Sorry this blog has been lacking a bit lately! We're now in Canada satying with Ellie's Mum's friend Maureen so we thought we'd use it to catch up whilst we have internet access... right, where were we...
Everyone returned from Fraser Isaland in one piece - just alittle bit smelly (there are no showers or toilets anywhere on the island!) After a nice long shower andnap backat Dingos all of us met in the bar for one last night together. It was really nice how everyonegot on so well and was good to have a drink without sand in! The next day we hadto wait around for our 3pm bus to Airlie beach. It was Anzac day in australia, kind of like rememberence day here, so there wasn't alot going on. We mainly chilled at the hostel learning cardtricks off our friends Jan and Vish (some of them we have remebered so be prepared to be impressed when we get home). The bus first took us to Harvey Bay where we got dropped off at the Bus Depo/Fast Food World. We had to wait there for four hours and inthat time managed to between us do a sweep of all the fast food outlets, Mc Donalds, Pizza Hut, Hungary Jacks, Eagle Boys Pizza...the lot! Once we got back on the Bus there was a 12hour journey ahead of us, it seemed to take forever but finally we arrived at Airlie Beach! We checkind into a really cool hostel called Magnums along with some others from the Fraser Island trip who were also making their way up the coast. After a day exploring Airlie (which was really cool with a really nice Lagoon we chilled at) we would boad the Atlantic Clipper, our whitsundays sailing boat! Unfortuntely we undererstimated how long it would take to walk to the boat and Ellie found herself feeling very sick after having to sprint a few 100m's whilst eating a 50c soft serve cone from Mc Donalds! Once we boarded the ship we were shown to our cabin, it was absolutly tiny! We didnt care thought as we were distracted by the luxury of having duvets. Amazing! We met everyone else on the boat, there were about 50 of us and everyone was really nice. The menu on the boat was great, we were served breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, all the food was great, it was proper luxury! The portions sizes were massive and there was plenty for everyone but that didnt stop Emily sprinting up the stairs to be first in line whenever food was mentioned! That evening we got to know everyone better, playing games up on deck. The next day, after a very early awakening from the crew, we got given some bad-fitting stinger suits which was very entertaining-ellie's was not the most flattering for her figure! Then we headed out on the little boats to Whithaven beach for a scenic look out and a bit of swimming. In the afternoon we moved to another spot and went snorkelling off another beach. It was the first time we had been snorkelling and we were pleasantly surprised! It was so much better than expected. We literally dipped our faces in and you are surrounded by hundreds of different coloured and sized fish. They swim right up to your snorkel mask and will even let you touch them. We were enjoying ourselves cruising round on our noodles/woggles and feeling very comfortable when suddenly, out of nowhere, this MASSIVE fish appeared. It was at least the size of a small shark! That scared us a littl ebut we managed to enjoy the rest of the day! We went snorkelling again the next day in a different location and after we had finished they let us on the slide that shoots off the edge of the boat. You could also jump from the top of the boat down 20ft into the sea. Vicky (used to jumping from great distances in Laos) casually hopped off, however it took around an hour of persuasion to make ellie do it! It was then time to return to shore and check in to Magnums again, before meeting up for the afterparty on dry land! We got free pizza out of it and had a bit of a dance at Mama Africa's with our friends from the Clipper. Next it was time to catch the greyhound up to Townsville where we would catch a ferry to Magnetic Island. The ride over was a bit choppy and Toast and Ellie ended up getting having to change seats before getting splashed, its lucky they did as the people that decided to sit it out ended up getting absolutly drenched! We then took another bus which finally got us to our Hostel Xbase where we could chill (the day had been particularly stressful for Vicky who had been challenged by Emily to look after an Egg for the whole day, she got it all the way to Xbase when she decided to keep it in the side pocket of her bag for a moment, it wasn't long before she chucked it on the floor and had raw egg all over her stuff! Lovely) We could also unpack we were staying there for a whole 3 night, a rareity since we'd been in australia! That night was the full moon party! It wasn't quite the same as the one in Thailand, not as big, we werent covered in florescent paint and not really on the beach but it was still a great night! We spent some time with friends we'd made on the Clipper who were also at the party and Vicky also bumped into a friend from King Arthurs! In the morning Ellie was up ridiculously early and headed to the beach, she was later joined by Emily, then a little later Rosie and then quite a bit later Vicky finally got up! We headed to the shop (typical) and ended up spending a lot of time pondering over what to buy. Nothing quite took our fancy so we decided to get a good look around the island whilst walking to the shop on the otherside. This shop didnt turn out to be so nice - Vicky and Emily saw some nice nail varnishes, they tested a couple out to realise they were nothing like the colours on the jar so they didnt want to buy them and walked off. A mintue later a very angry man came over livid that they'd tested them out and insisted they brought them. They agreed to and picked them up but at $3 each decided to put them stright back once the man wasnt looking..it was only once we got to the till that we realised that the man had got all the staff involved in the scandal and the two women at the counter enforcing we went back and got them, reluctant we argued a bit before they threatend to call the police! As much as we thought it would be funny to explain to the police why they had been called we decided it would be easiest to buy the stupid nail and off we went! That night we were just tucking into some very lumpy mashed potato that had taken approx 3 hours to cook, when Elliot ( a friend from the clipper) appeared with an annoying german lad in tow. Everyone was in quite an immature mood and to give you a rough idea of our antics, emily ended up shut inside a washing machine and a possum ran away from us very quickly after being hit on the head by a spoon and chased by elliot. Unfortunatley ellie and emily's power naps turned into a full on sleep whilst rosie, vicky, elliot and annoying german boy went off to play drinking games, exchanging drink for dares which resulted in many funny moments including elliot rummaging through a bin and being asked "you allright there mate?" After her 'power nap' ellies sleep pattern was somewhat confused and she woke up at 1am in vickys bed thinking it was time to go out for the evening (she didnt seem to have though of the fact that it waspitch black) meanwhile vicky had just come back from the evening out and was trying to get to sleep. after the evenings antics she had possums on the brain and when ellie came over, tapping her leg to see if she was awake, she was convinced there was a possum running up and down her bed. She jerked upwards and looked very scared until she saw ellie standing there also looking very confused. There was a few moments of silence while we both worked out what the hell was going on and then both found it very funny! Next day we decided we had done enough lazing around and wanted to explore the island more. We were going to get the bus to a nice walking spot but it was sunday so they weren't running. Instead we hired a little car, with the help of our friend Kasper, who was the only 21 year old in our group. He happily ferried all of us around all day in the car we had affectionatley named "Dirty b****". We parked up and hiked up a hill with our picnic to a panoramic look out, watching for koalas on the way up. Somehow, even though there was "koala" and a big arrow pointing to a tree we walked right past the sleeping koala in the branches. Rosie, Elliot and Vicky managed to spot it on the way back down and took some photos. We also drove to another of the islands beaches and again bumped into Vickys King Arthurs friends completely by accident! They arranged to meet us at Xbase that night and we had a good evening with them playing cards and chilling on the beach. We did however upset our roommates by making too much noise and poor vicky got the door slammed into her back twice-nothing personal, just wrong place wrong time.
Following day it was time to leave Magnetic Islan, which we had grown quite fond of, and head to Mission Beach. We were very happy when we arrived at Scotty's Beach House as we met up with Elliot again and generally loved the hostel with its really nice staff and cool pool (which vic got chucked into on the first night). In the day we mainly chilled, that is until we decided it was 'food day'. Food day involved heading to the nearby woolworths and stocking the trolley up with many luxury foods. We were however very researved and came back with mainly healthy stuff, none the less loved carting the trolley roundbuying all kinds of things, we spent nealry 2 hours there! We returned tothe hostel only to find two guys from Gillingham Sixth Form checking in! It's so freaky how you can bump into so many people you knowwhen your so far away from home. We were sitting down with them catching up hearing all about their travels when our 3 canadian friends from the clipper walked in! By the time it was evening there was a massive possy of people we knew all sat round the table outside ready for a massive session of drinking games! We had such a gun night, involving everyone getting thrown int he pool, emily being given god like powers, having to wear a goon hat and generally being very raucus! Sadly the next day we had to leave Scottys, we were heading (on our last ever greyhound bus journey!) to Cairns. We only stayed for one quiet night in Cairns, where we didnt get up to much, before heading up to Cape Tribulation. Cape Tribulation was great fun, we were shown around all these exciting rain forests, taken for a boat trip along the crocodile infested Daintree river (saw a massive croc called scarface) and went to the lovely Mossman Gorge. Noneof it would of been so good if it wasnt for our incredible tour guide - Roddy. Roddy had the most amazing stories about people being eaten by crocodiles butwe will save them to re-tell when we get home! In Cape Tribulation we stayed in these nice little lodges, it was quite quiet and we seemed to be the only people there other than these 3 Israeli guys. We hadnt spoken to them much at first but got chatting after watching them prepare and amazing meal of Shakshouka! It looked so good, they let us try some and taught us how to make it. They turned out to be really funny and we got on well even thought they made fun of us for writing in our journals or reading all the time! On the way back to Cairns we stopped for a night in Port Douglas, it was like a Sherborne of Australia, very nice but quite pricy, all we could afford to do was chill and lie on the grass which we thoroughly enjoyed but were pleased when we arrived in Cairns.
The next few days were amazing! It seemed like everyone we had met up the east coast was in Cairns and staying at Gilligans Hostel. It was funny how all the people we had met at different places all seemed to know each other as well. Room 225 was the place to be and whenever you went there you would come across a crowd of people you know, which was pretty cool. Every night involved massive hilarious drinking games with everyone we knew followed by a trip downstairs to gilligans night club and a luxurious lie in the next day. Except one day when we had to get up painfully early, but it was obviously well worth it as it was to go snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef. We had also managed to score ourselves a nice free upgrade to a bigger and posher boat with more free food (thats what we like to see). Unfortunatley vicky and emily did miss out on some of this free food as they were fast asleep the whole journey! Snorkelling was good but the experience was somewhat ruined for vicky as she was paranoid that a bird was going to poo down her snorkel and she was going to breath it in. To be fair this wasnt unlikely as two of us did actually get pooed on whilst sunbathing on this sand island that was literally packed with birds. It was also Ellie's birthday while we there and on the morning of her birthday she was nicely awoken by Vicky and Rosie with an amazing cake that they had got up very early to make after a heavy night out-thats dedication! They also got her some very lovely and very suitable gifts including mouthwash cheese and showergel haha (not indicating that she smelt but providing her with travelling luxuries!) Later that day Rosie and Emily departed for New Zealand! Ellie and Vicky spent the day at the Casino and managed not to spend all their money, whilst Elliot had a very successful time winning 300$ on roulette (we were his lucky charms!). The three of us spent hours there and had an amazing time,making use of the free vending machines of hot choc and coffee before having dinner together and going for a final night out.
After a very short flight between cairns and sydney we decided to save ourselves the price of a hostel and the train into sydney and set up camp at the airport. We had a lovely time touring the food outlets and shops, used the free internet, wrote in our journals and engaged in conversation with a large group of korean men who started sketching us in our sleeping bags...the 26 hours actually went pretty quickly!
We were very excited to be in New Zealand and reunited with Rosie and Emily, although poor em had picked up a sickness bug from a dodgy veg burger and was chundering everywhere. Whilst she lay in bed for the day the three of us explored auckland.
The next day it was time to pick up our Spaceship Campervan. We were ecstatic! There was a minor issue that none of us actually had a legal driving license to hire the vehicle but it was just a small hiccup and for some reason they let us have it anyway!