Australia

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G'day mates!

Just 4 weeks in Oz and I we have a very action packed entry to give you!

After 6 months of blistering heat and nothing but sun Australia in winter was nearly as big a shock as hearing that the weather was hotter in England! We arrived into Darwin and not wanting to splash out the $20 for the bus into town and lugging our luggage with us (no baggage storage at the airport), we spent a very unexciting 22 hours staring at the 4 very plain walls while Richard occassionaly went up to the bar to try another of Australias beers.......he has steadily worked his way through all of them I think!

Our Oz travels began in Sydney where we were to meet up with one of Richard's best friends James Barnett.....
RAIN! Sydney was cold cold cold and rained....alot. Richard bumped into James at the Base Backpackers hostel (a HUGE and clean place where we had bunk beds in a 8 person mixed dorm) and James did not recognise him. I then saw him in the lift and said "hello James" three times before he looked behind him to see who I was taking to and finally registered who I was. Didn't realise I'd changed that much although to be fair I had just coloured my hair bright red! Richard also looks very different to 6 months ago as his "jesus doo" (what I call his hair) has been bleached blond by the sun and has ringlets! As great as it was to see James again, especially for Richard of course, I was very relieved that James had a friend called Jill coming to meet us further up the coast to keep me company while the boys discuss football...constantly and in great detail!

Not to be deterred by the rain we set off brolly-less and coatless to see the sites and ventured on a long walk around the docks to catch our first glimpse of Sydney Opera house......s'right...not that big, could do with a clean (I said the same thing first time I saw Big Ben, not easily impressed am I!). I sent the boys off to play pool and have some time alone while I showered dried my very soaked clothes off in the drier. Once they had returned and I had placed plastic bags over my socks because my trainers were so drenched, we set off for a treat of a nice meal out for our first night and of course hit a steak house and drank some pinot noir!

.....The rest of the evening was a bit hazy after that but I do recall going to a few more bars and finally leaving Richard and James propping a bar up and saying to them "I'm going to the toilet, stay right here ok?". Two minutes later I returned to a space at the bar where they had promised to stay. I roamed around and found Richard leaning against a wall staring vacantly at the ceiling and when I asked "where's James" he simply shrugged. We eventually found James by the door of the pub/club reading through his phonebook in the hope that it would jog his memory as to who he was out with! He was very pleased to see us and said "I'd have never guessed I was here with you guys! Hi!". Geez. The walk back to the hostel was eventful with Richard and James wandering off in different directions and James trying to hail a cab to the hostel virtually outsied the door of the hostel! Richard retired to bed at around 1am and James and I stayed up chatting until at about 4am James asked "where's Peron?", "Who's Peron" I asked. James looked amazed that I didn't know who Peron was and insisted that "you know Peron!". Shortly after this conversation I came to understand that Peron was a cat James had in Melbourn and that James had no idea where in Australia he was. I said I suggested maybe it was time to get some sleep!

We stayed in Sydney for 3 nights and filled our days with ignoring the rain, visiting the sites and being a bit drunk or hungover!

Port Macquarie
We brought a Greyhound bus ticket to take us up the East Coat to Cairns jumping off at chosen destinations along the way. Port Maquarie was a tiny town but, as with all of Australia, caters amazingly for Backpackers. We booked into another mixed dorm at "Ozzie Pozzie" and set off straight away to the "Koala hospital" which is run by volunteers and funded by donations from the public. Many Koala's suffer terrible injuries from forest fires where being unable to outrun the flames they try to climb away from them only to be engulfed at the top of trees. Other common injuries are from being hit by cars or attacked by domestic dogs. People call the hospital out to come rescue the poor things and they are then named after the person that found them and treated accordingly before being released back into the area they were found in. Some can never be released into the wild again if their injuries prevent them from ever being able to climb or fend for themselves again. We all brought things from the gift shop and gave a donation. Cloud, a permanent resident due to her claws never growing back after terrible burns, is going blind and needs an operation to restore her site. As with us humans it will cost $4000 to pay for it. People are clearly touched when they come to the hospital. They have managed to expand due to a German lady that visited some years ago and being so amazed by the work done there, she made a will and left all her money to the hospital when she died. Also, a famous singer in Australia visited and witnessed koalas being rushed in with burns and sat down at the hospital to write the song for Blinky Bill (koala cartoon) and donated the money raised in the songs sale to the hospital. This built new intensive care wards for the Koalas. I'm banging on about this place because it really was very impressive!

If you wanted to donate anything to help raise money for Cloud's eyesite please click link below!
KoalaHospital

Our 2nd day in Port Macquarie we went to the Billabong Koala park to see more Koalas and we got to pet and feed kangaroos! It was amazing!!! That evening I got to meet Jill as she had arrived at the hostel whilst we were out. A lovely lass who is obsessed with cheese "I like cheese!" and kept me entertained up the coast. The four of us embarked on another confusing night out. James snores very loudly. I wear earplugs so it doesn't bother me but a German in our dorm was getting so annoyed with him that she took to lifting one end of his bed and dropping it (he didn't notice), shining a tourch in his face (still didn't notice) and finally leaning right over him and yelling in his face "THERE ARE OTHER PEOPLE TRYING TO SLEEP YOU KNOW!"......James didn't even stir! Annoyingly, it was the German girl going crazy at an oblivious James that woke me up those few nights and not James! Richard was more inventive with his 'waking James tactics" and would throw various objects into James' face throughout the night. Jill was oblivious to all the activity! James was very embarrassed about his snoring (and confused as to why he'd wake surrounded by various objects from around the room) and kindly brought earplugs to distribute amoungst his room mates which I thought very nice!

Byron Bay (renamed Byron Gay by Richard and James)
Hippies, Didjeridoos, filthy hostel and more rain...........................

Noosa
Thank you for the reccomendation Yoel! We loved Noosa! Had a beautiful beach although, once again the weather wasn't amazing every day. The others really wanted to try surfing and I didn't want to be left out so I decided to give it a go and went along for a lesson. The waves looked really small from the beach but they sure aren't when you get out there! You have to position yourself past break point (where the waves break) and then position yourself to jump onto the board and time it just right before standing and riding the wave in. I actualyy managed to stand in the end and riding the waves just laying down was really fun....getting past break point with your board however is not! The waves pick up you and your board and throw you back at the beach. I got swept away and smashed Richard in the face with my board. Oops! Decided to leave the second part of the lesson out as didn't much enjoy being pulled under the water and then dragged backwards as my board zipped ahead of me with my ankle still attached to the rope and pulled me even further under the crashing water! The others loved surfing, despite their various injuries (Richard managed to hit himself in the face and had a fat lip and James and Jill were bleeding from being dragged along the bottom of the sea). James managed to stand on his first try! Richard is keen to try surfing again. Think I'll watch and cheer him on from the beach.

Brisbane
Love Brisbane! Great clean compact little city. It was here that we discovered "Boost" a smoothie bar which I fell in love with and had my breakfast/lunch at every day. We booked into Palace Embassy and although pleased with the facilities and clean dorms, were amazed at how completely inept the sour faced named "Roz" was on reception! Arrived to be told "sit there I'm busy at the moment" and then her and her manager embarked on a conversation about how crap their jobs were. Great hospitality skills guys! At one point in our stay "The Hurlinator" had to be ushered outside by James as was threatening to go shout at Roz for being so bloody useless! Other than that we loved Brisbane!
Jill and I went to Lone Park Koala sanctuary (Jill hadn't seen any Koalas yet) whilst the boys went to the X Castlemain brewery which James had been dreaming about since coming to Australia. I was a bit dissapointed with the park as there were over 130 Koalas but they don't get released intot the wild just kept to breed some more! I did get to hold one though! Heavy little blighter! Jill and I returned to the hostel having been to the cinema to watch "Candy", a disturbing film about crack adicts, to find James and Richard very drunk and pouring over a Byron Bay poster picturing people meditating with flowers in their hair and detailing why each one of them was a moron (and other such names I won't repeat on-line)!

Fraser Island
A 184000 hectre island made of entirely sand! We had brought a package including free accommodation in various places up the coast, Fraser Island 3 days camping with a 4x4 and a boat 3 days on the Whitsundays.
We were grouped with 2 Irish couples. John and Yvonne and Liam and Terresse (probably spelty that wrong). We were really pleased we got put with these guys as they were all "a good crack!" and taught us the drinking card game "circle of death".

Having filled one cool box with beers and brought a 4ltr goon on wine each we packed up our 4x4 and set off for Fraser Island. We visited Lake Mackenzie and basked in the sun before heading for our camp site for the evening where, once we'd erected the drunk proof tents we began cooking and drinking. Rich, Jill and I stupidly thought jacket potatoes would be a good idea....took about 3 hours!

The circle of death has many rules all incurring drinking penalties if you break them, the worst being that you have to drink all your drink in one go if you break the circle of cards. James had been drinking since midday and so breaking the cirlcke was sure to finish him off. Jill also broke the circle and had to down a mug of white wine.
We'd been warned several times about the Dingo's on the Island who killed a 9 year old boy a few tears ago and can be very aggressive. We were told to never go off alone and when heading to a hole to use the loo always take a couple of people with you. If you see a Dingo you should cross your arms across your chest and slowly walk backwards. If they attack you should "attack back aggressively"!!!!!! I took Jill, a tourch and a large stick whenever I needed the loo or was on "loo guard" whilst Jill was going. After several drinks I had changed tactic from crossing my arms to pointing and screaming DINGOOOO! I found this very effective as the startles animals would jump out of their skin and run away! Perfect! I tried to tell a very drunk Jill not to crouch so close to the edge of the sand embankment in case she drunkenly fell over the edge. She didn't listen. I heard a scream and turned around to see a half dressed Jill roll backwards down the embankment. I was laughing to much to help her back up again!
At around 2am I was woken but Jill at the foot of my tent calling my name (I had put her to bed earlier) and asummed she needed the loo as had made her promise to wake me and not wander off drunk into Dingo territory alone. I emerged from my tent to find Jill standing in the middle of her collapsed tent shivering in knickers and a vest and sobbing very loudly. James has careered into the tent drunk, collapsed it and being unable to figure out how to put it back up had wandered off! I had Jill hold the pole up while I forced pegs back into the ground and put a very upset Jill back to bed. Emerging from the tent a swaggering figure came out of the gloom towards me, collapsed into the sand and declared "I'm very drunk! O no I'm sooo drunk!". I picked James up and put him into the tent and fully dressed into his sleeping bag. The circle of death is a very dangerous game!

The following day we had got up to late and were not supposed to drive the vehicle down the beach after 10am because the water is too high and salt water on the vehicle means you get no deposit back! We risked it anyway as didn't want to wait until 4pm to move again. We managed to escape the water and after a day of site seeing returned to the same camp spot and again began "the circle of death". I broke the circle having just poured a large mug of vodka witha splash of Coke. Don't remember much else but found some interesting photo's on my camera the following day!

Really enjoyed Fraser Island. Got to drive the 4x4 quite a lot and screadmed at lots of Dingos! Poor Richard constantly had James saying "want to drive Richard? O no that's right....you can't drive! No hand eye coordination at all!". Tee Hee!

Back at the hostel in Hervey Bay our Irish crew had annoyingly had their campervan broken into and two large backpacks taken. Luckily the police had found them emptied out in the park and had returned them. Only a charger and hair clippers had been taken but all their clothes were in need of a wash having been dumped on the ground.

Rockhampton (a.k.a. Steak Capital of Australia!)
Jill is vegetarian and since Richard, James and I were only stopping here for the famous steak she went on to Airlie Beach where we would follow the day after.
Rockhampton has a plastic cow on every street corner...fact! We arrived at 7pm and booked into StoneGrill hostel above the Stonegrill restaurant and immediately went down for our Steak! They serve you a big piece of meat on a piece of very hot stone and you cook it yourself!

Whitsundays
I hate boats and had been dreading this. Luckily our boat was cancelled and we got moved onto a bigger and steadier boat called the Defender which was like a great big pirate ship! It rocked and rolled in the waves but I dosed up on pills and stayed above deck and am relieved to say that I not only survived 3 days but also really enjoyed myself! We snorkelled on the reefs and met Elvis (a 1 1/2 meter big fish who is very friendly and touched me!), sunbathed on the beach (in the rain) and ate great food cooked by Pablo (Irish chef) which was all freshly prepared. The boys have been watching all football games nearly every evening. 11pm, 1am and 5am. They were very sleepy and I myself of course watche dthe 5am England game before getting the boat that day. We are playing rubbish but at least still winning. We didn't take part in the late drinking nights on deck. I would have liked to but with the sickness tablets I was taking I didn't want to risk it. Nor did I fancy a hangover on a rocking and rolling boat! I loved it when we switched off the engines and all had to assist in letting down the sails. The Defender sure can move! We met some nice people. I particularly liked a Swedish guy called Richard who we all found very amusing. We were talking about the Irish couples we went to Fraser Islandwith and he said "I like Irish people they're a good crap!" which we all found highly amusing!

Cairns
Booked onto another boat....a Catamaran. I haven't been on one since that terrible journey in Thailand where I got very sick. Dosed up on lots of tablets and still felt just a little sick but much better than a lot of people who were being ill and looking very green! Richard did his first dives without an instructor and saw a massive turtle. Unfortunately he did not have the underwater camera we'd rented with him as Jill andI had it for the snorkelling. I went on an intro dive for people who hae never dived before so that I could test my ears out to see if I could do an adventure dive afterwards. Jill did very well and now has the "diving bug". I was aloud to do my own thing as I am qualified and so took some pictures but unfortunately my stupid ears wouldn't let me go further than about 8 metres without screaming and whistling and blowing bubbles every now and again. I stayed above the group. No more diving for Ambre! Boo Hoo!

Cairns is where we leave Jill and James as James returns to sunny England and Jill's off to Idia before returning to bonny Scotland! James is at least 2 stone lighter than when he came away and has to invest in belts to keep his trousers from falling down! Well done Jimbo! Lookin' gooood! James is not a sun lover and hid whenever the sun poked through the clouds and cheered whenever it rained! Killljoy!

Richard and I returned to Brisbane for a few days before leaving Australia and this time stayed in the South Bank area which was really pretty. We spent our days looking around and doing anything we didn't get to do last time. We also watched Superman Returns....my advice is to not bother seeing it. Great action scenes but pridictable and dull other than that.

We'll miss Australia, James and Jill. We'll miss being able to make our own food, eat real bread (not that sweet stuff in SE Asia) and have decent affordable wine and a multitude of decent beers. We'll also miss the Aussie sense of humour. They have a really dry sense of humour that just kills me. A guy we were talking to in a cafe was asking us if we'd tried TimTams (a chocolate biscuit) and then proceeded to tell us that TimTams can be used as a form of currency throughout various parts of Australia. Richard said "really? that's amazing!" until the cafe owner started laughing and told the guy not to wind us up! He did at least produce a packet of TimTams and hand us one each as consulation! We won't miss the expense though! Money has diminished rapidly here but to be honest was worth it and we wish we could stay a lot longer.

We decided that as much as we would love to see New Zealand it's just to darn cold there! We fly to California where it is sun sun sun all the way! Woohoo! Then off to central America and then......well then I guess we'll come home. Maybe!?

Strewth! That was a HUGE entry.....I need a stubby (bottle of beer) or maybe even a whole goon (4ltr box of wine).....

Until the next time.......

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Photos

Sydney and the Opera House
Stopped raining long enough to take pictures every now and then!

Billabong Koala Park
Is he smiling at me?

Kangaroo!
This one was Richard's favourite.

Meet Simon......
Girls, he's coming to London soon, and he's single...

Look what I got!
Jill and I went to touch some more animals!

Noosa was a very pretty place!
This is the beach we had our surf lesson on!

Noosa
Richard choose this as "one of the nicest beaches we've seen, 9 out of 10"

Fraser Island
Lake Mackenzie.....where everything is perfect. Fact.

Fraser Island
Our group at the ship wreck.....James is obsessed with "thumbs up" pictures...I have many pictures of James but only one without his thumb up and only because I begged him "no thumb!"

Fraser Island
Deciding upon our route for the day.

Fraser Island
.......about 15 minutes after I broke the "circle of death" and had to down my mug of vodka. O dear.

Rockhampton, Steak capital of Australia!
Jill skipped this part of the trip....being a vegetarian 'n all!

Whitsundays!
James and the giant thumb!

Whitsundays!
Ahoy matey! Was he (Dave, crew member) trying to push me or save me?

Whitsundays!
Richard asks Jill and I which way is port.....

Whitsundays!
Even though the weather was not great the scenery still was.

Whitsundays!
The boys have a spot of cricket!

Whitsundays!
The Defender. Our boat. Pretty isn't she!

Great Barrier Reef Boat Trip
Look! No thumb!
A much slimmer James! Looking good!

Great Barrier Reef
We got bored of touching animals on land and decided to have a go under water!

Great Barrier Reef
Richard takes the camera for a spin on his second dive.

Comments

[Lianne]

WOW!!
What a wicked picture of you holding the Koala bear. And the Richard with the Kangaroo shot. Loved reading about this Lianne xx