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Published: January 4th 2008
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Great Ocean Road
Edel and Mel overlook the 12 Apostles So back from New Zealand and straight back on the road again. Picked up 2 new passengers in my cousin Melissa (Mullagh Mel or Mel the motivator) and Enda. We missed the Great Ocean Rd last time we were in Melbourne cos the weather was so shite so now is the time to do it! We headed down the coast road towards Sydney stopping at various campsites along the way in places like Kiama, Taratha and Lakes Entrance. Melissa really got into the camping by the end of the trip but things were a little shakey at the start given the number of large spiders/ curious possums and mischevious ants we came across!
En route down we had a few days stopover in Melbourne again where we decided to stop by Neighbours night in St.Kilda to meet all 'the stars' from the show. The stars turned out to be utterly random people in my eyes (due to my unfortunate lack of Neighbours fanaticism recently) Anyway it was a great locked night and by the end of the night Edel and Melissa along with every other girl in the place
Meeting Dr. Karl
Every girls dream was dreaming of a romantic evening with Dr.Karl singing them sweet lullabies!!
We left Melbourne very hungover and hit the Great Ocean Rd next, here we spent 4 days and nights exploring the 12 Apostles, London Bridge and the other famous landmarks as well as the towns along the way. Most nights we spent barbecuing burgers and drinking Carlton or Tooheys beer in the dark while trying to avoid being eaten alive by mozzies and some frighteningly larger insects which lay in wait!!
Once finished with the sun one minute, torrential rain the next weather of the south we headed north stopping in Byron Bay again (where we got rained on again for 2 solid days) and Surfers Paradise. We left Melissa and Enda in Coolangata for the final leg of their trip which was coming to a close and we headed on to a Crowded House gig in Brisbane.
From Brisbane we went to Australia Zoo for Steve Irwin Day which was good, weird how much they have commercialized his daughter Bindi now, shes about 8 maybe and has a pop album and sang a load of songs on stage
Time for beers
Camping with Mel and Enda at the park with her backup dancers...? Olivia Newton John was also performing there, the less said about that the better... But the zoo and croc show was excellent!
The town of 1770 was fairly quiet as was Great Keppel Island but we had great weather so enjoyed them both. Spent my birthday hungover, absolutely sweating like a pig and sitting in Scootie for the day as we travelled 600km north to Magnetic Island. This place was great, met lots of people, Irish, English, and South American who were were to see lots more of as it turned out. Couldn't swim in the sea due to Stingers so we lazed around our campsite drinking and sleeping and occasionally went out into the bush searching for Koala's which proved quite successful!
Cairns next to a bit of luxury... a bed instead of the back of a van. And we loved it, air con and all we were spoiled, especially since it was about 40C outside and mosquito heaven! Here we went snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef and saw whales and dolphins which was really exciting, I also did White Water Rafting on the Tully
HOW MUCH DID YOU DRINK??
Edel and Wing Sheng with her VB river which was one of my highlights of the trip. Here too we met up with Basher eventually(after he had stood me up the first night!) The Daintree which is just north of Cairns is a tropical rainforest/jungle type area crawling with crocs and surrounded by lush plant and treelife, unfortunately we only got a day up here but it was well worth the trip, we did a treetop jungle tour sliding across lines from treetops viewing the jungle from above! A great if nervous way to see the jungle!
On our way back down to Airlie Beach we stopped off in a rest area to sleep, unfortunately the sun had been beating down all day and I was somewhat sunburnt, this along with the fact that it was at least 50C in the back of Scootie that night and the van was full of mosquitoes. It was a nightmare, we slept about 3 hours and lost abut 2 stone between us... we vowed not to sleep in the van again until we got much further south!
We loved Airlie Beach, and from here we went on our 3 day 2 night Whitsunday Cruise!
Beach Party!
Melissa and Enda at Beach party in Byron Bay This turned out to be a real party boat, and after a drinking game got out of hand on the 2nd night 3 couples hooked up and ended up riding away on the deck of the boat as we slept below. The crew told us they hadn't seen the likes before, it was like badger mating season! Somewhere amidst all the drinking I had time to go on 2 dives in the Great barrier Reef, was truly memorable stuff! I even got Edel snorkelling, and by the end of it she was like a dolphin gliding amongst the waves... well not really... but at one stage I showed her a large stingray 10foot directly below her she fairly moved, she says all she could think of was Steve Irwin, the stingray went even faster in the opposite direction!
Edel became very friendly with a girl from Hong Kong during the trip and while everyone else was bringing crates of beer and 10-20 litres of cheap wine per day this girl brought on 2 cans of beer. 1 for each night, we thought this was hilarious and ridiculous until she drank 1 can the first night and got
Surfers Paradise Beach
Nice.. but some nasty lookin weather on the way... pissed on it, she had to go to bed early that night. Could you imagine her in Ireland??
This Whitsunday Cruise on the boat Apollo was Edels #1 highlight of Australia so far, such an experience meeting so many new people, sleeping 2 nights on the boat and doing so much diving and snorkelling in so short a time! Back to Airlie Beach again for a few more nights drinking with our new buddies then on south to our next stop...
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