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'How you goin' mate??' Welcome to Oz!
We arrived in our huge hostel, 'wake up', ditched our s*** and went to kick Sydneys arse. Sydney was a massive bustling city, a shock after Fiji! We jumped on a boat form Darling Harbour round to the opera house, and took all the usual touristy pics of the opera house and the harbour bridge (see album cover). We had drinks at the opera house bar and watched the sunset over the harbour bridge, lovely. We took the train back to the hostel and had happy hours in the hostel bar, listening to good music and drinking huges drinks.
Next day.... raining!!! Had big brekkie and headed to the botanical gardens. We were amazed by the huge trees and crazy wildlife (definite hit... better than the amazon!) The sun came out and we got sweet views across the harbour. We tried to take a bus to the other side of the bridge but failed... ended up with two hours on the bus in total and dodgy food from a kebab shop. We had a mad evening in the side bar, starting with 2 4 1 vouchers and a mad 15 minutes with the campest guys we've ever ever ever met.... dancing and general drunkeness followed.
Tired and hungover we checked out the next day and hit paddington markets. Next stop was bondi beach for a look at the infamous beach and its people. Later we stumbled across a Black Wire CD whilst looking through the bargain bin at a bondi record shop, nice surprising reminder of home! Shopped, went to strabucks and got on our first of many overnight Greyhound coach. Next stop: Byron Bay.
Byron Bay was great, chilled, good beach, shops and cafes. We spent our day there attempting to book our trips with the crazy drunken travel agent, Johnny, who when we visited him for the 2nd time couldnt rmemebr whether we'd paid or not... i'm surprised he even remembered who we were. We spent the avvie on the great beach and the evening chatting to some guys from Austria, sair had some very garlicy spag bol, knackered after night bus!
Spent the next day on the coach to Hervey bay, with a short wait in Brisbane where we saw about 10 boxes filled with day-old chicks, so cute! That evening we went to find Ellie and Nat and had an excited girly catch up at their hostel, which included coronas and a possum sighting. Tired from our night of excitement we headed back to our hostel to get ready for our trip the next day and were extra suprised to find Sairs friend from home Cooney in our room!
Tues 22nd... Early start... met the group for our tour of Fraser island tour, who we'd be spending the next three days with. We embarked on a stressful food shopping trip to woolworths, where stupid arguments about 1/2 ply toilet paper followed.... very strange big brother- like experience. But somehow we were out before the other 2 groups. and we (group 1) thought we were on to a winner.....
After taking the ferry across to Fraser and emduring a frighteningly bumpy ride in our 4x4 we arrived at Lake Mackenzie... an amazingly beautiful freshwater lake ' like swimming in a bottle of evian', surrounded by the whitest sands. Few hours later, back on the road, thinking all was well, when Ellen and Alex (aka Tom Cruise) felt something weird at the back of the van. Flat tyre number 1! Stood by the side of the road with2 guys in our group who didnt know how to change a tyre and 7 hopeless girls (us included) we waited to steal a working jack off another group and finally a hot aussie guy came and assissted. We arrived to the camping zone on the beach and set up tents in the dark. ( one with a table instead of a pole coz we're complete spazzes and didn't figure out the poles.) Sair was busy cooking a great bbq dinner and says this would never have happened if she was in charge of tents. We spent the evening drinking goon (aussie cask wine, 'produced with the aid of milk, eggs and fish, traces may remain.') Funnily enough we're drinking goon as we write this blog.
so having missed afew of the hotspots due to our tyre troubles we decided to head out of camp early the nxt morning. we planned a quick 20min stop to Eurong resort to wash our dirty dishes when.........Flat Tyre Number 2!
This was the day we met Peter Macdonal. Crazy hick, rude mechanic dude. its safe to say that most of us were scared for our lives!! After Sair's near miss with a Dingo and eventually repairing the flat we were safely on our way.Afew miles down the highway aka the beach we hit our next stop Eli Creek. Here we met drunken Aussie fishermen (there was some kind of fishing tournament going down on Fraser Island during our trip) who played drinking games and surfed on the creek. After a dingo briefing by the rangers and quick stop at the shipwreck we arrived at our 2nd campsite with the other 2 Palace vans in tow! Another night of goon and campsite fun.
Thursday 24th: Set off first as again, we'd missed attractions due to tyre trouble. Hit Indian Head where we saw a Shark and good views across Fraser. Everything was going swimmingly and we were very excited about Lake Wabby when........Flat number 3! ouch! Novelty had to wear off but we kept ourselves entertained by playing "sticks' and holding up tent poles incase we saw any Dingos...(we didnt). This time we were rescused by a nice man. unfortunately the nice man brought with him the wrong sized tyre so after waiting another hour or so we were eventually on our way...again. had to miss out Lake Wabby (bit gutted) in order to catch the boat back in time. We were all prepared for a big fight with the Palace people but there was no need. we were compensated with free Goon, (get in!) take out and a free nights accomadtion in unit 8 (the best unit)! Ellie and Nat came over and we compared our Fraser stories and talked with excitement about our next trip, this time together doing the Whitundays! whoop.
Friday 25th: spent the day frolicking on the beach and having our first proper day together. Stocked up with more Goon got on another night bus, this time headed to Airle Beach!
Sat: The first day of our boat trip travelling around the Whitsundays. We boarded the "Pride of Airlie" and met our roomie Georgina Hodges a talkative, friendly lass from down south! we spent afew hours getting aquainted by downing Gooon and playing drinking games (and yes there is a little bit of a pattern emerging here) its pretty safe to say we were very very tipsy when we arrived at South Molle resort! More drinking and games organised by crazy resort people. Warning to all: feel free to drink Goon but dont expect to remember anything the next day! Partied on down with all the people staying at the resort. Ellen was sick, Sair was so gooned she cant even remember if she was sick! haha.
Headed out early next morning but not before having our breakfast table invaded by about a million coulouful, crazy Marakeet birds. Visted Whitehaven Beach. They say its one of the top 5 nicest beaches in the world! We were supposed to get picked up by a small boat to take us back to the big boat but because of low tide we got trapped in the coral and cut our feet and had to push the boat out off the coral to get back on the water. very stressful!!! In the avvie we sailed to a snorkelling spot, after laughing t each other in our stinger suits... we got excited about going in the sea but the cloudy weather didn't help us see through the murky water and we didnt see anything too exciting... it had nothing on fiji! Ellen broke her mask and her and ellie swam back to the boat... s***ting themselves that a shark was guna come and get them! Later we took advantage of our nice resort and swam in the pool. We had a fancy dress theme at the resort that night so we all did our best and pulled togethr as pirates, somplete with tattoos and eye makeup.. Captains el and sair went to bed after dinner and watching the party games. Captains ellen and nat strayed up, managed to wangle free coronas and shots...still in bed about 1 though!
Our final day on the trip and we stopped on the boat for more snorkelling. we decided not to and opted to jump of the side of the boat a m,illion times and took some ace piccies. More sunny that day, so we sunbathed and chilled on the deck. After group pics on the boat we arrived back at Airlie beach, all four of us bloody tired! We had pizzas and boarded the night bus, ouch!!! Next stop: Cairns.
We arrived in a horribly rainy Cairns at about 6am, sat in a cafe for a few hours and ditched our stuff at our hostel. Wandered round the many surf shops for the mornning and checked into our rooms (poor melly had a seperate room for 2 nights!). We were all tired so decided cinema was the best thing... Pirates of the Carribbean... alright film! Nat entertained us by falling asleep at a few points. To Pj's for our free dinner and then early to bed for all of us!
Weds 30th... Sair, El and Nat's day to Skydive!!! Ellen got taken to the drop off point and waited for them all to come down and took cool piccies. After the event we went back to the office and watched the ace vids and piccies that'd been taken by the instructors. We sopent the afternoon shopping and getting ready for a night out. We sat in our room drinking goon (yes, again) and playing Ring of Fire, us four girls and Brian from the room. We went to PJ's and saw the dancing girls on the bars and then to Woolshed, a really dark place where we all had our turn to dance on the tables .... all very drunk and took about 200 pics! Hilarious.
Next day Ellen, Ellie and Nat went to the Lagoon, Sair was too hungover to move. The sun was finally out and the Lagoon did wobnders for a hangover. But the rain came again so we spent the afternoon shopping and the evening cooking steak (nearly getting kicked out of the kitched by an evil woman!!!).
Friday 1st:Shopped in the morning. In the afternoon we all went horseriding. We were met by a lovely Japanese dude who showed us the ropes (or the reigns, haha) and we all met our lovely horses. Ellen had the biggest one (even bigger than this old american dude in the group) and her horse looked as though it would fall over and die, Ellies was the fastest, natalies was a lazy b****** and needed a whip and sair's was huuuungry. We had a few hours walking about in the rainforest, through streams, was pretty cool and the weather held out. Nat and Sair wanted a bit more after the skydiving action though, whereas ellen was pretty scared on the horse.... haha. For our last night as a foursome we went to a posh restaraunt where we all had kangaroo, crocodile, emu and camel... expensive but tasty!!!!
Early this morning ellen and sair said a sleepy goodbye to ellie and nat and have spent the day shopping a bit, gooning it and writing the blog!
Singapore tommorrow and sophie on monday!!!
Till the next time!!!!!
xxxx
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