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Hiya,
So sorry we haven't blogged for a while we have been very busy! Well we last left you when we were flying to Australia we got here safe and arrived in Carins after a stop over in Darwin and many delays, we were so tired. When we got to our hostel we slept in the morning and then went to explore!
In Carins there is not much to do unless you want to do trips to to the Great Barrier reef etc. There is a huge lagoon and lots of bbqs for public use, dotted all around the lagoon. So many people were having bbqs and picnics it looked so good we really want an Australian family to adopted us for the weekend so we can have a proper bbq! We stayed in Carins for 5 days, while we were there we went on a boat trip to the Great Barrier Reef where I went scuba diving. It was amazing I didn't see any turtles or reef sharks which was a shame but the coral was amazing there was so many diffrent colour fishes and loads of huge clams and starfish! At the moment in Australia its jellyfish season so we have to wear all in one stinger suits - they look rather attractive especially as they are so tight and show everything! We saw loads of jellyfish while we were there, but this specfic type doesn't sting you so I held one it was so slimey!
While in Carins we also went to an Aboriginal camp it was really good to see how the poeple live, they did different shows for us and also gave us a boomarang lesson and showed us how they survive in the bush, what they eat and what they use to use as medicine.
Our next destination was Mission Beach where we stayed for 2 nights we are travelling down the east coast by the greyhound bus which is nice, its a really good service with different times to choose from and they sometimes play movies on the way down! In Mission beach its really good if you want to go white water rafting and skydiving other then that there is nothing there. As Stephanie and I had already planned to do this in New Zealand it was such a waste of time and we ended up staying by the pool! You can't swim in the sea because of the jelly fish, there are enclosed areas but where we were staying was really far away from it. While we were there we met some people staying in the same hostel, we had arranged to meet up that evening for some drinks around the pool. They were out for the day and asked that when we go to the bottle shop could we pick them up some goon. For those that dont know, goon is wine in a box its the cheapest thing to drink here with 4 litres costing 12 dollars around 7 pounds as you can imagen its very heavy! After buying 4 boxes of goon we had to try and carry it back to the hostel this was an absloute mission it was taking ages as we kept having to stop! On one of our many rest breaks and old man pulled up next to us in a car and asked whether we needed a lift to Scottys (the hostel we were staying at!) we asked him how he knew we were staying there, he said we were obviously travellers with that much goon and it was the only hostel around! So we hopped in and enjoyed the nice air-con car ride back! (To let you all know we dont normally just hop into strangers car but he seemed like an nice old man, we were hoping he might have some humbugs or worthers orginals in the car but no such luck!) We havent been in anymore strangers cars and we dont plan to!!
In Australia we are finding it really expensive, especially coming from Asia. So we have decided that because we have done lots of sunbathing in Thialand, that we are not going to spend time on the beaches and just get down the east coast quickly so we can fly to New Zealand and start working!
After Mission Beach we then went to Townsville, most people then get the ferry across to Magnetic Island but its just a beach island so we decided to miss that out. While staying in Townsville we opted in the hostel to have the cheapest room which is a fan room without air-con, well it was the worst mistake we have made we couldn't sleep as it was so hot. During the day we attempted to walk up the hill to the view point to look out and take some pictures, we didn't even get half way when we were so hot and out of breath and was sweating so much so we walked back to the hostel and rented a dvd! We felt so bad that we couldn't even make it up the hill especially when little old ladies were speeding on past us. In our defense though it was the hottest day we have experienced in Australia. (Much hotter than Thailand!)
We then took the greyhound to Airlie beach, where we had prebooked a trip to sail round the Whitsunday islands. After staying in a horrible hostel we got up early and walked to the harbour - got lost, not unusual! The sailing boat was not very big and held 26 people it was really nice, though we did take our sea sickness tablets as its an ex-racing sail boat. We have never been sailing before and can't believe how much hard work it is, everyone got to join in and help. When we were sailing the boat tipped on its side, after asking the skipper whether it was actually ment to do we calmed down and concentrated on just holding on for dear life! We spent one night and two days on the boat, we had all our food cooked for us which was amazing. To save money we have been cooking all our food at the hostels. The food was so nice which made the trip even better! the crew were lovely and we saw the most amazing beach called Whitehaven Beach it had the most amazing sand, it was white and the purest you can get. You can even clean your silver jewllery with it!
I also went snorkelling saw loads of fish, Stephanie stayed with the deckie in the little boat feeding the fish! We also saw loads of turtles while we were on the boat, which was really good but i still want to swim with them! After we got off the boat we went to the lagoon so we could have a shower and get ready for the overnight bus to our next destination which didn't leave until midnight. so we had to hang around for a bit. While we were waiting a security guard who patrols the lagoon at night started chatting to us he told us some of the sights he often witnesses on a night shift - but we won't go into that! He was really nice telling us that alot of travellers normally wait here to get the bus and was telling us loads about Australia, we have found that Australia's are really lovely and so helpful especially if your lost! The security guard made the time past quickly which was good, the bus journey was ok, we managed to sleep a bit and then we arrived in Town of 1770.
Many people miss out town of 1770 but we both had the best time here! We stayed two nights in a really nice hostel called Cool Bananas. The hostel took us on a free guided tour, and in the afternoon we did this thing called Scooter Roo its where you ride mini Harley Davidsons they are low to the ground so you can balance easier and its more like a scooter but they looked amazing with diffrent designs and patterns. We scootered around the town and stopped to watch kangaroos in a field, we managed to get really close to them and take some good pictures. We then carried on riding for a bit and stopped again to watch the sunset and eat wedges! That evening we played some drinking games with some people we met in the hostel. We didnt get much sleep and drank to much goon which is not a good mix especially as we had to get up early for our surf lesson the next day! (This was actually Kimberly, that drunk to much goon and not enough sleep!)
The surf lesson started off with us having to carry two huge surfboards down a steep hill to the beach. Between us it was a nightmare and we didnt even want to think about the fact that after the lesson we had to take them back up! There was 16 people in our group we had a surf board each and the first hour was just on the beach learning how to stand up on the board. After, we were allowed in the water to have a go. There were two instructors and all 16 of us were trying to get past the point of where the waves were crashing, it was so hard as the waves kept draging us back to the shore. After 30 mintues I had managed to get pasted the waves and eventually get to the instructor. Stephanie still could not get pasted the crashing waves. After the surf board hit my head we both had, had enough so decided to sit on the beach. The instructors were not really helping as there was alot of us for just two people! After a while we decided we would both just take one board out and help each other. We managed to get pasted the crashing waves and I helped Stephanie first climb onto the surfboard, I was shouting at her to paddle over to the instructor so he could hold onto the surfboard and tell her what wave to go on. Before we both knew it a huge wave came and took Stephanie and the board straight past me to the shore she had a look of pure horror on her face and was holding onto the board so tight for dear life. It was the funniest thing but also so annoying as it took us ages to get the board past the waves! Another hour and loads of bruises later we still had only semi stood up and it was time to carry the boards up the hill. We liked surfing but it was annoying the instructors didn't help that much but we are going to try again further down the coast - with just the one board!
Our next destination was Hervey Bay where you make a trip over to Fraser Island. We stayed in a hostel one night and then the next day we left for Fraser Island we choose to do a self drive tour where a group of 9 get a 4x4 and drive around the island, camp and cook for ourselves on a small gas cooker! There are no roads just sand tracks on the island and you drive on the beach at low tide, you can't get salt water on the 4x4 as it ruins it and you don't get your deposit back! In the morning everyone had to have a saftey briefing about the car, the island and also the dingos (which are wild dogs, which we actually thought were small Kangaroos- how wrong we can be!). After getting split into our groups and learning how to pack the 4x4 up with all our equipment and how to put up the tents we were off to food shop. Friends of ours who had already done the trip had told us it was so amazing and if you have a good group of people you will have a really great time. We were really worried and hoped our group was ok. Everyone seemed really nice, little did we know....enter the Italians!
All together there was 4 cars going out to the Island and we all had the same route so we were going to stick together. When we got there we went straight to Lake Macenzie which is a fresh water lake with the same pure sand like Whitehaven. It was amazing, it was so good to go swimming and not feel salty. We were then off to find our campsite for the night. Our main driver was Alberto he was a good driver to start with and seemed quite funny, in fact he was not funny and in the end turned out to be rude, obnoxious and a complete idiot (that is the short and clean version to what we were saying on the island!) After a while he let Julian a german guy drive, after telling him off and saying that he was not doing it right Julian was once again sitting in the back with us! After driving on the beach for some time looking for our campsight, we then saw the other vans, we all were driving up and down the beach looking for the campsight it was getting dark and we were worrying as we had not set up our tents or got the food on the go and we only had one torch. After a while we realised that there was no campsight and we just had to find a patch to set up camp, which meant there was no facilities and that we would have to dig a hole to go to the toilet! The three other cars pulled up togther to set up camp but Alberto decided he didn't want to be near other people, no matter what we said. The tents were put up while Alberto was cooking. We had a BBQ the first night, he was cooking all the meat burgers and Stephanie's veggie burger. He kept putting the veggie burger in all the meat juice after telling him many times can he not, he then turned around and said "well are you alergic then?" (this is just one example of what an absloute idiot he is, there are many more to come! Oh and if you are thinking did he speak good english, was it a language barrier it was not! He spoke good english apart from when he spoke italian to his friends to complain about us!) We had a few drinks after and spent alot of time trying to scare of the dingos, the highlight of that night was when a dingo stole Albertos kangaroo meat. Stephanie and I went to bed early in a wonky tent which was put up on a slope, luckly the drinks made us fall asleep quickly! The next morning we woke up at the same time needing the toilet and it was far to hot to stay in the tent, I unzipped the tent and we got out to find thousands and thousand of horse/march flies we have never seen anything like it in our lives. They were everywhere all over the tents, in the van and then when we got out of the tent they were all over us. It was so horrible they would just fly all around you and then try to bite you so we had to keep moving. When Stephanie was going to the toilet I was there faning her so no flies would bite her!! We walked back to the tents where Alberto the only one awake, was getting all the bread out for breakfast (we all agreed on cereal for breakfast the bread was for lunch!) When he saw us he said good morning and that we were ALLOWED an extra hour in bed we told him that, that was so generous of him! When everyone else woke up and saw the flies we decided to pack up everything head inland and have breakfast then, this was much to the disgust of Alberto! We went sightseeing for the rest of the day Stephanie and I did want to drive but thought the idea of Alberto telling us what to do and how to drive it was just not worth it. One of the attractions of the island is called indian head which is a cliff over the sea it was an amazing view and we also saw a shark in the sea and sting-rays. It was late afternoon and we were with the other cars heading to a diffrent camp sight the other cars found a spot and started unloading. Alberto was off again finding a different location for us, this time it was not just Stephanie and I against him the other girls also said they wanted to stay with the other groups so we managed to have a good night, drinking and eating with the other groups. The next morning was more of the same flies and faning each other while we went toilet and Alberto telling us what time we were leaving! That day we went to another fresh water lake which was also amazing we got on really well with the girls in our group so we had fun with them. After spending the day at the lake we headed back to catch the ferry, back to the main land. We were all quite excited some girls wanted showers and to clean up, me and Stephanie just wanted rid of Alberto! The couple of days were finished off quite nicely by me sorting out the money and how much we owe everyone for food shopping, Alberto then came along and said he was a. 30 years old engineer and could work it out better then me! We had seriously had enough after that and were really annoyed how he ruined the trip for us. We did think that we should just keep quite over the trip, but he was so rude we couldn't let him get away with his behaviour. The island was really beauitful and we can see how people would have had such an amazing time there! We are now free of the Italians and looking forward to Brisbane, being back in a City for lots of sightseeing!
We hope you are all ok, please update us with all your news and we wont leave the blog so long next time! loads of love to you all S and K xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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