Rome and Amsterdam

Hello all,

Sorry we have not uploaded any pictures for a while (and we haven’t done our closing Aus statements yet) but for some reason we are having technical problems. The pictures just don’t want to load onto the page

I (Chris) just got back from Rome and Amsterdam! My first solo journey! And here is my attempt at conveying this trip to everyone!

As with any great trip, the first day was pure horror. I had a 6:30pm flight, with the intention of reaching Rome at 10:00pm. Of course, being that I flew with the cheapest airline I could find, there were some technical difficulties. Upon boarding the plane I was hit with the wonderful news that it was broken and we were unable to fly. There was a part that was not functioning and it needed to be replaced before we flew out! We were told “Luckily, we have the part in stock, and we should be able to install it and fly out of here within an hour.. there is someone bringing it to us now”- Reasuring isn’t it? I got to fly in a plane that was having a speed repair. Anyways, after about an hour and a half, we were underway – and I am pretty sure most of us were a little sqeamish. The plane got there with no further problems.. just that we didn’t land until 11:30 pm. I quickly rushed to a pay phone to call my hotel to make sure they would still be open; however, after spending 10 minutes trying to decipher everything in a foreign language, I was pleased to find out the number the hotel gave me had been disconnected and was not in service.. nice. A little pissed off, I started towards the train station (of course having no idea where my destination actually was). Along the way a man in a suit stopped me and asked if I wanted to taxi into Rome.. it would only cost me 60-70 Euro’s! I kind of laughed at him and said, “No thanks, I’ll train”.

The man was persistant though, he said “We will wait outside and find a few more people, maybe it will only cost you 35 Euro’s.. besides, the last train runs at 11:30.”

“Really? Well I’m going to go down and check anyways,”was my reply. 

With that I walked away and I got to the train station at about 11:45pm and saw a train pulling away. “Oh well, I’ll catch the next one I thought,” so I bought a ticket from the machine to Metropolitan Rome and sat down and waited. About 2 minutes later, all the ticket machines went red and a message came up saying that tickets were no longer for sale. I quickly realized that the trains had stopped running, I was stuck at the airport, and I had just wasted 6 Euro’s on a valueless ticket! The man was right!

In a bit of a frustrated state, I grabbed my bag and started off towards where all the taxis were with a grimace on my face. About halfway there, I ran into the same man in the suit. “25 Euro’s, I found 2 people for you to share the ride with.”

With a sigh of defeat I told him “I guess…”and I began following them.

Everything seemed fine as we headed towards all the taxi’s… until we walked right past them all and into the underground parking lot. As we approached a little hatchback car, my spider senses began to tingle. What kind of shady operation was this?

He opened the trunk and said “put your stuff in, lets go.” I sat back, hesitant.. well, scared for my life (yes I’ve seen all the movies where you get in a strange persons car in a foreign country and you get kidnapped and held ransom). “What? You want a better deal? 25 is as cheap as I can go.”

With a gulp, I looked over at the other passengers, a young couple. “Hmm..”I thought, “I could easily outrun them if somthing goes wrong! Besides, there are about 100 cameras that caught this guys face and us being with him, so I guess there is no real danger.” And with that, we all hopped in and were on our way. It was a safe journey, rather long, it took more than 45 minutes to get to my hotel. The shady driver couldn’t find my hotel and had to call several people for assistance. Luckily, the hotel was even open still! Apparently someone stays up all night watching the door! Can’t argue with that! Being quite tired, I paid for my room and headed up for bed.

The next morning, I woke up rather late.. around 10:00 – just late enough to miss my free breakfast. I got up and showered fast, and was off in no time. I was on my way to the coliseum! As I wandered down the street, I kept looking for somewhere to grab a quick bite to eat – I didn’t have time for a slow meal, there were things to do! Unfortunately, I didn’t find anything the whole walk! (Ok it was only like a 10 minute walk). When I arrived I was shocked.. the line was like 2 hours long – I needed somthing to eat! So I went over and bought some cheesy bread thing from a stand - 5 Euros ! Ouch. And then I bought a 600mL coke – 4 Euros! What a wonderful waste of money! As I munched on my gross bread thing, I went over the line. There were two of them.. one about twice the length of the other. I couldn’t figure out why one was so much longer … was the shorter one some kind of reserved line? Since there was no one around that could speak english to ask.. I kind of sat there confused. Eventually I just got frustrated and left .. I wasn’t in the mood to wait in an hour long line up only to find out I was in the wrong one; and, I wasn’t in the mood to wait in a 2 hour long line-up to find out that I could have just gone into the 1 hour line up. I went and explored all the ruins right behind the coliseum – it was free, and it was fantastic! There was so much to see, I was shocked at the buildings they were able to build with their technology. I sat there for so long trying to rebuild structures with my imagination! I spent about 2 hours looking around them (Sorry there are no pictures, I had no camera!) and then I headed back to the Coliseum. By this time, both lines were about the same length, and the line turned out to be only an hour! I didn’t mind the wait, and before I knew it I was inside. The coliseum was awsome too! (Especially since I just watched Gladiator like 2 weeks before). I spent another 2 hours wandering around there, then I headed back to my hotel. I bought some pizza for dinner and WOW!! It was delicious! I don’t know why their pizza is so much better than ours! It’s not fair.. why can’t we make pizza as good as Italy! mmm….

Anyways, after dinner, I headed out for the museum that was by the coliseum. It was suprisingly huge and I spent almost 3 hours there looking around. I was shocked by how old things were.. They had artifacts up to 4000 years old! My favourite were the giant statues! There were broken into many pieces, but you could tell by the fact that the heads were as big as a pickup truck that the full statues would have been amazing!

After looking around the museum, I headed back to my hotel and hit the hay for the night.

The next day (my last day in Rome! Only a 2 day trip!) I headed out for the Vatican Museum around 10:30. When I got there - trying to train around when no one will speak english is an absolute pain! I won’t even try to describe the hassle – I found the line to be huge.. probably about 1000 people. The line went around the entire museum, then back and fourth 3 times. I hopped in at the end and began my long wait. After about 45 minutes I reached the end of the back and fourth part, and into the home stretch! It was at this time that some 40ish year old man (we shall call him Stan to make the story easier) thought it would be fun to cut in line. I kind of saw him sneak in.. but I wasn’t really sure if he had always been there or not, being that there were so many people. Plus, he was trying to cut in behind me and I hadn’t been looking back a lot. When the guy right behind me (who had been there all 45 minutes – we’ll call him Fred) started moving forward faster to try to stay ahead of Stan, I realized that Stan had in fact cut in! Well.. that just set me off! If there is one thing I cannot stand (okok.. there are many things I can’t stand.. this is just one of them) it is someone who thinks they have the right to skip infront of 500 some odd people – I didn’t even care that he was behind me! I started ripping into him – “Why do you think you are more important than the 500 people behind you? Have you always been an asshole? Do you seriously think we would not notice? Do you think its fair that we have all waited 50 minutes and you havent?”and so on and so fourth.. probably a few comments I shouldn’t post for viewer discretion reasons. I also started talking to Fred about how this guy was a jerk, and we both egged him for about 5 minutes. The whole time we were taking a piece out of Stan, he didn’t say a single thing, until finally, he went off in some kind of language (I think he made it up) as if he didn’t speak english. I looked him straight in the eye, knowing full well he was full of crap, and kindly said to him. “Why are you pretending you don’t speak english?”I pointed at his shirt, “Your shirt says ‘Univercity of Boston: faculty of science’, Do I look stupid to you?” With that, an older lady behind Fred started laughing like crazy and Stans face turned beet red. Frustrated with him being such a jerk, I turned around and talked to Fred for a little while. After about 5 minutes, I looked back again, only to see that Stan had moved back in line about 10 places, but not actually gone to the back like he should of. Exasperated, I pulled out my final bit of ammo. “Look,”I told him, “When we reach the end of this line, I am going to tell the security guards that you cut in.” I pointed at all the people around me. “They are all going to back me up, and you are just going to be sent to the back of the line anyways, so you may as well just go now..” With that I turned back around and continuted my conversation with Fred. When we looked back a few minutes later, Stan was gone! Victory! Anways, it turned out Stans real name was Henrique.. he was from Brasil. He had spent 14 months travelling already, including 6 months in the USA raising money for a 6 month trip to Africa to teach poor children. We ended up hanging out at the Vatican for the whole time.

 The Vatican was AMAZING! In fact.. it was ridiculous. There was so much stuff that you just didn’t appreciate it. When there are 100 marble statues lined up next to each other.. all 2000 years old and carved in a spectacular manner.. they just don’t seem special. You think.. “hey, there are like 100 of those, they aren’t that uncommon” – which is of course completely untrue, it just seems at the time that they are nothing really to behold. In the end I must have spent 4 hours in the museum. My favourite part was the Egyptian exhibit (I should have gone to Egypt!) where I saw a 4000 year old mummy and a clay doll from 5600 BC!! I was so shocked by how old everything was! I felt so ignorant about my sense of ancient before I had left Canada.

After I left the museum, Henrique and I parted ways and I started off for the airport. I got there with plently of time to spare and I was soon on my way back to England. Upon arrival I got the usual 5 minute customs probing on why I was in England, than I was on my way to find a nice bench to sleep on. I arrived in England at about 1am and my flight out was at 6am.. not too fun! Needless to say, I was very tired when I got to Amsterdam!

 Anyways.. Its late and I have go to London tomorrow. Sorry I wrote so much and that I didnt even finish describing my trip! I will do it all when I get back next week! Farewell everyone, and I will be sure to pester Matt to work on getting the photo’s up and doing his farewell Aus post.

 Cheers

Sydney!

Hi everyone!

 Sorry we have been so slow making posts recently.. it has been a very rough past week! We have both been quite sick with a cold/flu like bug and we are in England now – so everything is COLD! This will be the last post about Australia; however, there will be many more to come on our adventures in England.

 We arrived in Sydney by bus.. a 14 hour overnight marathon. This is where we began to get really sick. It started off well, we each had our own two seats that were quite comfy. We both enjoyed a few hours of driving before we slowly dozed off into a nice comfortable sleep. About an hour later is where the fun began! We both woke up FREEZing cold. For some reason the AC was set to make the bus like 10 degrees?! Luckily we had some sweatshits (sweatshiRts; thank you sean ) and we put them on and huddled up and were able to fall back asleep. Half an hour later after this.. we both woke up boiling hot! Sweating out of every pore in our bodies! The bus must have been 30 degrees and we were wearing long pants and sweatshirts! We looked at each other, completely confused, and quickly shed our sweatshirts and hiked up our pant legs in a big to be comfortable. As we tried to doze off into an uncomfortable sleep again.. the crazy bus driver struck again! He put the AC on again and it quickly became super cold again (and of course, we were drenched in sweat). Anyways… this fiasco continued for about 5 hours, until we got a new bus driver about halfway to Sydney. After enduring this amazing temperature variance for so long, and already having the sniffles, we were quickly becoming very sick. At the 3am break, we tried to down some hot tea and we bought the gas station out of cough drops as we attempted to stave off our fevers. This seemed to work ok, but we were still worse for wear.

 We arrived in Sydney at 11:30am, with about 3 hours sleep each. We grabbed our bags and went to the information center to inquire about hostels nearby. After that was a complete flop, we decided just to wander around and try to find one. After walking for about 15 mins, we ran into a nice looking one called “Wake Up”. We went there for the night, even though it was quite expensive at 34 dollars a day. Shortly after checking in the fun began again! Matt realized he didn’t have his camera! He had left it on the bus. With that, he ran off towards the bus station (this was about 2 hours after our bus ride). He went to the Greyhound desk and started filling out their millions of forms for lost baggage – neither of us had a lot of hope we were going to get the camera back. Soon he was talking to an agent who was busy phoning around trying to see if the camera had been found. Luckily for us, the bus driver had found the camera on the sidewalk and picked it up! (thank you Greyhound and the bus driver!! Free plug on our super popular blog!) With that we breathed sighs of relief, knowing the camera would be on its way back to us soon! We left the station and decided to wander around downtown Sydney. We went down to Darling Harbour to explore the very touristy part of the city. It was amazing! They had so many things going on.. One being a giant auto show which included a 4×4 off road track that the trucks/suvs were demoing their vehicles on. We walked around the museum (outside of course, we were too cheap to go in) where we saw an old Destroyer, a Tallship and a Submarine! We also went through the Sydney Chinatown where we went to a little market (it was just like Richmond!) We were thinking of buying made boomerangs, digerydoos and other authentic Australian souveneirs – all of which were made in China! (of course) It was a really fun day (very touristy of course!), and we were very tired by the end of it.

We wandered back to our hostel and had a very quiet evening.. we were both in bed by 9pm (after we watched Back to The Future 2!) being that we had barely slept. It was Octoberfest at the bar (very sad that we were too tired to go, we know) and our roomates stumbled in drunk much later, but we managed to sleep through most of their shinanigans.

 In the morning we decided to switch hostels and try to find somthing cheaper. We bought a bus tour which you can hop on and hop off, and made our way to Kings Cross – the more exciting part of town (in its special way). We found a hostel and dropped our bags off and then continued our tour of the city. We went to the Sydney Opera house (yes there are pictures of all this.. not like the day before when we didn’t have a camera) which was amazing! The whole roof is made out of tile! It took over 10 years to build. We also wandered through the Sydney gardens.. which reminded us very much of Stanely Park. The park is located right by the ocean in a cove… which has a sea-wall all the way around. There were ducks everything, and instead of Canada Geese, they have these funny looking annoying birds. And instead of suckers swimming in their disgusting brown murkey pools.. they have eels. It was quite the experience! We also went to Bondi beach! It was almost a perfect horseshoe, surrounded by rocks! It was one of the nicest beaches we have ever seen (but it was incredibly packed with people). The full list off all the things we saw is here, along with a map:

Sydney Opera House

Sydney Harbor Bridge

Bondi Beach

Darling Harbour

Circular Quay

Sydney Aquarium

Town Hall

The Rocks

With that, we had another quiet night. We met our roomates, a German girl and a Italian guy, and we went to bed.

The next day, we had it in our minds to do some walking! This was our last full day in Australia, and we were going to make the most of it! We walked to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and all the way across it! It was a fantastic huge bridge! Unfortunately the whole thing was quite cordoned off, and it was hard to get good pictures. We then headed back to our hostel.. Chris went ahead to look for food while Matt stayed and took some pictures of the sunset.

As it was our last night, we decided we were going to party! We got a box of goon and started downing it, with the full intentions of hitting the town and having a great time. Instead, we ended up having way too much fun with just our roomates, and we got really drunk and just hung out with them all night. You may be able to tell from some of the pictures that we were a little inebriated. We will miss you goon! Hopefully one day Canada brings in the 10 dollar boxed wines too.

In the morning we caught a shuttle the airport. We were kind of sad.. leaving Australia after 6 weeks in the great country, but we were both excited to see England! It was a long trip.. about 45 hours of flying/sitting in airport terminals (with very limited sleep) and this ended up making us incredibly sick. On the bright side, we had a great time on British Airways, where they had mini TV’s for each seat, where you could choose which movies you wanted to see or even listen to brand new albums or watch TV series! Anyways, we arrived in England at around 11 am on Tuesday where Madeleine and her mom picked us up. With that we will end this blog.. with more to come of course. Matt and Chris will each be doing an individual post on the Australia trip.. giving their thoughts and feelings towards it. We will also do a post on what we have done in England so far.

Also, as a final note. Chris will be leaving Matt next week.. on the 31st to go travel around Europe. He has flights booked to Rome, Amsterdam, Paris, and Sweden.

Take care everyone! Sorry for not making many posts lately, and thank you for reading our blog! The pictures will be up soon!

Chris and Matt

Byron Bay

Hey Everyone!

Its been a few days since our last post, and since we are now in Sydney we figure it would be a good time to fill you all in on what’s been going on between Surfers Paradise (where we left you guys) and Sydney!

We got the Greyhound from Surfers Paradise to Byron Bay which turned out to be somewhere around a 2.5 hour journey.  It wasn’t so bad – we got a chance to have a short nap and get rested for Byron.  We only heard good things about it from fellow travellers, so we were excited to get there and see what it was all about!  As our bus neared the small town, dark ominous clouds started to roll overhead.  At first it seemed as if we may yet avoid any rain but as fate would have it that would not be the case, not at all!  Literally as soon as the bus doors opened at the stop in Byron Bay the clouds seemed to just dump as much water as possible!  Torrential rain was falling as we were pilling off the bus! We grabbed our bags as quickly as we could and ran to the bus shelter to get out of it! Already waiting under the shelter for us were reps for the nearby hostels, all trying to get us and other travellers to come to their hostel.  We ended up speaking with a 22 year old guy from Tsawassen that was a rep for a hostel called “holiday village” at 28 bucks a night for a 2 room 6 person apartment with its own kitchen, bathroom, living room, free internet, pizza, surf boards, body boards, bicycles it seemed like a great deal to us so we jumped at it.  At the end of our time in Byron we were very happy with our choice, the place was clean, the people were great and it was really great having just us 2 with 1 other in our apartment! (+1 friend of our roommate was over all the time)

Our first night in Byron we went out and got our free pizza for dinner from a place just down the road.  We brought it back to ours and had a night in, we spoke to our roommate for a while, then her friend came over and we played cards for hours! We played Uno (which we later determined needed to be a drinking game for the next day) and some other various card games.  The next day we headed down the beach to check it out.  As we were sitting we spotted the ominous clouds once again rolling in overhead from the west, but this time they were MUCH darker, and thicker!  We looked at each other and we both knew we were going to sit there and wait out the storm! We figured it would be good fun to take our shirts off and just sit there on the rocks and enjoy the tropical storm! After all…how bad could it be? Its Australia!  Just before the clouds were above us Matt looked down the beach, before where we could see miles and miles, he noticed it was all gone, swallowed by the haze under the clouds.  After seeing the blue sky and sun blotted out completely by black clouds and lighting starting to flash all around us we started to question our decision to stay on the beach! After all, the hundreds of others that were on the beach earlier had all ran, but we sat strong!  Matt looked around and saw a small cave/shelter under some rocks on the beach, it wasn’t much, but we thought we could both fit inside it.  Just as we reached the small cave the rain started coming, at first just a few small drops, getting progressively larger.  We both got as far into the cave as we could, which as it turns out wasn’t far at all, if we tucked our knees to our chest we were barley in.  As the rain got worse the beach started to dissapear, where we were just sitting moments ago we could no longer see, the rain was so thick, so heavy it was incredible!  Our rock shelter was a far cry from waterproof (being rocks) and soon the rain started to find its way between the cracks and rocks pouring onto us….even though we were getting soaked under the shelter, we both knew we were far better off in the cave.  As the rain continued we both just sat and looked out – thankful we found the shelter! As lighting continued to flash all around us, and thunder boomed we sat and enjoyed natures impressive display.  We had never been in storms like this before!  Little did we know how lucky we were to have moved to shelter…5-10 minutes into the full swing of the storm it started…hail! At first, just small shards,   eventually progressing to hail the size of GOLF BALLS!  As first it was neat to see, hail impacting the beach and looking as if a small mortar round had hit the sand.  Or when it struck the ocean and looked like someone had thrown a rock.  It all because just how serious it was when they started to hit where we, we could hear them striking the rocks above us, exploding on impact.  Still feeling rather safe, until they started exploding just infront of the entrance to our cave! Sharps sprayed all over us, stinging every piece of flesh they hit!  We curled up into the best balls we could form and cover ourselves.  Still safe from direct hits we were alright.  Then the storm seemed to find us…it is as if it finally noticed us hiding in the rocks and the wind completely changed, instead of blowing from the shore to the ocean, it reversed and started blowing directly at us in our cave (which the entrance faced the ocean)  Blowing with it all the rain, and worst of all the hail! It started to hit our legs, full on…if any of you have played paintball before…it felt as if each piece of hail was a paintball hitting our legs!!! We did all we could to shield ourselves, we attempted to stack up rocks to build a sort of wall, we tried to get in further to the cave, but it was all useless.  As we shielded our eyes to protect them from serious damage from spraying ice we started to consider perhaps running to nearby buildings at first opportunity.  Both of us happy with our determination and staying power against the storm we felt it would be best to move to the buildings.  Looking up out to the beach and not seeing it at all through thick rain and hail, and ice exploding all around us, we decided to wait for the first sign of the hail letting up.  The rain we could walk through – but a golf ball sized hail ball in the head would hurt.  We found a hole in the storm and made a break for it, scrambling over the rocks we got off the beach and walked back to our hostel for a hot shower and got changed.  That night we went out to the local movies with our roommate and friend and saw Superbad!  After the film we played our drinking games with Uno and cards with our roommate and her friend.  It was one heck of a day all in all!  We both know now not to underestimate Australia’s storm potential!

Next night we went out to a club/bar called Cheeky Monkey’s for a night out, just some drinks and dancing, it was fun!  The fourth night we went out to Woolworths and bought a bunch of stuff to make sushi!  The night previously we saw just how expensive sushi was in the store and decided it would be fun to make ourselves.  So the 4 of us got to it that night!  We made an epic amount! We had California Rolls, chicken teriyaki rolls, tuna rolls, and vegetable rolls! Check out the pictures to see how amazing they were!  We all took turns and helped out making them – so it was a lot of fun.  We all ate as much as we possibly could but alas were defeated but the giant plates of sushi!  The next morning we had to check out, luckly our friend was still staying in the same room we were in so we were able to take our time somewhat.  We hung around all day, went to the beach – and later had dinner that night at Cheeky’s.  We said bye to our roommate and friend at the bus and got on at 10:05pm for the long trip to Sydney! It was going to take 13 hours!

We got on and found our seats, and tried to get comfortable.  We both had colds developing which really was not nice…to make matters worse as the trip began the bus driver would make the bus extremely cold, then to counter the cold would turn on the heat and make it really hot, then again to correct himself put the A/C back on full which made it cold again, and it went on for 4 hours!  Until a new driver took over and took us the rest of the way to Sydney.  As the night wore on we tried to get sleep as best we could.  It is hard to get comfortable in those busses!  Finally at around noon the next day we rolled into Sydney! Tired and exhausted we found the closest hostel we could find and checked in and dumped our gear!

That’s it for now! We will post about Sydney soon!

Surfers Paradise!

Hello again,

Since Fraser Island we have bussed our way to Brisbane, then off to Surfers Paradise… apparently some of the best surfing on the east coast of Australia! Luckily for us, our limited funds have prevented us from making fools of ourself out on the waves.

Before we enter the world of our drunken days in Surfers, we would first like to reflect on our short stay in Brisbane. We came back and spent two nights there, where we got to see our friends again (it was lots of fun) and we also went to the world famous Australia Zoo – (the home of Steve Irwin!). We took tons of photo’s and even made another video – we will post it shortly for everyone to see. There were tons of animals – including baby Tigers, which we are pretty sure anyone who sees our blog photo’s will fall in love with. We got to hop around with some kangaroos again.. pet some koala’s and camels.. watch some cool shows where the animal trainers have the animals do some pretty amazing things (They taught a parrot to roll over like a dog).. and just have an overall great time! We would talk more about it, but the pictures will tell the story when we poist them.

After leaving Brisbane, we started our 15 hour trek towards Sydney on the Greyhound bus. Luckily our first stop, Surfers Paradise, was only an hours drive. We showed up mid-day and went to the tourist information centre to find a place to stay. After choosing between 7 hostels, we wound up at “Surfers Paradise Backpackers”, which of course turned out to be a pretty shady place. They had dingy rooms with useless mattresses and on top of that – no AC! Despite all this, we stayed here for 5 nights.. the afternoons lazing on the beach, and the evenings drinking way too much goon (yes, back into the $10 box wine for us). Apparently this whole town is a complete party city.. and the club reps spent every day hounding us to go out and spend more money. It was “illegal” for us to bring our own alcohol onto the premesis; however, we of course circumvented the system and saved a lot of money. We spent several nights playing more drinking games with our roomates.. and we may just have another drinking video coming! Every night was pretty much the same.. we went out and got drunk, slept in late, and went to the beach.. so we will save you those repetitive stories. Luckily for us.. we always manage to find trouble, so we do have one story for everyone.

We were at the beach around 2 in the afternoon and we decided it was time to take a swim. Unfortunately for us, someone else decided it was time to walk down the beach stealing peoples gear. We were heading out into the ocean.. Chris was about 10 feet in, Matt about 20, when Chris turned and saw the person grabbing Matt’s stuff. He quickly yelled to Matt and took off down the beach after the would be theif. Luckily for Matt and Chris the theif wasn’t exactly an athletic fellow, and Chris quickly caught him. After Chris uttered a threat (that we won’t repeat in the blog) the man (who had fallen over) dropped everything in his hands and ran and hid behind a bush. By this time, Matt had caught up and was pondering running after the man again (as it was all Matt’s stuff the guy had stolen.. he was pretty mad). As it appeared the theif had dropped everything he had taken.. as well as a lot of stuff he had stolen from other people, Matt decided it wasn’t worth it chasing him anymore. This turned out to be a mistake.. as the man had somehow managed to hold onto Matt’s sunglasses (we think now that he must have been wearing them). We went and dropped off the other stolen gear with the lifeguard and spent the next hour looking for the theif to get Matt’s sunglasses back – which turned out to be fruitless. It was a very upsetting experience, as anyone who knows Matt knows those were his favourite sunglasses (as well as quite expensive).

We are now waiting as the bus station and the greyhound show be arriving in the next few minutes. We will upload the pictures and some movies soon for everyone to see! We will also make a few more posts from Byron Bay.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Chris and Matt

Fraser Island

Well, it has been a few days since we posted last.  We are taking some down time here in Hervey Bay now that our fraser island excursion is over, so we thought we would blog and try to get our photos online for you all.

We arrived here in Hervey Bay via Greyhound from Brisbane on Tuesday afternoon.  Upon arriving at the bus station we ran into a little confusion from the hostel shuttle driver, as they had no record of the fact we were supposed to be arriving – though they did have us booked on their Fraser Island trip a few days later.  After making a few phone calls we got it all figured out and we shortly made our way to our hostel.  We stayed at a place called “Next Backpackers” it’s a very nice hostel, clean and comfortable.  We pretty much just went to bed Tuesday evening, as we were both exhausted from all the time we were in Brisbane.

We got up the next morning and made our way down to the beach for some more R&R and sun time.  After baking for just over an hour we headed back to the hostel for our trip briefing.  It was essentially a rundown on what we should expect on the island, and what we would be doing.  We ran over a brief itinerary and some basic safety concerns.  It seemed for nearly 40 minutes they went on about dingoes, about how to deal with them, and what to expect from them.  There was a video on them, a brochure, and the guide talking all about Dingoes.  From all this hype we were expecting marauding packs of Dingoes roaming around prowling for any person left alone to pick off for an easy meal!  We also went over some details about the island and what to see.  For those of you that do not know already, Fraser Island in the worlds largest sand island.  It is said there is more sand on/making up the island than there is in the entire Sahara!  Only 4×4 vehicles are allowed on the island – as it is EXTREMELY rugged terrain, especially on the inland trails.  That night after meeting everyone and a quick introduction we elected that a guy named Brian, as well as Matt were to do the shopping for the group.  We got a lift to Woolworths and were left for an hour whilst we picked up what we previously agreed we would need.  After shopping we came back to the hostel and relaxed the rest of the evening.  The next morning at 8am our group of 9 got together and were led out to the vehicle we would be driving for the next 3 days.  It was a 2002 Toyota Land Cruiser.  It held 11 people so our 9 fit quite comfortably.  We were given a briefing about the vehicle, for those that knew nothing about 4×4 vehicles and how they operate.  We learned about H4 and L4 and how and when to use them.  Pretty basic stuff.  We all loaded up the truck and piled in.  After a short drive we arrived at the barge terminal where the ferry would take us to the island.  It was only a 30-minute ferry ride, and then we were off.  The 9 of us, mostly complete strangers were set loose on Fraser Island in control of a 3.3 tonne 4×4.  That feeling of independence and freedom was undeniable.  Chris took the first turn driving on the island.  He backed us off the barge and we were off.  This was our first true experience taking a 4×4 into a real situation where a normal 2 wheel drive car would simply not make it!  Ankle deep sand was no problem for the Land Cruiser! Chris would note how the truck wanted to follow the tracks of the car ahead, the steering was very strange, the feeling that even if you turned the wheel…its does not necessarily mean the vehicle will turn, the tires may simply turn but continue to go straight!  What started out as a 2 lane wide sand road quickly became a 1 way track flanked by trees and all sorts encroaching onto the trail.  We tried to sit here and describe the way it felt to be driving on a sand island…but there is simply no way to convey it with words.  The only real thing we can tell you is that it is like nothing we have ever experienced before, it was remarkable.  Chris drove us all the way to a lake called “Lake McKenzie”  It is one of the largest on the island,  The water in this lake is absolutely clear.  As clear, if not clearer than tap water in your own home, It was something to behold!  As it turns out – all the water on Fraser is like this. If you can imagine – a giant sand island works much like a gigantic Brita filter, filtering out any/all imperfections in the water as it makes its way through the sand.  Eventually it ends up in crystal clear lakes, and flawless creeks.

After spending about an hour at the lake swimming and enjoying it all, we set off again.  Matt drove this time.  Again, the indescribable experience of driving in this unique environment overwhelmed us.  Eventually along the trail we came upon 3-4 trucks pulled over on the side of the trail. After pulling in behind the last one, all 9 of us piled out and went to see what the delay was.  Of course it was a bogged vehicle, essentially, stuck in the sand.  After a few tries going back and forth,  as well as flooring the accelerator we noticed the back tires were just spinning, whilst the fronts did nothing…Understanding how 4 wheel drive works, it was not possible for this to be happening if the vehicle was indeed in 4 wheel drive.  Sure enough it wasn’t, and he switched into it.  After some guiding from a helpful roadside assistance guy, the guy reversed out of the deep sand and got a decent run at it.  While keeping it floored in second he cruised over the soft sand.  One by one the trucks in front of us followed suit and made their way through uneventfully.  We too had no issues getting by.  10 minutes up the road we found ourselves stopped again, this time it seemed much more substantial.  There were significantly more trucks waiting! As we got out to look the trucks lined up behind us as well!  Turns out this time it was a small Rav4 trying to take on a soft sand hill.  Once he got stuck a Land Cruiser attempted to pull him up the hill.  As helpful as it seemed, the Land Cruiser got bogged as well.  After 20 or so minutes those 2 vehicles were finally clear the hill.  Turns out there was 2 busses behind them that were waiting to come up the hill!  As fate would have it, the bus got stuck as well!  By now we had been waiting nearly an hour, and as everyone but Matt (as he was driving) was sucking back a beer we decided to turn around and try a different trial we had heard a few other people talking about.  Done waiting in line we turned around and made out way back up the road following 2 other vehicles.  We found the turn-off and continued on down this new trail.  We came upon a monumentally uneven surface…the left side of the trail was 2-3 feet higher than the right side! There was no way around, and no going back…we had to go over it…just looking at it though – you could tell it was bad news from the beginning.  As Matt slowly moved the truck forward the truck started to get nervous, people gripping onto anything they could grab.  As we drive over the surface the truck began to lurch to the right, then entire vehicle began to lean towards the driver side, the further we moved the worse it got!  We could feel the vehicle started to tip, it would have only taken but 1 bump to throw us onto our side, but as Matt negotiated the tires to balance the truck we slowly began to settle and center again.  Matt will tell you, that he has NEVER felt so sure a vehicle was going to tip over than that.  Seriously, if one more person was sitting on the right side of the truck we would have gone over, it was that close.  All tense and pumped on adrenaline we made our way onto the beach.  The island has a system of inland trails connecting a few of the lake, and some lodges dotted around the island.  The major “road” is the beach on the east coast of the island.  When the tide is out, the beach stretches some 100 feet out to the ocean.  Essentially transforming the beach into a giant highway.  Matt handed over the wheel to another group member and we continued along the beach north.  Driving on the beach felt like something out of a movie, completely surreal.  It was strange at first, but made sense as you could go 80km/h on the beach, which allows people to travel far up the island which would simply not be possible on inland trails.  It can be tricky however; as when the tide is in, there is little more than 10 feet of beach in some spots, maybe less!  We made our way up the beach to our campsite for the next two nights.  It was an aboriginal campground.  What made this neat is that since it is a private campground the rangers could not enforce most laws on the island, meaning, as campfires were banned on Fraser Island, we were allowed them in the aboriginal campground!  After all, as was mentioned by a few people on the trip “what is camping without a campfire!”  We got to the campsite without too much difficulty.  We unloaded the truck into our groups Rotunda (giant wood shelter)  inside we had camping beds and mattresses, it was a great setup!  We all got settled and cooked up some dinner.  Pork chops for the carnivores, and veggie dogs for the veggies.  A festive night of drinking around the campfire followed dinner, and ended around midnight when most people started heading off to bed.

The following morning we set off up the beach towards a place called “Indian head”   We arrived and walked up to the top, taking time to perch on some rocks at the top and take in the amazing view.  From there we saw a few whales, as well as what we believed to be turtles!  After a group photo we all headed back down to the truck to load up on water and sunscreen.  We then headed off for what we thought would be a short walk up the beach to another place called “the champagne pools”  It was meant to be a tidal pool, when the water was right to ocean would crash over the rocks around the edges making a spectacular display, also a nice spot for swimming apparently.  Our short walk soon turned into an hour walk down the incredibly hot beach.  Matt walked in the surf to keep his feet cool.  After an exhausting walk we all arrived at the pools.  Our jaws dropped as we gazed upon…little more than a pond!  Turns out we arrived too late and most of the tidal water had left the pools, there was hardly anything there at all! It was a real disappointment.  Chris made best of the situation and jumped into the small body of water just to say he swam in the Champagne Pools! 10 minutes later we all agreed we had seen enough and started on our walk back to the truck.

Heading back south down the beach we went back to our camp for the night.  Every second night at the camp the aboriginals do a few songs and dances for everyone.  So at about 9:30 they came to get us from our site and brought us to the main fire in the camp.  All covered in paint themselves; they were painting all the males faces with a stripe across our faces just under our eyes, and the females with dots across.   After the entire crowd was painted they began telling a few stories, as well as dancing and singing.  It was really neat to see, and to hear how they live – even still today.  Though as a friend mentioned, “its best to take with a pinch of salt” as a few things they said didn’t add up…like they live without electricity, a tv, or radio – yet they knew when their favourite rugby team was playing next…regardless, it was really neat to experience.

The next morning we packed up our Rotunda and loaded up the truck for the last time.  We headed south down the beach to a place called “lake Wabby”  Just south of our camp down the beach the tide was especially high, as we were going along we came to a massive washout (which is where inland creeks and streams meet the beach and wash bits out as they make their way to the ocean.  This one was called the “Eli Creek washout”  because of the time we got there it was VERY deep.  as we pulled up to the washout we could see it was going to be a challenge.  As confident as we were in our Land Cruiser, and in Chris driving, we were still weary.  Matt jumped out the back of the truck and waded across the washout to gauge the depth.  From the looks of things it was possible to do, just unnerving!  A few people got out of the truck, those who did not want to be in it encase something went horribly wrong, once they were out we started to inch forward.  as we entered the washout and proceeded across the water completely submerged the tires, water was splashing in the back through the closed rear doors, it was exhilarating! As we slowly climbed out of the washout on the other side cheers were ringing throughout the truck, excited we made it through!  After that we kept on south until we finally arrived at Lake Wabby.  the Lake is very interesting… because there is a massive sand blow moving towards the lake, it is shrinking constantly.  Soon then sand will completely consume the lake and it will be gone.  Its very interesting to see, a giant mass of sand consuming the forest and lake as it moves along.  The lake was great, We both took the opportunity to practice our high speed running down steep sand into lakes, as well as our flips and long jump!  After a dip we set off again to the Barge landing.  After waiting 45 minutes, and our ferry now 15 minutes late we began to worry.  Ferries can only access the island as long as the tide is not to low – as it happened that day, it was an extreme low tide, which meant we had to be off the island by 2:15 of the water would simply be to low.  A barge finally arrives at 2:45 and we started loading cars on.  Upon looking at the water level in front of us, it was apparent it was dangerously low!  Once we were loaded the ferry tried to pull out of the inlet, only to slide to a halt on the sea floor.  The late arrival meant the tide had gone out too far for the ferry to pull out regularly! So the barge began moving side to side almost – dredging the sea floor as it went, making its own path as it went…very slowly we began to head seaward, and before long were on our way back to the mainland.  Later we found out the ferry we were meant to be on had caught fire! They had to evacuate everyone on board by jumping off, and the vehicles were taking as close to shore as possible and driven off!  That is why our ferry was so late, as it was a replacement from further south of the island.  We all thanked our lucky stars when we heard what had happened to the ferry we had all been meant to be on!

We all arrived back at the hostel and checked into a room together.  It was great as all of us were put in the same room.  It was nice to be able to spend one last night with all of our new friends.  A few of us got together and went out for a meal, and had a few drinks on the beach.  It was a great night, and a great way to wrap up the trip.  All in all we have not really said much about the people on our trip, but if you look through the photos you will see.  Just as a personal test (to see if we recall everyone’s name) the people on our trip were : Matt, Chris, Colin, Bryan, Anne, Anna, Jeni, Heather, Vivian.  You will see them all in the photos.  Everyone was really wonderful!  It was remarkable how well everyone got along and how quickly we all became comfortable with each other.  One of our biggest fears when travelling and doing things like this is getting in a group we don’t get along with, that would just ruin the trip…but we must say, this group was absolutely wonderful.  So in case anyone from our trip is reading this, Thanks.

Anyways, we better bring this novel to an end.  Its late and we are catching a 9:25 bus back to Brisbane in the morning.  Check out the photos when you can.  We will be trying to get them from everyone else on the trip as well so we should have lots!  We hope everyone is well.

Heading back up the road

We are just waking up this morning and getting all of our gear packed back into our bags. This afternoon we are due to get on a greyhound heading due north back up to Hervey Bay. Initially we drove past Hervey Bay on the way south, as we needed to get to Brisbane as soon as we could. For those of you who dont know; Hervey Bay is one of the places where you can get the ferry over to Faser Island. Whats on Fraser Island you may ask? well its the largest sand island in the world! this means that the water is amazingly clear all over, as the island acts like a giant filter. Also only 4×4 vehicles are allowed on the island as the only roads are tracks in the sand, apparently alot of driving is spent on the beach – so a 4×4 sounds like a good idea!

We are booked to head onto Fraser Island thursday for a few days on a semi-self guided tour of a sort. We beleive we get a vehicle with 8 other people and take turns driving around. We will get into Hervey Bay tonight around 5:15pm, tomorrow we have an orientation, and some info on driving on the island (as it is all sand!) and then Thursday we ship off! We are very excited to get on the island. Matt is a little hesitant as to what on earth we will get up to in Hevery Bay, but we are sure there will be something to do.

These last couple of days we have been hanging out in Brisbane with some friends we knew from online as we mentioned before. We have been staying at our friend, Simon’s house (Soulfer). His whole family has been extremely welcoming to us, inviting us to make their house our house for the past few days. We are both exceptionally thankful for their hospitality! It has been great to have a place that feels a little less temporary for a few days. It feels a little strange to be leaving – as we are used to getting up and being here now! heading into town in the evening, and seeing our Aussie friends daily! going to be strange going from never meeting them, to seeing them everyday, to never seeing them again…hopefully one day they can get over to Canada.

Anyways, We best get going and start trying to repack our bags and make everything fits once again! It’s strange how your cloths seems to grow as time goes on! Wish us luck and we are sure we will have new pictures and a blog when we get back from Fraser Island!

Farewell Mystery Machine

And so we have parted ways with our beloved Wicked Van.. a saga of our trip has come to a close. When we dropped the van off in Brisbane this morning, a small part of our hearts went with it.

Since our last post, we have travelled a long ways down the coast… some 1400 km’s total. Our first day of driving was on Tuesday, where we put in 9 straight hours of travel to reach the small town (if you can call it a town) of Seventeen Seventy and Agnes Waters. We arrived around 8pm to find nothing.. there were like 50 buildings in the whole town, and EVERYTHING was closed. After driving around randomly for an hour we decided to give up and go to bed for the night; thus, we parked in a parking lot, cooked some $.25 noodles, and went to bed. We awoke in the morning with high hopes of surfing and riding mini scooters.. this had come highly recommended to us by some friends who had done it. Unfortunately, it turned out the waves were only like a foot tall, so surfing was not an option. Even better, the scooters couldn’t be ridden until later in the day, and you had to wear long pants and shoes (it was like 30 degrees out at 8am at this time). As we had already toured the whole town several times in our van (as lost as could be) we decided to get the heck out of Seventeen Seventy as fast as possible and not look back. The whole experience was not as fun as we had hoped!(thanks a lot Leah and Carolyn! ) 

And so we headed further south towards Rainbow Beach.. the gateway to Frasier Island (this is where the surfing place at Seventeen Seventy has told us to go). About halfway through this 6 hour drive we decided to call some of our Australian friends and find out if Rainbow beach was worth going to. Upon talking to them, as well as looking back on advice from fellow travellers, we decided to go to Noosa Heads instead. We arrived in Noosa at around 2:30pm and took a quick look around the town (we also went to the beach to check out the surf, which didn’t seem all that impressive at the time). We then went up and checked into a hostel for the night, and spent the rest of the afternoon semi napping and cleaning up. It seemed like it was going to be a quiet night in Noosa when we decided to go out to the on-site bar for happy hour ($7 jugs of beer and $6 Jager Bombs). It turned into a really fun night, we met some people from Sweden and hung out with them the rest of the evening! (well until the bar closed at midnight).

The next day, we decided it was time to take our shot at surfing.. We went to rent 2 boards – the shopkeeper recommendedrented we use beginner boards (they looked like giant pontoons for a float plane), so we of course turned them down and got normal boards; furthermore, we decided not to take any lessons and just go for it – how hard could surfing be? (we had spent about 1/2 an hour the night before watching people learn to surf, we figured that was enough). With that, we loaded the boards in the Mystery Machine and headed to the beach with our Swedish friends. We quickly found out surfing was not as easy as it looks! It wasn’t the standing up we had big problems with, it was more catching the waves to surf on. Apparently we both sucked at padelling with our hands, and we could never get going fast enough to catch the waves (Our technique was horribly wrong too… but we like to try to avoid mentioning that). Another thing was that padelling around on surfboards is INCREDIBLY tiring – especially after a night of drinking. We probably spent 2 hours total out on the water, and 4 hours on “rest” breaks. Of that 2 hours on the water… both of us probably spent less than a minute actually riding waves! Other than that, it was really fun (yes, it was fun even though we were horrible).

At 5pm that day we packed up our stuff, and headed off to Brisbane. As we neared the city, we began to realize this was not like any city we had been to in Australia yet… it is big! (We have  both agreed it kind of feels like Vancouver.. the same kind of stores and shops, the same dirty back alleys, and the same drunken people wandering around at all hours of the day.) Upon reaching the city limits, we didn’t really know where to go (we have classically driven around until we find a hostel – but Bris is WAY to big to do that). With that, we decided to call up a friend from Bris we have known for like 5 years (yes he is one of our video game friends [yes we know we are nerds]) and he was kind enough to direct us through the city with google maps. As it turned out, we have ended up living at his place (for the next few days anyways). His parents are really friendly and didn’t seem to care that two weird Canadian guys are living at their house – (to our moms.. yes we  are cleaning up after ourselves and doing dishes and such) We will probably stay here another few days, meet the rest of the Australian gamers we have known for a long time, then head up north towards Frasier Island to do some camping. From there.. we really have no idea what we will be doing – but we will be sure to keep everyone posted! We will update some pictures later.. we dont have the camera on us right now.

Cheers

Wow..What a night

Hello again,

It’s about 10:00 am.. and we are still pretty drunk. Apparently we decided to have a very crazy night last night. To sum it up for our readers, it was pretty much a normal night – except for one thing. Matt got exceptionally drunk (well Chris did too, but he fell asleep before he could do anything stupid) and decided it would be fun to jump in the pool with all his clothes on at 3am… This was all fun and games until the morning came around.  Chris kicked him awake around 9am to decide it we are going to stay another night in Airlie Beach or drive down the road. It was at this point Matt realized his wallet was missing… So the search began. We spent probably 45 minutes looking everywhere for the wallet.. garbage cans.. under the mattress.. the toilet.. you name it – we looked. We had pretty much given up hope, when suddenly, like an angel from heaven, Will (our friend from the boat) decided it was an opportune time to bring it to us. Evidently Matt had left it by the pool in his drunken state and Will grabbed it before he went to bed. So we decided to jump on his bunk and hug him and cheer for him (keep in mind we were [and still are] quite drunk)

We are going for breakfast now. Goodbye.

Sailing on the Whitsundays

Hey everyone!

As some of you may already know, we just got back from a sailing trip we took out around the Whitsundays (a group of islands off the coast of Airlie) The night we posted our last blog entry you may remember we planed on going out on the town, but ran into some people on the way out of the hostel and talked to them for a few hours, then headed to bed! we didnt get far! The next morning we walked up the street to a info shop where they book last minute deals. We got a good price on a 2 day/ 2 night sail around the islands. We decided to go for it, after all the good things we had heard about the islands from other travelers and friends. A few hours after booking we drove our van to the marina and waited to get on the boat. It was called “Hammer”.

“Hammer is a 75 foot Maxi yacht that is indeed a true Australian yachting legend. Hammer was designed by Kel Steinman and owned and campaigned by Arthur Bloore. Throughout her racing career Hammer competed in many blue water events and was best known for her five consecutive placings in the world famous Sydney to Hobart, including line honours in the 50th Anniversary of the event. Hammer carries 22 guests and 3 crew for two days and two nights, and is truly the ‘wild child’ of ProSail’s Maxi fleet.”

in short, it was a racing boat turned tourist sailer.  It was a nice boat all in all.  When we first saw it we were convinced 22 people + 3 crew would never fit…yet sure enough as soon as we all started filing down the ladder into the hull we each had a bunk after all, not to mention there was also a kitchen and 2 loo’s down there!  Obviously the majority of the time however was spent on the deck lounging in the sun.  We left Abel point marina at 1pm on Friday setting off to the Whitsunday islands.  Unfortunatly it was no where near windy enough to sail the shit as it was truely intended, in fact the sails were damn near useless.  The crew invited a few people to raise the sails just for the experience really.  Cruising along at 5 knots we reached our first destination in about 2 and a bit hours.  We all got into our stinger suits (not as thick as a wetsuit, more designed to protect from stings) and got tendered out into a bay where we went snorkeling.  It was alright, not as good as diving – but still worth doing, lots to see, and the reef was shallow enough you can just hold your breath and swim down.  We all got picked back up  after 30-40 minutes and we started cruising to where we would spend our first night.  Along the way Matt was playing stand in Skipper for a moment whilst the real skipper ran downstairs, Matt ended up piloting Hammer all the way to her mooring nearly an hour and half away!  That night we both drank all the beer we brought for both nights! needless to say it was a party!  Since we were all tourists on the boat, there were alot of people from all different places in the world – eventually we got drunk to the point we started calling everyone by their country, with the prefix “team” therefor we were “team canada” ect.  As the night wore on and the beer wore thin it came down the the final 4 people remaining awake; Team Canada (us), Team France (Vincent) and Team England (Sarah) we managed to snap a few group shots even! haha (check photo section)  alas Team England and France packed it in at about 1, and we followed in soon after.

The next morning we were tendered over to a nearby beach where we would be spending the next 3.5 hours.  To start we had to walk from the beach we were dropped off at nearly 1km to a lookout point (was more of a hike than walk!) the view was incredible, apparently the 4th most photographed location in all of Australia (Sydney Bridge, Sydney Opera House, and Ayers Rock being the other 3 in no order) from there we had to hike back down and further yet to another beach which was our intended destination for the morning.  The beach was stunning…the most amazing fine white sand either of us had ever experienced.   and there was miles of it!  We walked as near to the water as we could and set our stuff down and relaxed.  Once the tide started coming in we had to retreat further inland mind you – but it was absolutely beautiful.  At one point a few of us walked down the beach in the shallows as the tide was coming in, we spotted some sting rays just ahead near some rocks in the shallow water! we all walked over there hoping to get a closer look, sure enough next thing we know we are walking along side 4 rays! they were incredible! keeping their distance however; we tried to get as close as they would let us!  11:30am came and we had to make our way back to the boat, not before however; team france and us were having baywatch competitions to see who could run out through the waves the furthers, obvious rules included having to look super sexy, with us 3 guys though, we didnt have to try to hard.  we also tried cartwheeling into the ocean, and front flipping over incoming waves. We left the beach begrudgingly and headed back to the other beach to be collected and brought back aboard Hammer.  From there we motored to a place called Turtle bay to snorkel for a second time.  ironically enough there was not a turtle to be seen.  We spent the better part of the remainder of the day sailing to the next location, which is where we would be spending our second and final night.   We all sat on the deck and watched the sunset, and watched as the stars came out to reveal a few constellations that we dont get in the northern hemisphere.  We had dinner, and had a rather relaxed night.  As we had no booze left we had no real drive to stay up all that late, so we turned in at about 11.

This morning we were up bright and early for brekky at 7am and our final snorkel at 7:30.  When we were on our way on the tender we were told “If you dont see 2000 fish, you are swimming with your eyes closed”  i thought he was just kidding…when we backwards somersaulted into the water off the tender we were surrounded by fish!  Someone said “its like swimming in a fish tank!” and it really was! there were so many fish, so close that you just wouldn’t beleive it unless you were there.  They were closer to our faces that even our own elbows! very friendly fish.  Neither of us really wanted to get out of the water this morning, but with Chris not being able to equalize his ears (not being able to dive under) and both of us cold, we turned in and got back to Hammer.  We set off back to the Marina to finish the trip.

All in all it was a great trip.  The boat was nice (though the beds were uncomfortable) the weather was perfect (though i guess more wind would have let us actually sail) and the people were friendly.  we also got the chance to see a few whales and dolphins along side the boat!  so there we go.

We thought since we posted the pictures we should write the post to accompany them! save confusing a few people!  Take a look at the photos (I know Matt took alot again, he is out of control! but there worth looking at, especially full size! click on them! lol)

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!