I'm in Airlie beach now, base for the Whitsunday sailing trips and great barrier reef heaven.
But, again I have been rubbish at updating the blog, so I'll fill in on what I've been up to (I would upload photos, but this stupid computer won're let me, so you'll just have to wait for those...).
I spend christmas day morning on the beach, frying in sunshine and watching people wonder round in their swimming costumes with christmas hats on. Very odd. At lunchtime we went back to the hostel and fired up the barby on the balcony. Everyone had burgers and salad, and I had veggie kebabs, and we drank wine and generally relaxed and got merry. After dinner we had mince pies and christmas cake and listened to the carols that were showing on the TV ("I'm dreaming of a white christmas", "Let it snow" etc. - doesn't quiiite work in the middle of summer). In the evening we watched some dvds: Love Actually and Charlie and the Chocolate factory (the first and best version obviously) and ate lots more food.
Eating on the balcony...
The xmas spread
Let them eat cake, lots of cake (so bloomin' bright outside!)
Boxing day I had to get up at the frankly rude time of 5.30 am to be picked up by the fraser island tour I had booked. After being collected I was dropped off at the dock and loaded onto the Kingfisher Fraser Island ferry with the couples and families on the tour, guides and the grim-faced resort staff that had to take the trip over every day. At the other end the tourees were loaded onto a 4WD coach by our guide Rob ("g'day mate"). It seems day tours are the trip of choice for couples and families (the backpackers generally opting for the self-drive 3 day trips) so I was the only party of 1 - but it was ok, I got to sit in the front next to Rob and actually see the trenches and hills before we hit them and all got thrown around in our seats.
Fraser Island is a huge all-sand island, left behind by one of the huge continents before everything shifted around. It's a world heritage site and at about 125km long by 18 wide it is the largest sand island in the world. It's really beautiful, covered by rainforests, lakes and huge sandblows. We visited the rainbow sands and McKenzie lake, driving along the beach or bouncing across the tracks through the rainforests. McKenzie lake is beautiful, the w
ater is warm and the sand is so pure and perfect it actually polishes your jewellary! We rounded off the tour with walk through the rainforest around centre point. The trees grow out of sand and crstal rivers of overflowing groundwater run here and there. I was so absorbed in looking around that I didn't notice that a leech had decided to make friends with my foot until I got back to the coach. Luckily Tour Guide Rob was on hand to burn it off with a cigarette lighter, eeeew yuuuk. We got back at about 7pm and I cooked dinner, ate dinner, and collapsed into bed.
Driving along the beach
Rob the guide/driver - look, the sea!
The rainbow sands (not really rainbow, more various shades of orange/yellow)
The Maheno boat wreck
New sport, walking up Eli Creek and floating back down (funfunfun)
Lake McKenzie: perfect white sands (if it were not for the cloudy sky, the water would be azure blue too!)
The next day was the day of departure. The oz bus picked me up at 7.30 am and we headed off on the loooong drive to Airlie beach, so long, infact, that we were having an overnight stop at a cattle station in Kroombit to break the trip up. We got to Kroombit at 2pm and the fun commenced. First up: goat branding! I teamed up with Carolyn and Karen, Carolyn chasing, me picking up the goat and pinning it to the floor (tipping) and Karen branding. Unfortunately the goat was a particularly bouncy one (Carolyn claimed it sensed her fear) so took ages to catch, so we came last. Afterward we tried clay pidgeon shooting. I really sucked at that; not only did I fail to shoot a single one of the clay disks, I also nearly managed to hit the shed full of ammunition and gunpowder. Ooops - hehe. Then the potato gun came out (boys and their toys) and we shot a few limes at aforementioned shed. Oh, I forgot to add, the whole time this was going on it was raining (first time in months apparently - bloody typical if you ask me) so we were completely covered in mud and goat shit by the time we were loaded back on the jeep to be driven back to our cabins. After dinner (beef, and pasta for me - yaawn) we had a go on the mechanical bull. I came 2nd with a time of 11 seconds (the winner stayed on for 17) - it was hilarious to watch the boys expressions of agony as their crown jewels were crushed before they were flipped onto the mat. Then came the inevitable drinking games, that started with pass-the-parcel and rapidly degenerated from there.
The goat branding team avec war paint (i.e. mud)
After the clay pidgeon shooting
The mechanical bull: 1) be nice to me bull 2)this doesn't seem too bad
3)aaaaaarrrghhh!!!
Drinking games...
Happy drunk people...
The next day we had to leave early. Again I swore never to drink again, and spent most of the remaining 10 hr trip curled up on my seat, asleep. We stopped off on the way for a quick game of bowles (like you do) - not quite sure why, gues it was to break the interminable journey up.
Bowl, check, beer, check (yes - my vow never to drink again lasted a whole 4 hours)
We got to airlie beach about 7pm and promptly went out for dinner, which again degenarated into drinking games (after 1/2 an hour of a game involving tipping beer into a glass floating in a beer jug, and downing it when it sank, I groaned and left). I'm in the Airlie beach YHA over new years, and hope to go sailing on the 2nd of Jan. Carolyn and I are going to do the rounds today of the travel companies to try to find volunteer work on board one of the sailing boats (so we don't have to pay the extortionate prices). I can't wait to snorkel in the reef. Yay.
Yet more drinking games (highly intellectual stuff this)
