my australian journey... part 1!

My Trip!! Advisory: this might be extremely long. I think I might split it up in East coast and then 9 day Cloud 9 trip through the desert. ok i split it up even more because it's way to long (oh my i just realized i have to translate all this also.. fun times!)

The trip all began on Feb. 21^st. I said a very sad goodbye to all the kids, Cooper thought he was coming with me, I coulda probably stuffed him into my backpack haha.

I met up at the airport with Alexi for our 9pm flight to Cairns!! We landed around midnight and waited for Alexis friend JJ to come pick us up. We were a little scared because Alexi wasn’t 100% sure she had confirmed with him and he was a little late and we couldn’t contact him on his cell phone. Also all taxis had already left, happy days! Anyway he finally showed up and we drove to a gorgeous house where his girlfriend and friends were staying to pick up a key of one of his friends where we would be able to stay the night. We were finally in bed around 2ish.

Feb 22^nd:

We got up and picked up some bacon and eggs, lettuce, tomatoes from the store and made delicious massive breakfast buns. We then headed out to Daintree national park and Cape tribulation. We first stopped at a nice bar on the side of the road to have a morning beer and then made our way up past Port Douglas to Daintree. We had to take a ferry across in the river ( a 5 year old boy had been killed in that stream about a week ago by a crocodile.. and apparently JJ used to swim in the stream when he was young, I was finally starting to encounter the real dangers of Australia). Once in the park we stopped at a couple beaches and did a few rainforest walks despite the rain that was coming and going all day sometimes in downfalls and sometimes the bright sun would nicely come out. Alexi and I were very impressed by all the cool twisty vines, the massive leaves (Handsome Palms), the giant spiders etc. We finally made it up to Cape tribulation where we walked out to the beach to cool our feet off a bit but the water was literally almost boiling. I’ve never experience such hot water, ok maybe I have at thermal springs and such.

We then headed back to JJ`s house in the tablelands after stopping for some coffee at his aunts house. It was a long and winding road up to his place about 1:30 hours north of cairns. We stopped off at becs (his girlfriend) for a while and then headed to his place, it was dark by this time and we didn’t really get to see where he lived. We crashed pretty early because we were so exhausted despite the fact that we had picked up some beers on the way. (Catherine put your hand beside the spider so we can get the actual size of it )

JJ lives on a farm in a small town or area called Kairi near the Atherton Tablelands.

Feb 23^rd

We got up to enjoy a nice view of the tablelands and then relaxed (while getting pooed on by a lizard) most of the morning and tried to figure out a hostel to stay in in Cairns and also a day trip to the great barrier reef. Becs took us on a visit of her farm on the Lake Tinaroo.

Later JJ took us to see the curtain fig tree (http://www.tablelandsinfo.com/region_guide/index.php?RegionInfoID=65&RegionSubjectID=20) and also Eacham lake (a crater lake) which was gorgeous. We did a nice walk around the lake (got a little soaked from the rain) where we spotted some turtles, and JJ pointed out to us some nature things and insects oh and Alexi and I got eaten by some leeches woohoo. We then went for a nice swim in the lake.

Next we stopped in Peeramon historic village for some fries and a drink before heading to Becs for dinner, where we slept early cuz we had a very early morning.

Feb 24^th

Got up at 6am so we could make it to the Cairns harbour for our 8pm great barrier reef boat thing. We did our tour with Reef Quest. It took about 90 minutes to get to the snorkelling site. We got in the water for about 45 minutes and it was amazing.. so many cool fish and colourful reefs. The second site was even more amazing. We went here after lunch which I couldn’t eat because I felt pretty seasick. And good thing I didn’t eat because I was sick at the second site.. thought I would share all this information with you, I also concluded that this is a good way to attract fish J. I think we snorkelled at Norman and Saxon reefs.

From what I remember some of the fish we saw were: emperor angelfish, groupers fish, parrot fish (they were my favourite : http://www.beautifulfish.info/images/parrot/5.jpg), blue lined surgeonfish (also pretty cool : http://animal-world.com/encyclo/marine/tangs/images/Clown(Lined)TangWMTa_Ap8ST.jpg), clown fish aka nemo and much much more.

We got back to land around 4, found our hostel Gilligans and then went to get our free meal (free when you buy a drink). Our night included playing a quiz with our Swedish team mates and Chris.. we didn’t win but still had a fun time, looking for a karaoke bar in Cairns, buying tickets for 5 drinks for 10$ and dancing the night away. We had planned to go to bed early cuz we had an early start the next morning, but this did not happen.

Feb 25^th

We got 4 hours of sleep cuz we had to get up to catch our first Oz bus (with bus driver Squatter) to Magnetic island. We stopped at the Johnstone Alligator farm which we didn’t go into because we knew were already heading to the Australia zoo!! But we still got to hold a baby croc (16 months), a python and a lizard.

We stopped in Mission beach to pick and drop people off and also grab some lunch… mmm yummy pizza! From there it was about 3 hrs to Townsville where we caught the ferry to Magnetic Island. We stayed at the Xbase backpackers which was right on the water, quite gorgeous. We had a cabin with 8 beds and an opossum. We figured out the rest of our trip with help from Squatter. We also met a Vancouverite Ryan who had rented a moke for the next day and asked if we wanted to join. We ordered some nice massive salads from the bar and hung out with a group of 8 Germans (Dennis, Clause, Toby…) and Ryan.

feb 26:

Had a delicious morning breakfast of bacon and eggs and hash browns cuz we had not yet had the chance to make it to a grocery store. Ryan then went to pick up our lovely Marvin the Martian moke, we first drove around a bit left of the hostel, went around round abouts a few times, had views of Townsville. We then drove along to Acadia bay where we found and fed some rock wallabies and walked along the rocks. We then headed to Horseshoe bay where we relaxed on the beach, had a swim and stopped in a pub for some lunch. After lunch we had quite the adventure driving around random roads, dirt roads through the forest just east of Horseshoe bay. At one point emerged a massive sand dune that we climbed to find a nice long secluded beach where we relaxed for a long time. We then drove back, found a flooded bridge which we decided to drive back and forth on about 10 times yelling and causing water to splash up on each side of the moke! So much fun!

Next on the list a hike to ```the forts`` where we saw 2 koalas (one was active!!), some bats and some amazing views of the bays on magnetic island. On our way back we stopped at the grocery store to pick us up a few staples to live off of.. aka nutella and bread!

After that we treated Ryan to a couple pitchers of beer with a couple straws in them and then after showing off a few skating moves we headed down to the beach with Ryan to enjoy the gorgeous stars. Went to bed so sandy and there were only 4 left in our room J.

Feb 27^th

Slept in till 11!!! That`s a new one. Today was a nice relaxing and lazy day, made some phone calls home, swam in the pool, relaxed by the ocean, ate some of our yummy eggs, and then hit the sack early. We were the only 2 left in our cabin that night.. oh plus the possum who has been visiting Alexis bed since day 1. There’s a hole in the screen right above where her top bunk was.. he proceeded to jump down on it and circle her bed a few times before finding a way down to the ground. (lexy shot)

Feb 28^th

Headed back to Townville on the ferry earlier than we had to so I could find my bank and walk around Townville a little! not very exciting. Around 11 we hoped on the oz bus with our new driver Ute (yes named after the ute car). We had a nice drive through to Airlie beach where the highlights included a giant spider, a giant snake and a giant mango.. oh and the fact that the whole bus was filled with people from England except for Alexi and I! a little crazy. We got to Airlie to stay at Beaches hostel around 5 and started off the ritual of our fav. Dinner, pasta, tomato sauce and cheese yum yum!!! We then headed down to the bar because Ute had promised us free drinks and appetizers.. really more as a hoax to bring us to that bar instead of any other but whatever a free drink is a free drink J. Here I met a guy who when I first mentioned I was from Ottawa the first thing he mentioned was the Ottawa senators.. I was pretty much in total awe the entire conversation haha (he was from middle of nowhere Australian working in a mine).

March 1^st

Got to sleep in till around 8 :O! then the shuttle bus picked us up to go do some Ocean Rafting. It was quite amazing and a gorgeous day. We first sped along to the Whitehaven lookout.. I don`t think i`ve ever seen anything so breathtaking in my life. We then went back to the boat to go to the beach to relax and have some lovely lunch. After lunch we went to 2 places to snorkel, we had to wear some sexy stinger suits. There were giant fish and a lot more than Cairns but they were less colourful, and I didn’t manage to see my sea turtles L. This tour apparently does the same thing the sail boats do in 3 days. It was lovely. We then walked through the lagoon and back to our hostel for some more pasta and after an exhausting day in the sun we watched some SYTYCD and Rove and crashed.

March 2nd

Had to take the bus at 6:40am to Kroombit. Got up early so we could check out with everyone else and still make the bus… but once we got there our driver (Sneaky (sneaky sneaky!!) or Dane told us we had a full bus.. more like we were 5 including the driver on a like 30 person bus. How exciting for the long long drive we had ahead of us. Ok it turned out not to be so bad… we were traveling with 2 other girls (the princesses Lauren and Kate) and our driver was quite awesome. We stopped along the way for some breakie at subway yum yum. Other highlights were the sketchy looking road working man in the middle of nowhere, crossword puzzles, the movie troy and KFC in Rockhampton. We finally arrived at the Krombit cattle station for around 4pm (much earlier than any other group who had made it there due to the fact that we were only 4)

Once there we played some ass hole, got fed some niblets (random pieces of meat from goat) and I tried some goat testicles (sorta like liver but tastes even worse ew ew ew). We then got fed some delicious soup, roast and potatoes while being watched by a lovely neon green tree frog who lives in the table (jumped on Laurens Beer). Also I let a moth land on my finger and decided not to flick it off, apparently a bad idea in australia (duh) cuz one of the guides was like what’s that on ur finger, take it off you never know, and made me wash my hands intensely in soapy hot water, oops :S. I think that pretty much scared me of everything in Australia and made me be a little more careful. Probably a good thing.

Tonight included: some wine, dressing up, learning to crack a whip, riding a mechanical bull (I fell off after the 1^st buck the 1^st time, 2^nd time I stayed on for 8 bucks, much better). We played some I love my little red bull i`m going to kiss it on the… oh and the highlight of the day I broke my favourite gold flipflops

March 3^rd

Got up at 6 again, had a quick breakfast at the station before heading out to learn how to lasso a goat. I could do it on the practice post but wasn’t very good when it came to lassoing an actual got!! I only caught its horn. We then got to muster the goats on horse through 2 paddocks into a new one. We had to form a U shape around the goats and zigzag in an S behind them to slowly move them through. It was a little harder cuz we were only 7 due to the fact that our bus was so empty (2 of those ppl were the guides and well the 2 princesses didn’t do much). On the way back we went through a few deep streams on the horses and got back early so had time to play around in the pool. We then took off for rainbow beach. It was a long long long trip where we played tons of asshole, saw some deer, ate slushies and managed to get there early due to the fact that at each stop we didn’t have to gather 30 ppl. Once at the Hostel Fraser on Rainbows we showered and got a short briefing about fraser island before finishing up some ass hole business with Dane and then going to bed quite early but not early enough.

March 4^th

Alexi and I had to get up at 5am to go watch some safety movies about fraser island because we had missed that briefing the day before and also the food shopping and therefore meeting our group. We eventually found them, learnt how to load up our 4 wheel drive and then headed to the mechanics of the company we had rented from for a low down of our car. In total we were 3 cars leaving together with 11 people in each. We eventually took the ferry to Fraser Island but not before having something go wrong. One of the cars had something dripping from under it and they soon realised it had to do with the radiator, luckily one of the men that works for the company had came onto the island to show us the way at the beginning and so that we would miss the tides.. but still it took a long while for some other help to arrive so Dwayne (the man guiding us) decided to take the first two cars down so that we would make it around before the tides came in. Not long after we lost the other truck behind us.. apparently some hook in the gears had broken and fallen off and Dwayne had to repair it with a fish hook. Finally we were on our way, after getting stuck a few times we made it to Lake Wabby around 11. Here we did a 45 minute hike in the boiling heat until we came to a gorgeous lake with as the beach a massive dune that hit the gorgeous blue sky. We relaxed here for quite some time and the 3^rd group with the help of Dwayne and using the inland trail finally made it also. But by this time it was to late for Dwayne to go back so he just decided to stay with us and spend a nice night on the island.

Next we gave our water bottles to Dwayne because he was going back to Eurong to fill them up for us so he told us to head off and find a campsite. For some reason we kept driving and went much further than we think we were suppose to, but we set up camp anyway thinking that Dwayne would never find us and that we wouldn’t have water so we bbqd up some burgers and started on the goon. Eventually he did make it.

We were all so tired and expected to hit the sack at like 9.. but once the goon started flowing the games started(never have I ever), the star gazing and laying on the beach, dingo spotting I don’t think we made it to bed until like 2 in the morning.

Oh ya and the flies are horrible here but slow, they nicknamed me the killer due to my love of killing these beasts and shoving them in an empty beer container :p ( piles of flies)

Slapping of Dee’s elbow to kills a fly sent her goon flying.

March 5^th

We had an early start of delicious bacon and eggs and then started our early journey to first Eurong for some water and toilets (instead of holes in the ground, when u have to bring a buddy with you to protect you from the dingoes). We then took the long and bumpy road to Lake Mackenzie and finally got there prob. Around 11 again. It took a while but at least we had some good music due to ipod plugs and a fun group. Lake Mackenzie was gorgeous, only 5 minutes from the parking lot and the most breathtaking lake I’ve ever seen. Phil, Ricky and I decided to swim across it to another little beach where we saw a goanna and some lake-ish birds. We then had some lunch and this is when our back door decided to fail us. We could no longer open it and therefore no longer get our ladder out to get to the roof (it’s ok we found other ways of doing it) and it meant that every time we got stuck and had to unload we had to go out through the front. Good times! We then went to do a rainforest walk which our whole group failed at doing because we decided it was going to be to dark.. so instead we waited for Phils return from the bathrooms and then decided to head back to the campsite without the other groups. We prepared some delicious spaghetti, gooned it up, star gazed, played some red rover and then ended up going to bed at 3am… not to good since we had a 5:30am start.

March 6^th

Woke up so early and our group was not capable of getting ready as fast as all the others… probably cuz everyone else went to bed early except our group.. the party group plus maybe 4 ppl from other groups who wanted to party with us. Anyway the other groups left for Indian head without us, but we eventually caught up.. only 5 from our group made the small hike to the top with a gorgeous view down the whole coast. We then hopped back in and checked out the Maheno shipwreck, cooled off in the Eli creek (a very cold lazy river you can lay in and float down.. not many ppl did cuz it was shallow and cold but we braved it).

Final stretch along the beach and then on the inland trail (bumpiest road of my life cuz I was sitting right at the back.. I thought the doors were gonna fall off). They eventually switched me up with some ppl at the front.. one of the cars broke down about half way along the trail (20 minutes or so in) and we didn’t have cell phone reception so we drove to the ferry and called for some help. We finally got back to rainbow beach where we hung out with our group and then hit the sack pretty early.

My group: Alexi and I, Eilish, Sinead (twenty tree) and Deidre from Ireland, Phil from Germany (fix it Phil!!), Juan, Dom and Pete from England, Alice from England and Michelle from Florida.

picture overload

so here's a picture overload from my trip. a massive update is soon to come.
but for a slight preview: my trip was AWESOME!!!! and the pictures will tell you quite a bit in the mean time.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2229947&id=121500314&l=60953a4073 (Cairns to Magnetic Island)


http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2232307&id=121500314&l=83e87f568d (Magnetic Island to Rainbow Beach)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2232322&id=121500314&l=9b5ff36076 (Fraser Island)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2232336&id=121500314&l=75b014f287 (Rainbow Beach to Darwin)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2232453&id=121500314&l=e987c911f5 (Kakadu National Park, Litchifield national park and Katherine Gorge)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2232465&id=121500314&l=8460aace55 (Trip from Darwin to Alice Springs)

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2232482&id=121500314&l=666a2c44d4 (mostly 3 day Uluru and Kings Canyon)

that'll keep you busy for a while :P!