Hiydee- ho again!

We're on a roll now, here's the next installment of blogs....

So, we left the caves of Rockhampton behind at 3pm and set off South for Bundaberg - home of the legendry Bundy Rum! Was such a nice drive, the roads had picked up and where looking all canadian with fir trees lining the mountain edge, and the sunset was well nice! We found our free rest area just north of town by 7 and cooked some food before heading into Bundy to have a look. Wasn' t that much there to be fair, just a normal aussie town, but there was a bridge that looked like the toon bridge!!!! Chris loved driving over that. We ended up at the backpacker hostel cos it had a bar, and a pool table (hadn't played pool for yonks!) and it turned out to be really smart! There was a swimming pool there and the dorms were renovated prison cells which was weird to see, the door was still the cell door! Wouldn't like to sleep there! We were a bit upset to leave after an hour as there were loadsa travellers getting drunk, but nevermind.

The next morning we set off to town for a mammoth day! We planned to use the pool at the backpacker hostel and just read our books... but as it was shut (bloody aussies!) we ended up doing a weekly shop at Woolworths, cooking sausage and egg butties at a car park by the river (yum!) and then trapesing round for the next Marian Keyes book - Mum, your fault I'm into her books, can't find 'em anywhere! And then heading into the information centre to find out about trips in the area. Luckily we realised there was a turtle hatching session on that night, tell you soon, so we booked that, decided that we didn't have enough money to visit lovely Lady Elliot island to see the Great Barrrier Reef manta rays, so left to find the job shop. Couldn't find it, oh well, so we raced home to do some relaxing before the turtles were born! Was a really nice day, productive as well, so it made our picnic blanket, hammock and beer more enjoyable. XXXX black labell 'bitter' lager, ahhhhh!

For food we made the most immense fajihita's and had a shower in the sink before racing out of the rest area cos we were running late!!! Had to be at the beach for the turtles at 6.45 and it was 6.30 and we had nowhere idea where Mon Repos beach was! I did a bit of Damon Hill driving though and we arrived bang on 7!! I'll let Chris tell you about the turtles cos ill just go all mushy cos they were SOOOO cute, and maybe I'll cry cos I really want a baby turtle now, but statistically I'd be killing them off by having one.

Chris here now - yep, yet another animal Debs decides she wants! Anyway, the turtles were immense!!! We got well lucky as the nesting season was November till February & hatching season was Feb till March!!! We missed the Whale season but made up by catching turtle season, which we had wanted to do since Gili Islands as we met a bloke there who had done it. When we turned up at the Mon Repos beach bang on time due to Debs's driving, we got a ticket and went through the information bit and headed out to the beach. There was literally about 70 people there waiting to go to the same nest! When we got to the nest we were all sat down in the dark and the tour guide put the torch on to find about 50 had already surfaced and the rest were literally popping up out of the sand!! Was incredible! They were penned in by a bit of chicken wire so the guide could tell us some facts! Basically only one in a thousand baby turtles live to 20 when they are of age to breed. The rest are killed by people or fish! Made debs a bit upset as out of the 120 that hatched it was highly likely that none of them would survive!!! Chris, noooooooooooo!!!!

Anyway, while the guide was spouting facts about helping them survive there was a woman carrying one about and letting people feel the shells and some, including Debs (lucky b*****), were allowed to hold one!! So, they were penned in as they would just head towards the light of the torch and get confused - naturally they would follow the moonlight to get to the sea - so at the end they made a procession of children with torches stand between the nest and the sea and let them go! As they followed the lights, they ended up in the sea (was a little bit artificial - but supposedly the sancturay were helping their chances of survival). As soon as they got into the sea a wave would crash and bring them right up the beach again - poor little b*****s would have been exhausted when they actually got swimming!! Was a really good experience though!!

The next morning we headed to the job centre in Bundy again, and researched some fruit picking jobs, printed them out and then headed towards Hervey Bay!! We arrived at a carvan pak nearest the pubs and got settled (i.e. set the hammock up and cracked open a beer). Later we went to the kitchen facilities and started cooking some sausage pasta!! There was a couple of aussie campers who gave us a few camping tips, such as filling a four litre wine bag with water when ariving at a campsite and putting it in the freezer, so you don't have to spend three dollars on ice everyday! As it was a friday night we naturally went to the pub where we got chatting to some locals and had a bit of a drink! Then we headed to the irish bar and caught some oldies playing live music (Debs loved it - they played '99 Red Balloons' and stuff) and then off to a club!! Was a really good night!!!

The next morning we awoke and were pretty bloody rough, debs got into the hammock in the morning and didn't leave it ALL DAY!!!! At about 2pm we got a text from our pals Kirsty & Hannah and directed them to our campsite! They turned up with sam & ryan a couple of friends they knew from uni. Debs now, yeah, our group had turned into 7! Great times!!! Was good for Chris to have a bit of male company, Ryans a lovely lad, really bubbly and had lived in Manchester before he moved to London so they got on like a house on fire! Might have been due to the fact that they started drinking goon at 2.30 (australia's 'excellent' wine - 4 litres for a fiver! GET IN!!!). I just sat chatting to Hannah about her knowing Jamie Cullum for hours! Well gunna be able to meet him! He's been to her house for Christmas and everything...and our Irish friend Paula lived next door to Ronan Keating, so i'll meet him one day too...anyway... yeah, i started drinkng by 8 after my chinese takeaway - FINALLY!!!! but it was crap - and by midnight Chris and Ryan had done a full bottle of licquer shots, Jagameister, and me and Hannah had finished the wine! Chris was wrecked! The most drunk I have ever seen him, EVER! Ryan was double his size, what was he thinking trying to keep up! Had to give him a fireman's lift into the van to get him to bed cos he was just falling all over the place! By 2am, it started raining so me, Hannah and Ryan jumped into our van with the music still blarring out and started to decorated Chris for fun with ping pong balls, ear plugs, and playing cards! See the pics! ha!

The next morning, we all died.

Kirsty thought it'd be funny to awake us by shouting "Chris, Debs..YOUR VANS ON FIRE, YOUR VANS ON FIRE!!!" so we lept out of bed and couldn't wake up properly after that. Southeners. Chris had to go back to bed after that though, no sympathy! That day was a blur, but by afternoon Charlotte arriveed from London to join her pals for three weeks, so we all went to the beach and watched people play cricket! That night me and Hannah made Spag Bowl for 7 (very hard work wth one tiny pan) and we had a lovely meal together. All of fell into bed by 10 to prepare for our trip to Frasier Island!!!

Best go cos we both need the loo!!!

Lots of love, miss u all,

Chris and Debs xxxxxxxx