This morning was a very sad morning. We were leaving our island.
We went to our office with the intention of writing while we watched the ferry come in, but ended up contemplating life. What are our one year goals? Our five year goals? Our career goals, our financial goals? Was it possible to live on the island like the natives? To work for housing? How do the backpackers do it? If we won the lottery, how would we live, and what would it take to do that realistically?
*sigh*
The ferry came in and dumped a load of visitors, who distracted us to much for writing, so we packed up and headed back home to pack and clean. Gary came around to visit:
We donated some of our leftover food to the ‘community shelf’, which had supported us when we’d first arrived and had nothing. Then, with two hours until we were due on the beach for the ferry, we took one last walk to Long Beach.
Walking next to the runway where we’d first arrived brought back memories and made us glad we’d changed our minds and not bought a plane ticket off the island. Long beach was deserted. Nothing but long stretches of clean white sand and blue water, islands in the distance, under a bright sun and blue sky. Sigh.
We walked back to the Village and migrated to the beach with the other people that were leaving. The ferry was waiting for us and anxious to leave, as the extremely low tide threatened to beach it. Geoff helped us drag our bags up the wobbly metal gang plank. It was the last we’d see him.
Inside, after the ferry pushed out to sea, we were offered muffins and fruit, to which lots of people dived into. Caroline and I went up top, now fully appreciative of Captain Jack’s sway, and took lots of pictures and movies as our Keppel faded into the background behind us. And the best part is that it was a stolen ferry ride!
We pulled into the marina about 45 minutes later, where a teenaged driver from the Rydges Resort was waiting. On the way to the resort we wound through the streets of Yeppoon—which bears a strong resemblance to the streets of Hawaii: according to Dog. We picked up an Asian couple and then a creepy guy with lots of grocery bags.
I could tell this place was going to be crazy good when started down the 5k driveway. I mean, when a resort goes to the trouble of buying up all the land within a ten mile radius and then landscaping it, you start to wonder just what the annual revenue is.
We were not disappointed.
The resort is broken into lots of different buildings, all of them backing up to the pool. It’s the kind of place worthy of a vet conference, or being featured on some international travel show. Blue water, curving edges, waterfalls, mock-beaches, bridges and water slides and absolutely gorgeous. Almost too good to be true. (Insert suspicious eyebrow raise here.)
And the room. The balcony. The big bed. The tiled bathroom. The big flat screen TV that personally welcomed me to the resort when we turned it on. Niiice.
But we were starving so we dumped our bags and went back to the pool, grabbed lunch, and ate poolside. The food was good, but as we watched the screaming kids and magazine-perfect teenagers and flabby parents, we began to miss our island more and more. Don’t get me wrong, it was nice… but more populated. A different kind of spoiling.
We retreated to the hotel room for a little TV before going back down to the pool, which now that night had fallen, was deserted. This was more our speed! We tried a few cocktails from the pool-side bar and did some spying—I mean, writing exercises—until closing time. Then, deciding to check out the karaoke, we headed over to the main building but were ‘bounced’ because I had inappropriate footwear (see: flip flops). Somewhat disgruntled, we called it a night.
And for the first time in a week, I didn’t wake up in the middle of the night afraid that some type of animal was crawling about under my bed.
Feeling good from all that exercise, we decided to be adventurous and actually check out the rest of the island. Armed with a $2 souvenir map, a lunchbox of sandwiches, and enough sunscreen and bug repellent to cover a small army, we went in search of Geoff to let him know of our plans.
We showed him our hand-drawn map and pointed out our intended route, which basically covered a good three-fourths of the 4k long island.
After he got done laughing, Geoff recommended an alternative route, sighting goat tracks and high tide as precautions that we would have encountered going OUR way.
Whatever.
Don’t ever try to tell a woman to change course, mate.
So we started off on our course, beginning with Putney. The tide was a little high, but not un-passable. We cruised the high-tide line for shells, picking out a couple here and there, and then came to our first major obstacle.
What yesterday had been a ten-foot wide, four-foot deep rut in the sand was now a river connecting the ocean to a lagoon. We stood on the embankment, pondering our next move.
Go back, or get wet.
Go back, or get wet.
Finally I ventured out and tested the waters. The current was strong, a direct flow from the ocean. The sand gave way quickly, like quick sand. At the halfway point, the water was up to my knees. I went back to Caroline.
Go back, or get wet.
You only live once, right? We went for it.
And survived.
Obviously.
Ha! Take that, Geoff!
So off we went, proud of ourselves, blissfully unaware of what lay ahead.
Which was:
A Goat Track.
Greeaat.
After climbing straight up the side of the mountain and sliding down the other side, we came out on LeeksBeach, home of the curious Chocolate Rocks. We had to see these rocks based on principle. Why were they called Chocolate Rocks? The color? The formation? Can you guess?
I was nosing around taking pictures when I figured it out: I caught the unmistakable scent of chocolate. How awesome!! I have no idea HOW, but there is was. Too cool.
Pressing on, we came across a positively creepy swamp, but did not see any crocodiles.
It’s starting to warm up now, and we’re thinking we should have brought more water. We stopped at a crossroads and took a banana break, then trudged on towards the Shearer’s Shed. KeppelIsland was originally an ideal place to run sheep, and the shed they were herded to was still standing as an attraction. On the way, we met a nice older woman on an ATV who confirmed we were going in the right direction, and who said she’d bring us back some more water. She was heading to the Village to use the internet, to protest a proposal to build huge apartment complexes on the island. Our confidence renewed, we kept trekking.
The Shearer’s Shed turned out to be exactly that: a shed facing the swamp. No more goats or sheep. Just two plastic chairs. Which wasn’t necessarily a bad thing: we had to pee and the corner of the goat shed looked pretty private. So while Caroline took the first ‘go’, I headed out to take pictures of the swamp.
And that’s when I realized the ground was moving.
I had a flash of those African Giant Ants that destroy entire villages in half and hour, so I thought I should go check it out.
Even better than ants:
Thousands and thousands of blue crabs… I’ve never seen anything like it. Definitely one of the highlights of the day!
After the Great Crab Chase, we got back on the trail and headed towards the ‘Homestead’, I guess where the person that owned the sheep lived. The house itself wasn’t much, but the valley it sat in was gorgeous:
To make it perfectly picturesque, a pair of eagles flew overhead. So, so pretty. Even saw some Lantana!
Next came the Mangroves:
Pretty creepy. We didn’t stay long, as the ATV Woman warned us about swarms of man-eating sand flies and we’d had plenty of those on the beach, thank you. By now, the trail was going straight up another mountain, and we were burning up, almost out of water, hungry, and tired. When we crested the mountain and saw the ocean down below, we all but ran down towards it.
After a quick dunk, we ate our better-than-ever tuna sandwiches and looked out at the rocks where oysters were harvested. Feeling much better and rejuvenated, we climbed a little further up hill and found ATV Woman’s house. She met us and introduced her husband, offered us lunch, and gave us lots of water for the way back. Her husband Carl showed us around—he’d lived on the island almost all his life—and made sure we knew how to get back. Check out the ‘Moon Trees’—palm trees that he planted the year man walked on the moon.
And finally, at a little after 3 pm, we were on our way home, taking the short cut along the beaches now that the tide was out—but racing it back.
This was defiantly was faster, once we got over the rocks. Steadily, we picked our way along the coast, spurred on by the promise of home. By the time we reached familiar territory (see: PutneyBeach) we were exhausted and sore and wondering why we did this in the first place. The tide was coming in again, and the birds were hunting at the water’s edge, but we were starting to see people again.
At 5:30, we were stepping back up onto our porch, sooo ready for dinner and TV and bed. Geoff came by to check on us, cuz that’s the great sort of person he is. Then: sleep.
Overnight, Kitty attacked the garbage cans. When I went out to chase him off, I found out he had brought a friend: Ratty.
After that, I kept hearing Ratty creeping around under my bed for the rest of the night.
Having giving up hope on the whole ‘snorkeling’ joke, today we decided to try our hand at Kayaking.
$15 gets you a big red plastic two-person kayak for an hour, and after strapping on a very flattering orange life vest, you’re free to go drown yourself—I mean, kayak—around Fisherman’s Beach, provided you stay inside the ring of buoys that protect you from getting flattened by ferries or Geoff’s Water Taxi.
With no instruction, we were pushed out into the ocean and suddenly paddling for our lives against the wind and waves. Tip number One: it’s much easier if you both paddle in sync with each other.
Out in the deep water, it was very peaceful. This time, the water of Fisherman’s Beach appeared crystal clear: blue and clean and sparkling under the sun. Perfect for oh, I dunno, say snorkeling?
Kayaking is a very frustrating experience. A lot of effort for minimal results. But great exercise, and overall pretty fun. The best part is crashing back on shore and falling on your ass as you try to exit the boat.
Deciding we’d not yet had enough exercise, we grabbed our snorkel gear and headed to Putney beach to simply swim. I LOVE flippers! We spent a good hour just going as fast as we could, till I sounded like a winded racehorse through the snorkel. Who needs the gym when you’ve got an entire island? We swam sprints and circles and just had fun—until something stung my hands. Not a jellyfish, and no visible marks—probably just a water insect. But still, it was enough to kick-start my paranoia and shortly thereafter, we called it quits. The ocean is no fun when you’re scared of what lives in it.
We toweled off and went beach combing—where low and behold, Caroline found a jellyfish, dead and washed in on the tide. Well, well, well. All this time, the natives had been lying to us. Just wait till we got back to the Village and showed Geoff! Using a stick, we moved The-Jellyfish-That-Doesn’t-Exist back from the water so we could grab it on the way back, then continued on in search of safer game: sea shells.
And Putney was the place to do it. There were so many shells that the waves actually jingled. We found lots and lots of goodies—then realized that the tide was coming in, and quite quickly. In minutes, our stuff would be swept out to sea. We raced back—disappointed to see our Jellyfish-That-Doesn’t-Exist was already gone—but grabbed our stuff just in time.
View the booty:
Now thoroughly tired, we figured we’d actually try to write and eat some lunch. The group of kids that were in the house before us had left some chocolate birthday cake, which we were more than happy to enjoy. So we sat down on the porch with our laptops and cake and milk and began to write.
And then, Kevin showed up.
We’d seen Kevin the Kookaborough hanging around the Dolphin House from the get-go, presumably begging for food. What is it with all these Australian Animals, anyway? You’d think the tourists fed them all or something. Huh.
Anyway, Kevin landed on the railing, looking longingly at our chocolate cake. (In hindsight, maybe Kevin is a female.) But we were good and resisted the temptation to feed him.
Which made Kevin very demanding.
I’m taking non-stop pictures, of course, as Kevin is perched on top of Caroline’s laptop, staring her down. And you wonder why we didn’t get much writing done?
Then Kevin’s partner comes. Kevin2. (We contemplated Starsky and Hutch, and then Sam and Dean, but nothing beats Kevin.)
But still, we were good and didn’t give in, to which they became more demanding.
Finally, we caved.
There are hundreds of Kevin pictures, check out photobucket for more.
After all that excitement, we ran back to PutneyBeach to capture the sunset—which was the best one yet. View the awesomeness:
We woke up and talked girl talk, then ventured to the community kitchen to scavenge for cereal. Then we talked some more.
Then we read, and waited for the morning ferry that would deliver our groceries.
Then we found out that we didn’t get groceries, but Geoff would call around and see what happened. Luckily, the ferry would be coming back tonight.
Then we wrote.
Then we went snorkeling again, but still had no luck. Too sandy. Snorkeling is stupid.
And we still had no groceries, so we resorted to leftover mince and tuna. Hey, when you’re hungry, anything works.
Then we headed back to the tent—today was the day we would move into the Dolphin House and get our very own kitchen and bathroom and have locking doors! We packed our suitcases (and by pack I mean threw everything in and zipped it up) and dragged our stuff 100 feet to the house.
After three days in a tent, this was like a five star resort. Check out the pictures:
Thrilled with the new place and feeling rather spoiled, we packed up the laptops and headed to our Office to write and watch the sunset:
We were joined by Cheyenne, who’d spent the day on her own exploring. As the sun went down, the bats came out:
Probably in hunt of the mosquitoes (mozzies, to us Australians) that were sucking us dry. Suddenly under full-blown attack, we packed up and ran back to the safety and comfort of our House, where we discovered we had a TV with reception for 3 stations—an event that we celebrated rather exuberantly.
And while I missed being on the path of Gary’s rounds and having Kitty come to beg at our feet, with the house we got new visitors:
And yet again, I woke up in the middle of the night to the paranoia-induced sounds of pitter-patter under my bed.
This morning I talked more to Cheyanne, who was heading out to snorkel. She told me how she is/was a teacher and taught high school math and science in Canada for a year, and is now taking a year off to travel. She’s traveling however the wind blows her—no particular destination in mind. Following the Lonely Planet Guides. Guh. And since I’ve been here, I’ve met at least five people like that, who are more or less backpackers roaming the earth.
Next up: snorkeling! It was, after all, the whole reason we were here. So we grabbed some gear from Geoff and headed to the beach. After confessing to Caroline that I’d never done this before, she confessed that she’d only done it once before, so that made two of us who had no real idea what we were doing. Thankfully, after sucking saltwater for half an hour, we got the hang of it. The hardest part is learning to breath with your face in the water, after all. And with the flippers, I can actually swim! The water was too sandy to see anything, but we’d heard that you needed to go out to the rocky outcropping so that’s where we went.
I may have gotten the hang of snorkeling, but looking where you’re going is another matter all together. I found the rocks half a second before I crashed into them, scratching my knee on the clams that cover them. We reoriented and kept searching, but the longer I swam around just barely able to see my hand in front of my face, the more paranoid I got about running face-first into a jellyfish. (Even though Geoff adamantly denied their presence…)
After a fruitless first attempt at snorkeling, we went back to doing what we do best: writing. We watched the sun set:
And while we were cooking up some freebie pasta in the community kitchen, we talked to Matt, who had gone snorkeling earlier with Cheyenne and saw all kinds of tropical fish including barracuda, lion fish, puffer fish, and a handful of other blue and red and yellow ones. Jealously, we looked at his pictures and promised him that we’d try again tomorrow.
We ate dinner in the darkness and were once again visited by Kitty.
I was good this time and didn’t feed him—I felt bad since last night, Kitty attacked the garbage cans by the kitchen and made a mess, probably because I gave him the bread. Shame on me. But let’s see you try and resist that face! Tonight, he came so close that I jokingly told him to hop up on the table and have some dinner—only to be scared to death when he actually jumped up on the back of my chair! If I hadn’t jumped, he would have climbed in my lap and wouldn’t THAT have made a good picture. *sigh*
But here's someone that did make a good picture:
In bed, we watched Kitty’s shadows on the tent roof and finally, I slept fairly well.
Still woke up halfway through the night convinced Kitty had chewed a hole through the tent and was crawling around under my bed though.
After the longest night known to man, I ventured out of the tent with my book ‘I Am The Cheese’, which I started on the plane, and took up residence in a big stuffed arm chair just outside Geoff’s office and sunbathed while I read. Shortly thereafter, Caroline joined me and we decided to explore Putney Beach, as we’d seen Fisherman’s Beach yesterday. (See map Here.) We took lots of pictures:
And encountered the first humans for the day. There were less than ten people in the Village, and probably less than twenty on the entire 4k long island. From here on out, GreatKeppelIsland will simply be known as ‘Our Island’.
We bought some cereal off Geoff for breakfast and finally finished that stupid grocery list and handed it in. There we met Cheyenne, a nice 25-30 something year old who we would run into many more times, and her English friend Matt. She presented us with a riddle:
Name ten, three-lettered body parts that can become other words which are not body parts. For example, A-R-M becomes H-A-R-M. She had nine, which was all we could come up with.
ARM
TOE LIP EYE
EAR
LEG
HIP
RIB
Anyone?
After warming up our brains, we did a little writing, then a little more reading, then headed to Grandma’s for lunch. I don’t know Grandma’s real name, but she operates a little café out of her kitchen, literally. You tell her what you want, and she’ll make it. Tea, coffee, scones, sandwiches, cakes, that kind of stuff. She also has a freezer with individual ice cream bars and cones. We got her to make us some sandwiches to eat and some for tomorrow, since because we were lazy with our grocery list we still didn’t have anything to eat. But at least we could count on Grandma.
Leaving Grandma, we saw some Rainbow Lorikeets in this bizarrely-flowering tree:
Then we headed back to the tent and guess who came around again, this time taking a moment out of his busy schedule to pose for a picture?
From here on out, the Goanna is known as Gary. Good old Gary. (Check out the Big Picture on photobucket.)
That night we got a beautiful sunset—much more pleasant when you’re not trying to eat:
And as if I wasn’t thrilled enough by the close-up of Gary, tonight we had another visitor. Caroline and I were sitting on our deck, talking in the dark, when this little guy came to visit:
So this is an Australian Brush Tailed Possum. Not at all like those ugly American Possums! This little guy was actually really cute, and I broke the Do-Not-Feed-The-Animals rule and gave it a bit of banana bread, which he enjoyed quite thoroughly. And, because we have to name every animal we encounter, Possum became Kitty and I was able to sleep much better knowing what I was dealing with.
And the Curlews kind of sound like puppies. Ghost puppies.
I still, however, woke up half-way through the night SURE that something was in the tent.
There is a saying that goes like this: “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.”
That bird is an idiot.
Today we got up at 3 something in the morning, finished throwing stuff in suitcases, and were driven to the airport by an extremely generous Chris. He wins the award for Australian Big Brother of the Year.
We checked into Virgin Blue and breathed a sigh of relief when our suitcases weighed in just under the limit of 20 kilos. I told Caroline I knew what 40 pounds felt like—I by that size bag of dog food every 20 days!
During the Melbourne to Brisbane leg, we saw the sun rise:
We changed planes in Brisbane, with barely enough time to pee. We were washing our hands when they started paging us. I think it’s their fault for putting our departing gate at the other end of the terminal from the one we arrived through!
From the plane, I got some shots of the Gold Coast:
Rockhampton has the smallest airport I’ve ever seen. It caters to maybe 4 airlines and has maybe just as many gates. You can walk from one end to the other in two minutes, if you tried to avoid the massive swarm of crickets that apparently take refuge inside every night.
Now to get from Rockhampton to Great Keppel Island, one can either take the ferry over, which costs about $20 one way and takes 45 minutes, or you can charter a flight on a Light Plane *cough*cropduster*cough*, which costs $250 and takes about 30 minutes. Not a hard choice, right?
Let me share some Keppel back-story: about three days ago, literally, Keppel’s largest resort, responsible for probably 90 percent of the island’s accommodation, closed down for an estimated 3 years while it undergoes a renovation. This is a huge deal. So huge, word has spread that the entire island has closed down. Which of course it hasn’t, but you know. But because the island is suddenly ‘deserted’, the ferry is now only going to and from the island once per day. Which, naturally, is about the same time our plane touched down in Rockhampton, and I've yet to figure out how to be at two places at once. How convenient, eh?
So, Crop Duster is was. Caroline called Air Capricorn to let them know we were sitting in the airport, and about 15 minutes later, a respectable-looking guy dressed in a pilot’s uniform showed in a Jeep. He was very friendly and told us about his friend in Africa, though I forget what prompted that story. Five minutes later, we were approaching the Air Capricorn hangers, which were smaller than some barns I’ve seen. Hmm.
Inside the office, we paid and weighed the luggage again—and then ourselves. Note to self: In the future, if I’m required to weigh myself before boarding a plane, WALK.
My last shred of hope that I was over-reacting vanished when we followed the pilot/driver/cashier out to the tarmac. For sitting before us was this:
Okay, reframe—this will be an adventure! The danger element only makes it more exciting, right? We were shown how to climb in the plane (which was disturbingly similar to mounting a horse) and seated in the bucket seats approximately once inch behind the driver’s seat, our guy gave us a rather abbreviated safety talk which ultimately boiled down to: “If you see me jumping out, follow me.”
You think I’m kidding.
This is what it looks like to be a passenger in a Crop Duster:
And the take-off is best described via movie:
Words to describe the flight? Loud. Shaky. Caroline’s worst nightmare.
Half the flight was over mountain:
The other half was over ocean. And at last, Great Keppel comes into view:
And then we landed:
And that was the end of Air Capricorn. We watched the plane leave knowing we would not ever be doing that again.
Now we turned our attention to our surroundings. We had been dumped on the air strip, right next to the abandoned resort. Nobody was around. It was warm! There were flowers!
And some funny looking birds—Caroline identified as Curlews:
After about ten minutes, Geoff, our host for the next week, appeared in his truck. Very friendly guy, loaded our suitcases and told us to hop in the back and ‘Don’t worry, I don’t drive very fast.’
And suddenly, we were on a beach! A real beach, with real white sand and real ocean waves and real fish-scented air and real burning-hot sunlight! Lots and lots of beach!
Geoff owns and runs the GreatKeppelIslandHolidayVillage. The accommodations are either tents (I still hate to call them ‘tents’, since they are large enough for two beds and have electricity) or houses. When we made our reservations, the houses were full so we booked a tent for the first three nights, then we would move into the largest house. Some of you can attest to the fact that I’m not really a camping sort of person, but I figured I could man-up for three days. And really, they are NICE tents.
So after dropping our suitcases inside the tent, we collapsed into the deck chairs on the deck and listened to the birds and the wind in the trees. And what was that sound in the distance? Crashing waves?
Ahhh.
We hadn’t been sitting there for two minutes when we had our first of many animal encounters. Behind us, rustling through the dead leaves, was this:
A Goanna, live and in person! He crawled right past our tent and towards the tent beside us, a lizard on a mission.
Which brings us to the subject of food. We had none. We didn’t think there would be anywhere to get any, because of the whole abandoned resort thing. But, we could make up a list and Geoff would fax it to a grocery store on the mainland, who in turn would put it on the ferry and we would get the order in a couple days. So we started a list, trying to create a spur-of-the-moment menu to get us through the next week. Which is harder than it sounds. So hard, we needed a break.
Lucky for us, there turned out to be three shops still operating: Island Pizza, Rainbow Hut, and Grandma (The Shell House). At Island Pizza, we ordered the world’s most complicated hot dog, if the half-hour it took to make it means anything. At least it was good.
The next order of business was finding sunglasses. The Rainbow Hut is a souvenir shop where I got not only sunglasses, but flip-flops and postcards and stamps. Now properly suited up, we headed to the beach.
We spent a good two hours in that beautiful blue-green water, swimming and body surfing and trying to swim the length of the beach but discovering it was actually longer than it looked. Or else we’re out of shape. But I can’t swim anyway, so there you go. There were a few other people there, maybe six. And here I thought the ‘It’s like your own private island,’ line was just to sell the place.
Back at the tent, we continued working on our grocery list until we gave up and grabbed some complimentary rice from the group kitchen. Added to some canned tuna and spaghetti sauce, we actually had a nice dinner—which we ran with to the beach when we realized the sun was setting. Dinner on the beach is not quite as nice as you’d think: The wind blew sand into our food, which we then gave to the gulls because they don’t care about that sort of thing. But after taking some nice pictures:
We then headed back to the tent where I suffered through the longest, scariest night of my life.
Remember those cute little Curlews from the air strip?
Caroline failed to tell me that by night, they transform into Australian Screaming Night Birds and proceed to run all over the island, crying out to one another like wolves in a pack as they stalk and kill whatever it is they eat.
Then came the random rustling sounds, which I imagined were possums, since there was a sign in the kitchen warning against leaving food in your tents because it would attract them. So I listened to the rustling, which was hard to hear over the strong winds anyway, and imagined Australian Razor Toothed Rabid Possums attracted to the tent by the packets of herbs in my suitcase.
Then I started hearing the patter of animal feet inside the tent.
Then I started imagining a person coming into the tent.
Then Caroline woke up and went to the bathroom with me and I felt a little better, but still didn’t get much sleep that night.
