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Since we have been so rubbish keeping this up i'm now trying to catch up so sorry we're posting it all at once! After we left Rainbow beach we headed up to Agnes water the town of 1770. This is the 2nd place in Australia Captain Cook landed in 1770 and someone was very creative when naming the town. We got off the bus in the middle of nowhere and our hostel was even further out of town. The hostel itself was really nice and we stayed in a little cabin which was really cute it was just unfortunate that there wasn't much to do and the nearest place to eat was a 45 minute walk away which we weren't prepared to do after an 8 hour bus journey, so mars bars for dinner it was!
We woke up the following day and decided to head into town as we had a trip booked at 2pm and needed to get some food. The 'town' consisted of a few shops, a cafe and petrol station and we got there only to find Max had left his wallet at the hostel with all our money in! The shuttle bus from the hostel only came every 2 hours so we wouldn't have time to wait for that and get back into town for our trip so Max decided we were hitch hiking, at first I was not ok with this but it turned out to be really funny so when we got the wallet we hitch hiked back into town! By this point I decided we deserved a nice lunch and went to the cafe before checking out the beach. After that we went back to the hostel to get ready for our Scooteroo trip, this was the only reason we came to 1770 as it was voted one of the top 5 things to do on the East coast. When we arrived we were told to put on leather jackets and helmets with flames on the sides and cover ourselves with tattoos… 10 minutes later we both had very artistic sleeves and Max even went for a few on his neck! Then it was time to pick our moped and get on the practise track. This was the hardest part of the trip and took me ages to get around the whole track without crashing (of course Max did it first time) but I got there in the end and was pleased I wasn't the last person off the track! Once we got on the road we were loving it. There were no accidents and I even got my speed up to 80KPH, I was very impressed by this (although it was only because Max raced ahead of me and I didn't want to get left behind). We saw loads of Kangaroos in the wild which was really cool and stopped off at the beach to watch the sunset and have some wedges with sour cream and sweet chilli sauce (amazingly good) then on the way back I got a bit too confident and decided to over take Max, his face was so funny when I whizzed past him but of course he didn't like that and within a few minutes he was back in front and sped off miles ahead leaving me behind… Only for me to get stuck behind a caravan and a van behind me!! I was not impressed and was convinced I was going to get lost… but I made it back in one piece and had such a good day! There were a few people from our hostel on the trip so that night we chilled with them and had a few drinks which was nice! The following day we had to check out of our hostel at 10am and wait around till 9pm for our overnight bus to Airlie beach. We decided to make the most of the gorgeous weather and spend a few hours on the beach, Max was going to surf here as it's only $17 for a lesson and the last place to surf on the East coast, but unfortunately whilst we were there the waves were so rubbish it wasn't even worth it so we sat on the beach watching everyone else struggle to catch a wave! Then we went to a pool party we heard about when we arrived which was good as theres nothing else to do in 1770 but it was full of workers and locals and we felt a bit out of place so we stayed for a few drinks and went back to the beach before going back to the hostels to watch a film in their movie room. They had so many dvd to choose from and we watched Bad Neighbours which we'd both seen before so surprise surprise I fell asleep half way through! Waiting around is one of the worst things about travelling especially when its for something really exciting like a 10 hour over night bus - woooohooo!
But it was totally worth it when we arrived in the gorgeous Airlie beach the following morning! After checking in we did heaps of washing and had a nap as I hardly slept on the bus (Max slept like a baby). Then we decided to check out the town which was amazing. There's just something about Airlie we both loved and went straight to McDonalds for some comfort food as we were feeling pretty rough after the bus journey and we hadn't actually had a Maccas since we'd been here! It was amazing, we were so hungry and craving naughty food (believe it or not mcdonalds is a luxury these days)! Then we wandered around the town and checked in for our Whitsunday's trip before heading to the lagoon for the afternoon. We chilled out for a couple of hours and wandered along the waterfront before heading back for a shower and getting ready for dinner. That night we went to a backpackers bar for a $10 steak and beer which was very disappointing as my steak was charcoaled and not medium rare… guess thats what you get for $10 boooo! We deiced to save our money and have an early night that night as we were both so excited for our boat trip the following day. We checked out of our hostel at 10am but didn't have to be at the boat till 2pm so we met up with Kim again as we had been apart for 2 whole days and headed to the beach for a bit before getting some lunch and finding a BWS to get some drink for the boat. We still had some rum left from Fraser so I got 10 cans of cider and Max 12 beers thinking that would be plenty for two days as it seemed like a pretty tame boat only to turn up at the harbour and meet Niamh and Gavin who had tripled what we brought (those crazy Irish)! We were so lucky that everyone on our boat was lovely and clicked straight away (after a few drinks), our first stop was for a snorkel which was a bit disappointing, we got off the boat and straight away and saw a turtle, Max wanted to follow it but I thought if we've seen one already there must be loads - I was very wrong. We didn't really see much else but it was still cool and we saw some cool colourful fish, of course with Max being Max we were first in the water and last out! Once we were out the water we started playing some drinking games whilst the lovely crew on the boat cooked us dinner which was such a luxury after cooking for ourselves on Fraser, only for me to fall over and really hurt my back and neck. I'm so gutted I felt really sick after and wasn't hungry but the food looked so good i'm gutted I didn't eat it. After dinner the games continued which helped my poorly back! Everyone got involved and it was such a laugh especially as poor Clair ended up blindfolded for a good half hour! We both slept so well that night and woke up at 6am the following morning ready to do it all again!
After breakfast we went to the gorgeous Whitehaven Island and to the beach which was truly stunning. One of the most breathtaking places we've been! We spent about an hour taking pictures, getting in the water and chilling on the beach before we walked up to the view point where you can see the beach and other surrounding islands. Then it was back to the boat where we put the sails up and sailed to our next spot for some more snorkelling. This spot was much better than the day before and we saw loads of colourful fish, at one point there were so many I was scared to swim incase I hit them! After half hour or so we noticed everyone was back on the boat so we headed back and they were going to a different spot. I decided along with a few others to sit this one out as the water was so cold and I am so gutted I did as everyone said this was the best snorkelling spot they went to! Max saw giant trivially, some turtles and other giant fish so he was very pleased with himself and said it was the best place he had ever snorkelled (and thats coming from the merman himself)! Our last night consisted of more gorgeous food and drinking games and we watched the sunset over the islands which was stunning! We were so lucky to have such lovely people on our boat and hope we'll stay in contact with as many people as possible. Our last day we went for one last snorkel and sail before heading back to mainland. We were so gutted to be back as we had the best time and both think it was the best thing we've done on our travels. We are now so excited to dive at the great barrier reef and get back in the water. Our last night in Airlie we went out for my birthday with the people we met on the boat and some of the crew! We had such a good night and couldn't think of a better way to bring in my birthday (we had lots of shots from our very generous new friends). It's a night I won't forget and I am so grateful to everyone that made it so special.
I will update you more on my birthday and the last bit of our east coast trip in the next blog which I promise won't be so far away…
Love as always xxxxxxxx
- comments
Helen Crosby The boat trip sounds so good !!!! Wish I could have been there for your birthday