Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
We took our second overnight bus from Airlie Beach to Agnes Water/1770, saving yet more money on accommodation, woop woop! We managed to sleep a bit more on this one and got a cheeky McDonalds breakfast muffin in the morning.
Our hostel (Southern Cross) is set in a large expanse of land and the rooms consist of many separate hut dorms with country names (we got England!). There is a large bar area with adjoining kitchen, internet room and cinema room which makes it a very social place. We've found it really easy to chat to everyone here and made good friends with some Danish girls.
Since we arrived, the weather has gone from drizzling to pouring with rain. We will never let an Aussie take the mick out of English weather again. It didn't matter so much our first day as this was just a chilling out day after arriving. But it kept coming... and kept coming... and kept coming. We were mean to do an excursion called Scooteroo today. This is guided tour on chopper bikes around the town of 1770 (A.K.A. Agnes Water) where you get to wear full Hells-Angels-esque leathers and fake tattoos etc. Unfortunately, the rain meant that this was cancelled.
Knowing that this was a probability the day before, we arranged to do a 3 hour surf lesson the next morning as this 'shouldn't' be affected by the rain... it was. So this was cancelled too. Not wanting to spend our time in 1770 without doing anything, we booked onto a quadbike tour knowing that we will get our money for Scooteroo refunded eventually.
We were given a fairly powerful quadbike each on had the basics explained to us, then we drove off to have a practice. Bare in mind that it has been raining intensely for about 4 days on the trot. Some of the puddles we drove through were like small lakes and what we were told were normally roads, had become flowing rivers knee deep in muddy water. We got so filthy! At one point we had to exit a deep ravine with a sharp right hand bend and steep climb. It was the first time the guides had got to test out their winches and they had to use it for everyone of us, including the second guide (who wasn't so much driving a quadbike as a miniture tractor).
Whilst stopped having a biscuit and a drink, we sighted our first kangaroos in Australia. Until now we had thought they were probably another of those Australian made-up animals like the platypus...
Tonight we enjoyed the free barbecue at the hostel. We can't afford to buy meat here so it's always nice to get it for free. We spent the rest of the evening teaching the girls we met a card game that had been passed on to us by someone else and also played a very funny game of killer pool with everyone else at the hostel. It involved, spinning rapidly, using feet, wearing a mask and, yes, a bit of stripping too.
1770 is a great place to stop if you're travelling the coast, and if the weather is crap we definitely recommend the quadbiking (check out the pics and video). Next stop: Rainbow Bay.
- comments
Jan Clayton Hi Pip and Matt. I havent looked for a couple of weeks and wow what distances you have travelled. I guess you will be in Oz for Christmas look forward to hearing where. Its cold, wet and windy here so we are very envious. Have a lovely Crimbo Love Peter and Jan xxx