Sunday 03-10-2010

Got up and had breakfast. I started talking to two guys from Melbourne, Stuart and Richard. Their rafting trip got cancelled and we ended up talking for quite a bit. They both work for underprivileged people and arrange housing for them. They make quite some trips to different places and are both fanatic divers. I was talking to them and they said they could probably find me a job in social work or in diving when I got down to Melbourne!! Who cool is that. They gave me their number and told me to contact them when I got to Melbourne. After the talk Chrissa and I packed everything up, said our goodbye's to Phil and Anna, got into Merlin, our car, and drove of to CAIRNS CENTRAL!! After some shopping and a stop at Rusty's market for cheap fruit and veg we left for our first destination. Big Crystal Creek campsite in Paluma range national park, just above Townsville. On the way we had quite a bit of rain and we stopped in Innisfail toeat some lunch. We stopped at a grocerystore and ate outside. There was this really strange aboriginal guy there who we both thought was quite scary he approached us and didn't really make sense…but in the end it was all fine. We went futher and stopped at Ingham to get some wine. The night before Jason (Tropic Days) had tols us to get Klinsky, well that was what we understood. It is supposed to be the last of the vat they empty out and sell it really cheap. Chrissa asked the clerk and yes we did understand wrong because as it said on the sign, its called Clearskin…we got two bottles and drove on to the campsite. A really nice secluded place with only nature surrounding us. We set up the tent and headed straight for the paradise water hole. It is an amazing sight, very pretty and again so refreshing. We swam for quite a bit and got out to get changed and have something to eat. The amount of mosquito's here is very high, we would get eaten alive, wasn't it for the insect repellent, citronella candles and citronella spiral. We had bought two camping chairs so we sat outside the tent with a glass of wine and crackers and cheese as dinner. We had planned pasta but the cooking facility consisted of two BBQ's… as dessert we had some healthy mandarin :D An early night camping it is, 20:30, off to bed now.

Monday 04-10-2010

When I got back from brushing my teeth this morning I started talking to this older Australian man, who had lived in Rotterdam till he was 11. Really funny cause when he spoke Dutch you could really hear he lived in Rotterdam :D After a bit his wife joined and I joined them for a cup of tea. Chrissa also joined in and we talked about load of stuff. They have been travelling though Australia every few months for ages and really live in the bush when travelling. Catching and hunting for their own food! Really great. We had a good morning talking to them. After we packed up the tent and left for Townsville. We got there at 11:15, got some clothes packed and headed for the ferry which we were at at 11:27. The ferry had at that point already started boarding and we were just in time with our tickets to get on board. Within 25min I we were on magnetic island. Looking at it from sea it already seemed great but even more so when youre actually on it. We got straight onto the bus down to Horsesoe bay and checked into our campsite. We decided to first take alook around the bay and had a lovely swim at the beach. There were allot of sailing yachts there which made me jealous again! We had a little sleep on the beach and after we looked at the shops, not many at all, and walked down the beach. We decided to do the Forts walk around 16:30. This was a really good decision. It had said in the info booklet that in the late afternoon it was the best time to do the walk as you can see koalas in the wild. It was a 1 ½ hour walk through old WWII ruins and up to the fort. On the way we decided to go off the track which was a really good idea. What an amazing view!! All the way there way stunning views and ofcourse the best: we saw two koalas sleeping(duh) in a tree. When we got all the way to the top it was the most amazing panoramic view of part of the island with the sunset and all!! This was an amazing walk! We decided not to wait for the bus and walk back to the campsite. Unfortunately this took way longer than expected but it was fine in the end. We ended up eating potato wedges at the restaurant cause we needed some real food after the exercise.We got talking to a girl from the UK and a women from Melbourne and they asked if we were joining in with the bar games. Chrissa and I decided to actually compete. There were 10 teams and fun games. The first one Chrissa did, Penne on a plate and one spaghetti. With the spaghetti between your teeth you had to get the penne on the spaghetti!! We didn't win. The second game I did, I had to put Vaseline on my nose push my nose against a cotton ball, run to the bowl on the other side of the table and without hands, get it in. 4 times in total and I won. The next game I did cause Chrissa can't whistle. We were given a bar of wheatabix and no water and had to eat it and then whistle. I'm useless at that! The last game was Chrissa. She had to wear a belt and attached was a string with a block of wood…so it hung between your legs. The goal was to knock a basketball into a crateby hitting it with the piece of wood…hip swinging was the key :D We didn't win anything but had good fun. Of to bed now. Tomorrow we are probably gonna go horse riding through the bush/forest and end up on the beach and we will even go bareback swimming…I'll tell you all about that tomorrow. Good night!

Tuesday 05-10-2010

This morning was a bit of a disappointment because we couldn't go horseriding, this was because it was all fully booked. Ah well that does mean we saved $100 each!!! We decided to leave magnetic island and head for Ayr. We did first walk through a bit of Townsville and as everyone had said, it wasn't that interesting. On our way to Ayr we had a bit of a scare…at one point when Chrissa was driving a big, long truck driving on the other side passed us in a bend, but he was half on our side of the road. Crissa had to fully avoid it and for the next few minutes we were very happy nothing had happened…what an adrenaline rush that was!!!! We got to Ayr and were surprised by the size of it, we both expected it to be smaller. It has all the shops you can want, Woolworths, Target and Coles of course. We decided to drive through and just look out for a campsite. We found one really quickly and after setting up our tent I called Yongaladive shop to see if I could do a dive to the most amazing dive wreck…it turned out that the only possibility would be tomorrow afternoon so I took it. Tomorrow is dive time!!! After we drove down to Alva, a small town with Lynch beach. This was an amazing sight because there was hundreds of meters of wet sand where at high tide the water would be and nearly no possibility to reach the seaside because there were all these channels with water separating different bits of sand. We decided to lay down a bit and read a book…after about 2 hours Chrissa woke me up and to my surprise the water had risen so far that it nearly touched our towels. We decided to head back to Ayr and see if the cinema was open…unfortunately it was closed and we decided to create our own little cinema back at the tent. We put my laptop on the hood of Merlin and watched two movies. Now it's off to bed to get a good night's sleep for tomorrows dive….jippie!!!

Wednesday 06-10-2010

A nice and easy start today…breakfast: eggs and pineapple, clear up the tent and of to the beach. At 11:30 we were at Yongala dive center for my dive! First of course the form fill out, then the payment and then getting the dive gear. 5mm full suit, in 30C what a joy. We had a really nice lunch at the dive shop and a briefing. We were with 9 divers and 2 instructors. Our group existed of 4 divers Adele and I were buddies. She is here on a business visa and originally from Canada. Really nice girl with 35 dives but a really good diver! We drove to the beach and there all the equipment was set up on the beach. The boat had just come back and needed to be put on a trailer and driven to our equipment. On the beach the equipment was loaded on and so were we. We got driven into the sea and we took off for a 35 min ride to the dive site. The sea was a bit choppy but for me that meant a lot of fun…others didn't like it that much, bleh….Our group was the first to get in so al geared up we got into the water. We had to quickly get hold of the line behind the boat and that was needed cause there was quite a strong wave and current at the surface. We went down at the line to the bow of the 109m wreck. It was an amazing dive…the wreck and the sealife. Really big turtles, groupers, napoleon fish, angle fish, bat fish and because Adele and I had quite a bit of air left we stayed down longer and in those 10min we saw a big white spotted eagle ray!!! It came really close and was amazing. 45min dive and we were back on the boat. There we got fresh fruit, pineapple, watermelon, apple and oranges, and there were also cakes and cheese and crackers. After an hour we were back in the water for a second dive. This dive was also great with loads to see. Especially the sea snake and a huge fish: as long as I was and much fatter :D It was really amazing, the wreck is such an amazing site to see and especially when you know that hundreds of people who's bodies were never taken out died on that ship! The dives were really amazing and the best dives I've done in Australia so far. We were back at 17:30 and Adele and I exchanged email addresses because I have foto's of her and she has foto's of me. At 18:30 Chrissa and I got on the road to head towards Airlie Beach. This was our first experience of night driving. I must say it didn't start out to well because we accidentally drove in exactly the wrong direction so I think we lost about an hour doing that. We finally arrived in Airlie Beach around 22:00 and found our campsite (6km out of town) directly, which was good!! We ate a few crackers on the way so it is straight to bed for us…well not straight away cause I am first writing this update first. But now I will say, goodnight!