Week 6

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28/10/10 - Everglades
Up early for breakfast and shower, i put my camera and iPod on charge to have enough battery for our trip over the next 3 days and managed to leave them in the hostel, typical.

We got picked up and taken to the harbour to find there were only 3 of us on the tour and that it was self guided.

We were given camping equipment and maps and loaded them on the ferry with the help of our mad skipper, Shorty. On the ferry we passed Richard Branson's staff holiday pad, it looked rather swanky.

We arrived at the information centre to pick up our kayak and 3 people who had just done the tour, they did not look happy. It turned out it rained in the night and the girl hadn't put her water proof layer on her tent so she got soaked, I know it's cruel but I had to snigger.

In our kayak with all our gear we paddled for 2 hours to the camping ground and during this time we got to know Sophie who was our third person on the tour. Sophie is French and is travelling in Australia for a year and has recently come from the west coast.

There were only us 3 camping at the site. We pitched up our tents and chilled out for a while. There were no shops, no showers, no technology, so peaceful and quiet that I started to just enjoy nature and seemed to lose track of any cares I had, a great way to de-stress.

I sat on the jetty with my feet in the water and chatted to Bobby for a while. We were tempted to jump in the river as it was so hot but the water was very brown and we had been told of sightings of bull sharks in the river (they might have been winding us up).

Bobby went or a walk for a while and when he came back he had cakes in his hands. I asked him where he got them in the middle of nowhere and he said they were growing on a tree. It turned out that our skipper Shorty had brought a tour up to Harrys hut and as Bobby bumped into him he gave him some cakes to bring back for us. Shorty had told Bobby to come back in 20 minutes and we could have the left overs, well we came back and were like vultures circling a carcass waiting for the people to finish. We got some great swag out of it including cakes, biscuits, tea, milk and lemonade.

We had dinner and the mosquitoes came out in force so we all went to our tents early. Bobby and I kept our waterproof door open and gazed at stars in bed for a long time, I don't think I have seen so many stars before, spectacular.

Quote of the day from Emi 'you found cakes?'


29/10/10 Coolooar sandpatch
Had difficulty sleeping with my over active imagination and lots of noises from the forest around us. Up with Dawn chorus at 5am but managed to sleep again till 7am.

Breakfast at 7am and an hours paddle to cooloolar sandpatch. To get to the sandpatch we had to walk 6km up but the hike was definitely worth it for the amazing views. We came out of the forest to the sandpatch to find that it felt as if we just walked onto a dessert! Masses of sand with views over the ocean and over the lakes and river we just paddled along. It was a long 6 km walk down as the sun was out in full force. We had lunch before setting off again in the kayak, it was hard going this time.

We arrived back at the campsite to see 3 lizards there, 1 male fended off another from his territory when he returned to claim his prize the female had lost interest. The lizards were huge, around 2-3 feet long, and we could hear them moving around, they seemed to not pay us any attention.

We played cards while cooking and all had a giggle. As we were playing an older couple who had been canoeing had a chat with us and came back around 20 minutes later and gave us mosquito spirals which you light to keep the mosquitoes away.


30/10/10 - Noosa
7am up and tents away. We had an hour and a half to paddle back for the ferry and managed run aground as Bobby wanted a picture of some pelicans. Managed to use the oars to push ourselves over the sandy bank so Bobby didn't have to get out and push.

Got back and had a bus driver from the UK who decided to give us a tour of the town centre on our way back to the hostel. He was from the UK and around 70 years old, he was a character and that's all I'll say. There is a triathlon being held this weekend so the traffic was chaos.

I suggested we to go to the Cinema to watch a movie and Bobby happily agreed. We watched a film called RED and I loved it! It was nice to go to the cinema and have a bit of normality while so far from home.

Quote of the day from Bobby 'pokies'.


31/10/10 - Brisbane
We caught the Oz bus after some confusion of where to get picked up from due to the triathlon but we got there in the end. We arrived in Brisbane and checked into our hostel, BASE. I don't like the hostel as it's grimy and smells of locker rooms and the rooms are all down very long corridors, but it has a bed and clean sheets so it'll do me.

We went for a walk around the city which seems a cleaner, warmer and less claustrophobic version of London. I've never liked cities and it took some getting used to but it's growing on me. It's nice to hear music playing gently in the background in the main square too.

We passed the cheap Cinema here and Bobby wanted to see Resident Evil 3D and as it was so cheap we did. Cinema twice in 2 days? We need to get out more!

Walked back through the Botanical gardens next to the river and nearly got run over by cyclists. Strange to walk through botanical gardens and see huge skyscrapers to one side and the river to the other.

We went bowling after dinner and I let Bobby beat me. All in all another great day in Australia.


1/11/10 - Brisbane
Our dorm has no air con so our window was open all night and I can tell you this city never sleeps, it's crazy that people were out at 2am and later on a sunday, then everything seemed to start moving at 5am, get to bed!

We went for a walk to find breakfast, then we went to the Brisbane museum. It was a nice museum with lots of small collections, I thought there would be more aboriginal information and artefacts. We watched a video on the Victoria Cross medal which Bobby knew a lot about.

We found the most powerful microscope I have ever used and after we had looked at the suggested samples we became very childish and were looking at my ring and Bobby's hairy arm and a cut on my finger, it all looked gross and we had a few funny looks at our reactions to what we saw on the screen.

I bought some souvenirs and posted them and some bits I didn't need back home. Chilled out tonight as the planetarium that i wanted to go to was closed on mondays. In our hostel we met more people who have been working and travelling over here, everyone really paints an amazing picture of working life in Oz, very hard to resist.


2/11/10- Gold Coast: Surfers Paradise
Checked out of the stinky pit that was BASE central and we went for a walk to hire a tandem bike but they are closed on a tuesdays typical.

Walked through the botanical gardens again and I am still amazed when I see giant lizards just walking around, we must have spotted 7 in the short time we were there and they were around 2 foot long.

The bus picked us up and our driver told us we were going to make an unscheduled stop in a pub to watch the Melbourne Cup, he said he couldn't call himself an Australian if he didn't see it. It is such a big event over here that everything seems to come to a stand still and many people take time off work for it, much bigger than the Grand National back home. I didn't get to put a bet on but the horse I backed (maluckyday) came in 2nd.

We arrived in Surfers paradise which has a lot of high rise apartment blocks which surprised me. We checked into our hostel, Sleeping Inn, which seems very friendly and chilled out. We walked to the beach and the waves were HUGE, there were a few people surfing and catching good waves. We got battered by a few freak waves as we were walking along the beach.

Our hostel have all you can eat dominos pizza for $6 so we tucked into that, yummy.

In the middle if the night I found out that Bobby was on the worlds noisiest bunk and he is such a wriggler! I've banned him to the bottom bunk tomorrow.


3/11/10 - Surfers Paradise
Chilled out morning chatting to our roommates one is from Canada and the other from Israel. Bobby asked me to come around the world with him, awww bless him!

We headed to the beach after food shopping. The waves were just as big as yesterday and there were lifeguard warnings to say no surfing and only to go into the water to waist height. Bobby went in the water while I laid on the beach, 10 minutes later he was bored and dragged me in, kicking and screaming I might add. The power of the waves was unreal, when they crashed into me I was sent flying several feet forward and when the wave was withdrawing it dragged me back, easy to see how someone could get swept away.

We headed back to the hostel for showers and to get ready for our pub crawl that we were booked on to, it starts at 5 pm so it was always going to be a messy one. We got to the first venue called The Beer Garden and found it was a traffic light party where you wear red if you're taken, orange if it's complicated and green if you're single, well I'm single now so I had the green on. We played pool but only had time for 2 games where we won one game each.

Headed to strike bowling alley where we had a game as part of the pub crawl. There were 8 of us on our lane and half way through the game the guy running the pub crawl said anyone who gets a strike will get a free shot, I got the first strike, boom yeah! I came 3rd overall and lost by 7 pins in total and yes I did beat Bobby, revenge is sweet.

Next pub was Twenty1 and we had a bit if a boogie. We moved on to the next bar which I can't remember the name of. They had a party game with 5 guys and 5 girls and they had to do various positions when called out including picking the girl up, piggy back and some rude ones. Bobby was one of the guys and of course he won, he got a free drink along with the girl he was with.

The last place was Sincity where the female staff were in their underwear, the boys loved it but I couldn't help but picture a zoo where the girls were being stared at like animals, what people will do for money hey?

On our way back Bobby decided to try to make me laugh so he grabbed my hand and led me skipping down the road, i couldn't stop giggling the whole way, it's a funny site seeing a 6 foot 3 man skipping along the path.

We got back to the hostel and chatted to our welsh roommate who is going to start work here soon.

Quote of the day from Bobby 'there are some surprises that no one likes'.

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