Surfers and Byron

Attempting to surf!

From Brisbane we arrived in Surfers Paradise which is a city right next to the beach with big waves meant for, of course, surfing. We stayed in one of our nicest hostels yet (only 4 beds!) which is only 5 minutes from the beach.

We went for a 2 hour surf lesson one of the days and it was a lot more fun then I expected. The water was surprisingly warm and we got two cute instructors for the day which didn’t hurt (don’t worry Calvin). Kirsten and Shannon were much better surfers than me. In fact, I will probably still have surfing injuries by the time I get home. However, I was able to stand up on the board about 3 or 4 times so I felt like quite the super star.

For one of the evenings, Shannon and I headed up Dracula’s Cabaret which is a really random attraction but I thought my interest in burlesque and horror would make the night quite fabulous. First, it’s in this weird haunted house type of thing and you take a ‘ghost train’ to get into the restaurant where they performed a pretty decent show for an hour or so and we got a 3 course dinner which was a treat! Shannon and I put on our best gothic gear and overall it was a pretty fun night.

We also went out several nights and played a fun game of dare since we were bored. That game ended up with us getting kicked out of 2 night clubs but all in good fun since we won’t be returning anyways!

We are currently in Byron Bay and tomorrow is our last day before we head out to Sydney. Byron Bay is again, on the beach, and is a small town filled with hippies. Lots of dreadlocks, tie dye and crystals. We are staying in an old concert hall called The Arts Factory which has free drumming and didgeridoo lessons daily and you can stay in tee pees. I really like the town; it’s very relaxed and always interesting.

Yesterday we took a trip to this mountain town called Nimbin which is known for marijuana. Everywhere you go they are trying to sell you cookies and stuff under the table, it was HIPPIE CENTRAL. Very interesting. On the way back we saw this beautiful waterfall and saw koalas in the wild for the very first time. It was really cool!

Today, I gave into the hippieness and got a Reikii reading for $20. Basically, it’s supposed to release all of your negative energy and you get a reading at the end. You get covered in stones and the lady uses crystals and your body head to determine different things about you. She warned me I may feel heat and tingling and may be in a hypnotic state. I thought it was going to be all BS but I truly did feel very peaceful at the end and in a half awake/half asleep state. Definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

Again, we leave for Sydney in 2 days and that’s it! We’ll be seeing you next week!

Brisbane

Tomorrow we wake up, hopefully watch The Canucks win the cup and head out of Brisbane and into Surfers Paradise. We’ve been in Brisbane for a total of 4 days and have enjoyed it. It’s the first big city we’ve hit in Australia which has its pros and its cons. It’s much more convenient but there is less stuff to do.

We spent the first couple days roaming around the city center and going out to a few nightclubs. The city is nice and clean and the main area is a pedestrian street with lots of buskers to keep things entertaining. It’s a lot of shopping and restaurants, but that’s about it. The biggest thing I was surprised about with the shopping in Brisbane is the jewellery stores. At home, in a display facing the street they may have a few pricey items in the window but nothing major, or they’d have bars on the windows as well. Here, there are $60,000 diamond rings in the window that you can just look at. All I can think is why wouldn’t someone just smash the window and take all they could get?

During the day we also went to a winter festival which was very similar to that German Christmas market we had this past winter at home. It was really weird. Hot chocolate, fake snow, an ice rink… it was like 15 degrees outside! Bass ackwards!

We also took the time to see The Hangover II which was funny… not as good as the first one though. Here, you get assigned seats in the theatre which is different.

Kirsten and Shannon love heading out to the nightclubs so we went out 2 nights. I personally hate nightclubs…they make me think about work while pushing away dirty tourists and spending my life savings on a drink. Not my idea of fun.

Bindi and Bob Irwin on top of the croc. Photo by moi!

However, speaking of fun…today we went to The Australia Zoo which is rated one of the best zoos in the world and is owned by the Irwin family (as in Steve Irwin, Croc Hunter guy). The zoo was dead which was awesome… no lines, no pushing etc. The best parts of the zoo is they had an open field of kangaroos and koalas and you could just hang out with them and pet them. The best part of the day though was the surprise that after a 2 year hiatus of not filming, the Irwin family chose today to start shooting a bit for a new series!

So, we saw Terri, Bindi and Bob Irwin from about a meter or less away wrestle a crocodile (with help from a few trainers of course) and tie the croc up to move him from one area to another. It was so cool! It was already interesting to see how they go about wrestling a croc and tying him up while avoiding an attack but it was really neat to see the Irwin family. I don’t think you can get more Australian then that.

Again, tomorrow we are crossing our fingers and watching the game (it’s times like these I wish I were home) and then taking the bus to Surfers Paradise which has been described to us as a Miami type of place where there is the city and the beach. Should be fun! Hope all is well at home.

Fraser Island

On Sunday morning, we left for Fraser Island, one of the big weekend trips that everyone tells you is a ‘must do’. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and one of the only sand islands to have a rain forest on it as well. The trip overall was really fun aside from the fact that everything got really sandy and for what we paid the accommodation and facilities were very poor. And our tour guide was kind of a dank and one of the guys in our group was a big dank… okay, all that drama aside this is what we did on Fraser Island:

We are split into 3 groups of about 8 people each and we get a 4X4 jeep type of thing. We get to drive on the beach, directly in line with the water. It’s a really fun experience, not to mention very beautiful. Throughout our stay there we also had to go on some very, very bumpy roads. Enough that you had to watch your head! All good fun though. We slept in tents which were pretty uncomfortable, and like I said the facilities were poor. We got a couple of crappy tin cooking items and a gas stove top, we had to make sure to keep our food close because the island is crowded with dingoes. They may not eat your babies, but they will eat anything else you have! At first, I was kind of weary of the dingoes but by the end I realized that they’re basically just wild dogs and you can walk right beside one without worrying about them.

The first day on Fraser, we went for a 45 minute hike through the trees to this remote lake that was surrounded by sand dunes. The lake was multiple shades of beautiful green and very peaceful. Once you reached the sand, it felt like you were in the middle of the dessert and the lake was just a mirage! During both of the nights, we survived off of the little, crappy food that we had and drank a popular drink in Australia called ‘Goon’ or ‘The Silver Pillow’. Basically, it’s the cheapest most disgusting wine you can get and it’s in a box form. It’s the only thing we can drink and still have some change in our pockets.

The second day was my favourite. We went to a viewing point called Indian Head that had a magnificent view. From the top you could see all of the ocean and spot things like sting rays and dolphins. A lucky group even saw a humpback whale.

Champagne Pools

We also visited an area called Champagne Pools which is a collection of little pools and rocks…the giant waves hit the rocks and spill over to the pools. We ended the day by going to another lake that had tons of fresh water turtles in it.

The last day, we visited Lake McKenzie which has 98% silica white sand and crystal clear water. By the end of the trip though I was so tired, dirty and hungry I couldn’t be bothered to care about another lake.

Tonight, we spend one night in Rainbow Beach which is basically just a stop over so we can take another bus in the morning. Then we head to Brisbane where we plan to do some surfing and visit one of the world’s top zoos which was opened by Steve Irwin and of course party.

That’s it for now! Hope everything is dandy at home.

Airlie Beach to 1770 to Pervey... I Mean Hervey Bay...

Hello Family,

Well… we’ve had a rather interesting past 2 days. Yesterday we took a 10 hour bus ride from Airlie Beach to 1770 which is a very, very small town but is known to have good and affordable surfing. We were expecting to stay a night, take a surf lesson in the morning and a bus to Hervey Bay in the evening. By doing a double take and making a few calls we realized our travel agent booked us incorrectly and we had no choice but to waste our trip to 1770, cancel our surf lesson and take a bus the next morning to Hervey Bay so we don’t miss out on our weekend Fraser Island trip (more on that later). So, yah… that pretty much sucked because we wasted a whole day.

He looked like this, minus the jacket and hat.

We arrived in Hervey Bay today, optimistic and looking forward to our Fraser Island trip. We decided to take a leisurely stroll on the beach when we noticed a man walking towards us, of course we didn’t think anything of it until the man said in a very skeezy voice, ‘hey, how’s it going’, as we turned to respond we let out a simultaneous WHAT THE F&^*! As the man had his pants to his ankles and he excitedly exposed his genitals.  I decided to run for it as we were fairly alone and Kirsten and Shannon kind of stood around in shock as the guy laughed and walked away. Now, we’re not talking about some 13 year old trying to be funny. We’re talking a grown full out perv.

I decided the logical thing to do was to alert the authorities, so we called the police who arrived incognito. We were asked to go on a ride along, which we thought was pretty bad ass, so we joined them ‘catch a predator’ style. Unfortunately we didn’t catch him and I’m sure he will live on to expose his parts to another female sometime in the not so distant future.

The rest of the day wasn’t so great either. I got my first Visa bill of the trip which wasn’t very fun. I do believe I will get out of here over budget… I’m trying hard to keep the costs down but everything in Australia is so expensive. A small coffee is around $3, a standard sandwich or burger is $8 and so on. I purchased groceries for the next week that consist of a can of beans, a can of spaghetti, 3 packs of instant soup, a bag of oranges, bread, Nutella and muesli. I call it the Australian back packers diet.

So, back to Fraser Island. We are taking a 2 night, 3 day trip to this island which is supposed to be beautiful and have lots of lovely lakes etc. You can’t swim in the ocean because everything wants to kill you. We get our own jeeps that we cruise around in and camp in tents. A sleeping bag rental was $15 so…yah… talk about being broke…

That’s about all for now, I’ll blog about our trip when I return! Hope you are all well.

Airlie Beach

Me at White Haven Beach!

Tonight is our last night in Airlie Beach, as tomorrow we go to 1770. I’ve spent the last 2 days by myself as Kirsten and Shannon went on a 2 night sailing tour that I couldn’t go on because I had to work. I’m kind of glad I didn’t though because it sounded a bit too rowdy to me!

Yesterday, I was out all day on a boat called the Camira that sailed around the Whitsundays and stopped at the beautiful White Haven beach. It’s a pristine beach with white sand that’s like powder. The sand is 98% silica and is good enough to make the requirement for glass making and to polish your jewellery in. It also doesn’t retain any heat either because it’s reflective. The bottom line is that it was beautiful.

I met a few Irish boys and since the boat was all inclusive, enjoyed a few beers with them before we headed back. The best part of my day though was what we saw from the boat – wild dolphins! It was really, really cool!

The day was really long and tiring which was why it was so awesome when I came back to my 8 person dorm to find I was the only one there! I relaxed, caught up on my Glee and went to bed.

Tomorrow we head out to 1770 which is a beach town where we are taking 4 hours of surf lessons! That should be interesting… I have a feeling I will be pretty crappy at it.

Cairns to Magnetic Island

An aerial view of Magnetic Island

The last few days in Cairns were very relaxing aside from work. We spent our time on the beach doing nothing but reading. I started work on Tuesday so that’s been an adjustment. When we have big day trips, I’m waking up at 4AM and doing work until we leave for our trip and then catching some Zzzs on the tour busses.

On Friday we did a tour called Uncle Brians which was highly reccommended by our travel agent at our hotel. We can’t really figure out why… we spent 12 hours with a tour guide who would not shut up. He told us pointless stories that weren’t funny and we had to play really cheesy games and do dances like the YMCA. The destinations we went to were nice… a waterfall, a volcanic lake and the rainforest. If I were 10, it would be the best day of my life.
Anyway, from Cairns we took an Oz Experience bus to Magnetic Island which is a beautiful tropical island off of Townsville. Oz Experience is pretty much like a Greyhound but better. It’s catered to young people and the drivers are informative and make cool little stops along the way. We are taking it all the way to Sydney for around $300.

Today was our only full day on Magnetic Island. We rented a cute little Barbie themed convertible and whizzed around the island. It was manual so only Kirsten could drive which was probably for the best since I’m a bad enough driver with having everything on the right side of the road. We basically went beach hopping and stopped for lunch and dinner. We watched the sunset and headed back to our hostel which is right on the beach. Tomorrow morning we are going to do some snorkelling before catching our bus and heading to Airlie Beach where we have a sailing trip planned to Whitsundays which looks gorgeous. Hope everyone is doing well at home, love you all.

Great Indeed!

On Monday, we safely arrived in Cairns after about 12 hours of flying. We’ve settled into our Nomads Hostel where we are paying $16 a night for a room we share with 3 very smelly people, not too happy about the stinky room mate choice but for $16 beggars can’t be choosers! Our hostel also offers free breakfast and $3 dinner meals plus free transport hourly to and from the city centre…again not bad for the price!

Yesterday was my favourite day of the trip so far. We got up bright and early and headed to the marina to go on a cruise to The Great Barrier Reef. The boat was really nice and filled with young travelers much like ourselves. The staff was amazing…there was even a guy who went around and memorized every passengers (50 or so) name! I was impressed! The offered us a pretty substantial lunch and coffee etc throughout the day. We were able to relax on the boat and snorkel the reef, I however for a mere $70 more decided to ditch Kirsten and Shannon and try my hand at diving.

It was amazing! The equipment is super heavy and I was pretty nervous as I’m not a good swimmer but they give you a little crash course and after about 5 minutes you stop worrying and realize how cool it is! We saw everything from reef sharks to giant clams to little nemos. One of the best experiences ever and I was happy to pay the extra cash for it!

After our cruise, we returned to our hotel and headed out on the town to have some drinks with some folk we met on our boat. It was really fun – we went to some crazy hostel that had jello wrestling… it was very uh…interesting…to watch but no worries Calvin, I would never participate ha-ha!

We’re going to speak with a travel agent tonight about our options for the rest of the trip as far as busses go and such. I am back to clubZone today which was kind of different but I’m thankful to have a job that lets me travel…even if I have to work when I’m traveling!

Make sure you enjoy Vancouver right now… I’m a tad jealous I’m not there for all the excitement….listened to the game today on the radio. Wow! It’s going to be Olympics all over again! Anyway, miss everyone lots – keep going on Skype!

Great Barrier from Kayleigh Lum on Vimeo.