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Salmon's JournalMay 21 Fraser IslandWhat an awesome week it's been! After sailing the Whitsundays i met some great people at the hostel - one of them was a very talented aspiring singer/songwriter from the UK called Sophie. She had such a great voice, sent shivers down my spine when she sang.. think i fell in love! haha. Yeah so we played some songs which was great.. then on tuesday night i left Airlie on a 13 hour bus journey to Hervey Bay where i did a 3 day self-drive on Fraser Island which was bloomin' brilliant!!! Fraser Island is a large sand island just off the east coast which has forests and fresh water lakes etc.. its beautiful and awesome to drive around. There were 11 of us in our group and we had a 4x4 Toyota 4.2 L Diesel Land Cruiser to get us around the island. Driving around was so much fun.. from having to negotiate steep, dodgey single track sand tracks through the forest to letting rip on the long straight beach while having to keep a look out for planes landing... it was just awesome awesome awesome! We saw a fair few dingo's (wild dogs) on the island, some of the group were approached while we were camping one night.. was pretty funny. Before you head out to the Island, you're breifed and prepared etc.. and told that the Dingos can be dangerous and that if approached by them, you have to cross your arms over your chest and slowly back away - then they show a video of these 2 girls demonstrating how to back away from the dingo's - its so cheesy it's hilarious. Then they say.. " If you're attacked by the dingo's then it's important that you act agressively" haha. So these 2 french canadian girls came back to our camp after going to the loo one night and were like "we joost ad a roon in with two dingoos! zay started to sniff ower legs so we cwossed ower arms and zen zay walked away!" haha. Good times. Our group all gelled together really well too and had a great laugh, which made the trip. I will put pictures up when i can. I'm just so glad that my travels around australia has finished on a high.. although i still have just under 2 weeks left this is the last 'adventure' type thing that i'll be doing here. So today i took a 5 hour bus journey down to Brisbane where i am now.. going to stay here for a couple days then move on down to Byron Bay before heading back to Sydney for the end of the week. So far the East Coast has been good. Weather wise it's not been the greatest.. due to cyclones and the time of year.. but what's cool (and sometimes not..)you tend to bump into people you've met in other places. I met a guy called Joe in Cape Tribulation (north queensland) who i then bumped into in Airlie beach a couple weeks later.. and then on Fraser Island after that. Tonight i bumped into people i sailed the Whitsundays with up in Airlie.. it's mad. Hopefully when i move down to Byron Bay / Sydney i'll bump into a few people i worked with in Melbourne. May 12 Whitsundays SailingJust got back from my 3-day sailing trip round the whitsunday islands - was great!
Our boat was a catamaran called 'The Pride of Airlie' which was a pretty cool boat.. sliced through the water well. The first day we just sailed for a couple hours over to our island 'south molle' where we were made to drink far too much alcohol. Spent the night there then up at 6am the next day for a 3 hour sail to whitehaven beach for some snorkeling and skin burnage. On the way over.. the sea got a bit choppy and i managed to spew all my breakfast up over the back.. as did a few others! Saw a turtle in the water, a stingrae and some tropical fish while snorkeling! Then we dropped our snorkels off on the boat and jumped off to swim to the beach! Once we got on the beach it was pretty clear why its a popular beach to come to. The sand is SO white and pure it squeaks when you walk on it. The water was clear blue and warm.. it was awesome. So then we went back to the boat and sailed back to the island for dinner and more alcohol consumption..
Up again at 6 the next morning.. ugh.. this time we sailed for a couple hours to a really good snorkeling spot and spent about an hour there swimming around exploring the coral and fish. Saw some really big and wild coloured tropical fish there. Got stung by either stingers of baby jellyfish.. not sure because they're so small 9 times out of 10 you dont see them.. only feel them. Had a couple of rashes but nothing bad at all.. i was lucky, some of the stingers around the whitsundays can paralyse your muscles. But they say its rare for those kind of stingers to be around this time of year, although they still recommend you wear stinger suits.. but i didn't bother - Im a man i can take it.
Haha.. so then we just sailed for a couple more hours back to Airlie harbor.
Overal it was a good trip.. the weather was fantastic for the first 2 days and the experience of sailing was brilliant. Loved the snorkelling and seeing all the coral.. but honestly i was a little disappointed with lack of activities and emphasis on drinking. I was told there would be kayaking, oppurtunities to dive etc but instead we just sailed round, snorkelled and got force fed alcohol in the evenings... if i wanted to party i could have just gone to a bar! Yeah so, so far i think the warnings i had of the commercialness here on the east coast were true.. everything is bigged up and usually overrated and very costly so you really have to research well and not trust the travel agency completely. Best thing is to talk to other travellers so you get the truth! May 09 Airlie BeachYeah so now i'm going to have to use this as my travel journal. When i get home i'll transfer all my photos over to this i think as it's much better than my other one.
I was going to be doing a skydive in Mission Beach but unfortunately couldn't because of the crappy weather. Been raining around the north east coast since the cyclone hit last month! So decided to not waste any more time and caught a 9 hour bus journey down to Airlie Beach which is where you go to sail the Whitsunday Islands! Its pretty beautiful down here. It's pretty much just one long street overlooking the harbor but there's lots here. Managed to get myself on to a boat today which will be leaving at 2pm and coming back in a few days time.. should be awesome. Will get to do snorkeling, diving.. kayaking.. etc! Can't wait. Then i'll probably move further down the coast to Hervey Bay to spend a couple of days on Fraser Island! eeeeeeeeeeee :D |
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