We had been looking forward to visiting with the ‘Down under Dowells’ since booking our flights to Australia nearly a year ago. When I met Mark and Umi at a family BBQ 2 or 3 years ago I remember talking about the prospect of a trip over even then.

Mark came and collected us from our accommodation in Noosa and we headed straight out for some adventure, meeting Umi and the boys there. We were going to climb Mt Ngungun in the Glasshouse mountains and get some absolutely breathtaking views over the area. The climb was relatively easy, but steep in some places. There was a cave on the way up that the boys (young and not as young) decided to explore, but we got to the top pretty quickly and we’re rewarded with views like this. Thank you guys for taking us to such and magical place.

After our walk we headed to Narangba, where Mark and Umi live and were able to have a swim in their amazing pool and enjoy a beer and some cheese! Amazing!! That evening we were heading into the city (Brisbane) for dinner and some drinks which we were really looking forward to.

We had been booked in for Teppanyaki, a Japanese cusine cooked right in front of you by a chef/actor who makes the experience so much more than just ordering food and eating food. The whole experience is almost theatrical with flames, flying eggs and rice, and knife tricks. We had the best time! Thank you Mark and Umi for taking us.

We enjoyed a few drinks afterwards ($20 jugs of cocktail at one place – win!) and had a brilliant catch up! We headed back to the train where most of us were struggling to stay awake, but it had been a great night.

The next morning we arose to such a tasty breakfast. I’m going to write this one down so that I remember it for when we get home. Toast, topped with smashed avocoado, paprika,  a poached egg and lemon zest. So unbelievably tasty!!! We went to collect the boys and headed off to a town called Montville.

Montville had a similar feel, to me, as some of the little villages in Wales. Full of cafes, restaurants and little independent shops selling all sorts of beautiful and well made products, all whilst being surrounded by beautiful scenery. We wandered around and then stopped for some lunch. I would have definitely bought some bits from here if we hadn’t have been on a budget. And we took ZERO photos for some reason…

This evening we were going to be having a bbq with Umi’s family at the Dowell house. Steak!!! I am now so disappointed with the amount of bbqs i’ve had in England that didn’t have steak. So many wasted opportunities. Every bbq here has steak. Yummy!! We had a great time eating and chatting.

The next day we were on our own as some people have to work (sorry). Nothing really exciting happened, we watched tv, swam in the pool, read, sorted out photos, wrote blogs and just chilled out. Oh and I had a bath!!!!!!!!! Yay! It was the best! My first bath in nearly 6 weeks and it was blissfull. When everyone returned home from their days we enjoyed dinner together and played some Balderdash.  What a strange game! Haha but it was fun!!

The next morning was unfortunately the day we were leaving. We were heading off early to the big city of Brisbane for 2 nights. We just want to say another massive thank you to Mark and Umi for having us and taking such good care of us whilst we were there.  We loved spending time with Ethan and Josh, they are such lovely boys and we hope to see you again soon!!!

 

K’gari is the aboriginal name of the island more commonly known as Fraser Island. During our time on the island we learnt a lot about the history of the island and about the aboriginal people that had inhabited the island, the Butchulla people.

‘According to Aboriginal legend, when humans were created and needed a place to live, the mighty god Beiral sent his messenger Yendingie with the goddess K’gari down from heaven to create the land and mountains, rivers and sea. K’gari fell in love with the earth’s beauty and did not want to leave it. So Yendingie changed her into a heavenly island – Fraser Island.’

We both came away from our time on the island feeling quite embarrassed about the European and mainly British involvement in a lot of the history of the island. I will make an effort to include as much as I can remember in my post today. As a result of this, I will refer to the island as K’gari from now on, a change I hope you will understand later on.

We were collected early by the owner of the company Dropbear, Mark. Mark is a third generation descendant of the Butchulla people and spent his childhood visiting and growing up on the island. He got us very excited about the trip before handing us over to our tour guide Dave. After completing some unavoidable paperwork and safety briefings (primarily about dingos and driving safety – hilarious) we were ready to depart. I offered to drive one of the 4WD cars from Noosa to Rainbow Beach where we were to collect another 6 guests. We had opted for a ‘tag-along’ K’gari experience which gave all of the guests the opportunity to drive the 4WD (if they have a driving license) on the island whilst still experiencing the tour with a very knowledgeable guide.

Once we collected our other guests from Rainbow beach, refuelled the jeeps and bought some supplies we were on our way to the barge that was to carry us over to K’gari. There were a few issues at the beginning as the barge couldn’t lift it’s ramp for us to go, but eventually we were on our way. 5 short minutes later we were there!!! All I can say is endless beach… 75 miles of beach runs along the eastern side of the island. We are unable to drive on the western side, but I think 75 miles will be enough.

I drove our car load to our camp site where we had lunch, wraps and had a chance to sort ourselves out a bit. We were going to be camping, Simon and I in a 3 man tent, so plenty of room. As soon as our lunch was finished we were being told we would be on our way to our first stop, Lake Wabby.

Lake Wabby is a freshwater lake, surrounded by tea tree trees, created as a result of a sandblow. It is beautiful and the best part of it, is there are little fish in the lake that like to give you a pedicure, AND the water is full of tea tree oil so makes your skin feel super soft and pampered. We spent some time learning about the lake and it’s importance to the Butchulla people as an important ‘coming of age’ location for the men. Women were not allowed here and before the women in the group were allowed to visit we had to complete an acknowledgment ceremony confirming we would respect the site. We spent some time swimming, sunbathing and just enjoying the lake. After a 3km walk back through the bush we made it back to our jeeps, in time to get back to camp for dinner.

Dinner was an aussie BBQ with sausages and steaks. Yummy!!! We had bought a box of goon for our trip so enjoyed that with some of the amazing people we had met. We were told that we had come at an amazing time because  we would be able to see a moonrise both nights we were here. Apparently it’s quite rare to be able to see the moonrise like the sun, but wow it is stunning. On the first night there was quite a bit of cloud, but i’ll show you some pics of the second evening later on.

Sleeping in a tent means you get up early. The tent soon gets warm and the light starts to flood in. Not necessarily a bad thing as we had a very very busy day ahead of us. We had a lovely breakfast of toad in the hole (egg in toast – weird to call it that I know), cereals and tea. Yum! We had been told the night previously that if we happened to bump into some pilots who do scenic flights around the island then we would be able to go up for 20 mins for only $60 each – a massive saving. As we were driving out of the camp site, there they were. 3 pilots ready and eager to take some passengers up for an aerial view of K’gari. Most of our group was super eager and we got ready to go. The pilot told is that this was only the second place in the world where you are able to take off and land on sand. The other being Bara in Scotland. We somehow managed to end up in the smallest plane – 6 seats, including the pilot, and started our take off. The whole experience was magical and so unexpected. We never thought that we would have this opportunity, let alone be able to afford it. We saw all of the freshwater lakes and 75 mile beach from the sky, as well as the sandblow at Lake Wabby we had seen previous. We hoped to see some humpbacks but unfortunately they weren’t there, but Simon did see a ray from the sky.

Coming back to land we were all buzzing and we jumped back into the jeeps ready to head further north. We had quite a lot of stops to hit today, but the first was Eli Creek. Eli is a beautiful,  fast-flowing creek that you can laze down and enjoy. Most of our group stopped ‘playing’ after 1 or 2 goes down the creek, but our group stayed in for most of our 1.5 hour stop. Travelling down the creek, running up to the top, down, up, over and over again. We had some inflatables between us that we kept sharing and when we weren’t playing crocodile (anyone on an inflatable or stood up could be pulled into the water by a crocodile, someone under the water) it was super relaxing. On our way into Eli Creek, we had some tidal issues. The tide was a bit higher than expected so we had to leave the cars further back. Volunteers were asked to go back and drive the jeeps through the water and of course I volunteered. The water went over the bonnet!!! So much fun!!!

We then drove on to the Maheno shipwreck, which is only a short drive away. The Maheno has a very interesting history, starting its life off as a cruise liner, it then became a hospital ship during world war 2 and then was eventually bought by the Japanese. As the Japanese were towing it back up to Japan the rope broke and the Maheno ended up on the East coast of K’gari. There is a lot of conspiracy theories revolving around the Maheno, many thinking that the Japanese purposely ‘lost’ the ship so that they could survey the Australian coastline for intelligence. Regardless, it was quite stunning to see.

After the Maheno Shipwreck, we were ahead of the other tour groups so were able to snap up a great spot at Cathedral cove for lunch. We had wraps again, but with different fillings and were able to stop and buy an icecream. We had been told to try a Golden Gaytime, which was pretty tasty (all the Brits had a bit of a giggle about the name). We then moved onto the Champagne Pools. Beautiful pools that are filled by the tide and get frothy bubbles from the crashing waves. There were lots of fish caught out in the pools at low tide, including a bitey damsel fish that Simon took much joy in winding up. We had a play with the sea squirts, much to everyones amusement (don’t worry we recovered them in water afterwards) and a bit of a swim around.

The last stop of the day was up to Indian Heads. Indian heads is the most important spot on K’gari for the Butchulla people. Indian heads was named by Captain James Cook in 1770, as he passed by K’gari word had spread of his arrival and on the head of the cliff was a huge congregation of ‘Indian’ people (his own words). The Butchulla people used to use Indian Heads for a lot of their political matters, judging people on the standards that had been set for them. If they were deemed innocent they would be allowed to return to their family, if they were deemed guilty they would take a walk off the cliff down into the waters below. We enjoyed the panoramic views from the top of the headland and were lucky enough to see a pod of dolphins, lots of manta rays and turtles. Such a beautiful place to end the day and to have a ‘storytime’ with our guide Dave telling us all about the history of the island.

We were told about the arrival of Eliza and Captain James Fraser. They were sailing along the East Coast when their ship struck the reef and they ended up stranded on K’gari. Unfortunately James Fraser died and Eliza named the island after him. Initially she told the world how kind and caring the Butchulla people were to her, her husband and their crew, but when that story didn’t sell and make her any money, she changed her story. She wrote a book and spoke publicly about how the Butchulla people had burnt her husband at the stake and acted cannibalistically. This eventually led to many Butchulla people being hunted and killed by Europeans. The name Fraser Island has stuck, but in my open does not deserve to be the name of this island. This is why I want to refer to the island as K’gari in my blog post and when I’ve shared our experiences with others.

We made it back to our campsite with plenty of time to enjoy the perfectly clear skies and see the Southern Cross (the first time we’d been able to during our trip) and to watch the moonrise. This night was perfectly clear and the whole experience was magical. The moon appears just like the sun does that sunrise, starting off a glowing orange colour, turning peachier in colour and then white. We had a lovely meal of stirfry, had some more goon and played cards against humanity (aussie version). A great night. Also, we saw 2 dingos on the way back to camp. YAY!!

 

Another early start lead us to Lake McKenzie. Lake McKenzie is the number 1 visited site on K’gari so we wanted to get there before all the other groups. We succeeded! The over road tracks that we drove along there were great fun! We were getting thrown around everywhere!! The lake is a perched lake meaning it contains only rainwater, no groundwater, is not fed by rivers and is not connected to the ocean. The result, beautiful clear waters. The sand here is pure silica meaning it is very small grains, pure white and great for exfoliation. We all sat on the shores rubbing sand all over our bodies, including our hair (great for smoothing hair folicles) and felt like we’d been to a spa. We had a swim, took the traditional hair flick photos and jump shots, before heading off to our last stop.

I’m glad that Central station was our last stop because here we were able to appreciate how the island had been used as a site of logging for many years. We took a beautiful walk around Wanggoolba Creek, which is surrounded by Pine Trees on one side and Rainforest on the other. Wanggoolba was an important female site on the island, where women gave birth. If the baby was a female they were able to stay in the Creek as long as Mum and Baby required, if the baby was male, the ‘midwife’ would immediately run the baby out of the creek as men were not allowed in the area and it was classed as bad luck. The baby would then be passed through smoke to ‘cleanse them’ eventually being reunited with Mum when she was ready to come back up.

From here we started our departure from the island. Driving back along 75 mile beach, back to the barge, getting rid of a couple of people at Rainbow Beach and then drove all the way back to Noosa along the beach past Rainbow beach (apparently 21 different colours of sand), across Noosa river and then back to our hostel.

The whole 3 days was magical and I was so happy we chose to go with Dropbear as they made the whole trip even better. I loved hearing all of the stories about the Butchulla people and their history. It made the island not just a tourist site, but allowed us to see it in the eyes of the aboriginal people whose land it was far before the Europeans descended and claimed it for their own.

Something I had missed immensely when working silly hours as a Science teacher was being able to read. My Mum and Dad will tell you, I have always been a keen reader, filling many bookcases at theirs and in our new house since. Simon bought be a kindle at Christmas and even though I thought I would hate it… I now LOVE it. Being able to store endless books in a device the size of a 100 page book is amazing! Also, usually I can purchase the books for cheaper than a paperback and save trees!! Now, don’t get me wrong… I love holding a book and I also love sharing books, which is a downside to the kindle.

So since travelling my eagerness to read has returned and since leaving I have already read a total of 5 books!!

Many people keep giving me recommendations and my kindle is full and ready to go with many more, but I wanted to summarise what i’ve read so far for some of the people I have met on the road and also for my fellow readers back home.

Flawed – Cecilia Adhern

Cecilia Adhern you may more commonly know as the author of books such as p.s. I love you and where rainbows end. Flawed is her first young adult novel and as I love her writing style so much I thought I would give it a go. Flawed is a 2 parter with Perfect being released in April next year. It has a similar feel to the Divergent trilogy and Hunger games and my worry is that at times it feels like a bit of a copy of those. It follows a girl called Celestine living in a world where you will be branded flawed if you step out of line morally or socially. As with the Hunger Games and Divergent it has a coming of age spin to it. It’s a good book and I will definitely read the second part.

I give it 3.5 koalas out of 5.

 

The Secret Life of Bees – Sue Monk Kidd

This book was recommended to me by Loveday and I have been meaning to read it for years. I tried to summarise this book earlier to someone and I struggled. It follows a 14 girl called Lily Owens who is struggling with the lose of her mother early in her life and an abuse father. She runs away with her housekeeper Roseleen and is taken in by a family of 3 sisters who are bee keepers. The book hits of the topics of abuse, the stages of grief, religion and primarily black repression in America. It is a beautiful book and I really enjoyed reading it. Apparently, it’s a movie too so i’ll have to check that one out.

I give it 4 out of 5 koalas

 

Love Lies – Adele Parks

I was in desperate need of a pick me up girly book a few weeks ago so decided on Adele Parks as it was free. The book follows Fern, a soon to be 30 year old woman who feels she deserves a proposal from her live in long term boyfriend Adam. When this doesn’t happen she meets a famous musician called Scottie and a whole lot of stuff happens. It’s really lighthearted and easy to read, and actually not as predicitable as you might except. I did eventually figure out the twist but it took a while.

I give it 4 out of 5 koalas.

 

Keeping Faith – Jodi Picoult

Let’s start by saying I love Jodi Picoult books. I love that they are realistic and a little sad in places (weird I know). Jodi Picoult is the author of My sisters keeper and many many other beautiful books. This book however was not my favourite. The main character is Faith, a 7 year old girl who claims to be seeing a guard (God) after the breakdown of her parents relationship.  The story follows the custody battle between the parents and the media and religious onslaught that Faith receives as a result of her claims. At about 99% I realised I wouldn’t receive a proper conclusion to the story and the characters and was left pretty disappointed. It was hard to read at times and a little repetitive. Sorry Jodi, i’m going to trust this was a 1 time mistake and remain loyal.

I give it 1.5 out of 5 koalas

 

Summers child – Diana Chamberlain

I found Diana through my Mum, who told me she was like Jodi Picoult. Wooo! Who doesn’t like to find a new author. I have enjoyed all of her books previously so was happy to read another one of hers. Summers child is about a girl called Daria who finds a baby abandoned on the beach one Summer early in the morning. When the identify of the mother cannot be found out she us adopted by Daria’s family and names Shelly. 20 or so years later Shelly is curious who her parents are and ropes in Rory, a tv investigator, to try and investigate the truth. Lots go on in the little town with lots of twists and turns and many underlying character stories. It was a good read, but was a little slow to get going. However, I did enjoy it.

I give it 3.7 koalas.

 

So what’s next for me…

Gone girl

12 years a slave

The Martian

Shantaran

The Girl on the Train

After you

The Art of Racing in the Rain

and many more… but these are a good start for now! !

Any recommendations, please let me know.

After Hervey Bay we headed to Noosa. We were staying for 2 nights before our Fraser Island trip and 3 nights after, so were going to be in the same area (the Sunshine Coast) for a whole week! In this post I’m going to talk about our days before and days after Fraser Island (K’gari) in Noosa.

Our Greyhound bus was fine, as always. I’ve been really impressed with the efficiency of the Greyhound buses, always arriving and departing on time and stopping often enough for everyone to get food and have a ‘comfort’ break. I was warned before our trip by a few people that the Greyhound bus would be full of rowdy 18-21 year olds, but that hasn’t been the case at all. Yes, the majority of the passengers are backpackers, but they have been far from rowdy, sleeping most of the way no matter what the time.

We saw a large kangaroo at one of the comfort stops:

On arrival in Noosa, I was overcome with a feeling of ‘I’m going to love it here’. We knew it was an expensive town, based on the cost of the accommodation, and I could see why. Our hostel was ‘Noosa Flashpackers’ a recommendation by Louise and we’re really glad we stayed here. After talking to some people on our Fraser Island trip, they weren’t as happy as we were with our accommodation. We were staying in a dorm room for the first night and met Chris who would be on our Fraser Island trip in a few days time.

The first night involved getting food and settling in to the accommodation, nothing too exciting, but allowed us to get up early, benefit from the free breakfast the hostel offered and head out to Noosa Main Beach.

Noosa is surrounded by beautiful beaches and lots of small ‘areas’ (very hard to explain). There is Noosavilla, Noosa Junction (where we stayed) and Hasting Street (the main area). We took the hostels free shuttle bus the next day and went to Hasting Street and Noosa Main Beach. Hasting Street is full of boutique shops, ice cream shops, coffee shops and outdoor living restaurants. It has an amazing feel, if not a little high end. We walked along Hasting Street, not daring to look in shops, as our budget has severely suffered after Brexit and headed towards the beach. On our way we bumped into the Noosa River and saw how the other half lives, boats and waterfront properties everywhere. The area was just so beautiful and as it was the weekend, the beach was bustling and full of life.

We walked back to our hostel through the Noosa National Park and enjoyed the peace and quite it offered. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any wildlife during our walk, but enjoyed it none-the-less.

The rest of the afternoon was a lie by the pool kinda day. We had to be up at 5:15am the next day to be picked up for our Fraser Island trip so decided we needed a rest. We did pop down to Noosa Junction to enjoy a pizza at a restaurant called Pizza Capers. The pizza was AMAZING! Simon’s half was Meat feast and my half was New Mexican (it was like a burrito on a pizza).

I will write a separate blog about K’gari (Fraser Island) itself so will zoom forward to coming back to Noosa 3 days later.

We arrived back from K’gari quite late and were in desperate need of a shower and a bag sort out. Most of the guests from our trip were staying locally in Noosa so we had all arranged to go out for dinner at the local surf club to celebrate the amazing time we had. I had been told a few times that I needed to eat a Chicken Parma whilst in Australia (breaded chicken with ham, napoli sauce and lots of melted cheese) so decided that tonight was the night. It was really really tasty. I would definitely recommend it. I won’t even tell you what Simon had… (you’re probably starting to notice a trend). We had a lovely time with our Fraser Island tour group and walked along Hasting Street afterwards so some people could have an ice-cream from one of the many ice cream shops on the street.

The next day we decided to rent a car for 2 different reasons. 1) there is a lot to see and do in Noosa which is all quite accessible, but would take quite a bit of time to move between, time we didn’t have and 2) we needed to travel 40 minutes south to Mooloolaba the next day for our whale watching trip and public transport was not looking good at 6am the next morning to get us there in time. Renting the car was quick and painless and off we went to have a look at Lake Weyba. Lake Weyba is a large, shallow salt-water lake and has a local importance as fish breeding grounds. The lake was so unbelievably peaceful and there was a group of Pelicans which we enjoyed watching fly. I had a little paddle, just because you have to.

We travelled on to Laguna Lookout (after a stop at Aldi for lunch and dinner supplies – YAY cheaper food). From Laguna Lookout you can experience panoramic views across Noosa, the neighbouring towns and out to some of the volcanic plugs of the Glasshouse Mountains (more on this later). The views were absolutely beautiful and just continued to enforce our love for this area.

The afternoon consisted of one of the top activities to do in Noosa, the beautiful coastal walk. We set off from Hasting Street and Noosa Main Beach after enjoying a $1 slurpee to cool down (raspberry flavour). Immediately we were surrounded by beautiful scenery and viewpoints. We had heard that the coastal walk was an excellent opportunity to see wildlife, including turtles, but did not expect to see as many animals as we did.

Throughout our walk we saw:

An Eastern blue-tounged skink

A Lace monitor

2 koalas

2 green turtles surfacing for air

Humpback Whales off in the distance breaching (the white splash)

All in all, it was a beautiful walk and for anyone visiting the area it is a MUST do. Here are some other photos we took along the way.

After our walk we had one more stop. We had hired some bodyboards, for free, from our hostel and was going to visit one of the Eastern beaches near to our hostel, Sunshine Beach. The beach is absolutely beautiful and we quickly got into our swimmers and headed out to the waves. The waves were so irregular and choppy, so I only managed about 10 minutes before I was fed up and returned to the beach to read my book. Simon stayed out and continued to have fun, catching a few waves.

It had really been an AMAZING day. The day got even better as we were packing up to return to our hostel, when we saw ANOTHER pod of Humpback Whales on the horizon exhaling air and breaching. It was truly magical and the perfect end to a perfect day. The next day we were heading to Mooloolaba to have a go at Humpback whale swimming (as well as spotting) so having seen so many on this day gave us a lot of hope for some spottings.

We woke early to head off to Mooloolaba, about 40 minutes south of Noosa to check in with Sunreef for our swimming with whales experience. Jon recommended this to us and to be honest I had been a little skeptical. The company sells the tour as the only place in Australia you can swim with Humpback whales, but promises to be organic and for the whole experience to be on the whales terms. I had it in my head that it would be a bit gimmicky and was worried that we would be so preoccupied trying to find whales to swim with that we wouldn’t see any on the surface.

We set off in the boat and as soon as we left the river I knew I was going to be in trouble. I had forgotten to take sea sickness tablets. The early start had thrown me and it skipped my mind. However, for the first hour and a half or so I was fine, despite being thrown around on the deck. Simon and I both took an active role in scanning the horizon looking for Humpback whales and were quickly rewarded with some amazing sightings of a mother and calf.

The guests were split into 2 and the first group entered the water in a hope to see the mother and calf. However, the visibility was only around 5m and they were quickly too far away for a sighting. It was our turn next, after getting close enough again, we jumped in (a welcomed relief for me who was starting to feel ‘special’) and again the visibility was too poor to see them in the water. I felt very privileged though as I was positioned to the left of our group of 10 and was lucky enough to see the calf dive about 10 m from me whilst in the water.

Lets just say the rest of the trip was a blur of queasiness for me. I sat staring at the horizon like I was hypnotised, drinking water and trying to not fall asleep. Even Simon said he had the odd moment of very slight queasiness so that made me feel a bit better. Fortunately, I wasn’t actually sick and also we didn’t have many more spottings of whales after the first hour and a half. If I had have been taking pictures through the camera at this point, unhappy times would have been guaranteed, so even though I would have loved to have seen more Humpbacks, at least they took some pity on me and didn’t appear in the second half.

As we weren’t having much luck with Humpbacks for the last 2 hours or so, we had a stop to do some snorkelling. There were Green and Hawksbill turtles EVERYWHERE. Simon even saw 3 at one time! I kept more towards the side, as it was quite shallow and I was anxious that we (20 of us) were crowding around the turtles and scaring them. It was amazing to see so many in a short space of time through.

Back on land, I was feeling better. I needed a coffee to sort me out and a walk and we were good to go to explore Mooloolaba. Mooloolaba is such a lovely, pretty coastal town. It’s full of coffee shops, clothes shops, restaurants and bars and we had a great time just wandering the stores and taking it all in.

We stopped for lunch and this was our view. Not bad ehy?!

We had to have the car back in Noosa for 4:30pm so drove back, dropped the car off and went for a walk around the Arcadia Street Twilight Markets. These markets only happen once a month and have lots of different cultural food stalls and artisan stalls. Unfortunately, there’s nothing worse than seeing lots of pretty things to buy and tasty things to eat and being on a tight budget, so we didn’t stay long. We are looking forward to being able to buy and eat our way through the South-East Asian cheap markets in the New Year.

Our time in Noosa had come to an end. We had the most amazing time and we both agreed that this was the first place we could actually see ourselves living. The Sunshine Coast is so beautiful and in a way reminds me of Cornwall (except it’s far warmer).

In the morning we were picked up by Simon’s cousin Mark to explore even more of the area and to visit with them for 3 nights in and around Naranjba. More on that to follow.

After our time in Agnes Water we took another early greyhound bus to Hervey Bay. Hervey Bay is located approximately 4 hours South of Agnes Water and is where most people will embark on their Fraser Island trip. When booking Fraser Island we decided to depart from Noosa instead of Hervey Bay for a few reasons. 1) We wanted to base ourselves in  Noosa for a week or so to give ourselves some time to relax after moving every few days for weeks 2) The company ‘drop bear’ that we are using for Fraser Island are based their, so they will be able to store the majority of our luggage and 3) By leaving from Noosa we will need to travel North again, benefiting from around 3 hours of more information and stops than the other groups will get.

We arrived in Hervey Bay at around 11am, after a reasonably good greyhound bus trip. We stayed for one night at a hostel called the Aussie Woolshed. A woolshed is a building that is typically found on an Australian Ranch, which is used to shear sheep. The hostel had a lovely saloon style kitchen which matched its name and a relaxing TV area full of ranch style artifacts. The morning we left, we were able to have breakfast whilst watching Australia’s version of Good Morning Britain or BBC Breakfast, which we hadn’t been able to do for a month or so. AMAZING. It’s strange how something so simple can be so relaxing.

After arriving in our hostel, we quickly decided to go out for an explore. We had heard that Hervey Bay was mainly a base for Fraser Island therefore weren’t expecting much and decided to only stay for 24 hours. We made it to the beach, which was absolutely massive and went for a long walk. We stopped at a lovely little cafe called Bayorama for lunch. I had eggs benedict with bacon and a forbidden fruits frappe, Simon had a burger and onion rings (surprise surprise). This burger was amazing though. It had pineapple, egg, bacon, cheese and beetroot in it!

After a lovely lunch we kept on walking hoping to make it to Urangan Pier. Urangan Pier is one of the longest piers in Australia stretching out 868m. Originally, the pier was a whopping 1107m, but was shortened in 1985 when it was planned to be demolished. We had a lovely walk along the pier, watching some kite surfers and seeing the sand being blown across the sand bar below.

Nearby the pier we decided to have a mess around and taken some jumping shots. Have a look below.

 (Please ignore my face – Jeez)

After Urangan Pier we walked towards the Botanical Gardens. Usually, I love Botanical Gardens and think they are an excellent free activity. This wasn’t the case this time. There was a wedding happening on the main lawn on the Botanical Gardens (congratulations) which meant we were constantly worried about walking around and getting in the way. Also, the Botanical Garden just wasn’t that pretty! I hate to say it, but it definitely wasn’t worth our time. By this point we had already walked about 12km and we were both getting quite tired.

We headed back to our hostel (another 6km) with a quick stop at Woolies to get some food for dinner. All in all, I was very glad we only stayed for 24 hours in Hervey Bay. I can’t imagine spending more than this there as there wasn’t a lot to do. Hervey Bay is pretty good for whale watching trips, our whale watching trip was still to come in Mooloolaba, so we didn’t want to do another trip whilst here.

From Hervey Bay we headed to Noosa, which has been a town I have been looking forward to visiting for a LONG time. Spoiler – I was right to look forward to it.

So today marks 1 month (-1 day, sorry! We will be off radar tomorrow) since we left the UK and boarded our flight to Hong Kong. 1 month seems like such a long time, which I guess it is, but we still have 6 months (and a few days) to go!!

I decided to write a blog to sum up what we’ve learnt, loved, hated and been surprised by so far. Oh and also to give you an insight into what is coming up on our horizon.

1. Food and alcohol is expensive in Australia. Like ridiculously. Our nearest and dearest will know that Simon is a little partial to flavoured cider and also Morgan’s Spiced Rum, both of which break the expensive richter scale over here. We’re talking $50 for a litre bottle of rum… that’s around £32 to you and me. I don’t think we’ll ever moan when it’s £17 in Tesco ever again. One bel pepper (or Capsicum as they’re known here is around $1) and don’t even get me started on mushrooms and meat. 2 cheap foods through – watermelon and avocado.
2. Australia is massive. Now.. we knew this already, but 2 things happened to enforce this recently. We saw a postcard which had a map of Australia and then on top of that was a map of Europe. There was sooooo much room to spare. Also, we kept moving South, but we weren’t moving! Our little dot on my map just didn’t move! A couple long greyhounds sorted that out and now we’re nice and centralised in Noosa.
3. We have learnt that we prefer private rooms. Now, this isn’t because we are anti social or because we hate people (only a little), but we like to spread our stuff out, we like our private space and we like to chill out in our room. Chilling out in your room, is pretty hard to do when Simon is in one bunk and I’m in another one. We only have 1 laptop and there are other people in the room. Also, private rooms don’t work out that much more expensive most of the time, so we’re going to be snobs from now on.
4. I miss baths. Like really REALLY REALLY miss having a bath. I didn’t realise until recently that I was partaking in a cheeky bath about 3 times a week. I’m suffering from withdrawals… so much so that I’m tempted to book into a hotel for a night, just for a bath. Here’s hoping the Australia Dowells (Mark and Umi) have a bath tub in their house. Obviously I’ll spend time with them too 😛
5. We have a love love hate hate relationship with our backpacks. I say love love hate hate, because one love hate is not enough. I’m starting to wonder how I have so much stuff back in Cornwall in storage. Who needs that much stuff? Those who know me know that I’m not a clothes or shoe buyer, but really? How did we fill that storage container? I have tops with me now that I hardly or never wear and I’m living out of a 55l backpack. So on one hand, I love the simplicity, but on the other hand we hate lugging them around. Simon has the unfortunate task of carrying the padded electronic bag so we can write all these lovely posts and sort all our lovely photos and videos. It’s heavy! I’m glad its not me… hence the hate.
6. It’s frustrating that you can’t do everything! There is so much to see and so much to do, but money and time stops you from doing everything.
7. Budgeting is giving us a headache. I have an app that I add every single purchase and expenditure into, which then gives us an idea of whether we are under or over budget for that day or for our total trip. For those that know me well, you will not be surprised by this. As much as we are adding everything up and are happy that we know what we are spending. Sometimes you spend more! Not loads more, but a little more. Despite this, I’m 90% sure we will be on budget for Australia. Sorry Simon for all the nagging, but you’ll be grateful in the end.
8. Getting ailments on the road is a pain in the bum. I have been suffering from 2 ingrown toe nails for about 2 weeks now. Mum! Don’t worry, they are so much better now. But, WOW!!! It’s been an absolute nightmare finding time to clean them up, bandage, re-bandage and keep going (they have hurt at times). We’ve both had issues, but luckily we are nearly at full health and happy.
9. BUGS! Oh jeez! The Bugs! Now I don’t mean the spiders or the other creepy bugs. I mean the flying, buzzing, suck your blood bugs. I am now up to 40% DEET because bugs LOVE me and anything less just instant working. It’s slightly flattering, but also not because ow they hurt! Just like cat fleas, I get a nasty welt on me every time I get bitten and have nearly gotten through a tube of anti bite cream already. Simon is being targeted on the arms and me on the legs and feet. Please take a moment to be grateful for the lack of flying, blood sucking evil whatsits in the UK.
10. The freedom! We love it! I love that every day we wake up and say ‘what shall we explore today? where shall we go? what will we find?’ It’s amazing!
11. Cornwall! Our appreciation for Cornwall has grown. Australia has some truly beautiful and stunning beaches, but I could also write blog posts about all of the beautiful and stunning beaches, and spots in Cornwall.
12. We feel privileged! We are so lucky that we are able to sit on a beautiful beach and enjoy an iced coffee and not worry. We feel blessed about the whole experience.
13. There are not as many British backpackers as you would expect. I was expected blooming thousands of Pomeys, but the majority are from Germany and they are YOUNG!!! It turns out that at the age of 17 they finish high school and are practically encouraged to take a year off to go travelling before starting further education. Therefore, 95% of the country will travel or complete volunteer work at this age (my source for this is a few Germans). This, apparently, stems back to men completing mandatory military service at this age. But, it’s been surprising.
14. We miss people. Now this is pretty obvious, but we do! It’s difficult to maintain conversations when the wifi is ridiculous and there is an 8 hour time difference. Don’t worry we will keep preserving though.
15. There is beauty everywhere. I am aware in my blog posts that I keep saying how beautiful the view is and how beautiful the beach is, but it’s true. It doesn’t matter if it’s the bush, the coast, in a National park or in the rainforest. Australia is stunning.
16. We love travel.

This is not an exhaustive list, but just the ones that come to mind. Also, sorry for no pictures this time, the wifi is’t great at this hostel.

So what is coming up for us? Tomorrow we are going to Fraser Island for 3 days to explore the world’s largest sand island and to try and find some dingos. After that we will be back in Noosa for a few days and then staying with Mark and Umi for a few nights which is very exciting. Long term we are in Oz until the 12th November and then we head to New Zealand. We are flying down to Melbourne on the 4th November so as long as we make it to Sydney Airport for then, we are doing well.

Missing you all!!! And thanks for the lovely comments about the blog. I love writing it so i’m equally happy that everyone is enjoying reading it.

We arrived in Agnes Water after a 9.5 hour bus ride from Airlie Beach. It was about time we covered some ground as every time we looked at the map we weren’t making a lot of progress down the East Coast. 600km later, we had definitely covered some ground, with my maps.me even asking me to download a new portion of map to my phone. The bus ride itself wasn’t that bad. I was expecting the worse to be honest, but somehow we managed to get onto a pretty full bus first. Simon grabbed the back two seats which had twice as much leg room and we settled in for the night. I was a little apprehensive about a) sitting in the back row (motion sickness) and b) how much space there was, because I couldn’t reach the foot rest. Simon however, was pretty chuffed and could spread out nicely. We slept a lot, but was fooled into think we had a good nights sleep as soon after arriving in Agnes Water, as soon as we were fed and water, we both fell asleep for about 4 hours. We both woke feeling pretty groggy, but to a beautiful sunrise.

Agnes water/1770 is still establishing itself as a East Coast Australia backpacker hotspot, with most people still choosing to zoom straight through from Airlie Beach to Hervey Bay. It’s a sleepy town with small boutiques, bakeries all meeting just your basic needs. We read a sign, whilst having a wander around that said the first motel was only built in 1985, to which Simon responded with ‘This town is as old as me’. We walked to the beach and read our books for a while. The beach was pretty gorgeous, as are all the beaches here, but I was definitely feeling the chilly wind. 600km south had definitely changed the weather a little bit. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still lovely and warm in the sun, when there is no wind, but definitely not as hot or humid as we had been used to. I found myself wrapping myself up and looking out to sea. This area was called 1770, because it was the year that Captain James Cook first landed here. This was the second place he landed at in Australia, with Sydney being the first. Most people come here for 2 reasons. 1) to learn to surf 2) to take part in scooteroo (more on that later).

After walking around Agnes Water and enjoying the beach we headed back to our hostel for a lazy evening of food and a movie (Gravity if you were interested to know – I give it 2 out of 5 popcorns). We needed an early night after all of the excitement recently and didn’t emerge until about 9am the next day, scooteroo day. I’ll let Simon fill you in on that one…

Author – Simon (for a change)
So today was really cool. We had a nice lie in at our hostel in Agnes Water, had a cup of tea and some watermelon for breakfast, which was a little strange, but hey! On the menu today was scooteroo. We had been told about this by a lot of people online and on our travels. It was a must do activity on the East Coast, ranked top 5 of things to do and number one for value.

We were picked up outside our hostel by Eddie who did look the part in his biker leather jacket with scooteroo emblazoned on the back which immediately increased our excitement level. We knew this was going to be fun!

So looking cool and feeling cool we strutted over to the practice track where various people were having their first experience on a little motor bike. Some doing ok some crashing into cones and some terrified. I was used to the feel on two wheels so no worries and Becky took to it like a duck to water. The ‘motorbikes’ have a 49cc engine, the same as a scooter, but the frame had been kitted out to look like a Harley Davidson.

Safety briefing completed, it was time for a quick photo on a big mean looking hog. We were told to be as bad ass as possible, so hopefully our photo shows that. Whatever these bikes lacked in size they made up for in looking cool. We eagerly jumped on and waited, impatient to get riding. Then we were off! 22 little motorbikes cruising around Agnes Water and 1770. We were part of a biker crew and were loving it. We saw loads of wild Kangaroos whilst cruising around. Looking at these whilst trying to keep the handle bars pointed in the right direction will have been tricky for most. The feeling of cruising with the sun on your face and the smell of petrol fumes is exhilarating and I miss my own little bike back home. We stopped for a snack of potato wedges and a drink at the 1770 marina which was beautiful then our convoy made its way back to the bike shed. We were both really gutted it was over and 4 hours had zoomed by in a flash. I would highly recommend this to anyone who is passing through 1770.

Its Becky again! I have to say, for someone who doesn’t like motorbikes and who makes her husband text her every time after a journey, I really did enjoy scooteroo. It was fun to have a leather jacket on, the wind blowing in my hair and to feel super badass whilst looking at wild kangaroos. It was a great day and really did make the trip to Agnes Water truly worth it.

On to Hervey Bay next! Another 6.30am bus though. Oh the hard life of a backpacker 😛

One of the trips we have been most looking forward to whilst in Australia has been our 2 night, 3 day Whitsundays trip. Ever since Loveday told us it was somewhere we need to spend a good amount of time we have been excited. We booked our Fraser Island and Whitsundays trip together so we got a discount. Woo!! We decided on the sailing boat Summertime because it offered not only snorkeling and swimming, but also diving and kayaking, whilst keeping numbers onboard low – 16 passengers and 4 crew. The boat also had an early day 1 departure and a later return time on day 3, therefore maximising our time in the Whitsundays.

We arrived in Airlie Beach after a 4.5 hour Greyhound bus from Townsville. The Greyhound bus was actually ok, I was dreading it a little as I am prone to motion sickness, but it was better than i expected offering more space and better reclining seats than the airlines we travelled to Australia on. After sleeping for a bit and watching movies we arrived in Airlie and the first thing we both said was ‘its just like NEWQUAY’. Every shop is selling swim wear, food or alcohol and it just has the same party feel to it. I dont think it helped that when we first got here the first glimpse into Airlie life we saw were men in fancy dress getting pretty drunk at 10am. We couldnt check into our hostel till 2.30 so we went for an explore and some food. We had food at KCs which was excellent. Simon had a kangaroo steak burger which was super tasty (a milder beef steak, but just as tender). We then went to cold rock ice cream which was quite possibly the best ice cream i’ve ever had.  They take your ice cream flavour, spread it out on the bench, mash up some good stuff into the ice cream (in my case a tim tam, cookie dough and an oreo) and then present it to you whilst you drool. It was brilliant!! A tim tam if you dont know is like a penguin bar on steroids that has improved its taste by 1000%. Obsessed!

The afternoon involved a swim at the Airlie Beach lagoon, which was pretty refreshing. It’s not cold here by any standard, but compared to the humid regions of Cape Tribulation and Port Douglas that we had become quite used to, we had definitely noticed a cooling as we headed south.

That evening we met up with Sophie and George again and had some drinks in Magnums (the hostel where we were staying). However, it has becoming quite common that we have to get up early, so off we went to bed so we could get up nice and early to catch our boat to the Whitsundays. The day before we had to sort our belongs into a canvas bag about half the size of a bag for life, the reason we would learn as soon as we got onto the boat (the living spaces were small, but cosy) and we had taken our other belongings to storing at Whitsundays Sailing Adventures. We grabbed a McDonalds breakfast (naughty I know) and headed off to the marina.

Once at the marina we started to see people with the same canvas bag as us. On our boat there were 3 Twainese, 2 Hong Kongese (made that up), 4 Danish, 2 Germans, 2 Americans and of course us. A really lovely mix of different cultures. We also met Dan, our dive supervisor and all round go to guy for the next 3 days, he was from Texas, but was loving life in Australia. Dive certifications and health and safety waivers checked we were boarding Summertime. Much smaller than I initially expected, but very cosy and practical, having everything you could possibly need for a trip to the Whitsundays. We were then told we were heading straight to Whitehaven Beach. YAYAYAYAY!

Whitehaven Beach is a 7km beach situated on Whitsunday Island. The sand on Whitehaven beach is made up of 98% silica, making it one of the purest, whitest beaches in the world. To start with we all walked up to Hill Inlet, where you get stunning shots like this one. Our initial reaction, along with everyone else’s, was just WOW! The photos do not do the beach justice as anyone who has been there will know.

We had been warned not to take too much electrical equipment to the beach as the sand was so fine, and there is a high likelihood that the sand can get into your phones and cameras and stop them working. We only took the go pro and relied on the Summertime Crew to take other photos for us.

After admiring the scenery and struggling to take in the beauty of it all, we went down to the beach where we had 2 hours to swim, relax, look for rays and lemon sharks and just enjoy Whitehaven beach. We saw lots of different species of rays, but unfortunately were unable to spot a lemon shark. Some other people in our groups saw a young one.

After our amazing afternoon at Whitehaven beach we went back to Summertime to get to know each other and relax. We were going to be diving the next day so would need a lot of rest and beauty sleep for that. Back on Summertime, Simon and I were about to have our first experience with ‘goon’. Goon if you don’t know is the term given to cheap and cheerful boxed wine here in Australia. It is the cheapest way to get drunk out here as the cost of alcohol is extortionate. We paid $15 for 4l of white wine. Approximately £8/9. Bargain! Simon also got 4 small cans of Morgans Spiced rum and coke… less than a litre and that came in at $18.99. Rip off!! We enjoyed some glasses of goon, a beautiful sunset and got chatting to a lot of the lovely people on board. But early to bed for us as we would be getting up around 6.30 for breakfast before our first dive of the day.

Simon assures me that the beds on board Summertime are quite luxurious in comparison to some of the beds he has slept in on board ship. If I sat up, even half way, I would smack my head on the ceiling (we were in the top bunk, which is never my top choice of bunk). However, we both had a relatively good nights sleep and were ready for the morning.

The next day we dived twice, never deeper than 10m, as the reef was relatively shallow. The first site we dived at was called Blue ** Lagoon. The visibility wasn’t great, but got better towards the end of the dive. There were lots of beautiful reef fish, but nothing large like a turtle of a reef shark. Simon had a lot of trouble with his mask during this dive as it kept flooding (unfortunately, I think the trusty mask is going to have to go in the bin), but what kept frustrating me most once one of the other divers in our group. This diver claimed to have 500+ dives and to have been diving since he was 16 years old. However, he could not maintain his buoyancy and he kept smashing into the coral!!! ERRRRR so FRUSTRATING!!! After the dive, we went for a snorkel and saw a lovely Maori Humphead Wrasse, but soon enough were surrounded by little jellyfish. I am unsure of the species name, but we were reassured that they were harmless, despite you being pretty aware that they had touched you. Luckily, we had been wearing a stinger suit underneath our shorty wetsuit, so I only got stung once on my foot (the sting was gone within a minute).

Back onto the boat for some food! The food on board was excellent and was much needed after all the diving and snorkelling. We completed one more dive that afternoon, where the visibility was far better. I don’t think I’ve ever dived with so many fish in my life. The photos we took truly don’t give a true representation of how many fish there were at times. We saw a huge!! pufferfish, which the locals call toe fish (because they like to bite your toes), but spent the majority of the dive hunting for a turtle. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find one, even after snorkelling for an additional 45 minutes of so after the dive. We had a lovely BBQ steak dinner, drank some more goon and saw another stunning sunset.

On our last day we had another early rise for kayaking. Summertime has 8 inflatable kayaks on board which are used on the last day to explore the area of Stonehaven. Simon and I have kayaked a few times, but were getting quite frustrated with each other during this one 😛 We were lucky enough to see lots of rays and a few surfacing green turtles during our kayak and at the end of the kayak we played a game designed by Dan. I’m warning all our friends and family that we will be 100% pushing this game on you in the future, it was soooooo much fun! Our team (green) was in the lead for the majority of the game, but unfortunately lost the last point after some serious competition. I’ll sum up the game below for mine (and your) future benefits.

The 8 double kayaks were split into 2 teams, green and red. The aim of the game is to pass the floaty ball between your team 3 times without penalties (dropping the ball into the water, getting aggressive with the other team, at least 1m from the other kayak, and if a second pass with an opposing team in between the two kayaks). Each team was allowed 3 strikes. A strike will be from getting aggressive or from dropping the ball into the water during a pass. If you receive a strike, you will have to go back to the first pass. Once you have achieved 3 passes then your team receives a point. The first team to reach 15 point wins!

Apparently we were the most competitive group to play this game and it was such good fun zooming around, trying to getting into defensive positions and catch the ball. Simon got a little too into the game and at one point ‘over extended’ out of the kayak, sending us both flying out. Grumpy wife!!

After kayaking, we starting making our way back to Abel Point Marina at Airlie Beach. I couldn’t quite believe that the whole trip was over already! Most tours only give you about 36 hours in the Whitsundays and ours gave us nearly 3 full days. It still wasn’t enough! It’s such a beautiful part of the world and I’m sure we will return in the future.

Apologises for the lack of photos. Most of our photos are on a DVD disc that we will be unable to access until we get home (unless we find a pc).

A bit of a spoiler to start this blog post. We have LOVED Magnetic Island. We met some pretty epic people on the ferry over and during our time here which made the experience even more amazing.

We stayed one night in Townsville before we headed over to Magnetic Island. We stayed at Civic Guesthouse which is quite possibly the best hostel we’ve stayed at so far. We were also pleasantly surprised to be upgraded from a 4 bed dorm to a private room upon arrival. WIN!! We decided we liked it so much that we would go back for another night after our time on Magnetic Island and she gave us the private room again for the same price as the 4 bed dorm. DOUBLE WIN!!

We didn’t do a lot in Townsville except go for a walk along the Esplanade to watch the sun set, catch up on washing and relaxing!!! The following morning we woke up relatively early and got the free shuttle bus from the hostel over to the ferry. $35 return including a bus pass isn’t that bad, especially since we’ve since learnt that the car ferry was $190 return! Oh dear!! The ferry only took 20 minutes and we made it to the island nice and early.

We were staying at the YHA Bungalow Bay, which is the only hostel in Australia with an on site koala sanctuary. We had booked a private room for the 3 nights we were here and we were very glad we did as the room was an entire building with air con and a personal fridge! Great! We couldn’t check in for a while so we headed down to Horseshoe Bay to do some relaxing on the beach and you’ll be surprised to hear it was BEAUTIFUL! We came back to the hostel and decided to complete the Forts Walk that afternoon.

The Forts Walk is probably the most popular walk on the island and gives you a chance to see wild koalas, whilst looking at ruins from the WWII naval base which was on the island. Even though it was 3pm, it was still very warm and the walk was quite steep in places. We saw 2 wild koalas very early on (a Mum and baby) and 3 more on our journey. From the top of the signal tower we had a 300 degree coastal panorama view, down to the beautiful bays of Magnetic Island and back to Townsville on the mainland. A really lovely walk full of beautiful scenery.

Later on that evening we met up with Jenny, who we met on the boat, and her friend Sophie. We failed quite miserably at the quiz the hostel was having, but enjoyed a few drinks and some great chat! We had made plans for the next day to hire a car with another British couple Sophie and George and made more plans to all meet up in our hire cars and explore the Island.

An early start the next day lead to the arrival of Sophie, George and the pink barbie car. On Magnetic Island they have these little convertible cars which can only be described as toy cars. We headed off to Arcadia to try and find a waterfall, but it’s pretty dry here at the moment and the creek was as dry as a bone. We then moved back to horseshoe bay and just relaxed! Bliss! We decided to hire some double kayaks and went out hoping to see some Green turtles surfacing, which we did! YAY! We kayaked around to a private beach, had a swim and then came back to the bay.

Lunch was needed at this point and we got some food from the local fish and chip shop before heading down to Picnic Bay. Another beautiful beach, with a pier, on the south side of the island. We jumped in off the pier, me once, Simon many times! He’s like a child, but having George with him, meant he could have some male bonding time.

We rushed back to the YHA for 4.30 so we could feed the parakeets. We showed up a little late to what i can only describe as CHAOS! There were hundreds of colourful parakeets flying around landing on peoples heads and arms. They’re not the most gentle of birds and treat you exactly like a tree. We got some great photos and had a good laugh during the feed though.

After this we headed up to Geoffrey Bay to see if we could spot some rock wallabies. They prefer to come out later in the day when its cooler and if you take some food (carrots or wallaby feed) they will come and eat it out of your hands. We spent quite a while here with the barbie car crew taking pictures, giving the wallabies a good scratch and just enjoying the scenery.

 

Back to the hotel for a quick clean up and change and off we went to xbase, another hostel on the island, for  drinks and another pub quiz. To say we were determined was an understatment. We had a great team! The pub quiz was a stepup from the night before with a presentation, music and microphone. We settled in with our jug of cider, ready to start. At one point our team (named ‘F**k the dingos’ – ask Jenny about that one) had to make a paper plane. The furthest distance thrown won 2 points. So Simon being the aircraft engineer took the challenge upon himself. When it came to throwing the paper plane, we all stood up on our benches to get a better view and WOW did that thing fly. It went clear across the room, much further than any of the others. Proud wife moment. The quiz continued and i’ll skip to the best bit. WE WON!!! Our team was super happy as we had won $80 behind the bar, but only had 10 minutes to spend it. A couple of bottles of wine were purchased and shared with another mainly English group. We were all on cloud nine! Such a great night.

The next day was also an early start. We were going horseriding!! We got to the stables for 8.30am, were assigned a horse, Simon – Clyde, Me – Jumbok, and set off on a gentle walk through the undergrowth. We both hadn’t ridden for about 2 years but it started to come back to us relatively quickly. We got trotting and eventually did some cantering. My horse being far more reluctant to get going than Simons. We made it to Horseshoe Bay, the saddles were taken off the horse and we got into our swimmers. We were going bareback!! Only walking of course, but down the sand and into the sea. It was truly magical. Such a highlight of our trip so far. We saw some wild koalas on our way back and some either kanagroos or wallabies in the distance.

The rest of the day was a chill out day. We enjoyed lunch at the beach, a coffee down on the beach and did some sorting and backing up of photos and videos. That evening we got talking to an Irish couple who had moved out to Australia 5 years ago. To say they scared us a bit about snakes and spiders was an understatement. So much so we went back and checked all our belongings after.

On our last morning on Magnetic Island we had a coffee with Sophie, missed 2 buses, but eventually made it to the ferry to go back to Townsville. We were so sad to be leaving Magnetic Island, for us it had been perfect. Great company. Great scenery. Great wildlife and lots of laughs.

We had an uneventful evening in Townsville. Well i did. Simon went to the cinema to see The Magnificent Seven. Not my thing and also i’ve been suffering from a sore and swollen toe for a few days so i stayed in and watched a movie in bed. We need some ‘me’ time i think otherwise we will end up going crazy.

Sorry for the delay in getting this blog up. It’s nearly 1400 words which sums up how truly magical we found Magnetic Island.

Mossman Gorge is part of the Daintree National park, located about 20km North of Port Douglas. Mossman Gorge is part of the protected traditional lands of the Kuku Yalanji people. When we arrived at the visitors centre we paid $9.10 so we could get a mini bus down to the start of the hiking trails. We could have walked, but they ask you not to as the road leads you through the Kuku Yalanji people’s village. Much more respectful, for 100s of people to not be trampling through their village.

We took a well trodden path through the rain forest, moving along board walks over a bouncy wire bridge called the Rex Creek Bridge, past some huge boulders and even bigger trees which have a very ancient feeling to them due to their size. Then on our way back we decided to take a swim with the locals in the cool water of the Mossman river playing in the, sometimes, fast flowing currents that carry you gently along. This was the most refreshing and cooling swim after walking through the hot and humid rainforest.

Afterwards it was back on the road up to the Daintree river ferry crossing. The only way to describe this is that it’s like a smaller version of the Torpoint ferry in Plymouth, except on this ferry you cannot get out of your car due to the risk of a crocodile pulling you overboard into the water (maybe a slight exaggeration – Simon wrote that bit). After the river we stopped at Alexandra lookout which gave us a beautiful view over the Daintee river and back to Port Douglas in the distance. Before making it to our accommodation we stopped at another board walk on the hunt for a wild Cassowary. Unfortunately, we didn’t spot one, but the walk was beautiful. I’m not sure I’d ever get enough of walking through the rainforest, looking out for wildlife and seeing all the massive trees.

We finally made it to our accommodation at Daintree Crocodylus village. As we pulled into the makeshift carpark, which was little more than partially cleared spaces between big rainforest trees, we began to wonder what we had gotten ourself into. We were literally in the middle of DENSE rainforest. We found reception but unfortunately it was closed until 4:30pm, but a sign did say welcome and please find your name and room details below. We wandered off to find our room and the whole accommodation looked pretty deserted and a little eerie. We were staying in what could only be described as a cross between a tent and a wooden hut with bunk beds in it. At this moment we were thinking  A) What have we got ourselves into? and B) Tonight is going to be interesting! Anyway we got sorted and went to reception which was now open and checked in.

We learnt 3 things that first night sleeping in the rainforest  A) Its very loud in the rainforest at night, especially from crickets, frogs, birds, and who knows what else  B) It rains a lot apparently and when your under canvas in your bed it’s not ideal and C) There are lots of bugs and creepy crawlies. Good luck to anyone else who decides to go stay in the rainforest.

The next day we woke up and headed right up to Cape Tribulation Bay. This beach was absolutely STUNNING! Beautiful white sandy beaches, palm trees and hardly any other people on the beach. It was a welcomed relief to be near to the sea again, as the rainforest is so hot and muggy! After walking along the beach and exploring some mangrove trees we walked up to a look out back over the beach. Take a look for yourself!

The whole Cape Tribulation area is strange (but beautiful). There isn’t a lot up there and everything is VERY expensive because they know that you will have to buy it as there are no other options. Signal and WIFI is very sparse but we quite enjoyed being disconnected for a while to truly enjoy the beauty of the area. I have to admit that the whole time I was in Cape Tribulation I felt DAMP! After our swim in Mossman the day before one of my tops was still a bit wet when we got to our accommodation. 48 hours later when we left the top was just as wet as it was the day we got there. I honestly couldn’t imagine living up here, but it is a magical place to visit.

We spent some time at Myla Beach around the corner from Cape Tribulation Beach. I don’t think we saw another person for about an hour which was just amazing. I definitely think we were spoilt! We decided to stop for a milkshake and then made our way to the Daintree Icecream company where we enjoyed a flavour pot. The company grow all there own tropical fruits on the plantation and then make super tasty ice cream from them. We enjoyed some mango, whattleseed, jackfruit and black sapote ice-cream. The black sapote was a lot like a mild chocolate and the jackfruit was a bit like blueberry. All very tasty and a great experience trying some new flavours. We’d had a busy day so we decided to pop in and see Cow Bay which again was beautiful and then we headed back to the hostel to relax.

The next morning we started our journey to Mission Beach, stopping off in Cairns to get Simon’s glasses fixed (he slept on them and broke the nosepad) and get some decent wifi. There wasn’t much to do in Mission Beach, but our hostel was great and was offering a free sausage sizzle that night (Free sausage sandwiches). We went for a swim at sunset on the beach. Had an early night, got up early and went for another swim in the sea before starting our journey towards Townsville. I will speak about Townsville in my blog post about the beautiful Magnetic Island (that’s where we are and we are LOVING IT!!!). Unfortunately we had to say goodbye to our car in Townsville. Sad times!!