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Published: September 12th 2009
Our boz around Oz, with special guests Caz, Babs and Baz.....
Just to pre warn you, this is a rather big entry so you, and in particular Andy, may just want to scroll through the pics!!
Sydney
After our whistle stop tour of NZ we headed to Sydney to meet the folks. For those of you who don't know, Neil's parent's came out to Oz together with my lovely mother on tow. (Dad surprised mum with a plane ticket to Oz but being a good old Belfast man he couldn't possibly leave the realms of Northern Ireland to pay a visit himself). Anyhoo, we met the rents at Darling Harbour where they were staying in a sweet apartment. They smuggled us into a back entrance so we could stay in their gaff for free, lovely jubbly.
During our stay in Sydney, which is a gorgeous city, we mosied around the shops, drank coffee and ate lots of food. We also visited the Harbour Bridge and Sydney Opera House (which I loved) and experienced a death ride on a jet (speed) boat across Sydney Harbour where we all got a good soaking, to quote my mother shrieking "
aaaaahhhhh the water's gone down my bloody bra...." Neil also met up with one of his old pals from back home, Fletch. We met his new girlfriend and had dinner in an area called The Rocks, all good.
The next day we got the ferry to Manley beach, which was very serene. A lovely beach with lots of surfers, loads of peeps doing their exercise up and down the promenade and lots of little boutique shops. We had a picnic on the beach with a few sneaky glasses of vino and watched the sun set. Very pretty.
Byron Bay
Next day we picked up two hire cars and headed for Byron Bay. After a pretty hefty drive, about 8 to 9 hours, we arrived. This place is renouned for being a chilled out hippy town. However, according to Neil, who stayed at Byron Bay 7 years ago, it's become quite commercialised. Nevertheless we all loved it. There were loads of little shops and it was a joy to have mum with me as she bought me a few wee gifts (belated b'day pressies), thank you again mum. We ate and drank to our heart's content, and now
the waist is paying for it, damn it! We strolled up to a lighthouse where the views were incredible. We saw a pod of bottle nose dolphins and a couple of whales.
On our way back from the Lighthouse we saw a group of peeps about to embark upon some kayaking with dolphins. We stopped the car and managed to blag our way on to the trip. So Neil, Bazza (Neil's Dad) and me stripped off at the side of the road, threw on a couple of wet suits and went kayaking. Great fun, although I did get smacked up the face by a big wave and thrown out of the kayak. But it was well worth it as we saw lots of dolphins.
Whilst we were kayaking Babs (Neil's ma) and Cazza (my ma) went on a shopping spree. We returned from the beach, the car locked and the ladies no where to be seen. Bazza was starting to suffer from hypothermia and in a bid to keep his fingers from falling off he proceeded to do a set of press ups and run up and down the promenade. He did this whilst wearing his wet suit
and the instructor's checked lumber jacket on top. People must have thought he'd escaped from a mental institute at the sight of him. Meanwhile Crozza walked into town in his wet suit in search of our mums, v funny.
We also did a day trip to Nimbin, a true hippy colony where weed has been semi-legalised. There were old stoners everywhere. We were lucky enough to arrive on a market day where lots of hippies were selling their wares. There was also a stage where lots of golden oldies were jamming. Apparently one of their mates died a week before and the whole event was in tribute to him. Before playing a song they would look up into the sky and ask the dude that had just died which song he would like to hear. I have no doubt they heard a voice in their head but I have a funny feeling it may have been drug induced.
Anyhoo, we decided to buy some "special cakes" and were told to look out for women with colourful bags who would be selling such cakes. We made the purchase and departed Nimbin. More on the cakes later....
Fraser Island
Overall Byron Bay was superb, a lovely little place, ideal for chilling out. From there we headed up to Rainbow beach where we hired a 4x4 and set off for Fraser Island. This is basically the biggest sand island in the world, more sand than the Sahara desert allegedly. There is nothing on this island apart from one shop and one bakery. You are not able to swim in the sea due tiger sharks lurking and also deadly riptides which can drag you out to sea. However, there are beautiful lakes and lagoons where you can take a dip. Usually groups of backpackers camp there but we were slightly more up market as we stayed in a gorgeous and very reasonably priced 3 bed apartment.
We had been warned about the difficulties encountered when driving the 4x4 on soft sand. Indeed, we got stuck before even bording the ferry to take us to Fraser Island. Difficulties thereafter arose when my mother got behind the wheel. Firstly she drove at lightening speed envoking such fear in everyone that we all held on to each other for dear life. Bazza was encouraging mum to go slower, which she sort of
did. However, the real problem came about when we saw a bunch of rocks ahead. "Slowly, slowly, slowly..." everyone shouted and then we hit the rocks, well we wobbled so much I thought the vehicle might tip on its side. The back end of the truck then banged off one rock which eventually gave mum the fright of her life and she slowed down at last and everyone was able to breath easy once again. To be fair, she did very well but it was quite a rocky ride, see what I did there.....
We did various day trips whilst on Fraser Island. The trip described above was on our way to Indian Head and the champagne pools, see pics, beautiful place. Another day trip was to Mackenzie lake, again very very beautiful. Each day you had to find out the times of the tide patterns. It was important to be back before the tide starting coming in which is usually around 3.30pm. Otherwise you can find yourself marooned in the middle of the island until the tide goes back out the next morning. As you may have expected there was pretty much a race against the clock each
afternoon, which entailed Bazza driving like a possessed rally driver trying to get us back to our side of the island . (Bazza's Adventures.com - Very exciting).
And now more on those little cakes. After mum's death ride, we all decided to get stuck into said cakes. We had been pre-warned by the old stoner dealer that they were very strong so don't gobble a whole one at once. However, nothing was happening, so we all took a little bit more and yes folks the rents got involved, rebels that they are. Then our heads were spinning and everyone's eyes took on a nice red glazed look. Cazza and Babs were giggling a bit but then everyone simply conked out on the sofa. What a god damn waste, awk well at least they tasted nice.
Mooloolaba
After a very enjoyable few days at Fraser Island we paid Noosa a brief visit, very salubrious! We then made our to way Mooloolaba to stay with Chris and Jim, friends of Baz and Babs. Here we spent three glorious nights in their gorgeous house which was only a couple of minutes away from the beach and lots of pretty shops
(I bought two more dresses, thank you again mum and mum bought two pairs of shoes, awesome). Once again we indulged in lots of food and drink and basically lived in the lap of luxury. We'd like to say a massive thank you once again to Chris and Jim for making us feel very welcome, we had the best time.
Soon it was time to say goodbye to the rents which was a wee bit emotional. It was so good to see you guys, we loved every minute of it (miss you mum).
Brisbane
After all this luxury we headed for Brisbane where we stayed in a sh!thole of a hostel. However, things were made slightly more bearable after we got horrendously drunk with a few Irish folk, good fun. The next day we visited Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary where we got to hold Koalas and feed kangaroos, see pics.
Whitsunday Islands
Next stop, Airlie Beach. Here was the starting point for our 2 day boat trip around the Whitsunday Islands. We booked ourselves on to an 88 foot world champion racing boat called the Boomerang where we met 24 other passengers on board. We
partook in lots of snorkelling and saw huge bat fish. The crew fed them white bread strangely enough which they sucked up through their mouths. There was another huge multi-coloured fish called Henry who was about 1.5 metres long who’s infamous around the Whitsundays. We were also lucky enough to see a whale and her calf pass right next to our boat. We’ve been on a few whale watching excursions already but this was by far the best sighting. Other activities included an introductory scuba diving course around the Great Barrier reef near Hook island (this was very cool as we swam with turtles) and sunbathing on Whitehaven beach, apparently one of the top 10 beaches in the world. The sand is 99.87% pure silicon, v nice indeed.
After the boat trip we arranged a night out with all the dudes we'd met on the boat. Needless to say we got rather intoxicated, to such an extent that Neil was escorted out of a bar. In fairness though, a little d!ck of a bar man had taken $25 off him and didn't serve us the drinks!! Of course Neil kicked off in a partiuclarly drunken state. The bouncers stepped
in at this point. Not getting through to the bouncers, Neil proceeded to tell them that they all had very sad lives as standing outside of a shitty bar is all they'll ever amount to in life and asked them how they felt about this. At which point I stepped in, told Neil to shout his mouth and walk on!!! Never a dull moment!
Thereafter, we flew back to Brisbane in order to get our flight to Singapore. We were due to have an extra 2 weeks in Oz but because the place is so damn expensive we decided to move on sooner. So that just about concludes our Oz leg of our round the world magical mystery tour.
See ya in S E Asia. xxx
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Wilfred Foreskin
non-member comment
MADNESS
WOW..... devils, kangaroos, care bears, and penis trees........AWESOME AUSTRIALIAN ACTION........looks like big fun for you people in the Austrialasian sector..... SUPER SUPER SUPER. My bro, he is the prison for EXCESSIVE PARTY TIMES (AND S** PARTIES) sad times YOUR BLOGS ARE KRAZY. KEEP SENDING LARGE VOLUMES OF TEXT- I LOVE READING IT.......