Queensland Travel Blog – a decision well made

Last Updated on March 17, 2023 by PowersToTravel

In early 2018 I began dreaming, and in August 2018 I began planning a trip to Australia which would occur in 2019. Planning out one full year? Yes, indeed. My biggest lesson learned was from a sadly executed trip to Australia in 1979 when my parents planned a family visit to the Great Barrier Reef over Christmas vacation.

This was before the days of the Internet, before one could plan one’s own trip – we depended entirely on a travel agent who forgot to make our reservations for the Reef. Discovered too late, we ended up without the biggest bucket list item – the Great Barrier Reef.

In August 2018, when Greg and I first dreamed of a trip to Australia, I got in high gear – no failure ahead for me! Actually, planning out a year was definitely overkill, but it didn’t hurt us! However the key is to make sure you have nailed down your flights before committing to the resorts.

As I studied the flight costs in August and September 2018, I was devastated to learn that the low costs I was seeing for the beginning of September would spiral up mid-September as, who knows what? Beginning of warmer weather? School holidays, who knows, but it is definitely cheaper to fly in early September than late September, which brings us to the first decision:

When to go to Queensland?

For us, the answer was late September.

When we first planned our Australia adventure, for 2019, weather and timing constraints faced us – our Australia itinerary needed to fit in with a Japan visit.

Japan? Why Japan? Greg’s daughter, son-in-law and family are stationed at Misawa Air Base, on the far northern tip of the main island. Seeing Japan and visiting them accounted for at least 50% of our goal for the trip.

Oh, and visiting the Great Barrier Reef? Yes, that accounted for the other 50%, a great bucket list item for both me and Greg.

Greg was also set on seeing Sydney, and maybe Tasmania, but I quickly learned that since Japan is on the top side of the globe and Tasmania is on the bottom, the seasons don’t coincide in any way. Greg has made it quite clear that the wearing of more than a light jacket during vacations is a non-starter for him.

Since Japan can get decidedly cold in the winter, I studied the months very carefully. To my surprise, Tokyo also gets very hot and humid during August and September. In addition, August and September comprise its typhoon season. No reason to muck around with that! June is its rainy season. That left us with the shoulder months. Japan is very busy during cherry blossom season, and we are just arriving home in May from our snowbirding in Puerto Rico, so that month didn’t seem ideal either.

Meanwhile, in the southern hemisphere, it’s cold June to September. It starts warm up in October, the springtime, and then in the Queenland tropics it gets downright broiling after that.

Investigation soon yielded another consideration: the jellyfish. Apparently you have to wear a “stinger suit” starting in November. Somehow with all of the other risks associated with snorkeling – low blood sugars, biting fish? (I have a history of attracting them – I was going to direct you to my Thailand story, however just found out that I never wrote it!) I was not anxious to add deadly jellyfish to the list.

Late September for Australia, early October for Japan seemed the best choice.

I was forced to discard Sydney as it would be too cold for Greg’s comfort, in September. I’ve promised him that this won’t be our only trip to Australia. Since the Great Barrier Reef is the primary draw, I focused on the sights that Queensland had to offer.

Brisbane as an “open-jaw”

Brisbane is the capital of the territory of Queensland, and located on the east coast of Australia, about half-way up, or down, depending on your perspective.

I was happy to discover that Air Canada offered what’s known as an “open-jaw” ticket, which can be very cost-effective. In airline lingo, an open-jaw is similar to, as you can picture, the open jaw of an alligator (or other animal!) Home is at the back of the mouth. You travel out the top (or bottom!) of the jaw to your first destination. Next you drop off of the Air Canada grid and make your own way to the tip of the bottom jaw. Finally, you get back on the bottom jaw and travel back to your home. Air Canada treats this “wander around” kind of ticket as a “round trip”. Without the “open jaw” ticket, you would end up paying for what amounts to a round-trip to Australia (and wasting the return trip), and a round trip to Japan (and wasting half of that ticket).

We chose to fly Boston to Brisbane (via Vancouver), then wandered around Queensland, took a low-cost airline to Japan, and then at the end, flew home from Tokyo (via Toronto) – all for the price of a round-trip ticket.

How did we find this ticket? Simply by using kayak.com (or probably any airline website), and specifying a multi-destination trip: Boston > Brisbane, Tokyo > Boston.

Great Barrier Reef Destinations

What a massive amount of time I spent investigating the Great Barrier Reef.

Bleaching Events

The two bleaching events of 2016 and 2017 caused widespread damage. Only reviews from late 2017 and 2018 would be of value in assessing the condition of the coral. I couldn’t trust that tour operators and resorts would update their websites to say “No coral here anymore.”

I had to learn about the bleaching myself, and interpolate. I learned by Googling “Great Barrier Reef Bleaching Map 2017”. Many maps exist, and show such a large, nasty swath of red going down the coast of Queensland. Cairns, the former center of coral activity, seems to rest solidly in the red.

I also needed to determine how we would get to the coral, and find the best towns which would offer entertainment before and after the visits to the reef.

Great Barrier Reef transport

Group Boat Trips

I quickly learned that the Great Barrier Reef is not sitting out in the sea next to the mainland – it takes time to reach it. I’d read reviews of group boat tours, mainly out of Cairns, in which you spend at least 3 hours, sometimes on rough seas, to reach the snorkeling/diving area.

Then either you’ve chosen a live-aboard boat, in which case you may spend an overnight or two, or you have to travel back those same three hours of waves. You need to book these tours in advance, and what if that day is cloudy? The Great Barrier Reef is a bucket-list adventure for us, and we didn’t want a little gray sky take it all away from us. In the same way that I planned for us to spend seven days at Angkor Wat, just to make sure we saw it in all its glory, I was determined not to risk the Great Barrier Reef all on one day.

But I also couldn’t imagine going out three hours and back three hours, for several days.

Two other options for snorkeling / diving appealed to me – the live-at eco-resorts, or the multi-day adventure cruises.

Multi-Day Adventure Cruises

I found only one ship which offered multi-day adventure cruises – Coral Expeditions. At the time they offered 3, 4 and 7 day cruises which included Lizard Island, a former jewel for snorkeling, but to my understanding, one of those decimated by the bleaching. Now, I see that they offer other cruises to other locations which may have good coral.

I’ve taken adventure cruises to Antarctica and to the Galapagos and enjoyed the experiences immensely, however I was also discouraged by reviews of Coral Expeditions which said that most passengers on Coral Expeditions were seniors. We may be retired, but we aren’t old!

Mainly due to the bleaching I sadly discarded the cruise, but tucked it away for the future because I learned they offer adventure cruises to Papua New Guinea, now a new bucket list item for me.

Live-on Island Eco-Resorts

I found several islands: Lady Elliot Island, Heron Island, Lady Musgrave Island, Green Island, Orpheus Island

I learned that only campers could stay at Lady Musgrave. That leaves us out!

I learned that 4 nights at the Orpheus Island Lodge costs more then $6400. That leaves us out!

I read that Green Island has poor coral. Does it? I can’t say, myself, but I moved on to investigate Lady Elliot and Heron Island.

We eventually decided to stay on both. Check out my blog posting, A Tale of Two Resorts on the Great Barrier Reef: Lady Elliot Island and Heron Island (review) for all the details.

That settled, I needed to identify the hop-off mainland destinations, as we would need to fly or boat out to the islands, and they offer several options.

I had traveled in Australia once before, when I was seventeen, with my parents. At the time, I was not in charge of the itinerary, and somehow we ended up driving from Melbourne to Sydney, overland in a car without air-conditioning during the worst heat wave for 40 years. The land was flat, dry and boring.

For this trip, I was worried about spending what would amount to a week and a half wandering around Queensland before, between and after our visits to the Great Barrier Reef. I learned quickly that worrying about boredom in Queensland was senseless.

Would we wander by plane, train or automobile?

There is a train service in Queensland, but I just couldn’t get their schedule to work with the schedule for flights and boats out to the islands without leaving us stranded for half-days in small towns with all of our luggage strewn about.

I ultimately decided that renting a car for a portion of our Queensland visit would give us the most flexibility and require the least heaving around of luggage. We ended up renting the car in Brisbane, driving north to Hervey Bay, on to Gladstone and then turning in the one-way rental. We flew from Gladstone to Cairns via Brisbane because Cairns is the gateway airport to Japan.

Brisbane as a destination

Talk to anyone about your intentions to go to Australia and they immediately want to know if you are going to Sydney.

“No, we’re not,” we say, and see crestfallen faces all around.

I started by thinking about what makes Australia famous – its wildlife, of course. I started to search for where we could see koalas, kangaroos, emus, wallabees, platypuses and kookaburras, even whales.

I learned of Noosa Heads National Park near the town of Noosa Heads, north of Brisbane. Set in spectacular scenery at coastal cliffs and beaches, it is also home to quite a few wild koalas. According to a website, the neighbors maintain a Facebook page dedicated to the koalas, and rangers post the name(s) of the koala and their location(s) each day at the ranger station. That sounds ideal for us – being out in nature, seeing animals in the wild, but not being required to hike long distances or make difficult climbs.

But I still wanted to ensure that we would actually see a koala in Australia, and not leave it to nature’s chance, having traveled so far to see it.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

I discovered the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary near Brisbane. They allow you to hold a koala and get your picture taken. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I can tell you now, post-trip ,that our short time with Astor was an experience of a lifetime. Hopefully soon you’ll be able to read about it in a blog posting, but the story hasn’t been written yet.

In addition to koalas, the sanctuary also includes a large open field in which you can interact with kangaroos and emus. You can buy kangaroo food, and sit in the shade, or wander in the heat, and say hello to them. Although it was an interesting experience, our timing was off. Naturally we made the koalas our priority and by the time we found the kangaroo field it was getting on to lunch time. The kangaroos were lounging under the trees and not in the least interested in the food we had to offer them, after having eaten from tourists all morning.

We also saw a platypus, quite a number of native birds, some reptiles – it’s basically a zoo dedicated to Australian native species. While I hoped to see some later in the wild, we were happy to have at least seen them live.

Kangaroo searching

I’d read that there are a number of locations to see kangaroos around the Brisbane area. I’m thinking that kangaroos are like deer in some areas of New England – to many people a bit of a nuisance. However for us, there was nothing boring or irritating about a kangaroo.

Extensive searching identified two locations near Brisbane: Pooh Corner Bushland Reserve, and the parking lot of the Brisbane Correctional Center. Now, I wasn’t keen on parking outside a prison at dusk, so focused on Pooh Corner. This blog post on Weekend Notes gives details about the Pooh Corner wildlife area, and we took them up on it. We needed a car to pursue this adventure.

We spent several hours at Pooh Corner mid-afternoon after our visit to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and were disheartened to see no wildlife. We saw only some Australian magpies on our 2.5 mile loop hike. The weather was just too hot, and the time of day simply wrong. We needed to be there at dusk or dawn. Mid-day in Queensland, even in the spring, is no time for being out and about looking for wildlife.

Mount Coot-tha

Mount Coot-tha is a great viewpoint over the city, and located in the same general direction as the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary and the Pooh Corner Bushland Nature Reserve. We actually inserted our visit to Mount Coot-tha between the two other attractions, trying to push our visit to Pooh Corner later in the day, but were unsuccessful in pushing Pooh Corner late enough.

You drive up Mount Coot-tha, and park your car along the road near the top. A cafe perches right at the summit, and there are beautiful photography opportunities. Opportunities for about 5 minutes, that is. We extended our visit a bit by buying ice cream, but the Mount Coot-tha experience, although visually appealing, doesn’t consume many minutes in your day, that is, if you visit mid-day. Many people choose to go at sunset; I’m sure the traffic jam to reach the top is intense at that time.

Taking a wee wander around Brisbane

Is that speaking Australian, or simply Scottish? We started our visit of the city proper by walking from our hotel, the Holiday Inn Express on Wharf Street, down towards the river. I chose “down” so that we, on our 24-hour jet lagged legs would not be forced to walk uphill. (We’d take a taxi back for that.) The walk is pleasant and there are interesting sights along the way: St. John’s Cathedral, the Anzac Memorial, the Queen Street pedestrian mall.

We were surprised to see more unique wildlife within the city – a begging ibis:

River City Cruise

Our walking destination was the River City Cruise – an opportunity to see the city from many angles without moving our legs, much appreciated while waiting for our night’s sleep. The cruise took us downriver towards the sea. We passed many examples of Brisbane architecture, modern and historic, and heard stories of her past. On a weekday in September we had no problem just buying our tickets at the wharf a half hour before departure.

South Bank Parklands

Right next to the quai for the river boat is the South Bank Parklands, a lovely city park complete with Ferris Wheel, and the remains of the World Exposition in 1988. A Nepalese peace pagoda particularly caught my eye. While waiting for our river cruise we strolled on boardwalks through bamboo forests, and relaxed on park benches in the shade.

Springbrook National Park

Oh, the paths not taken… Due to constraints of plane schedules and reservations at the Great Barrier Reef I was forced to scratch a day from our Queensland tour. I decided to omit Springbrook National Park because of its distance from Brisbane. It is do-able as a day trip, but a long one.

I continue to see pictures from Springbrook reminding me of what might have been.

The Brisbane Festival

Running for three weeks in September, the Festival is chock full of entertainment – circus, dance, film, theater, music, comedians, and for us, the Fire Gardens at the City Botanical Gardens. I had bumped into this event and bought our tickets early, weeks before our travel.

Sadly though, the drought conditions and fire risks caused them to shutter the Fire Garden event. My money was returned, but didn’t make up for the loss. Here’s a link to check out future Brisbane Festivals.

The Queensland Driving Tour

Some might laugh at me for calling our itinerary a “Queensland” tour, as it covers so little of the territory. One aspect of Australia is that it is a BIG place. It takes a long time to drive between towns, and in Queensland there is a lot to stop and see and do along the way.

We headed north from Brisbane with the night’s destination of Noosa Heads. Noosa Heads deserves its own blog posting, and will get it some day.

Glass House Mountains National Park

On the way we detoured to the Glass House Mountains National Park, an area of eleven, or are there sixteen, strikingly vertical volcanic peaks about an hour north of Brisbane. On a schedule, we didn’t hike, but drove directly to the national park’s viewing platform for some pictures, saw some marvelous colorful lorikeets, and then continued on our way. It would have made a nice day-trip out of Brisbane if we hadn’t already been heading north.

Australia Zoo

We took a pass on the Zoo. We had just the day before visited the koala sanctuary, had no desire to see tigers and other non-native animals, and were bee-lining it for Noosa Heads and wild koalas. Perhaps you would enjoy it if you have the time? Click here for their website.

Noosa Heads

We arrived at Noosa Heads, just about an hour and forty minutes north of Brisbane just before lunch time, having taken the detour for the Glass House Mountains. That put us perfectly in time for a great lunch in town, and then a walk out along the boardwalk to the Noosa Heads National Park, followed by a hike along the coast as far as Tea Tree Bay.

Why did we stop there? That’s where we found Teodoro, as instructed clearly by the sign and ranger at the ranger station. As we reached Tea Tree Bay we first saw a photographer with his camera pointing skyward. That was the biggest hint we’d reached our destination. The photographer pointed out Teodoro clinging high above us. No, he wasn’t as clearly visible, or holdable, as Astor at the sanctuary, but Teodoro was wild.

I have to insert here that sadly, Teodoro was killed several weeks after our visit. I learned this from the Facebook group Noosa Koala Sightings which monitors the koalas at Noosa Heads. Teodoro had been a rescue koala who had become accustomed to humans, and released back into the wild at Noosa Heads. There he lived life a little recklessly as a result of the human contact. He had changed trees mid-day one day, something fully wild koalas would not do in daylight hours due to the risk. Koalas are at most risk while on the ground, and at that moment an unleashed dog in the park attacked him. Teodoro did not survive the attack. I still think sadly of my one wild koala “friend”. I also think sadly of all the koalas lost in the Australian fires in 2019-2020.

The town of Noosa Heads is a small upscale place at the edge of a beautiful beach. Decked out with lights at night, million-dollar properties dotting the hillsides nearby, it was the kind of place to dream about belonging in.

Maryborough

We drove north from Noosa Heads the next day towards Hervey Bay. We stopped at a tourist center for Greg to avail himself of the toilet, and I was accosted by a tourism representative. “Where are you going? Have you been to Maryborough? It’s a wonderful historic town just ahead.”

So, driven by hunger for lunch, we detoured into the historic town center. It was everything the woman extolled, and more. Turns out, Maryborough is the birthplace of the author of Mary Poppins. Artwork celebrating Mary Poppins, striking WWI statues, twenty or so colorful historic murals all compete with a beautiful town park for tourist attention.

Hervey Bay

Just beyond Maryborough along what is known as the Fraser Coast is Hervey Bay, a major Queensland resort destination. The fame is primarily due to residence of her humpback whales.

Hervey Bay is a large protected bay with natural barriers which protect the mother whales from the hunting orcas. Female humpbacks come to give birth and raise their calves from about July to October. Our September visit well coincided with the season to see the humpbacks.

Each month brings different amazing whale behaviors. Prior to the calves’ births, people are even allowed to swim with the whales. After calving, of course they don’t allow swimming, but mothers often show off the small calves to the boats. In September, which is near the end of the season, the calves are fairly large and very energetic, learning to breach and even approaching the boats closely in curiosity.

We chose to take a whale watching half-day tour with Tasman Adventures. The boat was large and had many viewing platforms. Whale watching in New England has nothing on whale watching in Hervey Bay. No little Minke whales, or operators convincing you that a dophin is a baleen creature and therefore a whale so you don’t get your money back on guaranteed whale sightings.

The whales at Hervey Bay were numerous, large and very entertaining. Here’s just one glimpse of my experience. I’m the one in wearing the blue-green hoodie. Greg took the picture from the deck above.

Fraser Island

Hervey Bay is also the gateway to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world, and a UNESCO natural heritage site. We arranged for a day-trip to Fraser, also on Tasman Adventures. I’m so sorry to say that the trip was such a let-down.

Part of the trip we whale watched, and as we took this trip to Fraser before we took the official whale watching trip, our experience watching the whales was tremendous. But the adventures on land on Fraser Island were lame and as the weather was a little chilly in September, somewhat unsuitable.

I wear an insulin pump and it is NOT waterproof. When choosing adventures I need to be careful about how long I take off the pump, and when I’ll be able to retrieve it. I didn’t expect the staff at Tasman Adventures to understand my concerns but I did hope they would provide me with the information I needed to make my decisions throughout the day.

We transferred from whale-watching boat to wetsuits and snorkeling, to the beach to kayak up a creek to kayaking back to the beach, back to the whale-watching boat, followed by another beach hike. The information provided by the staff was not clear, and they made it apparent that they felt I was too worried about how long an activity would last – that I should be relaxing and going with the flow. Going with the flow is the last thing a diabetic can do and expect to have a successful adventure.

I’m sure I’ll write an article about it in the future; for the moment I’ll leave you with this somewhat disappointed feeling.

Botanical Gardens in Hervey Bay

We are not garden people. However, we had an entire morning to spare while waiting for our afternoon whale watching adventure. Greg located the Botanical Gardens within walking distance, so off we went.

We are now garden-type people – that’s because gardens attract birds and we are definitely bird people. The Hervey Bay Botanical Gardens were large and encompassed a picturesque lake with mature trees. We were so excited to see an entire flock of cockatoos. It wasn’t hard to spot them, as noisy as they were.

The Town of 1770

1770 is a year, and surprisingly, it’s a town, called just that, “The Town of 1770”. 1770 is the year when Captain Cook first set foot on Australia, and naturally, the Town of 1770 is where he did it. It’s not as if the Town was a major destination for us, it was more that we needed a place to stop for lunch and an activity to keep us busy before our arrival in Gladstone.

In the Town of 1770 we found LARC! Tours, a duckboat tour company which offered tours out and about, to remote sand beaches. We have to say that the trip was somewhat lame. It was surprisingly popular – the vehicle was crammed full of tourists; we’d booked several days in advance. We saw a couple of seabirds, and a lot of sand. But the weather was stellar and we were happy to be out and I was happy not to worry about my insulin pump that day.

Gladstone

Our final destination in our driving tour, we left the car at the airport, spent the night at the Oaks Gladstone Grand hotel, which we highly recommend, and took the boat the following morning out to Heron Island.

I’ve written a lot about Heron Island, in A Tale of Two Resorts on the Great Barrier Reef.

Upon our return from Heron Island, we once again stayed a night at the Oaks, taxied out to the airport, caught a flight to Brisbane, and connected with a flight up to Cairns.

Gladstone didn’t offer much beyond good connections, and a large hotel room with washer and dryer.

Cairns

Cairns, on the other hand, is a real tourist hot spot. Formerly the great jumping off point for Great Barrier Reef trips, after the bleaching events it is now trying to rebrand itself into a hub for land adventure touring.

The downtown is large and very walkable. A long waterfront park with Ferris Wheel and public swimming pool competes with an Asian-style market. Full of sidewalk art, hotels, restaurants, cafes, tourist agencies advertising all kinds of off-road, waterfall, hiking, and water sports adventures, Cairns was much more appealing than humdrum Gladstone.

It was also much warmer in Cairns. We had actually been a little chilled at times in Hervey Bay and Gladstone, in September. As we left the airport in Cairns, I drew a long breath of tropic air, “Ahhhh.” I imagine though that after September, I wouldn’t be as excited by the heat and humidity in Cairns.

Unfortunately for us, we were also treating Cairns as only a connection between Australia and Japan. Once again I wished for more days – the Kuranda Scenic Railways train ride in the mountains looks to be a really beautiful day out, but we didn’t have the time.

Itinerary in a nutshell

• Day 1, Fri Sep 13 – Arrival in Brisbane, wander downtown, take the River Cruise
• Day 2 – Rent car downtown, visit Koala Sanctuary, Mount Coot-tha, Pooh Corner Bushland Reserve
• Day 3 – Drive north to Noosa Heads via Glass House Mountain National Park, hike out into Noosa Heads National Park
• Day 4 – Drive north to Hervey Bay, stopping at Lake MacDonald (for birds), Maryborough
• Day 5 – Flight out to Lady Elliot Island
• Day 6 – Lady Elliot Island
• Day 7 – Afternoon return flight back to Hervey Bay from Lady Elliot Island
• Day 8 – Fraser Island day trip
• Day 9 – Hervey Bay Botanical Gardens, and afternoon Whale Watch
• Day 10 – Drive north to Gladstone, stopping at Town of 1770 along the way
• Day 11 – Boat to Heron Island
• Days 12 to 14 – On Heron Island
• Day 15 – Return from Heron Island to Gladstone via boat, around noon.
• Day 16 – Fly from Gladstone to Brisbane, then to Cairns
• Day 17 – Fly to Osaka Japan on Jetstar Airlines

Lessons Learned

• Stay a day less at Heron Island
• Don’t visit popular Queensland resort areas during school holidays! See my blog post “A tale of two resorts on the Great Barrier Reef” for details. Click here for the Queensland school holiday calendar, which can differ from other territories’.
• Be aware that the water can be chilly in September in Queensland
• Don’t miss out on Springbrook National Park and Kuranda Scenic Railway. Actually, I don’t know for sure these are great things to see, but I regret my omission.

The most important conclusion is that when you mention to your friends that you’re planning a trip to Australia, and they ask you if you are going to Sydney, don’t look down in embarrassment, look straight ahead and say, “I’m going to Queensland!”