Well first things first, at last we have photos, thanks to a) Sophie being able to post loads on her website using her laptop and b) me being at my cousin's place using a decent computer so I have been able to import one. Yeah.... for more piccies covering some of my Australian adventures, please go to:
www.sophiehenry.com
All the Aussie pictures are currently in 3 folders: 1) Noosa, 2) Noosa, Fraser Island and 3) Rainbow Beach, Whitsundays. More will follow and as they do folders will be added.
So enjoy. I put this photo on as it captures the moment that I ended my last blog with. When we met up with Keren and Larissa again in Rainbow Beach and drank lots of wine to celebrate. I love those girls. They will definitely be friends for life.
Now when I left off we had departed Rainbow Beach and were heading towards Airlie Beach for our trip out to the Whitsunday Islands on a sail boat. Now the coach journey was 14 hours with most of it over night (we left at around 7pm and arrives gone 9am the next day). I did manage to doze in the fitful way that you do given the fact that your neck is starting to cramp up every 20 minutes and you have to move it, or face being stuck in that position for the immediate future. So it would be fair to say that Sophie, Margo and I were far from feeling fresh when we reached Airlie Beach.
As Sophie and I were going straight on a boat that evening, we weren't booked in to a hostel, so we went to the beach in order to catch up on a bit of sleep. Of course the minute I started to nod off it started to rain heavily so we had to run (or in my case stagger slowly, while swearing profusely) for shelter. We didn't manage to have a shower either. BUT we did bump in to Daljit (another Noosa trip friend) and have a catch up with him, plus buy some wine for our boat trip (4 litre box, but that is normal it was a 3 night trip and no we didn't actually finish it). We had an early dinner with Margo at the Beaches hostel restaurant (very nice salmon, yummy) before heading to rendez vous with our skipper, cook and the 10 other passengers of our sail boat, the Madison. We were in high spirits despite feeling smelly & knackered, as we had met some really fab people along the way, so were optimistic that this was going to be another fantastic trip.
Umm.. well we liked Roger our skipper and Christina our cook/2nd in command. They were lovely. However, we knew we were in trouble when it became clear that the other passengers, rather than being made up of a few more small groups of people, was in fact a group of 10 American college students who were all studying together in Brisbane. Sadly our first instincts were right and we really didn't bond with them at all. Well, they were pretty selfish and only interested in chatting to each other. The first night, Sophie and I couldn't even speak to each other over the racket that they were making. Fortunately Sophie had some neurofen on her, as I needed it. The wine just wasn't enough.
TO make things worse, the cabin space was worse than cramped with Sophie & I put in the 4 bunk room (all the other rooms were 2 bunk, so weird that we were put in with the group) where there was no where to put our stuff other than on the bunks. Which meant very limited space to sleep in. I was on the verge of making a bid to swim back to shore by this point. But with sharks and jelly fish in the water I was too much of a coward to try it.
We managed to avoid the Americans (sorry can't remember most of their names, just not interested) and hung out with Roger and Christina as much as possible. We did see some amazing things though and I would definitely recommend sailing round the Whitsunday islands to anyone. Unfortunately the weather wasn't as nice as it could be following the 2nd Cyclone that had hit Cairns just the week before, so we didn't get to go out to the Great Barrier Reef, as it would have been too rough. But we did go to some fantastically beautiful spots (don't just take my word for it, check out the photos on Sophie's site) as Roger had been sailing round that area for years and knew all the best spots.
This is definitely something that I would like to do again, but when I have enough money to ensure that I have the boat just for me and my friends. Plus, big shock, I was not sick! Not even once! Did have a few annoying 20 yr old facile conversation related headaches (conversations about Barbie dolls and who is the sexiest Disney character for example, plus loads about boys/girls they fancy), but otherwise felt fine throughout the trip.
So we spent 3 nights at sea, with stops to go to beaches for walks, visit look out points, see Aboriginal cave drawings and do some snorkelling (well Sophie snorkelled, I couldn't get a stinger suit that didn't have holes in it, so I stayed safely on board reading). Christina looked after us very well food wise and Sophie & I did almost finish our box of wine (but not quite)
When we got back to Airlie beach and were free from our annoying boat mates, we checked in to Magnums (nice hostel) where we straight away bumped in to John and Tylor from our Fraser Island trip. It was great to see some friendly faces again and realise that we are able to have intelligent conversations with 20 somethings... we were just unlucky on our boat. After bumping in to the Canadian boys, we bumped in to the girls... everyone was in good form. We checked e-mails and realised that Jamie from our Noosa trip was in Airlie, texted him and arranged to meet him that night, before bumping in to him on the street 10 minutes later. After that we saw Daljit again... before Margo & her cousin joined us for drinks that evening. It was reunion central. We just needed Larissa & Keren there to make it complete. How we laughed.... Sure that Sophie will put up heavily edited highlights of the photos I took up on her website soon, so what that space.
The next morning we were back on the coach and I said a sad farewell to everyone as, other than the Canadians and a couple of the Israelis from the Fraser trip, I won't have a chance to meet up with any of the others again. Well not in Aus anyway, but get togethers in Europe are already being planned.
We had a lovely 8 hour journey up to mission beach. It got very wet by the time we reached there and you could see a lot of the damage that had been caused by the cyclones. Glad that I wasn't around when either of them hit! We didn't really have a chance to explore Mission beach as it was late by the time we got in and we were feeling pretty tired. We got up in the morning early and were almost ready on time to get picked up to go White water rafting on the Tully River (ok, he had to wait as we ran around pulling our stuff together. Comments were made about how organised we are! I just growled back. Little did we know that our driver would end up being our rafting guide... but following an inauspicious beginning, but the end of the trip Sophie & I were trying to work out how we could keep him).
White Water Rafting was fantastic. There were loads of rafts but we ended up with Drew, who was smart mouthed and cheeky most of the time. I loved it and abused him back. Don't know what it is about Australians, but I fit right in here because I can give as much crap as they do. We laughed so much, which is particularly amusing when you are going down grade 4 rapids. It was definitely exhilirating. I would recommend it to anyone. We had a great team in our raft, and particularly got on with Gina, lovely American student teacher from Florida, who was being so polite despite being told that she was being rude by being polite, when she should be getting in to the flow of Australian abuse/banter, as that is getting in to the local culture. She had definitely got the hang off it by the end though, I like to think I inspired her! I am the queen of cheeky comments and dirty looks!
I would go again in a heartbeat (although being in Adelaide now, that is a problem!). Want to do more!
After White Water Rafting they dropped us off in Cairns. I will tell you all about that and our trip up to Cape Tribulation... plus my time in Adelaide, when I next get a chance to update. I think that Rebecca needs to us the PC.
Love to all xxx
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