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G'day from Down Under!
Wow it's been awhile since i last wrote anything so i will do my best to summarise:
From Koto Kinabalu we flew to Singapore & spent 3 days in the lovely clean city shopping. Yes, shopping, that is pretty much all we did for 3 days! Singapore was a refreshing change after roughing it around Asia for 2 months! Although we nearly fell foul of the law within an hour of being in the city - you're not allowed to eat or drink on the trains & if you're caught it incurs a rather large fine, thankfully some nice old man informed us of this as we tucked into a biscuit to tide us over until dinner. Safe to say we wolfed it down & guiltily brushed the crumbs off ourselves.
We then flew to Darwin where we arrived at 4:30am sleepy & uncomfortable. We got taken into the city centre & tried in vain to find some accommodation. Unfortunately we had been used to 24hr receptions/check-in in Asia which is not customary in Australia. So after being turned away & informed to return to check-in at 12pm (12pm i ask you! We hadn't slept!) we sat in a cafe & read our books. Thankfully a nice young man took pity on us & 2 people had an early check-out so he checked us in at 10am :) Obviously he was our new favourite person.
The next morning we roused ourselves out of bed at 5:15am (those of you that know me well enough will appreciate the effort i put in there!) & boarded our tour bus to Kakadu National Park. Kakadu is absolutely huge so there's a lot of driving involved between each place of interest. We had a walk around one area where there were Aboriginal paintings on cave walls, which were pretty cool. Apparently only select few Aboriginals are allowed to do the paintings & only certain people are allowed to know about them. So the tour guides can tell you a story but you only hear part of it as they're not allowed to tell everything but at the same time they only know a fraction of the story themselves. So sometimes you hear a story that just doesn't quite make sense & when you ask for more details you get a "i don't know" response. Which is frustrating but kinda cool at the same time as it's preserving the Aboriginal culture. We then went to a Culture Centre which gave more information on Aboriginal life - it's mad to think that they've inhabited Australia for 55,000years. After that we went on a river cruise on Yellow Billabong & saw a whole host of wildlife! Lots of different types of birds but more importantly we saw wild crocodiles! They are huge & pre-historic looking. They move so fast & effortlessly in the water, which is scary but impressive at the same time. You defo wouldn't want to fall in with one of them around! We also saw the end of a fight between two crocs (they're very territorial creatures) there was a tussle & then the loser swam off whilst the victor returned to his rightful place on the riverbank basking the sun (and his glory). The cruise was pretty cool. Jo & I then spent a night in Bark Hut in the middle of Kakadu, where we met 2 local roofers & i whooped their ass at pool (quite the fluke i assure you). One of them came out with some absolute gems - if you want to have a good time you "rumble & bumble", i'm defo adopting that into my daily vocabularly.
After another early start - we set off in a 4wheel drive with Paddy & Andrew (2 Australian priests) to pick up a famil from another campsite. Once everyone was on board we headed to Twin Falls. The roads were very very bumpy so it didn't help the two guys in our group that suffered from motion sickness! Twin Falls was beautiful, we got a boat along to a little beach bit then we clambered over rocks to get to the waterfalls. The water was so inviting but it's a crocodile zone so no swimming :( We then went to Jim Jim which was another waterfall. Jim Jim is the Aboriginal name for it & Jim is a type of tree that is found in that area & instead of putting an "s" to pluralise it Aboriginals put the same word twice to denote lots of something. So as you can imagine there were lots of trees & massive boulders. I felt like i was on a set for Indiana Jones or something. The cliffs were towering either side of us as we made our way to a natural crocodile free swimming hole at the bottom of the waterfall. It was beautiful & clear & if you floated on your back looking up you could see the sky between the cliffs, gorgeous. We arrived back into Darwin around 9pm & went to bed straight away!
The next day we spent a lovely day playing like children in the wave lagoon on rubber rings & body boards. We were supposed to spend an hour or so there before being good & going to a museum - we decided to sack the museum off in favour of riding fake waves on a blue rubber ring! Excellent. We then went to the Mindil Markets in Cullen Bay, which was really cool. The sunset was breathtaking, a real dark pink - i promise to upload some pictures soon so you can all see it, although pictures never seem to do it justice. Then we met Luke, one of the guys from the tour in Kakadu who showed us round Fannie Bay (no jokes please) then joined us for a drink in Darwin before kindly driving us to the airport at 2am for our flight to Cairns. I really liked Darwin, would like to go back there to see the other national parks too.
Anyway Cairns - so Cairns is a lush beach place with a free lagoon (as it's not safe to swim in the sea) & free bbq's to use along the Esplanade. You wouldn't get that in England that's for sure - apart from obviously there isn't the weather. Our first night there we went on a big night out fella! We met 4 guys in our hostel that were excellent fun (and all sporting dubious facial hair for a "laugh" hmm) anyway it was a lot of fun - there was live music in 2 of the bars we went to (i got 2 nice irish men to play Long Black Veil as it reminded me of my dad) then we danced the night away until 5am! The next day was spent nursing the hangover in the sun at the lagoon before Monday in which we went White Water Rafting!!
White Water Rafting was immense! It was so exciting. We were in 2-man rafts rather than the usual 8-man boats which meant we were in control of the raft which is scary! We had an hour trek through the rainforest to get to the start point (i was attacked by leeches again dammit) then we were flung in at the deep end, pardon my pun. It was so much fun, the adrenalin was pumping & we wooped our way down the river! After 2 rapids my steering skills & Jo's power skills weren't good so we swapped boats, each of us giving a bloy a handicap just by being in the boat haha. Anyway after swapping boats it was much better & we wooped our way over Grade 2,3 & 4 rapids (almost falling in at one point!). It was such an adrenalin buzz, i think i'm beginning to find my inner adrenaline junkie! We were on the river about 3hrs & as they say time flies when you're having fun. Would defo recommend it to anyone & given the chance would defo do it again! Luckily for us the guy in Jo's boat was a French guy called Paul who was heading up to Cape Tribulation & offered us a lift in his campervan, excellent news.
Jo, Paul & I headed up the coast in an awesome little campervan stopping at Crystal Cascades (a lovely little rainforest section with little swimming holes & cascades to swim in) & some absolutely stunning beaches on the way up to Port Douglas, where we stayed in a posh tent & watched the funniest addition of Blind Date organised by the hostel. Some of the responses were absolutely hilarious but far too rude to put on here! The next morning we headed to Mossman Gorge, which was beautiful - we went for a walk round the rainforest & a swim in the river. I love the rainforest, it smells of how i imagine the colour green to smell of & its always so alive with noises of birds, animals & of leaves swaying in the light breeze. After Mossman Gorge we drove up to Daintree & got the ferry across to Cape Tribulation. The scenery is fabulous, you have gorgeous white sandy beaches hugging the coast with invitingly aqua-blue water on your left & rainforest covered mountains crashing down to meet them on your right. There are strategic lookout points along the winding roads which give views of the area that seriously cannot be done justice with a photograph. Over the next few days we went for walks in the rainforest & had a lazy day on the beach, although we were wary of the water as there is a creek on either side of the beach we were on which is inhabited by crocodiles as it's coming up to mating season so the crocodiles actually go into the sea to swim from creek to creek, i wouldnt want to get in the way of a horny crocodile! We headed back to Cairns for a night out with some people we had met at our last hostel, unfortunately an entire large bottle of milk had fallen over in the trailer where all our bags were & saturated my stuff - not a happy bunny. Tried to wash m clothes & bags but my bags still smell of sour milk after 2 washes, not really sure what to do about that as every time my bag goes out in the sun the warmness will re-ignite the milk smell :( Bad times.
Monday we got the bus to Mission Beach but as it has rained pretty much constantly since Friday night there's not much you can do on a beach in the rain so we went for a walk through some of the rainforest in the area & stumbled across 2 cassowaries! They're pretty cool-looking birds - quite big (about 1m tall) with brightly coloured heads & feathers that look more like fur. They look abit like a an ostriche/emu. They can be dangerous, apparently they run at you & can kick & peck you so we kept our distance but glad we have seen some in the wild. I had wanted to do a sky dive because Mission Beach is supposed to be the bes place to do it as you land on the beach but due to the weather (and lack of funds) decided against it.
Next stop was Townsville & Magnetic Island. Arriving in Townsville was like arriving in the Med! White-washed houses perched on a rocky outcrop surrounded by red-coloured rock & coarse looking shrubs - we got the ferry across to Magentic Island which was beautiful & the weather had cleared up a bit for us :) Had a few hours in the sun on the beach before i decided it was high time i went for a run - my first one in nearly 3 months! Safe to say i'm not as fit as i was but i've decided go running more often, especially as i seem to spend a lot of time lying around on the beach haha.
We arrived in Airlie Beach last night & are going sailing round the Whitsunday Islands today for 2 days, very excited! We get to actually haelp sail the boat, so keep everything crossed for us!
- comments
Eileen This sounds very exciting and meeting plenty of people, lots of young men I notice, more power to your elbow. You could go white water rafting with Paul when you come home, I am sure he would be delighted, now you know the kick he gets from it. Take care love and keep the bloggs coming. Lots and lots of love, and just keep rumbling and bumbling. Eileen x