21/3/12
It's been a while again since the last update, time in Australia has flown by and cannot believe I only have 10 days left before I leave western comforts and head into Asia!
After leaving Byron Bay we got the greyhound to Surfers Paradise, our hostel in Surfers (trekkers) was a bit out of town but we ended up with a 6 bed dorm to ourselves which was pretty good! After dropping off our bags we headed out to the local 'shopping centre' to stock up on goon and then sat by the hostel swimming pool for a bit before heading out into Surfers for a few drinks. A few drinks soon turned into many when we found a club (Sin City) that had 'ladies night' and offered us free entry and free drinks ALL night - we only had to pay for the bus fare home!! We stumbled back to the hostel to bed at around 2:30am which did not make it easy to get up and check out in the morning! After checking out we sat by the pool for until it was time to get the shuttle bus to the greyhound stop for the bus to Noosa.
We arrived in Noosa and got picked up by the hostel, again not in the centre of town, but we had yet another dorm to ourselves!! The next day we explored Noosa, we got dropped in Noosa Junction so wandered down to Main Beach before walking along the boardwalk into the national park where we did a 12km walk along the coast and back through the forest. After a quick shower at the hostel we walked down the road to Sunshine Beach for the evening. The next day we were back on the greyhound to Rainbow Beach for Fraser Island. We had our briefing at 4:30pm for the Fraser tag along self drive trip where we also met the people we would be sharing a car with, everyone seemed really nice. The next day we were up at 6:30am to get the 4WD's packed and ready to go...although there was a bit of a hold up becuase the hostel needed to find us accommodation on one of the resorts on Fraser Island due to all the rain, normally we would be camping but with a cyclone heading our way that was a no-no. When we got up it was really raining and the roads were flooded (all greyhounds cancelled!), luckily we were in the 4WD's and so after accommodation was found we were good to go. We packed all the equipment into the trailer of the lead car and all got in ready to leave - I was the first to drive. It was prety fun driving the 4WD (Toyota Land Cruiser), although it was MUCH higher and bigger than my car back at home! It wasn't so great to drive on the sealed roads but as soon as we got onto the sand and hit the 4WD setting it was brilliant fun!
We had to queue for the ferry to cross over to Fraser and after that we were off. We had 4 cars in our group, 3 self drives and the one at the front with our driver guide. We drove along the beach to our resort where we made our lunch (all food was provided by Dingo's, who we booked the tour with, all we had to do was prepare and cook it). After lunch (ham sandwiches, salad and fruit) we unpacked the trailer with the rest of the things in it...mainly the eskies full of goon, and then set off in the cars on the way to Lake Wabby. Lake Wabby was really nice, even in the rain. We went on a half hour walk and then got to swim in the lake which was full of catfish and little fish that gave you a free foot spa! We then went back to the resort and cooked our potato salad and steak dinner, followed by drinking games in our room. We were put into 4 bed dorms in Eurong Resort, each had a mini kitchen and we were given proper towels (a luxury when backpacking!). In our drunken state we decided that at around 1am it was a good idea to leave the resort and go out of the dingo fence to see if we could see any dingos - seeing as it was still really raining and very windy due to the cyclone we were not in luck...the only good side to all the rain meant that there were not as many huge horrible march flies to bite us! The next day was another early start where we drove to Lake Mackenzie, Champagne Pools, Eli Creek and the shipwreck on the beach, we also got to see a couple of dingos on the beach. At Lake Mackenzie we got to swim in the lovely clear blue water and sit on the soft white sand. In Eli Creek we swam down the cold creek from one end to the other (4 of us were the only ones to do it becuase it was so cold). At the Champagne Pools we could swim in the sea becuase it was a protected area free from the strong currents and sharks...although there were still jelly fish (not a fan of those!!). After that it was back to the resort for dinner (chicken stir-fry and fruit cake) plus more goon. The cyclone was still pretty full on at this point with winds of up to 90km/hr and lots of rain! We got told that all greyhounds were still cancelled and that we could be stuck in Rainbow Beach for a few days, not good news when Jude and I had everything booked and on a pretty tight time schedule! The next morning was yet another early start but the cyclone looked like it was blowing over so we headed out to swim with some tutles in a tea tree lake before driving back to the mainland. We were back by 4pm and had to unpack and de-sand the cars before being dropped back at the hostel. We went straight into Peterpans (the travel agents) to check the buses and luckily to our suprise we were told that everything was fine and all back to normal, great news!!
That evening Jude and I cooked dinner with Karina and Clare, who we had met on Fraser, and had a few drinks before bed. We had to check out at 9:30am the following morning and killed some time walking around Rainbow Beach and swimming in the pool back at the hostel (Dingo's) before our bus to 1770 (Agnes Water). The hostel in 1770 was really nice and we got a free BBQ included which was really good. We then had to pack our bags ready for Castaway the next morning.
We had a briefing for Castaway at 9am the following morning and met the rest of our group, 11 of us in total. We were told our flight times over to the island and what to bring etc. Jude and I were on different flights, an hour apart, due to the plane only seating 4. I was first on the 12pm flight so had some time to kill on the internet and managed to book my full moon party accommodation in Thailand for the 5th May. At 12, me and the two other people on my flight were picked up by our pilot, Bruce, and driven to the 'airport'...a grass strip. I was lucky to get the front seat and had to wear ear-protector thingys which meant I could talk to Bruce through it. We took off from the runway in the field and began the 15/20min flight to Castaway. Once we were up Bruce told me to turnaround and take a photo of the 2 in the back once he counted to 3. At 3 we nose dived and all flew up in the air, luckily held in by the seat belts. He kept dipping the wings and cut off the engine so that we just glided along for a bit before going in to land on the beach - he was a slightly mental pilot! He opened the window mid-flight and threatened to take off with the door open, it was only as the wheels lifted off the ground did he shut it!! It was awesome fun though!
Once we arrived at the camp I put my bag into a tent to reserve it for Jude and I and put the food and goon into the esky. We then waited for Bruce to return and bring the rest of the group in, 3 at a time. Once Jude arrived we put on suncream and walked 2km to the other side of the island to Pancake Creek with Michelle and Rob (brother and sister travelling together). There were LOTS of giant spiders hanging from the trees so Rob had to walk with a stick at the front to break the webs. When we arrived at Pancake Creek it was low tide, we thought we saw a turtle and a ray in the water but it was so murky it was hard to see much - the snorkels that we hired were a waste of time! We couldn't see anything in the water so decided to head back to camp where we went swimming in the sea and paddled out on the kayaks. We managed to catch some crabs on the beach to cook later on that evening on the fire and attempted to go fishing using the hand line and an oyster that we had collected fresh of the rocks (disgusting things!!) as bait...with not much luck. After that we cooked the stew that was sent over in the plane for dinner and had some goon whilst the boys collected wood for the fire. The stew took around 1 1/2 hours to cook in a big metal pot and when it was finally ready we ate by the fire which was great, right on the beach. We then cooked the crabs that we had caught earlier and ate them, they were pretty small so didnt have much meat on but they were pretty good all the same! Some people had brought sparklers and marshmallows with them so we had fun toasting the marshmallows on the fire and playing with the sparklers. Jude and I went for a walk along the beach in the dark in search of turtles (it was quite reassuring knowing that we were the only ones on the whole island), it was meant to be egg laying time for turtles but we didn't get to see any. We headed to bed by around 12pm to get up early in the morning to go kayaking. We managed to get up at 7am and headed straight to the sea. Jude and I spent 15mins trying to get both of us into one kayak which just didn't work but the morining dunk in the sea was really refreshing and it was warmer than the air temperature! After giving up and getting into separate kayaks I headed out in search of more fish to catch. As were were heading back towards the land, after reaslising maybe was had gone a bit too far out, we saw a pod of dolphins swimming right in front of us, it was AMAZING!!!! We then headed back in to tidy up the camp, as I went to wash up the dished in the sea I noticed that it attracted lots of fish so grabbed the hand line and used a lump of beef from the stew as bait. I'd soon caught 5 fish fresh from the sea...the only person able to catch any somehow! I could easily catch them but then had to pass them over to the others to bash them on the head with a rock and take the hook out of its mouth. After catching 5 fish I got a bit bored so headed back in from the sea to descale and prepare them for lunch. After descaling I cut off the head and tail and pulled all the guts out - not nice! Once all 5 were done we washed them in the sea before cooking them on the fire, they tasted really good!! After that we sunbathed on the beach before Bruce flew back in. We had a photoshoot by the plane where Bruce put us in all sorts of positions and then the first flight took off back to 1770. We had about an hours wait before Jude and I got on our flight, both in the back this time. Once we were up in the air another plane came by to the left of us and Bruce dipped the wings and did some nose dives. He then took our cameras and placed them at the front of the plane and told us to watch them, we were pretty worried by this point, especially with the window open as we were flying along! He then sent the plane into a climb before dipping us in a nose dive which sent the whole plane into zero gravity and out cameras slowy came towards us just like in space - it was AWESOME!!!!!! We then landed back in the field on the 'runway' and got our bags out of the back of the plane before being driven back into 1770. We checked back into the hostel and immediately showered, it was so good to feel clean again after no freshwater to wash with on Castaway. We then had all of the following day in 1770 before heading to Gladstone at 9:00pm.
In Gladstone we were due to head to Kroombit Cattle Station for two nights. We got picked up by the hostel from the bus stop in Gladstone (Gladstone Backpackers) at 11:30pm and got shown to our dorm - yet another empty one with just the two of us! The next morning at 7:30am we were dropped back to the bus stop where two people from Kroombit arrived to collect us and drive us the two hour drive into the outback to Kroombit. The park was amazing, 10,000 acres of land with 1,000 cattle and 300 goats plus Millie the brahman calf, Boss the cockatoo, Dog and Tuscany the dogs and Nessie the joey. We got our own 4 bed dorm to ourselves again in a cabin which was really nice. After arriving Jude and I went exploring before lunch where we got steak and salad. After lunch we did a 20km quad bike ride around the park which was great fun and we got to see a mustering site. Kroombit do their mustering by helicopter due to the costs being cheaper to do it that way! It was fun having to change gears on the quad bike although I never had a clue which gear I was actually in! After the Quad bikes we had a couple of hours of free time before roast beef and sticky toffee pudding for dinner, really good after a lot of beans on toast and other typical backacker food! That evening we sat with the staff (mainly backpackers working at Kroombit) and had a few drinks. Al, the cattle station owner, chatted with us for a bit before teaching us how to crack whips, it's pretty difficult at first but once you get the hang of it the noise is pretty cool, very loud! Then we had a chance to ride the mechanical bull - much harder than it looks but after several determined attempts Jude and I made it to level 3 of 4. The next day we were up at 8am for breakfast and had a free morning so we tagged along with Al in his ute on his rounds of the park. He drove up to turn on the water pump generator to provide the cattle with water and we went to see the huge seeders before taking us into Kroombit Tops National Park where we got to throw sticks into a lake for Dog to catch. Once he was wet though Al wouldn't let him back in the ute so he had to run the half hour drive home and was absolutely knackered by the time he made it back! Before lunch I befriended Boos the cockatoo, I intially noticed him on the park when he said hello to me as I came back from the shower that morning. Whilst we were waiting for lunch he hopped over to us (he can't fly) and showed me that he wanted me to stoke him by ducking his head down and pointing with his feet - he was SO cute! I groomed him until he fell asleep and then it was time for lunch, steak again. After lunch we were off out goat mustering on horseback, the highlight of our stay at Kroombit for me! I got a black horse called Ghost who was apparently a bit hard work to ride but we got along great and had loads of fun. The goat mustering was good fun, but a bit scary when 3 or 4 male goats kept attacking one female. We had to drive the goats along by shouting at them and moving the horses towards them. At one point some goats got separated and I had to go and get them back, but no trotting was allowed due to the adrenaline in the horses then sending the goats all over the place. Once they were all inside the pen I got to close the gate and lock them in and we had successfully rounded them all up. After that we rode the horses back and began the next set of activities - lassoing and clay pigeon shooting. Lassoing was pretty hard work but I got there in the end however I really enjoyed the shooting. It was a shotgun and I managed to hit 3 out of the 5 disks that were sent flying into the air. Finally after that it was the Goat Rodeo. We got into teams of two and got put into the goat pen, one had to grab a goat by the horns and drag it back to the other person who had to straddle it's back and hold it still whilst the other pretended to brand it's rear. After that we had to get the goat out of the pen and shut the gate before we were finished, all against a timer. Funnily enough we didnt win becuase the goat I chose decided to fight with another and Jude nearly got headbutted several times trying to hold it still! After all the excitement it was back down for roast dinner again. That evening there was more whip cracking, bull riding and we got to hold a green tree frog that Al found sitting in a tree stump. The following morning we had to be up at 5:15am for the drive back to Gladstone. We had time for a quick bit of toast off the fire and then hopped into the ute arriving back in Gladstone at around 8am. We dropped off our bags and Andy, who had driven us back from Kroombit, kindly dropped us to the shopping centre where we spent the day before getting our 10:50pm nightbus that evening to Airlie Beach.
We arrived in Airlie Beach at 7am after the nightbus, we walked with our bags in the rain (yes rain again!!) to Beaches, the hostel we had booked. Lucking they let us check in so we headed to bed seeing as there was nothing much we could do in the rain instead. That evening we went out for a few drinks but it seemed pretty dead in Airlie so were back in bed by around 12pm. Again the next day it was raining so we had a lie in before checking in for our boat (Tongarra). We went back to the hostel for dinner where we happend to meet two girls that had been in our dorm in 1770. We chatted away for a bit before packing our bags ready for 3 days and two nights on the boat sailing around the Whitsundays. The next day we had to be on the boat by 2:15pm so spent the morning in the hostel hoping that the rain might clear...it didn't! We had a quick intro once we got on the boat and got to meet the two memebers of staff (Beinke and Dave) and the other passengers, 22 of us in total including Beinke and Dave. We then set off in the rain for the Whitsundays, there was not much space inside the boat and it made me feel sick being in there for too long so I dont think I spent more than 10 minutes inside at anyone time on the whole trip. In the evenings 90% of the outside area of the boat was covered with a giant tent cover so that we could sleep outside which was pretty cool, although the sides weren't covered and my water bottled managed to go overboard along with my toothbrush cover! The first day we didn't do much apart from sail to our night time stopping area where the tent cover was put over the boat and we had dinner, BBQ fish, mash potato and coleslaw. After dinner we had a few drinks but by 12 the music had to be turned off and drinking had to stop which was fine seeing as we were woken up at 6:30am in the morning. The next day we had breakfast before we set off for Whitehaven beach, it was still raining and all we could really see was grey. We did manage to see dolphins and turtles though which was really good. The sand on Whitehaven beach was really soft and white and we did a short bush walk to get to a viewpoint. It was still raining but it was really warm in the sea, although slightly annoying that we had to constantly wear stinger suits to protect from the jelly fish. After spending a couple of hours in the rain on Whitehaven beach we swam back to the boat for lunch, tuna salad, rolls, wraps and salad. We ate whilst sailing our way to Mantaray Bay to snorkel. For the snorkelling we donned the wetsuits once more and jumped into the water to swim out to the reef. Dave took the smaller boat out to keep an eye on us and also took some fish food, he threw it at us and loads of fish bundled on top of you to get the food - pretty scary. We did get to see three huge fish which we could stroke. We snorkeled for a couple of hours before getting back on the boat to sail to the place we were stopping for the night. The weather was meant to turn even worse and that night the boat was a bit rocky and I got pretty wet sleeping outside, even under the tent - the wind just blew the rain under the shelter! After dinner (spaghetti bolognaise) we played some drinking games and all finally went to sleep at around 2:15am. We were up at 7am the next morning for breakfast and a swim off the back of the boat (again in stinger suits) to clear any hangovers before we set off to the mainland on the 2 1/2 hour journey back. It was pretty choppy on the way back, but great fun because we got to sit right at the front of the boat with our feet dangling over. We got covered in waves every so often which was really nice because the water was warm, but it was still raining! It did not stop the whole time we were out on the Whitsundays and we were constantly soaked and ended up just wearing a bikini and yellow fishing raincoat the whole time because anything else got soaked within seconds! The whole trip was good fun but would have been so much better in good weather! We arrived back in Airlie at around 12:30pm and checked back into the hostel where we went straight to bed to recover from the past few days of lack of sleep, plus it was still raining so there was nothing else to do!
We had a 7am greyhound booked the following morning so trudged down to the bus stop in the rain at 6:30am only to find that no buses were going due to flooding - wonderful! We had to go straight to Peterpans where we waited until they opened to see what could be done about all the accommodation that we have already booked and paid for. They moved everything forward a day for us but it still meant that we lost one nights accommodation in Mission Beach and also had to pay for more in Airlie. We checked into a hostel, Magnums, in a ten bed dorm and sat in there waiting for the rain to stop. Airlie Beach is not a very big place and in the rain there is absolutely nothing to do! We managed to book onto another bus the following morning (this morning) at 9am only to find out that that was also cancelled. We had to then cancel all of our plans to go to Mission Beach and move our Magnetic Island accommodation forward yet another day. The rain finally stopped today and we even managed to sunbathe by the lagoon this afternoon. We are booked onto a bus at 7am tomorrow morning now and fingers crossesd everything has returned to normal with the buses, there is just a slight worry that we won't be able to make it to Townsville (where we get the ferry to Magnetic Island) due to the tornado that passed through! We shall see in the morning...
27/03/2012
Well we did make it to Magnetic Island! The greyhound was an hour late and we had to drive through flood water but we made it to Townsville and hopped straight on the ferry over to the Island. We got the bus straight to the hostel and checked in, we stayed in 6 bed cabins right on the beach which were lovely! After that it was straight to the pool before dinner and a few drinks. The next day we got up and headed over to Horseshoe bay where we swam in the sea (stinger sauit free due to the sectioned off stinger safe area) and sat on the beach for a while. After that we headed down to Geoffrey Bay to feed the rock wallabies which were so cute! We got dinner and packed our bags up yet again before getting back on the ferry and greyhound to Cairns the following morning.
When we arrived in Cairns the weather seemed pretty nice which was great. Yesterday was our first full day here and we were booked on a dive boat to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. We had to get the 7am shuttle bus from our hostel into town where we managed to find our boat, by this point it was raining (there goes the lovely weather from the day before!). We got soaked getting onto the boat but made it and found a seat whilst we wiated for everyone to arrive. We had three dives included on the boat along with a buffet lunch. The ride out to the reef was very choppy, someone managed to fall over as we went over a wave and got a black eye and there were lots of people being sick...Once we got to the reef though it was much calmer and we quickly got our equipment ready and jumped in - the visibility wasn't amazing due to all the rain but we saw lots of fish and a TURTLE! :) We didn't have a particularly long bottom time on the dive but we came up, got our tanks refilled and got ready to go again. This time we got to go through a passage and touch some anenomes, by the time everyone else was down to 50 bar and it was time to go up for them I still had 90 so our dive guide told everyone to go up and took me further round the reef where we got to see a tiny little shrimp sitting in an anenome and lots of nemos! After that it was time for lunch before our final dive. On the last dive we saw five HUGE Maori Rass that were swimming around, they were each at least a metre long and we got to go quite close before they swam away. The diving was definitely one of the highlights of Australia, even if the Barrier Reef was a bit disappointing. Definitely planning on more diving in Bali and the Gili Islands over the next few weeks!
Latest Photos:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150615670006491.385651.516011490&type=1&aft=10150615757056491&l=45e9216663
E
X
