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Apparently , Hervey Bay is 'quite lively' but with the hostel being so far out of town I ventured back for the night and spent it cooking and relaxing in the hostel. I will just say that the town is home to more retirement homes than anywhere else in Queensland and is continuing to attract people from the 'older' generation at a rapid rate. Mind you, I guess that retiring to Hervey sure beats Bridlington.
Monday was all about heading out to the largest sand island in the world, Fraser Island. I was picked up by a converted Mercedes Unimog truck in the morning; the only way you can travel around the island is by 4x4 as it's made completely of sand. You can choose to do a self-drive tour of the island or you can go along on a guided trip, I decided to venture for the latter as I had heard some dodgy reports about self-drive and plus it meant sleeping rough, whereas mine meant I had a nice tent all to myself, it was to tents what Hilton is to hotels. It had a wooden floor, two beds, a drying rack and numerous other little creature comforts, just no Corby trouser press!
I was one of only six 'young' people on the trip that could actually speak and understand English, this is crucial as most 'foreigners' from the east claim to understand English but to be honest they need some tutoring as they answer everything with 'Yes'.
If you ever get the choice of going on a fairground ride or travelling around Fraser in a 4x4, then go for the latter; we were bumped and bounced all over the place and I soon understood why there was so much headroom on board when I left my seat for the umpteenth time as we hit bump 951. We did a small trek around the forest in the centre of the island, surprisingly called Central Station. The Aussie's used the island for forestry for some ridiculous amount of time and thus there are small hamlets dotted all over the island. After the trek we bumped and bounced East to the main motorway, I slept the whole way which was quite an achievement as the guy next to me felt for the sick bag. The motorway is just the beach and it was here where we hit our top speed of 70kph. 'I've been faster than this on a scooteroo,' I thought to myself but I decided against telling the driver.
Incidently, I should really tell you what his name was but I can't, all I can tell you is that I christened him 'Mick' as in 'Mick Dundee' and everyone else then followed suit. He then had to put up with comments like "Nah, that's not a knife....That's a knife" and "What tribe you from?" for the rest of the two days. He was a pretty cool tour guide and even acted as a cook.
Lunch was a buffet and I dived straight into the chicken and ham and proceeded to make cracking sandwiches before eating as much orange as possible. Being a backpacker means you have to indulge when you get chance and I sure did. After lunch we headed to Eli Creek, a rather cool little creek which runs across the island and one that you can swim in. The island was absolutely boiling and even those who are as cool as ice would have found themselves sweating profusely. Thus the shirt came off and I jumped into the creek. From the creek we headed north to the Maheno shipwreck. There's a long story behind the ship and how it came to be on 75 mile beach but I can't remember it fully, what I do know is that the Aussies bought it from the Japanese and then used it as target practice in WW2. Slightly worringly, although not for the enemy, the
Aussies dropped over three hundred bombs at the ship and only two actually hit it. Now you don't have to be a maths genius to work out that that is a pretty poor ratio of hits, if only they could perform that badly at sport then the world would be a far happier place.
The rest of the afternoon focused on heading to Champagne Pools on the north of the island where the ocean flows into some huge rock pools. As the waves hit the rocks it supposedly looks like champagne, and from there we back-tracked to Indian Head. Now, for 100 points, guess who named it Indian Head? Yep, that's right, Mr Whitby himself, James Cook. In fact I think he named just about everything on the East Coast. From the top of the rock formation you can look down at stingrays and tiger sharks, and it was whilst we were holding on for dear life that a pilot from the Aussie Airforce decided to do a fly-by on us, twice. He must have been only twenty metres above our heads and it brought back happpy memories of watching Top Gun. "Sorry Goose, but it's time to bust the tower". After the first fly-by, and having spotted us waving at him like a bunch of
loonies, he swept back round to come at us from a different angle. Show-off, but I bet he couldn't bomb the shipwreck.
Mick cooked up a cracking BBQ on the night which included steak and sausages, and there was even enough for seconds, you beauty! I then wowed the other guests with my one and only card trick and then managed to win at scrabble, thanks to a lucky draw of getting rid of all my letters and bagging the 50 point bonus. Some would say it was a lucky victory but I would rather you think of it as a calculated result by an English teacher.
Tuesday consisted of travelling back down 75 mile beach and trekking across a desert to an oasis pool where we went swimming. The water was gorgeous and there are pictures to prove it. After that it was lunch, chicken wraps, and then onwards to another lake where we spent three hours in the water and on the beach. I feel asleep on the beach again and woke up looking like a panda. I really should take the advice of Mr Luhrman and "The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists".
After another night in Hervey Bay I once again boarded the Greyhound, this time destined for Brisbane after a quick change of destination from Noosa. It was a wise move though as I was travelling with a Swiss guy called Toni who soon became known as 'Roger's cousin'. The whole day was given to travelling south and once in Brisbane it was time to get something to eat. We headed out to the nearest and cheapest bar to eat and then onwards to Fortitude Valley, home to all the clubs we were 'reliably' informed. After a pitcher in a quiet bar we decided to 'try out' a club that claimed to be the 'Number 1 Dance Club in Town'. I went in first and as I made my way quickly up the stairs a picture on the wall caight my eye. It was of a man in white boxers with another man behind him giving a very stern look. They were not wearing very much let's put it that way. I pointed it out to Toni
As we bought drinks from two rather, erm, weirdly dressed barmen and then sat down, reality dawned on both of us. We drank the bottles rather quickly as we received 'the eye' from a few random people on the dancefloor and made quickly for the exit as we both desperately needed the toilet but dare not use the one in this particular club. The bouncer on the door shouted to us that we could get back in free for the rest of the night, as we ran away from the place.
We headed back towards the hostel and met two German girls Toni knew from his earlier adventures and then went into a club. After a few more pitchers I was found on the dance floor when the DJ dropped the Arctic Monkey's into the mix. Toni looked on as I strutted my stuff before he slightly eclipsed me with his dancing to 'Praise You' by Fatboy Slim. This drew the interest of an Australian girl who Toni then spent the next two nights desperately looking for. Meanwhile, I headed for bed. It was also on this night that I was told that I look like Paul Walker from 'The Fast and The Furious'. Slightly pleased at this commment I just smiled. I think it is partly due to the tan and the blond curly locks. From then on I was known simply as 'Paul'.
The following morning I went walkabout around Brisbane and window-shopped before heading to the lagoon on the south bank to relax and drink copious amounts of water in an attempt to re-hydrate. On the night I cooked with Toni and then ventured out to a pool competition with a numpty Australain guy, well he wasn't a numpty when he was alone but when he was with his mates he became someone else, and they were all muppets to be fair from then on. The pool competition went ok, I won game number one and then got knocked out to the eventual finalist. The guy I beat in the first round thought of himself as a bit of a Tom Cruise Hustler, little did he know that long ago I could be found strutting my stuff around the pool tables of Lincoln. My defeat only came about as the other two lads looked bored as they had been knocked out in their first game, so I felt it unfair to leave them waiting, honest.
We headed next door and ran into four very attractive Swedish girls who we proceeded to chat to for the rest of the night. We managed to dispatch of the Aussie lad much to everyone's relief, shortly after meeting them. Three of the girls were from the great city of Stockholm so we talked about the place and the lovely meal I had in the restaurant at one of the department stores in the city. After the girls left, I too headed to bed as Toni went back out to look for his Australian girl.
On the Friday I was up early to wash my clothes and get ready for a trip to Australia Zoo. The weather in Brisbane can best described as peeing it down when I left so I grabbed my North Face Jacket and boarded the tour bus. Now, no disrespect to Mr Irwin but the park is a little 'over the top'. If you visited it you would know what I mean; the icing on the cake comes when you watch the croc show in the Crocoseum. A guy comes out wearing a big face mask to look like Steve Irwin and proceeds to wave to the audience. Other than that, the park itself is good even if it did rain for two hours of my visit. Not to be put off by a little rain (there was a monsoon further up the coast which caused flooding for three days on the main roads) I decided to continue looking around the park whilst proudly wearing my jacket. The jacket did the business by keeping my top half dry, the proble came when the water ran off my jacket into my trousers, down my legs and into my shoes. I squelched my way round for the rest of the afternoon after wringing the legs of my trousers dry.
On the night I again cooked with Toni, it was pasta with sausages this time, and then we headed out into the city. After a few drinks we met back up with the Swedish girls in Fortitude Valley but stayed well clear of the club mentioned earlier. We chilled out until the early hours and I vaguely remember falling in to bed when the city was light once again, sometime about half five in the morning.
I was up at eleven that morning to carry on looking around Brisbane and I managed to see the Scissor Sisters doing a book signing in the street. I decided against queueing to tell them that I know of a club they might like and instead headed through the shopping streets and to the Storey Bridge. From there I wandered along the river bank in the sunshine listening to The Killers on the rather battered and bruised iPod, before heading back to the lagoon with a Subway sandwich which I got cheap as technically, I am still a student. Ah, it pays to have boy-ish good looks, a bit of Yorkshire charm and a student card.
On the night Toni and I cooked pasta for the third time in as many nights, this time with mushrooms and a bunch of stuff kindly given to us by a girl who was leaving the next day. We ate like Kings and then played pool before heading to the local tavern and to see Ebba, one of the Swedish girls and her friends.
Being a good boy, and feeling rather tired from the previous night, I was in bed early (one am) as I had to depart the next day.
I said bye to the four Swedish girls and bye to my number one Swiss drinking partner Toni. I'm thinking a road trip to Sweden and Switzerland may be on the cards for my return in the summer.
I headed south again on a short journey to Surfers Paradise. I had heard mixed reviews of the place but it is basically just a mass of sprawling tower blocks that look out over a long beach. The streets are lined with cafes, bars, shops and surf hire places. I headed straight to the beach and then abandoned the place fairly quickly as it was windy and sand was blowing everywhere. I headed to the nearest mall to 'de-sand' and strolled into a surfers shop. I found a pretty funky white hoody top and headed to the changing rooms. After trying on a medium and it covering hardly anything I managed to wriggle myself out of it and try on the large. 'Maybe I shouldn't have had those two milkshakes in the past four hours,' I thought to myself. The friendly assistant asked how it was going as I stood in the mirror trying to decided whether it was a good fit or whether I looked suited to visit the aforementioned club. As we chatted it turned out that she was from Quebec. Incidently, after passing her judgement on the top (I went for Extra Large) it was time for her to finish work so we headed back to the Golden M for another milkshake. We spent a couple of hours chatting before heading for pizza. It turns out she is heading to New Zealand and so we swopped numbers and I promised to show her around Auckland. She caught the bus home soon after as she was at work the next day and I headed home to bed.
Well, that leads me on to today, Monday. I was up early as it was boiling hot and I needed to make some kind of verbal contact with home as I hadn't spoken to the folks in four weeks; too much partying to be done and too few hours in the day. After a bowl of weetabix I hit the beach for a surfing lesson. Suitably attired and with board under the arm I ran across the beach in a Hasslehoff-esque manner. The lesson was good and I did manage to stand up on the board more thank once before falling off and drowning in the salty water. It tastes disgusting. The tutor was an Aussie whose dad came from Sheffield so he took the preverbial out of my accent before then realising that the other guy in the group was from 'ull. We swapped stories of how good Hull was and how we should meet up to surf in Bridlington in the summer.
I think it's fair to say that I will not be trying out for the British surf team, nor will I be receiving major financial sponsorship from Quiksilver and it's a definite that Kelly Slater need not worry about me taking his world championship from him. This afternoon I chilled out by the beach and then did a little clothes shopping before eating Subway and typing this. Tomorrow I am heading onwards to a place called Mt Warning, you can climb the mountain and apparently the hostel has free ice cream every night at 9pm. I don't think they'll be too happy when I tell them about my time 'working' at Burgess's and the fact that I hold the record of sixteen ice cream tubs in one day. Oh, you have to love the metabolism sometimes.... but for now it's bed with Mr Orwell's book 1984 which is falling to pieces as it got drenched on the day at Aussie Zoo.
Until next time, keep on trucking, live the dream and love to teach.
James on the Big T and loving it!
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