Adventures Down Under - Part 2 :)

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The 14th of Feb marks the start of my Contiki trip, during which I will be travelling down the East coast of Australia, starting at Cairns and working all the way down to Sydney...
We met at 7 in the morning at the Cairns Colonial Club, where a little room had been put aside for all those joining the tour. Everyone sat bleary-eyed as the tour guide, Nick, introduced himself. This early morning set a precedent for the next two weeks, during which time we were up and leaving by 8 every morning 😞

Once everyone had arrived - about 20 people at this point - we dumped our luggage in the trailer (ours weren't the biggest bags!!) and piled into a little minivan, bound for Port Douglas where we had a quick lunch. Mossman Gorge was next, where everyone had a walk through the jungle and a swim (except us - i couldn't go in water because of my eye...) and tried to beat the powerful current - practically impossible!

That evening we stayed in Daintree, where we shared little cabins, and had a mini party to start to get to know all the people we'd be going on the trip with...

The next day we got up uber early to find the biys already having a beer on the porch... we made a little trip up to the rainforest again, and did some barefoot trekking through the jungle (leeches? what leeches??) before going for a little swim in another creek - ignoring the crocodile warnings 😊 Everyone got painted in 'Aboriginal' face paint and a good time was had by all!
Back through the jungle and we had aquick stopoff at the Cape Trib beach before heading back for a wattle seed icecream! We had an excellent barbeque supper and a midnight swim in the resort pool before blindly groping our way through the darkness and back to our cabins...

The rainforest part f the trip already over, we crossed back over the daintree river (full of crocs (and the more common 'log-odile'!)) and met the rest of the tour group - about 30 more people!! In our new huge bus we went to Tjapukai to learn about aboriginal lore and see a digeridoo demonstration (i had a go and was pretty terrible...) We also visited Kuranda; a cute little place with amazing markets and a hippy vibe...

The hotel that evening was a massive resort and had a bizarre intrepid theme, with thick jungle surrounding the rooms...

The next day was pretty exciting - a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef! When we got to the diving point on a luxery catamaran, we had to wear v fetching lycra wetsuits known as stinger suits - possibly the least flattering item of clothing ever worn by anyone!!! Still, if they stop you getting stung by a man of war i guess they're not so bad...
we alll snorkeled and admired the huge fish and the pretty coral - i even did i semi-submerged boat trip in a little glass compartment under the boat and saw more of the reef...

That evening we went to the Woolshed, and we discovered why the tables smelt like beer and feet... After dancing on the tables into the wee hours of the morning (it wasn't just me! apparently it's the done thing at the Woolshed...) we spent the next day chilling in cairns. Had some ice cream, checked out the shops and did some washing. Unfortunately i left the washing in the laundry room over dinner, and when we got back, the room was closed. i had to go to reception and get a lovely man with a golf cart to drive me down there and unlock my soggy laundry....

Incredibly early the next morning, we all piled into our plush and expensive bus and set off for the Whitsunday Islands, beginning the great journey south... With only a short stop along the way Townsville, which was nice and had pretty views, we powered on to Shute harbour, where we abandoned the bus and most of our luggage. We took little bags with us as we went to meet Mick, the skipper of 'Hammer', and the guy who would be sailing us around the beautiful Whitsundays. Most of the 'crew' were fairly underwhelmed by Hammer, having expected a luxury yacht sort of thing, but me and Alex were pretty prepared for what we were presented with. Although it was the biggest sailing boat I've ever been on, it was not quite big enough to house 20 girls (and two guys! - Roy and Melbourne (Auryn. He was from Melbourne...) comfortably and it resulted in a small amount of bed sharing, which most of us were not too pleased about. Still, it was a lovely boat - used to be a racing sailboat - and there was definitely enough room on deck for us all to lie and sun ourselves over the next few days...
Which is essentially what we did 😊 Every few hours, snacks would be brought up from the galley (biscuits and nachos :D) and after putting up the sails there was very little else that the crew were willing to let us do, so we spent most of the time topping up our tans...
Although i tried to sleep up on deck, it got cold and nasty, and Melbourne was snoring, so I eventually decided that the tiny bit of bed I had downstairs would have to do.
We were dropped off on WHitehaven beach early the second day and everyone spent the afternoon nursing their sunburn (except me and alex. we are sensible, non-sunburned people :D) and making sandcastles (no, really). We had to wear stinger suits to go in the water, which sort of took the fun out of it all, so we mainly stuck to the shade on the beach. The crew came to join us late afternoon and we were coerced into playing some beach cricket (I was coerced anyway...) until the sun went down and we bundled ourselves into the little tender and back onto Hammer.

After a few days of lounging around on a boat, we were pleased to do a little more lounging around on the Long Island resort, which had a bar in the pool. How very convenient...


Photos 😊

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