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WHITSUNDAYS:
A-MAZ-ING, Probably my favourite thing I've done in Aus just because it made me want a piece of the lifestyle. Spent 2days 2nighs living on a little sailing boat called Habibi with our skipper Greg, Deckhand Dave and Cook Fern sailing round the whitsundays, seeing the most beautul coloured seas, sandy beaches and wildlife. The first day we sailed to Whitehaven beach for sunset and had a lush dinner (its so good eating real food when your used to noodles noodles, pasta and more bloody noodles. Ive never wanted vegetables so much!) I slept on the boat deck which was amaizng, the gentle swaying gave me a brilliant nights sleep. First thing in the morning we went to Whitehaven beach, 98% silca sand! Real white beach with crystal clear waters, did a little walk through the rainforest and saw a little ray in the sea. Next stop was a snorkelling cove which was home to humpheaded Maouri Rass which are real big fish that are shiny blue and green, almost iridescent colours. You can feed, stroke and swim with them. I hardly did any snorkelling because i was just playing with this Rass called Elvis. Also got to see some Giant Trevelli fish which are also pretty big and look a little like sharks. We moved round to the next cove to do some more snorkelling. 15 mins in 2 of the girls shouted that they had seen turtles, so i swam down but didn;t see any but i did spot a 2m Reef Shark which was crazy, i wasn't bothered because we were told they're not dangerou. 30seconds later one of the guys AJ started screaming and waving his hands. Our skipper Greg was in the safety boatr and told him to stop messing around and then he realized he was serious and razzed it over to him, picked him up and drove the safety boat back to us. I thought t mustve been a jelly fish but when the boat got bakc to us i saw AJs hand with bloogd everywhere and knew it was a shark. Greg told us to all swim back to the boat togther, everyone went serious for a bit thinking we were guna getr attacked by a shark......turns out AJ's amera was dangeling from his hand and the shark went to grab that and caught his hand too. AJ was in a lot of shock but by the late afternoo we were all laughing and joking about it. Geg said it was a definate first for Habibi. We dropped anchor for the ight and got on the goon and drinking games, so much fun playng drinking games on a swaying boat, there was a storm over Airlie so you could see lighti8ng in the distant but perfectly dry where we were. I managed to to convince Dave to let me sleep on the roof of the boat with him ( its for staff only) I had an amazing nights sleep , the swaying fo the boat is so soothing and being under the stars whilst floating on the sea is an experience i definatley want to do do again. The final morning we stayed put for an hour or two so me and some of the boys climbed the top of the boat and did a load of backflips off which was immense fun. I was already in love with the ocean and all things to do in the sea but the boat trip was just an extra way to experience it and i defo wnat to go back and stay on a boat for a hwile in the future! When back in Airlie on dry land i found myself swaying everynow and again, i was wlaking down the milk aisle in the supermarket and the floor felt like it was moving beneath me and that my body was swaying, so wierd, apprently its normal for that to happen after spending time on a boat.
CATTLE RANCH-KROOMBIT:
After a very very long oz bus journey we reached our cattle station stop in the outback. I had a go a cracking a whip and riding a mechanical bull (a whole 3seconds), tried goat and had a roast dinner. The next day we learnt how to lassoo a goat (humanly) and then got put in a pen wih them, I came 2nd in the group somehow. Then i opted to do some goat mustering on horseback which wasa bad bad idea cos i spent 2 horurs in 37 degrees surrounded by flies shouting at goats, riding trough 4 fields, i'd had enough when my horse kicked one of the other horses. I was like GET ME BACK TO THE COAST NOW!
luckily we left after than and it was back to the coast...phew
RAINBOW BEACH:
Rainbow beach was cool. Attempted to surf the onshore mush that was rainbow beaches surf but got out 15minutes later after noticing about 10 jellies just floating around. If ot was 3ft clean i would've stayed! We had our breifing for the 4x4 that afternoon then walked to the Carlo Sandblow -giant sand dune thats slwoly engulfing the forest below. It was a steep and strenuos hike up, especially with a broken toe. but the views at the top made it worht it. Had a throw around a boomarang and hada go at sandboarding. Saw all the different colours of Rainbow beach's sand.. theres actually pink sand!!! We watched the sunset and made a giant human pyramid.
FRASER ISLAND:
Got up early, packed our little 4x4's. My group was 2 guys from leeds Deenand Andy and 2 irish girls Leigh anne and Rosie. As the boys were hungover i was nominated to drive which i didnt mind. We drove to the garage and had our briefing then set off to Fraser. One of the groups with us got stuck in the sand on the run up to the barge over to Fraser so i had to cain it through the sand to make sure we didnt get stuck either. Once off the ferry we were stoked, on opur way and making progress....Until.....20mins in our car was making the loudest horrible sound then suddenyl, BANG! Loud noise and smoke started coming out from the bonnet. I pulled straught over...when i say pulled over i mean just stopped pretty much dead in the sand trying to get the car away from the sea. Weomeone down who hada look and told us we blew the water pipe off and fitted another one for us that he randomly had in his car. We used ALL of our 20litres worth of drinking water to put i the water thing then got on our way.
10minutes later.....the car was making the same horrible sound so we knew we had to pull over. the next guy we managed to call down had a satellite phone so we finally could ring the company we got the 4x4 from, They sent over one of the mechanics.
2 and a half hours later... the mechanic turns up
45minutes later..... He tells us hes put a new fan belt on (we broke both) and to give it nother go. Deen started driving , and it wouldnt even budge out of the sand. The mechanic was like..no this isnt going to work, your cars screwed...take mine.
All well and good but we had to strip all the stuff off the roof of our truck and into the boot of this one as it was much smaller. Then we were finally on our way, back on schedule and on our way to Lake Makenzie. As we were co0mpletely out of water we decided to pull up at Eurong and buy some. When deen turned the ignition on the key got jammed. Completely stuck. Would not budge. We couldnt believe it!! not again. So i rang the mechanic and was liek for gods sake i'm not being funny but your cars are s***!!!! So he sent the island mechanic to have a look at it who said it was othing to do with us and was a problem with the car. He took the ignition out and then armed us with a pair of pliers...which we then had to use for the next 3days to start our car.
so eventually we did fially get on our way but we were all pretty pissed off by this time. The track to Makenzie was good fun and we all hada luagh getting there. Lake Makenzie was beautifullll, super white sand like Whitehaven and super clear water that just fades ito deep deep blue. We spent prob 45mins there having a chill out then got back on the road/sand track. I drove for a it but gave the wheel back to Deen whenwe got to asteep bit of hill that a couple of trucks in front were getting stuck on.We all wlaked up and left Deen to get it up there, 2mins later we hear this sound like a furious jet plane and Deens caini9ng the truck up the hill successfully i may add! We got to Camp to find both our other groups waiting, we then found out that one group actually rolled their truck and there was now a lovely dent in the side.
We had a good chille dotu evening with a bbq and drinking games at our little set up camp on the beach.
The next moring we tricked the boys into thinking it was 9am when it was7am and we were off on our way to Indian Head. I drove which turnedout to be alot more fun that the previous day. the sand was flattened and firm from the surf so it was pretty smooth most of the way. At indian heads there was a big debate whether we shud drive to champagne pools (we were nto supposed to take the trucks there0 or walk. We opted for wlaking, i was not going to be giving anyone any mone. Luckily 5minutes in, 3 4x4xs pulled up next to us wwho were full of aussies who offered us lifts. I ended up in the back of Ute (pick up truck) which was awesome fun driving over the sand. Before you get to champagne pools you have to go up a steep sanddune which has a big chucnk of wood sticking out which you kind of have to jump the truck over. Me and the Peter were in the back and nearl;y went flying out when these 2 young aussie guys revved the 4x4 over this wood. I loved it!
Champagne pols were awesome because it meant we got ot go into sea water, which you cnat do on the rest of fraser cos its full of sharks and jellies. I cant really describe what its like, just check out the photos. Manged to blag another free lift on the way back with n aussie couple! On the way to our next camping spot westoppe doff to see the Marehno shipreck which was pretty cool.
We spent the night telling ghost stories, One fo the girls retold Wolf Creek for us which freaked us all right out, all the meantime we kept being interrupted by Dingos. After we'd overdone the whole horror stories we see these huge bright lights and a massive truck driving up the sand dune towards us all. As our imaginations were filled with wolf creek tales we we scared out of our minds, convinced this was the wolf creek guy who moved from Broome to Fraser and was out to get all 25+ of us all hahaha. Turned out to bea nice guy who told us to make sure we didnt let the Dingos get comfortable. Deen and Andy got drunk and ran around naked for a while while the rets fo us went to sleep.
DAY 3 Took us to Lake Wabby, whcih menat parking up and walking through the rainforest and over some MASSSSSIVE sanddunes that was like wlaking through Dessert. Did get to see a big lizzard thing tho. Lake Wabby was cool, alot greener looking that Makenzie. We chilled out in their, spotted lots of catfish then set back. We raided the last available food which was bread, jam and dry cornflakes . Then it was back to the barge and back to Rainbow. At the 4x4 centre they were cheeky and have us $10 back each for the troubloe we had, we are currently rallying to get more money back for the day we missed of our itenerty because of the cars.
Hell of a good trip, very stressful at times but still got to see lots of beautful things :)
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