Advertisement
Published: December 6th 2011
Edit Blog Post
Sorry it's been a long time!
After Airlie Beach and sailing the Whitsundays, we headed for a place called Emu Park. Our hostel was also a hotel and had some apartments, which were lovely. However, we were in our first dorm room! The room large and had three sections, separated by curtains; a boys section, a girls section and a mixed section. Anton and I were put at the back in the mixed section but had to walk through either the boys room or the girls room; I chose the boys and Anton chose the girls!! We were lucky as no-one else was put in our section, so we had the space to ourselves and I think Anton enjoyed having a bed to himself! We only had two nights at Emu Park and used the time for a bit of a rest after hectic Airlie Beach. We arrived quite late the first night, so made a quick dinner and sat and watched 'The Kite Runner' in the communal area with other backpackers; it was a really good film! The first night was a bit of a struggle to sleep as we could hear people coming and going in the dorm
and people outside our window but once the earplugs were inserted we were fine! The following morning we lazed by the pool, read and played Uno (I am currently winning both the Uno and Scrabble Championships!!!) That afternoon we went for a walk around the town and visited the beach and a monument called 'The Singing Ship' which was built to commemorate Captain Cook naming Emu Park (Captain Cook features quite heavily in Australia :-) ). It actually did sing as the wind passed over some wires with recorder looking things on them. After our tour around the city we went to the local supermarket and, as it was refreshingly cheap, we treated ourselves to an ice-cream! That evening our hostel/hotel was putting on a 21st Birthday for a local girl and it was extremely strange having to walk into the communal bathroom/toilets to have a shower and brush our teeth with very drunk locals in fancy dress all around us!! We had to be up at 5am to catch the bus so tried to get to sleep early but the party went on until very late and the earplugs didn't perform!
The next morning, bleary eyed and yawning,
we crept around our room so that we didn't wake up the rest of the dorm and headed down to the kitchen. There were a couple of lads asleep on the sofas who obviously didn't quite make it home after the party! The hostel dropped us off at the bus station and we headed on the greyhound to the town of 1770 and Agnes Water. When we arrived at our hostel, Southern Cross Backpackers, it had a very strong meditation, hippy, free loving feel (eek) and was full of Indonesian influences. When we arrived at the desk, we gave our accomodation voucher to the girl and very quickly we both realised that she couldn't find our booking - the Rhodes/Miller bad luck strikes again! Anton asked what the problem was a she said that there was no booking for us and that they were full and that she may be able to get us in separate dorms! My heart sank. The owner then came over and started to look through all the paperwork but still couldn't find our booking. I think he could see how desperate we looked and decided to give us a double room with an ensuite (which
we originally paid for) that was meant for a couple arriving later that day! We felt a bit guilty but if it meant we could stay together then we could handle the guilt of knowing we took someone elses room!! Our room was in a wooden lodge attached to another room and was called 'Italy'. It was simple but nice; although the bed had a big dip in the middle which meant, when we laid on the bed, our feet ended up higher than our heads!! We did have a few laughs at ourselves trying to move in the bed as it was so so soft! We made ourselves a cup of tea and sat out on our balcony and as we were drinking, Anton noticed a piece of clothing down in the bushes below our room (the people in the room next to us had checked out and it was only us there). He went and picked it up to discover it was a pretty dress and on closer inspection it was a dress from Accessorize in a size M!! As the owner was probably long gone, I put it in my bag (still can't quite work out if
it was bad or good!) When we were back in our room, trying to find a position on the bed that didn't make our bums sink to the ground and feet fly in the air, Anton noticed a small PacSafe lock, locked to the bed post. It had a 3 digit number code, so Anton went on a mission to try and unlock it! Luckily he found the correct number at 128, so didn't have to try too many combinations. Our luck was definitely looking up - a dress and a padlock in one day, blimey we were on a roll! After lunch we took the shuttle bus into town and found the tourist information centre. It was a very small town with not a lot to do, but the lady in the tourist info gave us some info on some coastal walks. We went down to the beach and sat for a while, before heading back to wait for the shuttle bus to take us back to the hostel. Whilst we were waiting, we sat on the pavement and when my bum got numb, I decided to stand up only to find I had been sitting on a big,
dead frog - yuk!! For a moment I did wonder if I may have caused its death from my big bum but Anton assured me it had been dead for a while! I felt extremely yukky and Anton wouldn't touch my hand as I had brushed off my bum with it! That night we cooked hot dogs and sweetcorn on the hostel bbq's and watched a film.
The next morning we got up for our free breakfast at the hostel and when we arrived in the kitchen it was like a feeding frenzy! There were lovely fresh uncut loaves and when you're used to $1 loaves, it tasted bloomin delicous! After breakfast we pottered about writing our diary etc and then headed on the shuttle bus into town. Everyone on the bus was heading to the beach but we decided to do a walk to the local museum and then a coastal walk from the museum. When we asked the driver to drop us off before the beach, he asked where we were going and when we said 'to the museum' we could sense that he and everyone else on the bus thought we were a bit sad!!! We
made it to the museum to find that it was shut; it looked pretty small and not very interesting from the outside anyway! We then went on a walk to a lookout point over Agnes Water Beach and Workmans Beach. When we got there, we looked at the packed Agnes Water Beach and then could see the deserted Workmans Beach, so decided to find the track that headed down to that beach. We had a fab afternoon on the beach and loved being one of the only people on there; however, we both opted not to swim as the signed warned of jellyfish!! Back at the hostel we asked the front desk for our free 30mins internet (part of the deal we got with the room) and she gave us a ticket. On closer inspection, we realised she had given us 3hrs of internet instead of 30mins! We used the time to catch up on correspondence and research our campervan for New Zealand. We had a nice relaxing evening eating chilli and nachos whilst watching 'As Good as it Gets'.
After 1770, we're heading to Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island!
Love to all xxxx and kisses to Thomas,
Lauren, Erin, George, Niah, Evie, Matilda, Isaac and Jonnie!!! xxxxxxxxx
Advertisement
Tot: 0.088s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 50; dbt: 0.0541s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Del & John
non-member comment
Hi you two! love the latest blog and photos of Emu Park, lovely beaches. Fancy sitting on the frog,poor thing! Glad you didn't swim with the jelly fish-been stung in the past, not very pleasant! So pleased you meeting the relatives and that they are 'spoiling' you both (make the most of it) Always lovely to skype when you can. Will miss you at Christmas-home alone this year! Never mind. Always in our thoughts and prayers Love yous!xxxxxxx