Fern Gully Lives!

17Jan12

While in Port Macquarie over Christmas Justin and his dad decided to go on a photography trip to Springbrook and Lamington National Parks for the remainder of Justin’s time off from work. Cristina and I decided to tag along but in our own car with our own schedule. For starters, Justin left Nelson Bay early New Years Day! Cris and I decided not to be crazy and instead spent our first day of 2012 (in chronological order) jumping in the perfect blue ocean, eating banana pancakes on the balcony and then returning to the beach. It was a perfect January 1st!

On Januray 2nd Cris and I made it as far north as Coff’s Harbour, famous for its giant banana, where we slept in a massive tent at a caravan park. Unfortunately it was dark when we arrived so I couldn’t see the big banana or the inner workings of the tent!

For most of the trip, we were driving Justin’s huge truck, named Bessie, which did not fit with our image. It was hilarious to watch people’s expressions as they saw two tiny girls get out of this truck, jump into the tray and unload our gear. I especially liked it when we were wearing dresses!

I’ll take a moment here to describe a very bizarre phenomenon of Australia- giant versions of things. I have no idea why, but Aussies seem to love building huge statues of anything that is popular. For example, I have seen a giant banana, a giant prawn and a gas station shaped like Uluru (Ayers Rock). The giant prawn was gross, since prawns are not very pretty animals, and I suppose the sculpture of Uluru is technically a miniature. But still, it’s odd!

The next morning we headed up to Byron Bay, a funny surf town that I can only describe as ‘bourgeoisie bohemian’. There’s loads of people with dreadlocks and prayer flags hanging off the walls, but the ‘local organic food’ will coast you an arm and a leg and high end boutiques line the streets. After walking around and realising I couldn’t afford anything, Cris and I decided to go for a swim. We parked Bessie on the road and changed into our bikinis right there.

The beach was incredible, one of the nicest I have seen in a long time. The water was a perfect turquoise and crystal clear. It was also nice and warm. Cris said it was like a bath, but I thought that was pushing it!

After a swim we walked to the Cape Byron Lighthouse, Australia’s most easterly point of the mainland. It was very beautiful, and the strong winds made for funny pictures of Cris’ hair!

Once back at the truck, we changed back into our clothes and continued driving. I have to say that there are some big differences between driving in Australia vs Canada, aside from what side of the road you are on. For starters, the Aussie Pacific Highway has sections with school crossing zones where the speed limit is 20 km/h. In addition, some parts of the highway have two speed limits, one for dry days and one for wet days. I couldn’t believe that Australia had to physically make a law that said you should drive slower when it’s raining. Is there no common sense? Also, there are so many street signs on the road I found myself overwhelmed with reading. Some of the signs are terrifying. For example, one billboard with a picture of a surgeon said ‘Late? Or crushed skull? You decide. This holiday don’t speed.’ Another common sign, with a picture of a head-on collision simply says ‘Crash Zone next 5km’. I was always biting my nails while going through a crash zone, because, crap, it’s where head-on collisions occur! Australia has some pretty intense fear tactics.

But it’s not all scary on the roads. We listened to the Triple J radio station for most of our way which plays a variety of good music but also a lot of Aussie Hip Hop. Aussie Hip Hop is like nothing I have ever heard before. The guys ‘rapping’ sound like they are trying to be tough but are talking about having a barbecue on the beach with their friends in the sun. I couldn’t help laughing and enjoying this painfully bad music. That being said, a lot of Australian music is pretty good.

Back on the road Cris and I arrived in Springbrook National Park at sunset and met up with Justin and his dad Glenn at the ‘Best of all Lookout’. Yes, that really was the name and I suppose it was a nice lookout. I was more blown away by the Antarctic Beech trees along the path which are still alive and approximately 2,000 years old! This is where Fern Gully begins…

For those of you who don’t know, Fern Gully is an old animated movie, featuring the voice talent of Robin Williams and Tim Curry, about a fairy who lives in the rainforest and teaches a human working for a timber company about the beauty of nature. I remember the movie mostly for the songs, especially the Batty Rap and Toxic Love, but apparently the entire movie takes place in Australia in this part of Queensland! Mount Warning, mentioned several times in the movie can be seen from several lookouts in Springbrook including the beautiful Twin Falls walk that Cris and I did. In addition, the fairies of Fern Gully live in a large Antarctic Beech tree. Yep, biology nerd once again!

Our next stop was Lamington National Park, which was the actual site that inspired the movie Fern Gully. It’s a beautiful rainforest with lots of cool plants and animals. Cris and I saw a great sunset from the top of a 30m Strangler Fig tree. These trees grow from the  top of another tree and slowly wrap their roots around their host before strangling it to death, leaving only the Strangler Fig and a hollow middle. It’s a pretty mean tactic but the effect looks like one tree hugging another in a beautiful lattice.

While walking to a waterfall with Justin, who took some great photos of Cris and I (thank you Justin!), we saw loads of fern trees and some nice birds. Later on we also saw some pademelons, which are like very small kangaroos. In Fern Gully a pademelon carries Zak’s walkman to the fairies. Remember walkmans!?

The only downside of Lamington was O’Reily’s, a bizarre hotel and restaurant located right in the middle of the park. They feed a lot of the wildlife and generally ruin the feeling of being in the middle of the rainforest. But oh well, it was a place for Cris to charge her phone!

Cris and I drove back toward Nelson Bay the inland way stopping in the weird hippie town of Nimbin. At first I found the one street town cute and funny, swimming in tie dye and bong shops. After awhile the novelty wore off and I found the conflicting ideologies of Buddhist prayer flags, Rastafarianism and 1960′s Hippie annoying. But they had good curry chicken pies!

The drive back through inland Australia was just as gorgeous as the coastal drive north. Bessie was looking good, as was Cris in her super Aussie Akubra hat!

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