Whitsundays Sailing and Magnetic Island

After I left Allison and Fraser Island I headed to Airlie Beach on the night bus. It departed at 8:30pm and arrived at 9am. I was hoping it would be empty enough that I would get 2 seats to myself so I could get a good nights sleep but I forgot that every backpacker in OZ books the night bus so they can save paying for accommodation. I had been up since 4:45am and was ready to crash. Luckily I sat next to a lovely Aussie boy who, after about 4 hours struggling to sleep in awkward positions and chatting it up with him, allowed me to rest on his shoulder. I passed out for at least 5 hours after that.

I arrived in Airlie Beach and immediately booked a 2 night sailing trip to the Whitsundays Islands. There is really not much else to do in Airlie other than sail. My boat had about 15 people on it and most were quite friendly (which is always a worry when you're travelling alone). Although all but 1 boy were couples. Thank god for him. BARF!

This is what the boat looked like...

This is one of the beaches we sailed to and got to hang out for a few hours. It was fairly cloudy the whole trip but luckily still very warm and in some ways perhaps that was better since we spent most of our time on the deck and I probably would have been burnt to a crisp.

These Bat fish came swimming up to the boat and we fed them bread. Who knew fish ate bread!?

We also got to go snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef for a few hours which was really cool. My favourite was these corals that looked like big purple mouths and would retract when you swam near them. They reminded me of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Too bad I didn't have an underwater camera so I could show you what I mean. The wetsuit made me look very sexy, as you can see...

This lazy seagull was hitching a ride on the motor boat that took us to and from shore on our various expeditions...

Here is our Skipper Steve and our Host Loz. It wasn't really raining, they were just being silly. Steve had the best laugh. It was so contagious. and Loz made the best food for us. Spaghetti Bol, BBQ'd chicken and roast beef yum!

Here are some of the people who were on the boat. Bernard was the only other single dude I was telling you about.

Mari and Christian...

Lindsay and Sophie...

Um... what were their names again???

Shayna and me. Even though she was there with a guy she was dating she made a big effort to hang out with me:)

Christian...

Here I am standing on the bow...

A lot of our time was spent sleeping on the deck...

Playing "Who I am?"...

Reading...

And playing cards...
The boat was rather small so with 15 passengers they really had to cram everything in. This is the shower/sink...

This is where I slept. My very own coffin.

To get a better idea of how small it was, here I am asleep in my coffin. There was only one moment when I felt really claustrophobic when I woke up the second night and the waves were a little stronger then the first night and I could hear something (most likely the anchor) rubbing up against the boat and it was pitch black. So I went up on the deck as the sun was rising and felt much better.

These were the beds surrounding mine. There was a couple sleeping in the bed below mine and I had to literally step on them to get in and out of the bed...

A few other beds in the cabin...

I'm sailing!!!

On the second night we got to have a bonfire on the beach.

And what do you do at a bonfire? Well you play drinking games of course! This game had us all making chicken noises...

One of the most favourite memories from the trip was when we were having breakfast on the deck at about 8am the second day and there were dolphins swimming all around the boat. I would have taken pics but my camera was downstairs and I didn't want to miss a moment of it. Shayna and I decided to join them...

After Airlie Beach I spent 2 nights on Magnetic Island. This is the island, which departs from Townsville, from the ferry...

I pretty much instantly fell in love with this island. It was like as soon as you got there the vibe relaxed. There are no stoplights on the island and there is only one bus that runs once an hour. When you get on you tell the driver where you want to go and he will drop you off at the front door (and pick you up anywhere along the way if you flag him down). I stayed at a quaint hostel called Travellers Hideaway and had a few drinks with the owner the first night I was there. He loves Canadian chicks and by the end of the night he had offered me work for accommodation in the hostel which I am considering doing for my last month or two in OZ. This was the view from the beach right by the hostel.

I went on a Forts Walk where forts were set up for war-times. It was a very beautiful lookout. One of the things that happens when you travel up the East Coast is that you tend to run into the same people over and over since you are pretty much doing the same itinerary, just a few days apart. On the Forts walk I ran into Bernard (the only other single dude from the sailing trip so we ended up doing another walk together, then making dinner at his hostel and playing some pool at a bar nearby. It was lovely to have company for the day!

Self portrait before I met up with Bernard. If I look sweaty and hot it's because I was.

Another one of the lookouts on the walk...

One of the things I fell in love with about Magnetic Island is the amount of wildlife running around. I saw Wallabies in the wild...

and in the backseat of this Rangers car who Bernard and I hitched a ride with since we just missed the bus. His Mother had died and he was being taken care of until he was big enough to be released back into the wild. The best thing about the ride was that the Ranger was about 50 years old, decked out in full kacki ranger gear and blasting Lady Ga-Ga. Awesome!

Possums were everywhere. The cutest though was a Mother Possum who was transporting her babies across a fence. She would put one on her back and bring it to the other side of the fence, it gripping on for dear life and then go back and get another one and repeat. There were also a ton a cool sounding and looking birds on the island. I felt so relaxed there.

Now I am in Cairns and Trent and Conrad are here as well. It's been nice hanging out with people who I know. I was getting a little sick of having to the "Where are you from? How long have you been in OZ? What are your plans next? Blah blah blah" talk with everyone. I am also sick which sucks but I rested up today and will hopefully be feeling better by tomorrow. The worst is that I have a fever. Conrad lent me his laptop and I hung out in my room and watched "Seven Pounds" with Wil Smith. Sad movie. Very very sad. But good.

Tomorrow I am going on a 2 day/1 night trip to Port Douglas and the Daintree Rainforest/Capr Tribulation, which I heard is amazing. I get back on Weds and by then Brady and Mark should have caught up with me and then on Friday all 3 of us fly out to Darwin to meet up with Nerys who has been in Ireland for a wedding the past 10 days. I reckon she will be exhausted as she flies from Ireland to Melbourn and then Melbs to Darwin the next day. I think the plan is to drive down to Broome and then I am unsure as to what I am going to do after that. It depends how much I am enjoying the West Coast I suppose (btw, thanks to no one who gave me any advice for my next move on this journey...jerks:p) Another factor is money as I am spending it much faster than I had anticipated, so Magnetic might be a better option for that reason as well. I am pretty sure at this point that I am not going to do S/E Asia on this trip so after OZ I will head to NZ for a while where I will hopefully get some work and then it will be hometime. Ahhh hometime! I can't effing wait to see everyone!!!

Number of hours spent on a Greyhound Bus in the past month: 57.25

Number of KM's travelled in that time: 3921

Currently reading: It's not about the Bike by Lance Armstrong (thanks to Trent who passed it on so I wouldn't have to spend money on another book). I didn't even finish Twilight. I'm confused as to why they were so popular. I guess it's beacause the fans don't know Joss Whedon.

Exes and Ohhhhhhhs!!!

Righty Oh! No Dramas! You'll be AMAZED at the results!

On Saturday Allison and I got up at the ungodly hour of 4:45am (although that's about the time Allison normally gets up to milk the cows so it wasn't so ungodly to her) and we made the 1 1/2 hour drive to Hervey Bay where we were picked up by a free shuttle bus at 7:20am to start our tour of Fraser Island. We took a ferry to the Island which took about 40 mins. I was feeling pretty shit at first from not sleeping and my legs were (and still are) KILLING me from climbing that mountain but after the sun came up and after a coffee I felt much better.

Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world and because of that is a World Heritage Site. Nothing can be brought onto or taken off of the island. Not even a grain of sand. You need a 4x4 vehicle to drive on it. It is 120km long and about 14 km wide which means that we unfortunately spent a lot of time on the bus and not enough time seeing the various sites. Most people camp on Fraser for a few days but Allison had to be back at work and this time of year around there it still gets quite cold at night.

This is the tour bus that we were on. Our tour driver Alex used the expressions "Righty-oh", "No dramas" and "You'll be AMAZED at the results" far too many times. But other than that he was pretty rad.

The first thing we did was go on a short rain forest walk. This tree had these big roots wrapped around it. It's called the strangler and does exactly that. It will take approximately 300 years to strangle the tree and kill it.

We mostly drove along the huge stretch of beach which got quite bumpy at times. There was a plane ride you could take that took off and landed on the beach but it was $70 per person for 15 minutes. No thanks!

In the morning when we started the tour it was still quite cool and we had a few layers on but as you'll see they started to come off as the day went on. Remember, this is WINTER in Australia. I still can't get over it.

Here's just a pic of one of the other tour buses driving along the beach. It was pretty cool driving so close to the water. We got moving pretty fast sometimes. You can't swim in these waters around Fraser at all because they are shark infested.

These rocks are called Pinnacles. They form from the sand and are different colours because of all the minerals.

Allison and I took some timer photos of ourselves throughout the day. We're so cool.

Then we went to see a ship wreck that had happened in 1930. This was the coolest thing we saw in my opinion. The ship was being towed to Japan to be sold for scrap metal (after spending many years as a cruise liner) and an unexpected cyclone hit the island and washed it ashore and after several failed attempts at moving it, they just left it to corrode. The navy used it as target practice and dropped bombs on it from high up at one point.

There are 2 meters of it showing on the surface and 8 meters already barried underneath.

It was very big and rusty.

Hard to picture what it used to look like.

Neat eh? I thought so.

Then we went to Eli Creek. It was very pretty and the water was very clear.

As you can see it had started to warm up by this time. There is no humidity here compared to Toronto so when the sun is up it's quite warm (about 20 degrees where we were here) but drops to about 5 at night.

Unfortunately we didn't see any Dingos but there are apparently about 300 of them on the island and campers often see them. Especially after drinking too much goon, passing out, and forgetting to put the food away.

Some more self-timed silliness for you...

Our last stop was this lake which was crystal clear and quite warm (although not warm enough for Allison and I to want to swim in it even though some others did). Our driver told us about 10 times that the minerals in the water were very good for your skin and hair and would leave you looking 10 years younger and that we would be AMAZED at the results. I guess we'll have to take his word for it.

Actually reminded me a lot of a lake up North in Toronto but a bit clearer.

Then after a long day on very little sleep I hopped on the night bus to Airlie Beach and again had a fairly sleepless night. Apparently every backpacker takes the night bus to save on paying for a nights accommodation so not only did I not get 2 seats to myself but I also did not get a window seat. Luckily I was seated next to a funny and talkative guy who entertained me until I finally passed out (partly on him:P) at about 2am. I think I slept about 5 hours and arrived in Airlie Beach at 9am. I booked my sailing trip for the next 2 nights and then spent the day suntanning on the beach. It was so hot and I am starting to get a tan again! Woot! I think this sleep deprivation is unfortunately going to go on for a few more days. Tonight I am in a room with 9 other people, mostly boys who started drinking at 10am, and from what I've heard the sleeping quarters on the boat are fairly tight. But I am excited to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef and we will be having a camp fire on the beach one night.

I am spending my hard earned money much faster than I anticipated but I am trying to keep in mind that this is why I am here...to see Australia and travel around. And unfortunately Australia is not a cheap country. Speaking of which, due to money constraints of the people I am travelling the West Coast with in a few weeks it looks like our plans may have to change a bit (told you they would!) Now we are talking about camper vanning from Darwin to Broome and then flying to Perth. This would mean we would be finished travelling about mid-august and at this point I am very unsure as to what I am going to do afterwards. Possibilities include: Going to South/East Asia and then New Zealand. Going straight to New Zealand. Staying in OZ and either working on a Wwoofing www.wwoof.org/ farm for accommodation and food or finding some more work for a few months. Or coming home. Thoughts? Suggestions?

P.S. Someone sent me an envelope (I'm presuming a b-day card) and it arrived after I left Melbourne. I asked my flatmates to post it to me in Byron Bay since I was there for a week and even though it was posted on Monday, it never arrived:( Stupid OZ post. I am so upset and I have NO idea who it was from. So, if you know what I'm talking about please please please ease my mind and at least tell me that there was no money in the card. Also tell me what it said. Getting mail is the best!

If I get eaten by a shark or stung by a sting ray on this boating trip (I'm sure it will be fine...but I did have to sign this like 2 page release form advising me of all the risks they will not be held responsible for should anything happen to me!) please know I love all!