in Australia Josephine falls (the highest waterfall) and Wallaman falls, the longest single drop waterfall, which took us a 2 hours round trip to walk down to. That was the most intense walking adventure and wilderness exploration I have ever done!

We learned a lot about the Tropics while travelling! We had a close encounter with ticks on more than one occasion! We learned how to safely remove them! Not something I ever learned at school (by the way:)

We were lucky enough to see 2 more wild Cassowaries on our way back south around Mission beach on the Cassowary Coast. One was at Etti Beach where they are known to be “residents”.

Inland from Mission beach we had an amazing time exploring Tully Gorge National Park and surrounds. One thing we learned though… is that midges and mozzies are abundant in the tropics and if you don’t want to get bitten… it’s best to cover up!

We had our fare share of bites! I have to say it was definitely the downside of chasing waterfalls in the tropics! BUT… 100% worth it! Once you jump in the water for a swim… you forget they are even there! The biggest lesson we learned while away was just how awesome Australia is!

With places such as Alligators Nest and the like, we discovered just how stunning our amazing country truly is! And we can wait to see more! Really, this experience felt like it just opened a can of worms for curiosity for us!

We visited friends on our way back home at Hervey Bay who we shared a lovely time with… sharing life skills. We did a little Veggie garden back yard blitz with them, while they taught us how to make pasta and gnocchi… something we simply hadn’t done yet… and were so keen to learn.

I can’t compare my school Whale assignments to this real life experience with my daughters. And while I forgot all that I learned from my school project on the Humpback whale, I learned WAY more from the curiosity sparked from literally seeing them in real life.

We arrived home just before the major flooding in the North of Victoria and all up the east coast… truly lucky to have safely been able to! If we had waited any longer we would have been on the other side of these floods and stranded.

So we thank our lucky stars and the heavens above… for our Angels are looking after us, no doubt about it! We are back home, digging deep in the Garden, diving deep into our library and feeling blessed to be near our little family again!

For this all… we are thankful! Til next time… you’ll find us back in the garden and catching up with our friends and family.

Love Leah