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Published: August 11th 2007
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Canberra fun
Lynny and I using a rare moment away from the crowds in Canberra to take this shot ;-) Thanks for all the messages folks, we really love getting them. Its unlikely but in case you are wondering where the last blog we published has disappeared to, it was lost in a database crash. We are trying to salvage it.
We have left Sydney after 7 fun months. Before we left, we took the opportunity to visit the capital City of Canberra for the weekend. Strangely, for a capital, it is a bit of a ghost town. It has been maticullously designed and you see so few people, you feel like you have entered the set of 'The Truman Show'! It is aesthetically pleasing to the eye though, and we enjoyed a relaxing couple of days with the civil servants of down under. Towards the end of our Sydney time it had got pretty cold. Not England cold, but colder than anyone is led to believe Australia gets! The residents are in denial. They have no battle plan drawn up for it and sit there shivering in their uninsulated, heating-less houses for 2 months of the year! ;-) We couldn't wait to fly North for some sun.
Australia had been having some harsh weather all over but Lynny
Leaving drinks
Bye Sydney. Only 5 of this lot were with us. The rest (randoms in the bar)we did not know they had done this until we checked out the pics next day! haha and I refused to believe that it would effect the far north and Queensland coast. We militarily planned 2 action packed weeks, camping and driving from Cairns to Brisbane. We made a bee-line to a camping spot on a beach by the rainforest North of Cairns, near the Daintree river. Unfortunately the tropics were the coldest they have been for 17 years! You couldn't make it up. In typical fashion for us, we were not at all prepared for camping despite planning to camp all along. The first night, which rained non-stop, was spent using inflatable travel pillows and one blanket. What a long night it was! The rainforest was stunning and we were actually glad to be there when it was raining. It seemed apt. We went on an Eco-trip into the forest and learned multitudes of tree facts along with 6 pensioners, one of which slipped and dipped one leg into a river. Very brave of her to tease the local Crocs like that!! Almost as brave as us for camping in this part of the world, when you consider these 2 signs in our campsite: 'Beware of Crocs walking on the beach' and 'Do not approach Cassowaries,
they can kill' or something close to that. Obviously, these were the 2 animals we were there to see! Crocs, you know all about. Cassowaries are a huge man size bird with a horn, turkey like neck and claws that rip your face off if you approach it (apparently). Along with Kangaroos these birds suffer on the roads and going by the warning signs, we thought we would see some for sure. Unfortunately these strange birds eluded us and we became convinced that they are in fact Aussie men dressed in weird bird suits, occasionally running through the forests and across the roads to attract tourists ;-)
Driving South, the sun came out but the nights stayed cold. We took a break at a supermarket and purchased a real pillow for a bargain $6. A couple of days later, after a day in Port Douglas (which was the Beez Neez) we bought another $6 pillow. Our tent was turning into a suite! We also spent a day on Magnetic Island. After a small trek, we came across an absolute corker of a beach. We were the only ones there and it was basically paradise. After a while of sucking
Warning! Birds nearly the size of your car crossing!
As you can see, they really like to dumb down the road signs in Oz! in its beauty we noticed some bare flesh emerge from behind some rocks at the other end of the beach. Then some more emerged and strode nonchalantly into the sea for a dip. We had found the local nudey spot! Our new friends were quite far away so we were actually considering 'letting it all swing' (when in Rome) when a large American family descended on our paradise. The water was particularly cold, so this interruption was welcome ;-) To complete the presidential suite, we next added a 'doona' which is a quilt in English.
We then found ourselves in Airlie beach boarding the 'British Defender'. A Maxi racing, once famous, beast of a sailing boat. Approximately 25 of us and 25 boxes of goon (boxes of wine in English) squeezed on for 2 days and 2 night of excitement. We didn't quite make it to 'ludicrous speed' as there was not a breath of wind, so the engines propelled us to some beautiful snorkelling spots and beaches. Whitehaven inlet and nearby beaches were breathtaking. Undesputably the best beach we have seen and spent time on. We swam in the shallows with small stingrays and exfoliated our skin with
Rainforest
Nice scenic shot the 99% silica sand that squeeks when you walk on it. The sunsets from the boat were amazing and on the 2nd night we finally got enough wind to unleash the sails. Some humpback whales (from a distance) rounded off a great couple of days on our way back to port.
Dead kangaroos are a sight you get used to in Australia. At least one gruesome roadkill every 100 metres! Considering that a lot are the same size as me, you can imagine the damage one would do to a little car. Well, in our case it would have done $3,000 worth of hire car excess. It was for this reason that we always avoided driving at night. That was, until we journyed inland from the coast to find a farm that we planned to visit for a couple of nights. It took longer than anticipated and we found ourselves driving through rural countryside in the dark, petrified that Skippy was going to hurl himself in front of us. We saw many but thankfully none bolted in our direction. It is no wonder that all inhabitants of rural Australia drive large vehicles with huge bull bars on the front.
Lynny took to counting the dead Roos and even shed a tear for the poor things. It really is a massacre! Anyway, we made it to the farm unscathed and had a great time helping out with jobs like milking cows, feeding Joeys, horse riding and learning how to ride off-road motorbikes. Lynny took great amusement in the fact that the shirt I had to wear was pink and in fact, a girls shirt. I feel I had the last laugh though as my cowboy hat was way cooler than hers!
Over the next few days we took our mobile palace to Fraser Island for a day trip, Surfers Paradise and Byron Bay. We took a short flight over Fraser which was fun. We could see whales breeching in the ocean and got a real perspective of just how much sand is needed to create the worlds largest sand island.
CRIKEY! I nearly forgot about our trip to the late Steve Irwin's 'Australia Zoo' which was a good day out. Amazingly, they even had a few of those Aussie men dressed in bird suits locked up for the tourists!!
Gray
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P.s He CHOSE that pink
Whitehaven inlet
Hard to describe how stunning this was, even with a photo. shirt, it was even fitted!! That and his long hair got him mistaken for a girl TWICE! hahaha
Lynny
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Yay!
Lovely to hear all your news! It all sounds amazing as always! I want a Joey! Please bring one back!! The pic of you in Canberra is my new screen saver! I love it! Lots of love hugs and kisses, M xxxxxx