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Published: March 19th 2008
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Tit Head
Molly didnt realise she had her helmet on back to front!! Hello!!!
So we've done quite a bit of travelling up the coast since our first destination in Australia. We're riding with the Greyhound which is the easiest, cheapest and most comfortablest way to travel up the East Coast for a traveller.
After Port Maquarie we went to Byron Bay, a once sleepy little town until surfers found it and turned it into bustling beach town, where backpackers go for a bit of relaxation, partying and shopping. Byron Bay was an interesting place, loads of hippies playing tunes on the streets and your usual drunks and backpackers roming the streets until the early hours. We watched a really cool video on the beach one evening where a man played a documentory type video of the wildlife in Australia onto a big screen on the beach and played his digaridoo along with it. It was really interesting and something different thing to do on a Sunday night!
It was our first expereience of staying in Dormatries here, which was different, but we got throught it.
We walked a lot around the Bay, walking up to the Lighthouse to see the beautiful views up the coast. We were lucky enough to see
dolphins who were swimming around the surfers. Apparently later in the year Hump Back whales migrate through the waters there and give birth to their young. Unlucky we were 3 months too early for this, but it was a lovely walk all the same.
After leaving Byron Bay we headed 6 hours up the coast to Brisbane where we were lucky enough to catch Shrek 3 on the bus which is a good film if any of you havent seen it yet!! Brisbane was a busy place with lots going on. As soon as we got into our hostel we went out to book our ticket to Australia Zoo (Steve Irwins zoo). This was soooo worth a trip, after we finally manged to get there. It makes you realise how good our London Underground system is when your faced with other undergrounds, it was ridiculous!!
However, we finally managed to make our way to the zoo and get stuck into looking at all the animals. The Crocoseum was the main attraction, where we sat and watched a show, this included birds and snakes and the 3 beautiful female elephants! The birds flew around our heads at such a speed,
So funny!!
Dan got stuck into the pictures when Molly wasnt looking!!! they were really well trained. We had to shout DANJANA, DANJANA and a bird flew in from out of the Crocoseum and over our heads and landed right in the middle of the show. It was really well done. Everything was really interactive and we got some great piccies of the Koala's and Kangaroo's. The Kangaroo's were really legendary and didnt mind being patted and stroked and posing for pictures.
Brisbane included the Casino which we sampled one evening, Molly wearing her tailor made dress and Dan wearing his shirt!! We got sucked into the fruit machines that cost 1 Cent to play, we were not really exravegant players and only managed to lose 15 dollars between us. The city at night was absolutely beautiful and although the pictures are a bit blurry you can still get the idea of how lovely the sky line was.
There is also a man made beach on the side of the river which is really well done, they call it the 'Southbank' which is just copying England of course!
We stayed in Brisbane for about 4 days and then moved onto our next destination, Hervey Bay, for the Fraser Island trip.
Apparently
the best way to see Fraser Island is to go on a self drive tour with 9 other people in a 4 by 4. We got briefed the night before we went to Fraser Island, they warned us about all the problems people had when on the island, getting stuck in sand, rolling over on sand dunes, etc, so you can imagine the idea of molly driving went well out the window!!
We loaded up out barbie pink Landrover, 'Stinky', with all the essentials including both food and alcohol, all the real essentials like tenting, sleeping bags, etc were all already in the back! We got the barge over to Fraser Island and as soon as we hit sand we engaged 'Stinky' into 4 wheel drive, with Dan behind the wheel revving her up.. then went directly to a place called Lake Wabby. We parked up and walked for about an hour and must have seen 30 massive spiders hanging between the trees. After what felt like another trek, we made it to a beautiful green lake amongst the sand dunes and forest. Dan and the boys from our group swam to the other side, you should have seen the
Lighthouse
We walked up the lighthouse and this was the view from it, you could see dolphins in the sea massive cat fish that hung about in the shallows nibbling your feet!! Other than the cat fish there were no other creatures lurking in the water..
We set up camp on the edge of the beach, we mingled with the other group from our hostel they were also in a barbie 4 X 4, but there's was called 'Zombie'. There were 5 boys in that group from Chipping Norton in Oxford, who were all a real good laugh. After a very decent BBQ the drinking games commensed. We had a semi good snooze although Molly kept waking up looking for spiders every 20 minutes!!
We were all up faily early to find a camp site to have breakfast and to get showered, etc.. We jumped in stinky to head to the 'Maheno Shipwreck', and 'The pinnicles' which was a little bit of a disappointment. The reason for this was a cyclone hit the island and wrecked the path through the pinnicles, so there was no access. We went to Indian Head to catch a nice view up the coast and to have a look for some Tiger Sharks in the water, but we missed them. They tell you not
to swim in the sea because there are Box Jellyfish, Tiger Sharks and Fireweed, so you can imagine we stayed well away from that!!
For the second nights camping we set up in a very exposed position on the beach, as there wasn't much shelter, we payed the price through the night as our tent was battered by the wind. During the meal our group managed a quite civilised meal of Spag Bog, where as the other group ended up having a burger massacre.2 of the Oxford boys decided it would be funny to eat as many burgers as possible and down the most 'GOON' (Goon is cheap white wine, 4 litres for 4 quid!!). They both managed 8 burgers and sausages which were really greasy and apparently tasted manky. A few drinking games followed and we woke to them singing beatle songs really loudly into the early hours.
We woke to one of the 'burger boys' having his head hanging out of his tent and looking pretty rough! You can imagine what happened next and we all watched in a 'he could have stopped at the 4th burger' kind of way!!
After a pretty quick dismantling of
the tents,and a very very bumpy ride, we made our way to Lake Mackenzie. The weather was just about holding out and the Lake was absolutely beatiful with crystal clear water and perfect sand. We saw a dingoe (the wild dogs living on the island) hovering the car park searching for food, you can get severely fined if you feed any of these, as they can be vicious.
Again Dan and the boys managed to swim across the lake, which was considerably bigger than the last one.
When we got back to Hervey Bay we went out to an Irish Bar down the road to celebrate Paddy's day with our group. Dan had two guinness's and got eyed up by a freaking looking drunk woman. She eyed him up, rubbed his nipples and give him a good winking at. When he politely told her to 'Eff Off' she looked pretty eggy and Dan legged it whilst she stumbled over to her next victim.
So thats where we're up to, we're heading to Airlie Beach tonight for a 12 hour bus journey to go to the Whitsunday's and from there up to Cairns and possibly Cape Tribulation before we
Legend
Having a snooze fly to Fiji in 2 weeks time!!! Its all going very quickly!
We will update again before we leave OZ.
Take Care, Love Mol and Dan xxx
PS. Happy Birthday to the Twins for the 19th March, im thinking of you.. xxxxx
PPS Happy Birthday to Nanny Collier too on the 19th March, have a lovely day. xxx
PPPS. Happy Birthday to Dale for the 31st March, you old todger, take a holiday!!! xx
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