Blogs from Queensland, Australia, Oceania - page 1259

This morning we sent on a short foot tour of Tonsville to get our bearings for the next couple of days. Its nice to be back in a town that is big enough to have good facilities, and in a picturesque setting. Our hostel is located next to the marina, a short stroll into the heart and sould of townsville town centre, which at night reminded me of something out of Miami with all the neon pink and blue street lighting, pretty and aluring. Having spent the morning taking photos and acquainting oursleves with the town ssettled down for a swim at the hostel pool and catching up on some reading and work emails... Mike... read more

Predictably I suppose my flight North to Cairns was delayed by about an hour - although I again got an entire row of seats to myself (perhaps I smell???). I contemplated that fact while I sat outside Cairns airport in the morning sun trying to figure out how I would recognize my free pickup - until a van with Dreamtime travellers rest in huge letters on the side turned up and I was soon being driven to the hostel by Eva, a German girl between Abitur and University and killing time in the sun. As we drove through Cairns to get to the hostel I started to like the city. It was all low rise, lots of Palm trees and a lot of happy looking people wandering around. The humidity, while unpleasant, really made it feel ... read more

Toowoomba is really shaping up to be not so bad. I’ve really made a lot of new friends and finally some Aussies! (even a few Kiwi’s…Australia’s “special” cousins of New Zealand, lol…we don’t talk about them). I met this guy named Cameron from New South Wales and his brother’s name is Rhys…which I dunno if you know, but that’s one of my fave Celtic names…and from “new south wales” too…which is slightly ironic, I think. Before coming to Australia I didn't think that I would experience culture shock (or much, really) because our countries are so similar and they speak our language. However, I say "speak our language" very loosely because sometimes you do wonder... I arrived and was blown out of the water how different it was. I had been sick the week before I ... read more

Andy was up at 6.30am for a walk along the beach feeling a little ruff for too much goon! We had breakfast around 8am and set off for the day at 9am. This morning we were taking a walk into the rainforest. The amazing thing about this rain forest is that it is all growing in sand! You wouldn't think there is enough nutrients, but there is enough nutrients in the top couple of inches, so they spread their roots along rather than down. We had a few stop offs on the way to the walking track through the forest where Mark told us about various trees, plants and logging on the island. We had a nice steady walk through the Yiddy rainforest and along the Wanggoolba Creek. We saw a few lizards and an eel. ... read more

Saa hedder det verdens stoerste sandoe - Fraser Island. Svoemme i ferskvandssoe - smukke McKenzie med sit turkusblaa "vand", sand saa hvidt og fint, at man skulle tro det var mel, groenne frodige traer, der omkrandser dette cirkulaere vidunder. 60 km's koersel langs Eastern Beach med smukke sandklitter i alle taenkelige farver, som km tilbagelaegges, til den ene side og hav m. hajer til den anden side. 4W - koersel gn. regnskoven langs smalle ujaevne sand- (ikke grus)stier med groenne grene og store tykke traestammer taet, taet paa. Indkvarteret paa Wilderness Lodge under ganske fine forhold med 40 andre guys. Jeg deler vaerelse med Charlotte (DK), Dianna (UK) og Tina (N0). Ganske hyggeligt. I skrivende stund er vi netop vendt hjem fra ovennaevnte strandkoersel i kilometervis og er smuttet paa besoeg for en kort svoemmetur paa ... read more