THE HOFF!?!?

Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Hervey Bay
October 28th 2005

Published: November 6th 2005

That's right, David Hasselhoff is HUGE here!! He's everywhere!! These people love the guy. He's not a celebrity or a star but a SUPERSTAR! It's hilarious. He was on the Arias (Australian awards show), Australian Idol and the crowd just goes nuts when he makes an appearance. On our sailing trip through the Whitsunday Islands the skipper was explaining life jackets etc. and said something along the lines of "I don't want to pull a Hasselhoff and save you" Something else...really.

The TV shows here are also quite comical. They copy nearly all of our shows and do just a horrible job at it. Justin thought he was watching a Saturday Night Live skit and it was actually the Australian version of the Price is Right. Oh well, it's all good anyways.

Also, this entire continent is just alive with creatures...everywhere! We've ran into bats countless times now. We'd be walking down the street just as the sun is setting and all of the sudden you hear this chirping that sounds like hundreds of birds until you realize that birds don't usually chirp at dusk and then out of nowhere bats come swooping down right in front of you, it's so creepy. At nearly every hostel we've stayed at we've been greeted by geikos scurring along the walls, possums searching out food and random species of birds just strutting around. You're just always on the lookout for some animal/reptile creeping around the corner. It didn't get bad until we ran into the spiders in the town of 1770...more about that later.

Just to clarify, we flew from Sydney up north to Cairns and have been working our way down the east coast. We have stopped in Townsville where we took a ferry out to Magnetic Island. Next stop was Airlie Beach where we sailed the Whitsunday Islands. After that we made a stop in Rockhampton to avoid the dreaded 13 hour overnight bus ride to the town of 1770. Now we are in Hervey Bay and leaving for Fraser Island tomorrow.

So backing up to Magnetic Island, we stayed at a place called Arkies Hostel. The beaches were lovely with big boulders lining the shores and crystal clear turqoise waters. It is sort of a quiet little island and a bit spendy. We only had one full day here so we basically spent it on the beach. Since it is coming into stinger season nearly every beach we have been to is equipped with a big bottle of vinegar to dowse a wound in the event of a sting. There are 10-14 types of stingers but only 1 or 2 are deadly, one of them being the box jellyfish which is tiny and clear making it nearly impossible to spot. We also heard rumors that there are buoys located around the island that have fish heads etc attached to them to feed the tiger sharks to keep them out of the swimming bays. (I think we have to wave the b/s flag on that one, but ya never know!) Needless to say your always on alert when in the water! For dinner one night we went to a pizzeria and as we were waiting for our food I noticed a possum (I didn't know what it was at the time) casing the shelf on the wall of the restaurant! It kept getting closer and closer so finally we moved to a table in the middle of the restaurant..we weren't so keen on sharing our food!

Next we stopped in Airlie Beach, a very small beach town. We sailed the Tongarra for 3days/2nights, which left from Airlie Beach. Highlights of the trip were Whithaven beach. This beach has white sand that squeeks when you walk on it and was used to make the Hubble Telescope. The sand is so pure that you can clean your jewelry and exfoliate your skin with it. Unfortunately when we were there the tide was out so we couldn't see the gorgeous swirls of blue ocean and white sand that make up the best part of Whithaven beach. However, we were lucky enough to wade in knee deep water with at least 23 + sand rays and watch them swim about, it was beautiful! And of course the islands themselves are absolutly stunning, especially at sunset. On the flip side, we ended up on a party boat and this one Polish guy had been drinking since 9am! It was just nuts so he was completely bombed and falling all over the place and I thought Oh no, I'm not going to give this guy CPR after he falls overboard and can't swim. But to my relief the skipper securly strapped a life jacket on the guy for the rest of the night..it was actually pretty funny.

Instead of taking an overnight bus from Airlie Beach to 1770, we split up the bus ride and stopped in Rockhampton. There's not much in this town, but they do have a stonegrill restaurant where you basically grill your own very lean meat and it stays warm the entire meal so that was fun.

The town of 1770 and Agnes Waters is a small lazy surf town that is prime for relaxing and lounging on the beach. We took advantage of that and stayed for 5 nights. We also did a scooter tour of the area and spotted a croc and at least 40 kangaroos throughout the night. It was real fun seeing all the wildlife and watching the kangaroos jump around. Justin ended up striking a deal with a tour company. He traded his computer skills for a free day trip out to Lady Musgrave Island for both of us. At a 134 AUD/person it worked out to be a pretty good deal! He completely revamped their computer network and installed new programs on a couple of the computers. So he definately put his time in (while I soaked in the sun at the beach and got lost in a book). The boat ride out to Lady Musgrave was unbelievable, it seriously felt like we were on a roller coaster ride, you'd lose your stomach just like on a big drop of a roller coaster. At first we (and the rest of the people) were having a great time with it, but after about 45 minutes the entire boat became real quiet and everyone was sort of gritting their teeth and fighting the nausea off! The skipper said the waves were about 6 feet...they looked like mountains of water! The bumpy ride was well worth it because the island was amazing and the reef around it was unbelievably gorgeous with many shades of blue/turqoise waters. We did an island walk. The island is made up of coral and bird poo because of the thousands of birds that inhabit the island, so it stunk... a lot! Surprisingly we didn't get pooped on. The rest of the day we basically spent snorkling and spotted a couple of turtles some really cool looking fish, not sure what they were called, a potatoe cod fish and much more. We could also hear the fish munching and scraping away at the coral, it was very cool!

The rest of the time in 1770 we just hung out and enjoyed the beaches. Oh, and about the spiders. We had to take this path through the jungle/woods area down to the beach. On our way back to town from the beach Justin nearly walked into this massive Golden Orb Spider sitting in the middle of its web that it'd spun across the length of the path! It was disgusting!! I just about lost it and couldn't get the guts to walk under the spider and continue on the path. Who could blame me though, the thing was only holding on by 2 legs and was about 4" X 2". yeah right, no way am I gunna piss that thing off! Soo, we had to turn around and find a different way back. We also spotted a 3 ft. iguana running around...I was on edge the whole walk! Then at our hostel they found a Huntsman spider that was the size of a man's palm...gross!!

That's about it for now. We're off to do Fraser Island tomorrow. Hope all is well with everyone and to hear from you all soon! Oh yeah...how was halloween? I don't think they really celebrate it here.

Take care,

Beth and Justin

Here is some funny words that they call things that us Americans don't

Eskie: cooler
pot: small draft beer
Scooner : large draft beer
Jug : pitcher of beer
ute: car utility vehicle
bloke : man
sheila: woman
piss : beer
on the piss : been drinking
pissed : drunk
poofta : gay man
grog : alcohol
g'day : hello
mate : friend
mobile : cell phone
rang or ring : to call someone
cheers : thanks
mum : mom
the hoff : David Hasslehoff
lollies: candy
the lot: is that everything?

Traveling is not all fun and games...here are some fun Stats about our trip:

Hours spent on trains: 117
Hours spent on planes: 55
Different Airlines Used: 4
Currencies traded on: 9
Hours spent on boat transportation: 69
Pictures taken: over 3,000
Scooter bikes rented: 4
Scooter bikes crashed: 1
Cars rented: 2
Snorkel trips: 2
Scuba dives: 14
Time spent under water: 560 minutes
Taxis: too many to count
Different beds slept in: 57
Money transactions: You don't want to know!!!

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