Whitsunday's Sailing Trip

Hanging Off the Edge of the Boat

We woke up bright and early on Monday morning (Oct 18) to be at Abel Point Marina by 8:30am and were super happy to see that it was going to be a great sunny day! We got our stringer suits (same thing as a wet suit), met the crew and hopped on the boat! I don't know why, but we were surprised to realize how tight 25 people plus the crew is on a sailboat! Really tight I'll tell you! :) By default, Dev and I got one of the worst beds in the boat because we had been sitting on it during the briefing. Pretty funny, maybe hard to describe but the top came down across half the bed, leaving about a foot of space (and virtually making it unuseable) so we had to sleep head to toe for enough room. We were in the back of the cabin where there was no doors to the outside (therefore no ventilation) leaving everyone melting there during the night and to boot, it was right beside one of the two bathrooms on the boat! :) But apart from getting almost no sleep either night, it was fine :) I'm not sure that many people got much sleep, it's just the nature of the trip I guess :)

Striking a Pose....Under Water!

It was a huge sailboat and a pretty windy couple of days, so when they put the sails up, everyone had to sit on the deck along one side of the boat with their legs over the side. We were pretty nervous sometimes when the boat would go almost vertical on the wind! The first day they took us to a spot near Hayman Island to snorkel and do our intro dive. It was our first time seeing the Reef and it was pretty incredible! So many crazy colours of fish and some of the reef was still those pretty colours of blue, purple and green. We outsnorkeled everyone for sure! Spent a couple hours in the water. The intro dive was also really cool, fairly easy although we didn't have to worry about setting any of the gauges, just concentrating on breathing, swimming and popping our ears. It's crazy how loud your breathing sounds to yourself down there, just like on the movies! :) We maxed out at just under 5 metres of depth. The instructor wouldn't let us take our underwater camera so we could focus on the task at hand - hence no diving pics.

Getting Our Snorkel ON!

Catching Fish with Bare Hands!

After that, our boat headed south along the islands to stop for the night and we saw a crazy sunset across the water! Then the bar was open (they didn't let us drink while diving and snorkelling was happening) and we had some beers at our resting point for the night. :) The next day we woke up to find we were right in front of Whitehaven Beach, the most famous of the beaches on the islands. After breakfast, they took us out on the dingy to the island for a few hours until lunch. The weather was gorgeous so the water was a crazy colour of blue and the sand is like white flour, crazy white and soft and powdery. Our camera temporarily broke so we didn't get many pictures. It was just like the postcards tho! :) After lunch, they took us to another snorkel spot and we anchored again for the night.

Sunset on the second night of the trip

Finally, the next morning the weather had finally given up and it was pretty rainy and chilly, luckily it was the day we were going home! They dropped us off at a sand bar for some more snorkelling but we think they were tricking us because there wasn't much to see and they didn't come get us for a while, we think they were cleaning the boat and didn't want anyone on it. So the two of us, a British guy with his Swedish girlfriend spent an hour or two staying warm in the water and trying to signal the boat :) We had lunch and the boat headed back to Airlie Beach. It was a great trip, but we were both exhausted! Megan ended up having Swimmer's ear (in both ears!) and a cold sore so we both took long-awaited showers and checked into our comfortable hostel room and went to sleep! :)



At Whitehaven Beach - best beach ever!

For the end of the week, we booked four nights at Nomad's in Airlie Beach and divided our time between lounging, sunbathing, eating, drinking and even a little bit of job searching. It's a competitive market out here in the fruit/vegetable industry! :)

Airlie Beach

 

Bicentennial Walkway

We took our first overnight bus from Agnes Water to Airlie Beach on the Friday night (Oct 15th), leaving a little after nine at night and arriving at seven in the morning. We both popped a few Gravel and it went pretty well although we were both pretty tired when we arrived. We said goodbye to our former Israeli roomie and headed for our hostel which was a short bus ride away. Airlie Beach is a party hostel town with the two largest (Magnum's and Beaches) having awesome beer gardens out front. We had heard a number of horror stories regarding the cleanliness of these places so we opted to party there but stay at somewhere a bit nicer.

 

At the Pool

The Lagoon

Our hostel ended up to be just out of town but consisted of a few rooms in a larger hostel/resort called Club Crocodile, which was great. They didn't have the normal facilities like a kitchen or shuttle bus but had a wicked pool and spa and televisions and ensuites in all the rooms! We booked into a 4-share romm but no one ended up checking in either night so we also had the place to ourselves, we got to live it up for two nights :) After taking a quick nap (at 9:30 am - due to the overnight bus), we decided to walk into town and try to find the beach (funny despite the name Airlie Beach, the town doesn't have much of a beach) but the weather was beautiful so we followed the Bicentennial Walkway (a boardwalk that follows the oceanfront) and ended up at the man-made swimming Lagoon instead. It is starting to be stinger season, so in lieu of actually swimming in the ocean, many cities have imitation beaches/pools in the city centre for sunbathing and swimming safely. We explored the downtown strip and then headed back to the hostel to laze by the pool. That night, we headed back into town for a night out :) First stop was a bar/club that offered a free domino's pizza if we both spent $5, what a steal (it came hawaian :) to Dev's displeasure) and then to Magnum's for cheap pitchers and live music. And yes, after bar rituals are the same here, we both had two McDoubles on the way home! :)

 

Giving Attitude at Magnum's :)

The next day we slept in and hung out around the pool in typical resort-style then walked into town to check in for our Whitsunday's sailing trip which was leaving the following morning. We had lucked out and a girl we met in Noosa had won a 2 for 1 sailing trip but hadn't been able to use it and had given it to us! It saved us a load of money and make the decision-making process much easier, as there are about 1,000 sailing companies to choose from! After checking in, we picked up the snacks and booze we needed for the trip (putting it all in a storage locker in town so we wouldn't have to carry it back and forth :)) and went back to the hostel, ate Burger King (or Hungry Jack's as its called here - we both had Aussie Whoppers which had a egg and beats on them. They often have beats on there burgers here.) and watched Modern Family and Junior Master Chef (do they have that show back home?) It's huge here and hilarious how they say it with their Australian accents! :)

Agnes Water & Town of 1770

Agnes Water Beach

We got to Agnes Water after a nine hour bus ride around nine at night. The place is a pretty new tourist destination so all the hostels are pretty new and have pools, big screen tvs, bars, etc. The room was tight but the first night we shared it with a friendly Irish couple, the guy looked and talked like the skinny guy from Road Trip which was pretty funny. Then a pretty cool Israeli guy moved in for a couple of nights. It rained quite a bit the first two days, but they had plenty of movies, so Dev and I were happy. We killed Studio 54, Accepted, Kick Ass, The Island, Liar Liar and I am Legend throughout the four days there, pretty impressive eh? :) Depending on the amount of people staying at the hostel, occasionally the bar would get a little lively so we also took advantage of the cheap beers and lost in the first round in a beer pong tournie :) We also played tons of ping pong! But obviously, the highlight of the trip to the town was the Scooter Roo trip.

Gotta Do, Scooter Roo!

With All the Bikes



The main attraction in this small town of 1,500 people is Scooter Roo. This is a tour with tricked out scooters that go up to 80 km/hr. We booked this for the 3rd day we were in town. When we got to the scooter place all the scooters were lined up in front and looked pretty badass. What looked even more badass was Meg and I in our leather biker jackets with flames! While we were waiting to leave they were playing all sorts of rock music to get us pumped up - and were we ever pumped!





Ridin' Dirty



They let us choose our bikes and noted that the chopper style scooters in the front were the most difficult and people with riding experience should take those. Since I had no riding experience at all I decided I needed one of these choppers (especially since there was one with American decals on it and it looked exactly like the bike from Easy Rider). Some French dude beat me to it (although he prob had no idea how cool it was and prob never seen Easy Rider) so I got the one beside with the Aussie flag decals, almost as cool. Meg jumped into the second row of bikes which was the second of four styles in terms of difficulty. We had matching bike paint jobs which she was impressed about. I was too busy thinking about how cool I must look on my chopper!



There were about 30 - 40 people doing the ride so that many scooters stretched out covered a lot of territory - the locals must hate the roadways everyday from 3 pm - 6 pm. We toured around for about 3 hours along the highways, through town, down back roads (where we saw a bunch of kangaroos) and ended up beach side to watch the sunset. I made sure to pass Meg a couple times throughout the day to ensure she knew who the baddest biker was!


Home Safe and Sound















Fraser Island!

In spite of Dev's sprained ankle, Fraser Island has definitely been a highlight of our trip so far, so I'll fill everyone in on the details.  For those of you who are not familar with the island, Fraser is the largest sand island in the world and is designated a national park which means that development is now restricted.  You must be in a four wheel drive vehicle to make it around the island, where the beach is the main highway (speed limit of 80km!) and the interior roads are only used when necessary because they are not maintained and crazy bumpy.



Our 4 Wheel Drive Bus

 The majority of backpackers enjoy the island by booking a self-drive tour which means that the tour company puts you in a group and gives the group camping equipment and some four wheel drive jeeps and you drive yourself around the island.  To be fair, the weather had been pretty volatile, pretty rainy and windy at times and we had just been on a fairly rustic camping trip, so we decided to book a tour with Trailblazers, a company that drives their group around in a huge four wheel drive bus with a guide.  The company has dorm room accomodation next to a beach resort with a pub and has a beach house at night for partying with a pool table, darts, patio, etc.  So.....not quite as hardcore as the average trip but we were surprised to find out that this option was actually cheaper so (out of principle according to Devin) we decided to have a comfortable experience! :)

We took the Greyhound up to Rainbow Beach the day before the tour, a town actually smaller than Dutton at 1,100 people but popular because it's a leaving point to Fraser Island and obviously the beach. :) Like Dutton :) our stay was pleasant but fairly uneventful except that we hiked to the Carlo Sandblo which was pretty cool.  You walk through a forest/bush and all of  sudden there's an amazing amount of sand that's blown up and covered all of the trees and now looks like a desert at the top of the forest!  We'd never seen anything like it, there were actually tips of trees sticking up through the sand.  From the edge of the sandblo we could see the Rainbow Cliffs, which are actually hills of sand of supposedly 72 different colours. 


Dev Posing at Carlo Sandblo


The next morning we were picked up by Pete, our tour guide.  We had a great group, an Austrian lady and her 5 year old daughter, two Swiss girls, a German, an Irish couple, some French and a group of weird Koreans. :) We picked up beer and snacks and the bus took the ferry over to the island.  We were encouraged to do as much drinking as possible on the trip, so after checking into our dorm rooms we all grabbed some beers for the road. :P

The Tour Group at Lake Buribbean

The first day was spent on Lake Wabby, a freshwater, inland lake attached to Hammerstone Sandblo.  We drank and played in the water and Dev buried me in the sand. :) Then Pete showed us how to jump down the sand dunes; I don't think that Dev was paying enough attention because on the way down, he twisted his ankle proving once and for all who's better at sand dunes! :) (Side note: it's doing much better now, he's still resting it but hoping for full recovery by Whitsunday's next week :)) Luckily, it didn't start hurting right away because it was quite a hike back to the bus!

Dev, Meg, the Cricket Bat and the Pinnacles

We continued drinking when we got back to the dorm, once the ankle was wrapped of course and the group played Kings and a horse racing game (similar to the tractor race game at stag and does :)).  The whole time the ankle just kept getting bigger so while the rest of the group hit the pub, Dev and I hung back and played more cards.  We were so glad we weren't camping because it rained plenty that night!
The next morning we had some breakfast and drove along the beach to see the Pinnacles (more coloured sand formations) and the ship wreck which was really neat.  Pete had given Dev a cricket bat to use as a walking stick so while the group went to see another sandblo, Dev got a personal cricket lesson :)

Meg at Indian Head

We went to Lake Allom and saw tons of little freshwater turtles, really cool! And I hiked up to Indian Head while Dev chilled on the beach and got a surprise visitor, our friend Henrick! (see previous post :))  The group played a game of soccer on the beach and on the way home we floated/walked down Eli Creek, a natural version of a lazy river :) as it started to rain.

Dev playing a 1 footed game of pool with Pete

After a hot shower (again no camping :)) and a large plate of spaghetti, we were ready for all-u-can drink sangria night!  I found out that the Irish love Alan Jackson and I was horrible at the pool drinking game and Dev and the Irish dude lost a game of pool to Pete and the German!
The last day, after breakfast we had great weather for our trip to Lake Buribbean, a crystal clear, blue, freshwater lake that is supposedly the same as Lake Mackenzie but less tourists.  Dev and Pete played bochi, (still lost even after all that practice at Killarney!) :) and we went for a quick rainforest walk at Central Station.  Great trip altogether!  Then the bumpy ride back to Rainbow Beach. Oh, and we saw two dingos on the way back before we left! :)

At Lake Buribbean

Week 4: North of Brisbane!



Dev and Carly



So it's been a while since our last entry but we've been really busy and are just catching up now! Still no moves towards working yet...we were going to head up to Bundaberg, the fruit picking capital of Australia tomorrow but Dev sprained his ankle last week so we're back in Noosa our favourite town so far on the coast relaxing for a week.  Going to put a few feelers out for work here, don't know what the chances are but love the spot so going to try! :)

After crashing with Timmy one more time on the Gold Coast and enjoying some rematches (and still losing) at Settlers of Catan with him and his roommates, we went to visit Dev's friend Carly on the north side of Surfer's Paradise.  We ordered our first pizza of the trip!!! can you believe it? and basically pigged out and had beers at her place, which was great. :)  We were pretty lazy the next day, took a walk out to the wharf with Carly where we saw like a million crabs! and Dev and I checked out Surfer's Paradise that evening.  It's a lot like Niagara Falls but backs onto a beach which is pretty sweet. 
 

The next day we headed to Noosa where we had booked a double in a hostel near Sunshine Beach.  We got picked up by the shuttle which was driven by a lady in an adidas jumpsuit and largely resembling the lady from Glee. :) We did a 2.5 hour coastal walk through the Noosa National Park to get into town where we somewhat impulsively booked our Fraser Island Tour and a bush camping trip leaving the next day. We cooked a great dinner and drank a cheap bottle of wine on the beach and watched some Law and Order with our roomies.  (We're almost done our dvd Season 6!)
 



Dev / Koala



We left for our bush camping trip the next day which was VERY random and pretty hilarious looking back on it.  We were picked up by a nice guy with no teeth at the bus stop with a strange guy from Denmark named Henrick.  Henrick took a somewhat unwelcome liking to Dev and I and latched onto us for the weekend.  The bush camp was located in the Great Sandy National Park in a campground which was inhabited by full residents.  You should have seen the tent setups these people had, they'd kill Cayuga! And quite an interesting group of people.  We partied a little bit with some Brits the first night and then had a romantic all-day canoe trip and hike with Dev, Henrick and I down the river, across the lake and to a pub on the top of the hill the next day.  :)  We had quite a few beers along the way and had been paddling for like six hours so were exhausted that night.  We slept in a tent that night so not sure whether our backs hurt from the tent or the canoe but were pretty sore the next day and had to canoe again, a shorter trip that time though :)

We weren't brave enough to try out the showers at the campsite because everything was in a general state of filth so were desperate for a shower by the time we got back to Noosa on Monday.  We chilled for the day by the pool at the hostel and checked out the main beach where there were tons of kite surfers which were fun to watch. Headed out the next day to Rainbow Beach to leave for Fraser Island the next morning!



Main Beach - Noosa