Advertisement
Published: April 13th 2009
Kangaroos
for the next 1000 KM! Did we see any (live ones) NO!Hi guys, sorry for the delay in updating the blog, since we last posted we've been busy, traveling has become a bit of a full time job :0)
Cairns
We arrived in Cairns early in the morning, via a quick stop in Darwin, after our mad rush down from Malaysia. After collecting our baggage we ran into a spot of bother at the customs desk due to a little souvenir we'd picked up in Chiang Mai! Apparently you're not allowed to bring anything made from endangered animals into the country, and what did we have?..only a picture frame made out of elephant poo haha! After a lot of joking the item was eventually seized and we had to hang around while a lot of paperwork was prepared..what a load of shit haha!
We'd booked into the Cairns YHA hostel on the advice of some friends and this was really nice. We even had our own pool. For some reason we'd both expected Cairns to be a big city (as it has a big reputation) but were relieved that it was a nice small seaside town.
The first couple of days we were trying to adjust
to life in Aus after 5 months in Asia and this was remarkably easy! The hostel had a huge communal kitchen (like a restaurant kitchen) and Cairns itself had public gas BBQ's dotted around. This was great, after eating out for breakfast lunch and dinner for the past 20 weeks we were sick of it and ready for some good home cooking.
At the beach front there is a massive (5000 sq mtr) man made lagoon/pool which is free so we spent a lot of time there, overlooking the beach which you cant use due to the salt water crocodiles, deadly box jelly fish..oh and of course the threat of sharks!
We soon got into the Australian backpacker groove, stocking up on food at the local supermarket with big cooler bags to take directly from the hostel fridge to the barbies. We did indulge a couple of times in at the world famous Woolshed. This is a backpacker institution: Pint, Steak Dinner, Dessert..all for $10! The food here was fantastic, not what you'd expect, seen as its even cheaper than a meal in Thailand and considering a pint alone is $6-7..awesome!
Alcohol is much more expensive here
than in Asia, beer's on a par with Sweden but the wine is the way to go. You can get a reasonable bottle for $6 or splash out on a Goon, which took a bit of working out! T-shirts and posters everywhere declare you have to "slap the GOON!". Ok we'll have a goon please haha, this is a 4 litre box of cheap (not the best!) wine available at a bottle shop on every corner for a grand total of $8. The Goon, is the actual bag, so when the box runs dry, pull out he bag and give that Goon a good slapping haha!
We had only had 4 days in Cairns before we had to make tracks for Brisbane for the ski job interviews but we did manage a scuba dive/sailing trip to the Great Barrier Reef before we set off. This was amazing! Sadly we missed a small shark and turtle which were seen from the boat while we were under, but we did get up close to a stingray that was flying along the bottom and the coral and other marine life was much different than what we'd seen in Asia.
We even
managed to meet a couple who'd studied at Bradford Uni, Martin and Imke who we spent a few evenings with drinking and playing Shithead, the universal backpacker card game (sorry about the language!). They were from England and Germany but met in good old Bradford, its a small world as we keep finding out.
Cairns was the perfect introduction to Oz, still hot and kind of tropical like Asia but with all the home comforts. We we're sad to leave so soon but as soon as we picked up the camper this changed..it was quality! We had a big double bed, kitchen, shower and WC, all for $1 per day including free fuel, what a deal, all we had to do was get to Brisbane in 5 days..no problem..that's only 1700km (1000 miles) away.
Desmond
So we hit the road in our trusty giant motor home, affectionately named Desmond! First stop scheduled to be Mackay, half way to Brisbane, boy did we underestimate the journey ahead! The roads are not like those at home. After 7 hours and 500km we'd managed to make only a tiny dent into the map and as it was getting
dark and all we could see were dead kangaroos by the side of the road we decided to call it a night and pulled off the highway in Ayr, a small one horse town with bugs the size of birds..this was the Australia we'd been warned about!
We managed a pretty good first night in Des with a takeaway pizza and few well earned beers. Day 2 and 600km later we ended up in a small seaside town outside Rockhampton called Yepoon. This was more like it, a site overlooking the beach! After parking up and plugging in we went out for dinner and were greeted by our neighbour, "How long are you staying" nice and friendly we thought "your parked too close to our caravan, seen as your leaving tomorrow i'll let it go but i'm very annoyed!" Nice! "Oh sorry, we'll just take the chainsaw from our van and chop down that bloody great big tree next to us shall we?, anything else we can do for you mate" We wished we'd said as we turned and walked off haha. We spent the evening taking the pee out of Australia's friendliest neighbour. Steve, my chips are to
close to my lasagna, im VERY ANNOYED haha!
We left early and another 500km later were at Harvey Bay, jumping off point for Fraser island, in a quality beach side park with friendly neighbours this time! We had a nice BBQ to go with our Greek salad and wine in the evening and made plans to get to Noosa the next day and take it easier with the driving.
Noosa is a beautiful posh beach resort with superb beaches (thankfully shark, croc and stinger free) and good waves for surfing. We got there early and 2 hours later we're paddling our boards and jumping up on them surfing like pro's..still on the sand though of course! The lesson was ACE..20 minutes in, after learning about safety and techniques we were in the water.
Our teacher was French and fancied himself as a bit of a comedian, with strange teaching methods! "Dont shit on your leg!" he'd shout out if we weren't squatting enough, crouched on top of the board "imagine you're pooing in the bush!" haha, hilarious! After a couple of waves lying down we we're up and away, Steve 1st go, me the 2nd, apparently we
YHA Cairns
..not bad! were very good! We both loved it and after 2 hours we're hooked and absolutely exhausted!
The next morning, aching in muscles we didn't know we had, we set off on the last leg (only about 100km) to Brisbane, vowing to get back to Noosa as soon as possible to continue our new hobby.
Brisbane and the story so far...
After locating our hostel we said a sad farewell to Des and went to check out the hotel where we had interviews the next day, we we're pleased to find this next door to the central station. The next morning we got dressed in our smartest clothes from our humble backpacker wardrobe and felt really good after living in vests, swimmers and flip flops for the last 5 months, ready to take on any tricky questions. Both interviews went really well and afterwards we were quietly confident that come mid June we'd be cleaning/waitress and pot washing/ski hiring in the Australian Alps..fingers crossed! The rest of the day, dressed for the occasion, we went on a culture mission around all of Brisbane's art galleries and museums, not like us usually but it made for a nice change.
The day after we took the bus back up to Noosa in the hope of Surfing by day and working by night.
After a couple of days scouring the local papers and speaking to people we soon realised our plan was no good, both jobs and short term flat rentals were in short supply in Noosa, plus the weather was turning a bit "english" so we hatched Plan B. Head up north to Bundaberg and get a job on the vineyards or farms, fruit picking. This plan lasted all of 2 days until we got talking to a nice French guy in our hostel who had been fruit picking is way around Australia since October last year. We learnt that this wasn't the best time of year to look for that type of work, especially not in Bundaberg!
So a bit deflated we headed to the beach with some friendly Germans to cheer ourselves up with a day on the waves body boarding, which was fun and less challenging than surfing! The Germans had spent 4 months working in Sydney and we soon learnt that this would be our best option for finding work, quickly..so we're now on
Brisbane
War memorial Plan C.
On our last day we went to the Australian Zoo. We'd heard from our pals Carley and Sean (or Sharley and Corn as we keep mistakenly saying, think it’s a tongue twister) that this place was worth a visit, and they were right. The zoo was run by Steve Irwin, the famous crocodile hunter, and his wife before he tragically died in a freak sting ray encounter whilst diving a few years ago, and the whole place was a really nice tribute to him, still run by his wife and a great team of people.
The zoo was more a conservation centre and wildlife park than a typical zoo with the aim of educating people about the various animals, snakes and crocodiles found in this amazing country. The star attraction was the crocodile show in a huge football type arena. Lets just say we were pleased we kept out of the water in Cairns!
After around a week in Noosa we took the bus back to Brisbane where we are now, having lunch on the South Bank, the cultural part of town and a nice place to wonder around for a day, except its throwing
it down, but that gives us time to write this blog for you our lucky readers haha!
Tomorrow we fly down to Sydney which we're really looking forward to. We're planning to do a barista course (coffee making) both because we think it will be fun and it might also help us to find a job, after a few days sightseeing of course! Hopefully there won't be a Plan D.
Wow, ive just looked up the page and realised how long this one is, sorry about that. So you're not too bored I thought I'd sign off with a good Aussie joke we've been laughing at, pinched from the Bill Bryson book of the same title as this blog:
A couple of houses were being built on a vacant site next door to where a a young girl lived with her parents. As it was the weekend, the young girl was given the task of taking lemonade over to the builders at various times throughout the day, by her mother.
The builders soon warmed to her and the second day she became their kind of mascot, playing in the yard and eating sandwiches with them on
their break.
Monday came and the little girls teacher was asking the class what they did at the weekend. When she got to the little girl she replied "I was building houses Miss, with the builders next door to my house".
"Will you be building houses next weekend as well" said the teacher, to which the little girl promptly replied,
"I will if them bastard bricks turn up Miss!"
haha, love it..hope you're all well, promise to write sooner next time.
Love Maja and Steve x
Advertisement
Tot: 0.126s; Tpl: 0.014s; cc: 15; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0592s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
DAD
non-member comment
BEST BLOG SO FAR
What a fantastic blog! Aussie looks fantastic, You both look fabulous,apart from when you were playing scrabble!The VW camper looks great,seeing that has really put ideas in my head.Good luck with the interviews,I'm sure you will hear something.I need to get my map out again now to find SYDNEY, off the top of my head i think it is east coast maybe a bit further south,I will check the map when I finish this. I am watching LIVERPOOL tomorrow try to beat CHELSEA tomorrow ,Jonothan was really upset last week ,I was trying to convince him it was only half time but I could n't cheer him up so I said I would watch second leg with him. Thanks for a great blog ,you both look really fit and tanned and well and happy.It's a tonic seeing you.xxxxxxx