in Airlie Beach!

Hello again!

It’s been a few days since our last post and a lot of everything and nothing has happened. We will start with Cairns… We booked our wicked van – it isn’t the prettiest one out there, but we love it (you can see some pictures in the picture section). To describe it though, it could only be described as “the Mystery Machine” that’s actually somewhat of a lie, the “mystery Machine” is the actual name of the van…Flowers and waves painted down the sides would be a description. As gay as we look driving in it together, its still a hell of a lot of fun! We both took a turn driving it the first day to get used to driving on both the wrong side of the vehicle, and the road. It was the last 2 days in Cairns were very awesome – other than the fact that our white water rafting trip was cancelled We were all set to go (Matt was a little hungover, Chris was still drunk) when we found out that we were the only two that signed up for the trip. It was really frustrating; however, the extra sleep was much needed. Other than that, all we did was drink – which was a lot more fun than it probably sounds. We met a lot of new people, but we forgot to take pictures (oops). Monday we hung out with Nick and Amy again, as well as three other girls from England. Matt and Amy passed out at like 11:30, but the rest of us went to a bar where we all danced on tables and got really drunk. The following day was the day we picked up the van. After we did that, as well as some familiarization driving around town we made some spaghetti for dinner. In the kitchen Chris got chatting to another lady from England, who as it turns out was staying in Amy’s room as well! After we ate we all went down to the bar downstairs. Apparently our hostel had its own bar! It was “5 Finger Tuesday” which translates to 5 drinks for 10$! So we all went in and got a few rounds with everyone, after meeting a few randoms, as well as a slightly frightening drunk man, we all headed up to bed. The people we were with all needed to be up early for various activities in the morning so we went in at around 1:30am.

The next day we got up slowly and said bye to Nick, as he was heading off early for a day of ATVs and rafting. We gathered up our laundry from the week and went down the laundry mat before packing up all our stuff and hopping into “The Mystery Machine” We set off at around 11 due south from Cairns. We weren’t really sure exactly how to get to wherever it was we didn’t know we were going, so we just headed south. We heard as long as we stay on Highway 1 we would be okay. So that’s exactly what we did. Matt started out the trip as the pilot of our Wicked Van, He started out a little shaky with the turning and general driving mechanics with the reversed seating and lane arrangements. We discovered that we both had an issue staying in our lane! More precisely, hard time not drifting left out of our lane onto the curb! We coined this phenomenon that seemed to be affecting both of us “The Dangle” more importantly, we developed an elaborate system of hand signals to speak to each other when the music was too loud for words. A simple hand wiggle (or the “something’s not right” hand signal whilst diving) described the all to common “Dangle”. A hard two handed smack on the dashboard from the passenger indicated “there is a kangaroo on the road!” That was pretty much the only two things we had to watch out for!

Heading south we planned to stop at a place called Josephine falls. It was not far off the Highway, so we made the detour. We were so excited to see the Rainforest! We got there and locked up the Van, walked 700m(said the sign) down a paved trail through the most dense forest we had ever seen. Everywhere we looked there was something moving! It was awesome. The forest was dense, trees of all shapes and sorts, and the strangest looking bushes and plants. As we came to the end of the path we ended up at a spectacular set of falls. They were not the tallest, or largest falls around I am sure, but they looked remarkable. The falls ran over large slabs of exposed rock, which made for a smooth fall as it dumped over the rock. In places the falls looked more like inviting water slides, and in others water just cascaded over. At the bottom of the triad of falls was a pool in which swimming was permitted. We both took the opportunity to cool off, after 45 minutes or so in the heat, it was a welcome idea. We swam in the pool there for a good hour or so – though the water was cold, it was refreshing and much needed. We headed back to van and got back on the road. Aside from loud music and road, not much else happened on the trip until we pulled into a place called “Townsville” Now, we will only mention this place’s name one more time, before we forget that it ever existed. We pulled in at about 5 and started to look for something to do. We saw there was a ferry to a place called “Magnetic Island” We contemplated taking the ferry, and explored some of our options in the info center there. As fate would have it, we were walking back to the van to check the time, just in time to open the door and watch the last ferry for the day sail away. That decision was easy enough after that. We then decided to find some place to stay for the night. After much deliberating, we decided to try to drive out of town and find a place camp in our van, the Hostel seemed shady, and when we finally decided to stay there, it was closed to new people coming in…again, a decision made easy…We should probably note it 8:30 after we got some dinner. We were hesitant to drive at night, as the Roo’s are apparently very difficult to spot, and like our deer, run out onto the road and freeze in the lights. I am not sure how many of you have driven around the Australian countryside in pitch black before, but even with our highbeams, we could not pierce far into the dark. We soon decided our best bet was going to be a rest stop on the side of the highway, it had a bathroom at least – and that would be enough for the night. We had no idea how hard it would be to find one! We happened upon a sign that mentioned camping just off the highway, so we started down the dirt road off into the absolute black. Whilst turning a corner our lights lit up a few kangaroos just off the road on the other side of a fence, the further we came around the corner, the more roo’s there were! We both thought it was a kangaroo farm of some kind…it was only when we completely turned the corner and there were hundreds of Kangaroos on each side of the road that we determined they were just normal Kangaroo’s! We went from not seeing any Kangaroos the entire trip, to literally hundreds! We tried to take some pictures of them – but we didn’t want to fiddle around too much, we were very tired by this time. We rolled up to the campground/trailer park? Where we were flagged down by an elderly man with a torch (flashlight) we paid for a site and parked it. It was not the most amazing place ever, the bathrooms were disgusting, and there was no drinking water to be found…but the sky was filled with So many stars, it was unbelievable. We admired for a moment, then set up the back of the van for the night and slept.

We woke up at about 8:30 when the van turned into an oven, so we packed up and set off again. We pulled in to Airlie Beach, which is where we are now – at about 3pm and checked into a hostel here. Its nice and we are in a shared room of 6, though currently only 2 others + us. It’s a nice place so far, the beach is really nice, and we may head out to the islands around here tomorrow or the following day. We went swimming at the free pool near the beach (every big town seems to have a free pool they call the lagoon on the sea edge) it was really nice and cooled us off before we walked around town. We are just getting ready to head out on the town so we will end this now, we know it’s a long one – but it has been a few days! Check out the new pictures and video when you can! Cheers everyone!

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