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Published: January 17th 2007
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Well, it should now be perfectly obvious that we've lost control of the blogging situation. What follows is a brief account of christmas, new year and our other adventures in the Land of Aus. Airlie Beach turned out to be a pretty good choice for our christmas base, despite TC (Mike's old boss) calling it "a dump" and advising him to "get the hell out of there as soon as possible!". It was sunny, had a big lagoon safe from the jelly fish but with a good view of the ocean and it had plenty of boozy entertainment to offer. On the downside it is incredibly touristy and for the most part aimed at an 18 - 30 crowd with a smattering of family entertainment thrown in. The main bar in town offered various events each night of the week, which included a foam party, jelly wrestling and a wet t-shirt contest. We befriended a few people during our time there. The first were a hippy couple who were very friendly and down to earth. The boyfriend had his tongue cut into a fork shape which, he confided, had to be trimmed regularly. Then there were the coal miners whose every
second word was cobber and cobberette (for me). They got quite creepy in the end so we beat a swift retreat. The others included the man who lived in the tv room at our hostel - he was always there watching tv, using his laptop and listening to music at the same time and another guy who reminded me of Owen Wilson in "Meet the Parents". So an eclectic bunch all in all. By the time the day after boxing day came around we were ready to leave which was lucky as we were booked on a sailing tour that very day.
We set sail on the Apollo for 3 days 2 nights all in all. The Apollo is a former racing yacht which has won the Sydney to Hobart several times in the past - the perfect scene for a bunch of strangers to get drunk with each other. The trip was good, the weather was pretty shoddy - it rained a lot! Our trip to Whitehaven beach involved getting absolutely soaking. It was so bad that we decided just to get in the water as we'd probably be equally wet in or out. I think we had
the best plan as the others who stayed out had to hang around in the rain for about half an hour. The snorkelling wasn't amazing - the first day we went lots of people (including me) got stung by these tiny but "harmless" jellyfish which took the thrill out of it slightly. The evenings were good though. We spent the first night chatting to various others on the boat. After we had gone to bed it took a while for everything to settle down, especially when people started to complain about bed bugs! Thankfully we were spared from that nightmare - the people who got bitten looked raw the next day. In addition one of our fellow passengers drank a lot of whisky that night and then snored horrendously for most of the night keeping everyone else awake for hours! Again we missed that as we were sleeping in a different compartment. The final night was a very nice send off in a way as one of the crew members got his acoustic guitar out and we had a singalong. Cheesy? Oh, yes! There was also some pretty appalling backing vocals (we might have been involved with some of them!).
Whitehaven Beach Stock Footage
This is how it should have looked!! When someone brought out a harmonica that really topped it off for me. In the end though, it was a lovely evening and a bit of a laugh which is all anyone can ask for!
After we arrived back in Airlie Beach we paid for a shower and waited for our bus to Cairns which was due to leave that evening. At 6.30am we pulled into Cairns and set off to collect our rental car. We were headed to a place called Cow Bay which is about 30km from Cape Tribulation. We arrived at our YHA hostel which turned out to be a a rainforest retreat. There were jungle treks to be done within the grounds and a beach nearby. It is in the Daintree Rainforest which is one of the oldest rainforests in the world and one of the few where the rainforest actually meets with a beach. The beach was pretty deserted and we spent one day walking around a rocky outcrop to an even more desolate beach appropriately named "Robinson Crusoe Bay". There was also a very interesting walk in the jungle nearby the hostel. We saw some turtles, some lizards and an alarming number of
spiders. The walk was very flat but involved negotiating some uneven pathways and some pretty muddy areas so we were alarmed when the following day we saw a little old lady in high heels slowly making her way across the partially rotted wooden bridge which marked the start of the walk. New Year's Eve was spent in quiet fashion. We spent an hour or two on the beach watching the sun set on 2006 and then another couple of hours in the hostel bar. The clientele were families for the most part who seemed uninterested in us except as potential babysitters for their kids. After an hour of playing a game involving a piece of a cardboard with a a particularly snotty nosed child we headed for our jungle hut for some contraban booze.
The rest of our time in the north was split between Port Douglas, an affluent coastal resort town which was nice but nothing special, and Cairns which was bright, brash and fun for the 24 hours we were there. On our return to Sydney we spent another couple of days playing with Jenny and Lizzy (my cousins) and accomplishing some of our preparatory tasks for
Thailand. By the third day we decided to head out of Sydney and followed Ray and Jane's suggestion of driving to the Snowy Mountains. This is home to Australia's highest peak Mt Kosciuszko which stands at 2228 metres. Its also a popular ski area in the winter. We headed up the cable car to begin our walk to the summit of the mountain. An hour and a half later we arrived at the top of Australia. The views were amazing but unfortunately marred by the smoke from the terrible bushfires raging in Victoria. Its certainly an amzing part of Australia and a wonderful place to take in some alpine scenery. We met a German couple who were doign a 4 day trek in the area and we had to admit our jealousy, I think it would be an amazing thing to do. Our second full day in Jindabyne (our base in the Snowy Mountains) was spent cycling. We chose the hottest possible time of the hottest possible day to do this and whilst it was fun to some extent the tracks are really designed for some serious mountain bikers, Mike even balked at some! Give me the World's Most Dangerous
Road any day of the week!
At the end of our Australian adventure I have to say I am happy to be headed into the unfamiliar territory of Asia. It has been lovely getting to know my cousins and seeing Ray and Jane again but I have to say we missed the adventures we had in South America and I think that Asia will provide more of that type of travel.
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TC
non-member comment
I stand by my statement
You were lucky ... When I was there the bay was full of jelly fish and it was raining very hard (some might say persisting down!). Any more slices on your blog I should look out for?