Blogs from Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 1216

Fact Number 1: Cattle Ranches are called Stations in Oz. Our second day was a Crocodile Dundee Marathon. We'd got some serious K's to cover and so sat back through all 3 of the legendry films: That's not a knife. This is a knife! Paul Hogan Rules, although Croc Dundee 3 (in LA), was obviously a pile of crap, and it must have been face-life-city in the principles' dressing room, as they all had that permanently surprised look to them. I should just mention the sunsets that you get out here in the bush are unbelievable: amber, umber, scarlet, blue, purple - crazy colours! Fact number 2: Didgeridoos are made from branches hollowed out by Piping Termites! While catching a few z's though the many, many kilometers, I'd wake occasionally when our coach swerved to dodge ... read more

We arrived in Hervey Bay, fresh off the plane from Sydney and were conspicuous from the start, overdressed in our jeans, fleeces and trainers, whilst the locals wandered round in board shorts and flip slops. The temperature was about 15 degrees warmer than it had been in Sydney, the sun was hot in the sky and it seemed strange to think that it is autumn/winter here. The shuttle bus took us through dry, arid and very flat landscape, now and again dotted with a few settlements. Nearer Bundaberg the landscape changed to green fields as far as the eye could see, mainly sugar cane farms. We were dropped off at Cellblock, the place we would call home for the next week or so, and found our room to be in a converted cell. Quite appropriate considering ... read more

Next we set off for Surfers Paradise... it just sounds amazing. My first impression as our bus drove through town late at night was this town is exactly what i picture miami to be like. We ended up staying in a place called Islander Backpackers Resort. we were paying $26 a night and we had our own bathroom, tv,lockers,fridge ad balcony. we over looked the hottub and pool and the beach was a 5 min walk down the road. It was by far one of the best hostels *if you can even call it a hostel it was so nice* Aside from the second night when some punk NZ kid came in at 2am and was making so much noise and then when he realized we were awake he asked us if we wanted to do ... read more

Day 14 (June 4) I spent the night of the 3rd at an airport hostel for US$18. I got what I paid for. It was gross. I had a burger for dinner, which was almost inedible. For some reason, despite the large numbers of cows all over NZ, they don't know how to make a burger. Plus their version of ketchup ("tomato sauce") is nasty. Anyway, my room had 4 other people in it. I woke up to what I thought was this guy's last breath. I seriously thought he was dying. He would stop breathing for 15 secs or so, and then make a sound like he had been underwater for 3mins and just come up for air. He'd do that about 3 times and then stop for another 15secs. Everyone woke up but him. ... read more

Last night was quite an experience: Beer after beer after beer was sunk as we laughed and chatted to the very local, (and very weird), locals from the pub we were staying in. By the end of the night the girls of the group had headed off to bed, much to the annoyance of the Landlord - Brent - who was pretty hammered and offered me and George a free case of beer, free t-shirts and free drinks all night if we woke the lovely French girl up and brought her down. How could we resist? Within 2 mins we were drunkenly banging on Delphine's dorm room and dragging her downstairs. I'm not sure if the reason for this rude awakening translated very well, and the poor girl looked rather confused, but never the less, we ... read more