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Published: September 24th 2007
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G'day all. Before I start my Australia blog I just want to explain why you may have been receiving alerts to blogs that you have already seen. The reason is that the Travelblog server crashed a few months ago and lost several of my blogs in the process. I was able to recover the photographs for them all but all the text for the Thailand and Singapore entries has been lost. You can imagine how disappointed I was, I'm still working through my issues with my therapist.................Anyway I had to republish some of the entries and that's why you've been getting new alerts.
After so much drama with losing a mahoosiv chunk of my blog (all that frickin hard work down the drain, raaaaggghh, why me, etc, etc!) I am in no mood to spend a lot of time or energy on this one. But I would like you all to see my photo’s and have a brief idea of what I’ve been getting up to so here goes………
So as you may remember from my Singapore blog Lucy's two friends from home were joining us for 2 weeks for a holiday. Becky and Rachel made a welcome addition
to the gang and we all got along like a house on fire. So on February 21st we arrived in Cairns and spent a few relaxing days in our 5 star luxury hotel, working on our tans and shopping…………….Real life version, we tried to spend as little time as possible in our hostel room for fear of catching a fatal disease, spent a lot of time wearing plastic carrier bags on our heads to avoid the torrential downpours (who said Australia was sunny!!) and spent far more time than a backpacker with the world at their feet should do, in Woolworths, which is the Australian version of Asda and not in actual fact a store selling only pick n mix, childrens toys and wool like in Blighty…………. Ah yes, I can trace my love affair with Woolies (as I affectionately like to call it!) back to Cairns. Put quite simply it’s supermarket heaven and every kind of consumer item is there for the taking!!! Anyway I digress somewhat so let’s get back on track here. We went on our first boat trip on the Great Barrier Reef in Cairns which was really good but the weather was pretty poor and
The new arrivals
Left to right: Emily, me, Rachael, Becky, Lucy the sea was way too choppy to do any decent snorkelling so I gave up and tried to cloud bathe instead! After spending a few days in Cairns chilling out and enjoying Western civilisation’s greatest gift to the world…..The Pub, and readjusting to Western culture in general (flushing toilets - HALLELUJLAH!!!! Rules and regulations - BOOOO!!!) we booked ourselves on a cruise around the Whitsunday Islands, hired a car and set off on the first leg of our East Coast road trip…….
So with 5 girls, a people carrier and a frog named Tina we headed down to Airlie Beach which is where our cruise departed from. We visited an area called ‘The Boulders’ along the way which as the name would suggest is an area with lots of boulders in it!! There was some great scenery and stunning views and we got very wet enjoying them. We also enjoyed our first good old Aussie barbie in Townsville!!!
Unfortunately Lucy had picked up an eye infection whilst we were in Asia and hadn’t been able to shake it off and when I started having problems with my eyes I just assumed it was conjunctivitis which I get a
lot, but it soon got worse and when I found I couldn’t drive because it was so painful, couldn’t stand the light and started dressing like an incognito celebrity, i.e. cap, dark shades, small annoying dog (OK, so I made the dog bit up!!) we decided perhaps we should pay a visit to the doctors. The doctor diagnosed us both with a pretty serious eye disease which if left undetected can cause blindness and is commonly picked up in Asia, we were understandably a bit shocked. But we dashed out and bought the medicine we needed and soon regained the vision in our right eyes! And we skived off driving duties for the rest of the way and made Emily take the wheel for the remaining 200k, ha ha!!
We arrived in Airlie Beach and spent a quiet night in the hostel before our early start for the Whitsunday cruise the next day. The Whitsunday Islands is 74 islands scattered throughout the Great Barrier Reef and it's deemed an area of outstanding natural beauty. The cruise turned out to be one of the biggest highlights of my travels.
After a rough ride across the straits towards the Whitsundays
(thank god I don't get seasick!) which wasn't helped by our skipper being a thrill seeker with a death wish (e.g "This is going to be a big wave - we'll either make it or capsize!!") and getting a good drenching we made it to calmer waters and enjoyed a nice night on deck getting to know our shipmates. The next day we sailed to Whitehaven Beach which is simply stunning and here's a bit of trivia for you, the sand is so fine and pure that NASA scientists used it to make lenses for their telescopes! We enjoyed some time on the beach and then in the afternoon we went snorkelling on the reef. OH MY GOD - it was amazing and one of the most memorable experiences of my life. I can't recommend it enough. The fish were amazing and straight out of a David Attenborough documentary, all shapes and sizes, colours and patterns and the coral was just stunning, and on our swim back to the boat we spotted dolphins jumping through the air and playing - awesome!!!! It really was magnificent and we rounded a great day off with a good drinking sesh on the boat
playing lots of drinking games and that night I slept on deck underneath the stars listening to dolphins playing and splashing about in the water by the boat. Ah yes, happy days indeed!!!!
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Rachael
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Too long. . . .
Awwwwwwwww, the memories! X