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My travels in Oz!
Hey everybody!
Sorry I Havn\'t updated much, it\'s been difficult to get enough time on a computer to be able to write anything about what I\'ve been doing! This time I\'m in Airlie Beach for 2 hours (an hour on pc) waiting for the ferry over to the Whitsundays, so more time woo!
Unfortunately the weather isn\'t very good today though, it\'s reeeeeeeeally cloudy and looks like it\'s guna rain quite a lot soon! Dan said it should be good weather tomorrow and the next day tho so fingers crossed!
I guess I should write about Contiki a bit shouldn\'t I! Well, I\'m on the Beaches & Reefs tour, which goes from Sydney to Cairns. It\'s wicked basically!
I\'ll do a proper update of everywhere we\'ve been to so far eventually, probably when I\'m somewhere I can stay for a while but I\'ll give you a taster of what we\'ve been doing!
The coach is fantastic - our Tour Guide, Dan, is an aussie from Brisbane and he\'s funny as hell. Tony, our Bus Driver, is just the same \"You\'re beautiful girls, beeeeeeautiful!\" (he says that a lot!) We\'ve got a group of 8 of us, (Me, Nicky 1, Nikki 2, Sophie, Kate, Louis are all English, Maike is German and Toby is Canadian (but with an Italian background) so we call ourselves \'Team Europe\' and we have a roll call every now and then (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7A and +1) which sounds reeeeeally sad but it\'s actually quite fun and we sit at the back of the bus so we\'re the good ones HAHA. They\'re all really good people and I\'m so glad we found each other!!
Most of the people on the coach are Canadians but some are english, one irish, a couple of germans, and only one aussie (not counting dan & tony) who we call Steve Irwin coz he dresses just like him!
So, so far......god I\'ve gotta get my thinking cap on now!
The first few days we\'re spent in pretty much a drunken/hungover blur but I did some good stuff! Like...
Day 1:
Got up stupidly early, got on the bus for the very first time (so exciting!), sang along to the radio with Sophie and had our group photo in front of Sydney Harbour Bridge & Opera House.
Then we drove for a loooong time to Coffs Harbour, met everybody properly as was the first night. This was when Nicky joined us (yay!).
Day 2:
Drove to \'Most Easterly Point\' before heading to Byron Bay (Clare you would have loved it there - it\'s the hippy capital of Australia!)
Went to an animal sanctuary where I HELD A KOALA!! :O How amazing is that!! (AND he was called Wilbur ^_^) And saw kangaroo\'s, huuuuge crocs too! And a tasmanian devil. Wicked that was!
Then headed to Surfers Paradise for 2 nights. That evening went on a half hour Harley Davidson ride (OMG it was AMAZING!!).
We ate at this little Italian restuarant tonight, played drinking games with wine (not a good idea!) and then went out to Melba\'s nightclub (we love Melba's!), where Contiki got 1 free drink and a bogof offer each, how nice of them :) Lots of drinking, more getting to know people. Good night that was. I think this was the night we decided on 'Team!'
Day 3:
Woke up late after a good ole\' lie-in (needed that!) with rather a big hangover, then went with Sophie to find some brekkie while the others all went Surfing! (I would have loved to have done it but salt water maks me puke so noooo!)
Later on went on a TigerMoth Flight!! If you don\'t know what that is, it\'s a plane with two seats (the driver behind, me in front) and it\'s from like the War or something, basically it\'s tiny and you get to wear a leather jacket and goggles a la Top Gun and it was amaaaaazing! I could see all these man-made islands and the Gold Coast looked beautiful from up there!! Gorgeous and totally got rid of the hangover. For a bit.
That night we went to \'Dracula\'s\'...a cabaret restaurant where the staff are intentionally rude and shout at you and are dressed all gothy-like and they do a show all during the meal too. The restaurant is set out like a theatre, but the drinks were way too expensive! It was so cool though, totally worth it! It was optional dressing-up-like-a-vampire-type-thing but we didn\'t do it as nobody thought of bringing that sort of stuff with them obviously...! Dan wore a mullet though :/ After that we headed to Melba\'s again with the same drink offer which was again rather nice!
Day 4:
A 2 hour stop at Brisbane (which was a shame coz the time we had to leave was the only time I could\'ve seen Lauchlan! :( ) Had to go shopping for a reason which you\'ll find out tomorrow! We drove past the XXXX brewery (mmm...) where there's a man on the side who winks and waves :)
Then onto the Farmstay, which was a huuuuuuuge farm ran by this cute old couple where we went on a hay somethingarather through all their acres of land and saw lots of Kangaroo\'s just bouncing around minding their own business!! Very cool.
That night we had the most gorrrrrgeous meal ever (home-cooked for 42 of us!) and then did some Bush Dancing! (Aussie version of line-dancing really). It was so much fun and me and this girl Nancy got picked by the old guy to go up on stage with Dan & Tony to do this one where we did actions to it! It goes....: \"Give me a home amongst the gum trees........with lots of plum trees...a sheep or two and a kangaroo and a clothesline out the back...verandah out the front...and an old rocking chair.....!\" Wicked. Then played drinking games with darts and oh god poor Louis. That\'s all I\'ll say!
Oh yeah and the house had an old school bus attached to it which some people went to watch the State of Origin game in between NSW & QLD.
Day 5:
Onto Fraser Island!! Looooooooooong bus journey (7/8 hrs!) that day coz we had to go back to Brisbane to get a bag that had been left there!). Got to the ferry port, missed it and had to wait an hour for the next one. Worth it though coz then it was dark and me & Nicky sat on the top, and watched all the stars. Saw shooting stars, so big! Beautiful. Saw the Milky Way really vividly too it was amazing!
That night at Fraser was what the shopping was for...Contiki had to do a \'No Clothes\' Party!! Haha, so basically you had to make stuff out of stuff that wasn\'t clothes!! We decided the 6 of us would use shower curtains and ribbon! Wicked night...so funny what some people wore!! Toby dressed up in wrapping paper and Dan wore a sleeping bag and cushion on his head. Some people didn\'t dress up though. Boring!!
Day 6:
FANTASTIC Day this was, let me start with that. Intro of Fraser Island - a huge Island which only 80 people live on which is entirely made of sand! Even though it is only made out of sand it is covered 90% by vegetation! Which apparently is a miracle considering sand has no nutritional value. The plants use the dead ones that fall to grow. Took a 4WD around Fraser Island for the whole day, which is the only way to see it properly. First stop at a beach, which is also a road (!!) and OMG is was just beautiful. 75 KM it is and like wow we drove all of it. Amazing there. Then a walk thorugh a gorgeous rainforest, then on to Lake MacKenzie. Now that is just paradise. Absolutely AMAZING. Went swimming, crystal clear water, beautiful sunshine. Shame we only had a hour! Words can\'t describe it, you need to see the pics!
Oh yeah, saw a Dingo on the beach!
Kareoke that night - a bit crap but me & Nicky did our bit for the team...got up and sang \"I\'ve had the time of my life...\" from Dirty Dancing. We actually are fantastic! :)
Day 7:
This morning, ferry back from Fraser to mainland. Saw a couple of dolphins (ack!) and pelicans (real life ones hahahaaa).
Stopped at Tropic of Capricorn line, saw my first spider of Aussie so far, it was huuuuuuuuge with giant fat red legs. (It was on the big spire thing that represented the line).
Then, went to a Crocodile Farm, WOO!! it was sooooooooo cool. At night time too, so after each course we went out with huge torches to find the crocs, at one point you\'re walking through and there\'s only a tiny fence in between you and this huge creature! Amazing. The torches shone on their eyes in the water, they glow red because (and I didn't know this before) when tou take a picture and you get red eyes on the the photo, it\'s actually the back of the eyeball! Nice. And that\'s what we were seeing! Saw lots of big spiders too, there eyes are green.
Ate some crocodile too, which just tasted like chicken with a hint of tuna!
Took my stretchy Steve Irwin too just coz of the croc thing but the man kindly told hinted he hates Steve, so we left him until the coach to take pics! I held a baby crocodile here called Harley!! So cool, you could feel him breathing and his organs moving while you held him. They\'re like mini dinosaurs, so cool.
I do believe thats it so far!! Still waiting for the ferry to the Whitsundays, won\'t tell you what I\'m guna be doing there yet coz you\'ll just get jealous :P haha nerr nerr etc.
Hope everyone\'s well. I want emails people!! I wanna know what\'s going on at home, we hear nothing over here!!
Byeeeeeee
Fliss
xxx
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