Greetings everyone! (or just me depending on if anyone is still reading this...)
so as per usual I have neglected my little bloggywog in search of fun and due to lack of internet so there are mucho updates to get out. Last I left this bad boy I was heading to Hervey Bay/Fraser Island for a 2 night/3 day sand island adventure. And it was just that! We arrived in Hervey Bay at 7 am with little sleep under our belt but managed to rally and get excited for Fraser. We went to the hostel and were briefed all about the island through this absolutely hysterical video that the Australian Government has made...there were at least 5 minutes of the video devoted to dingoes and not leaving your children unattended. "The dingo at my baby!" just kept replaying in my head. We were put into a group with 4 Irish girls-Shelley, Carol, Clare and Trish, a Swiss German-Tomas, and a Swiss-French boy, Killian. The girls were absolutely hysterical and we bonded instantly, the boys had a bit of a time coming out of their shells but once they did our little team was made. We packed up the car and we were off on the ferry to Fraser! The larger group consisted of 4 cars, so about 28 people all together were on this trip which made for good times. There were these 2 Canadian boys that stuck out right away as they HAD to be the center of attention anywhere they were. One was this huge 6'3" firefighter named Jeff (he comes into play soon), the other was this little sprite named Mike. Claire and I affectionately referred to them as Big Canada and Little Canada. I hope they never heard us say it...
Fraser Island is basically just a giant pile of sand with lots of forest, and even more sand. All of the roads are really just tracks in the sand so it is off roading heaven. We went to Lake Wabby the first day which was surrounded by a huge sand dune so the thing to do was run or jump down the dunes into the water. I chose to watch as my accident-proneness and lack of travel insurance would surely have ended in disaster. Claire and I did get into a sand fight like any mature 23 year olds would do which was quite entertaining. I'd like to say I won, but that would be a lie. After Lake Wabby it was off to set up camp along the beach, along with several other cars. I think there must have been close to 75 people in our campsite and we all ended up converging and having this huge party on our tarp that was hysterical. The London boys that we had met in Mission Beach (see the photos...they are priceless) and then run into again at Airlie Beach, showed up at the campsite so that was a fun surprise. Drinking games were abound but we learned that they are not very practical to play with 30 people trying to sit in a circle. The night ended with all of us running around in the waves on the beach and attempting to do cartwheels.
While at Lake Wabby, Big Canada told me that he was a firefighter and also dresses up as Smokey the Bear and goes around to elementary schools educating the wee kiddos about fire safety. As Smokey was one of my childhood icons (Thank you McCall Ranger Station) I was all to eager to hear all about dressing like a massive bear and dancing around. I think he mistook my interest in the fact that I was talking to a mascot as interest in him. So later he invited me to go down to the beach for a walk and an herbal refreshment and I said yes thinking nothing of it. Best decision I've ever made, because I got the best pickup line I've ever heard. We were just sitting on the beach talking, and he leans towards me and says "come give Smokey a kiss". (seriously, I should be telling you this story in person because text just does not do it justice, but I cant not share it). I kid you not, I could not stop laughing and had to eventually get up and leave because I couldn't control myself. Smokey did not get a kiss, but will forever live on with that story. So boys, next time you think it's a good idea to refer to yourself in third person as your alter ego, just don't do it. It will end in tears. Of the girl you are trying to pick up.
The next day we woke up with the sun which was far too early and headed to Indian Head which is this big look out towards the top of the island. You could see for miles when you hiked up and we saw sharks and stingrays out in the water which was pretty amazing. Then we went to this little creek and splashed around in the water before setting up camp again. We had to set up camp early because of the tide and driving on the beach, so we decided to do what anyone else would do while stranded on the beach and not able to drive-drink. Fast forward to 7:30 pm and Jen passed out under the car. After one round of drinking games I was so exhausted that I just quietly rested my head and before I knew it, I was out. Apparently people tried to wake me up and I wouldn't budge so they just played drinking games over me. Fantastic. At one point Sean did get me up and told me some BS story about how they had switched islands on me and I was all alone with these giant frogs. I was still half asleep so I wandered out to the beach to see these giant toads before I realized where I was and that I did know everyone there. I tried to be social but was still dead so I crawled into a tent and admitted defeat.
The last day we woke up and headed to McKenzie Lake which is a perched lake-which basically means that if you dug down to the bottom and cleared all of the leaves, the lake would disappear. The result is this incredibly cool blue lake that has white sand that can polish jewelry and clean teeth. We played around that before getting in the car and heading back towards the ferry. We had to stop and fill air into the tires of the car and ended up getting into this huge water fight. This was a bad idea for 2 reasons. 1) Queensland is in a severe drought that we didn't know about and we were just throwing jugs of water at each other. 2) while trying to fill up my water jug I was hit from behind with water and immediately turned my head to run away, and immediately ran my nose into a metal pipe. Thankfully it wasn't severely injured but I had a huge welt on my nose for the rest of the day. It amazes me sometimes how accident prone I am.
Back in Hervey Bay we met some funny Aussies from Byron Bay area that taught us this hysterical drinking game that involves "putting on goggles" (making goggle shapes with your hands and holding them up to your face) and chicken noises. I'm definitely bringing that one back to the states. Our next stop was supposed to be Noosa, but it ended up being Brisbane due to poor bus planning on our part. More on that later..I have to go attempt to pack now.
Until next time...
Jen
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Monday, December 7, 2009
Maroon me on the Whitsundays please
I am sitting in an Airlie Beach internet cafe right now and they just finished the playing the Jesse McCartney album and have now switched it over to Jewel. Add it to my list of reasons why I love Australia and all of it's glory. We just got off the Whitsundays yesterday which can really not be properly described on this blog. Buuuut before I get ahead of myself, let's review the past few days. Lots has happened.
Between the time of getting off the ferry from Magnetic Island and jumping on the greyhound we had about 45 minutes to grab food. Which you would think would be enough time to get to McDonalds and back, right? Well, if you are like us, you thought wrong. We asked a nice man who was either very turned around or just wanted to mess with us how close it was and he said like 2 blocks away. Add a zero onto the end of that number and thats how close it was. 20 blocks away. We found this out the hard way, and also arrived right about feeding time for the kiddies so it was like a Twilight convention with Big Macs. Kill me. Cut to Sean and I dead out sprinting through the streets of Townsville with McDonalds bags in hand and you can understand why people were pointing and laughing. We did however make it to the bus just in time to realize that our driver was the crankiest old man ever and we had to not only sneak the food onto the bus but sneak taking bites while the old man wasn't wheezing about switching seats. Seriously it was like being back in elementary school all over again. Claire also snuck a popsicle onto the bus after we stopped at the grossest pit stop ever and she had to literally shove it between the seats so old man river wouldn't kick her off the bus for having it. I laughed so hard I cried when I saw the look on her face and subsequent panic at realizing he was walking towards us while she had a mouth full of ice cream. Things I wish I had on videotape...
We got into Airlie Beach and took a nice overextended stroll to find our hostel. The town is really cute with lots of fun shops, restaurants and bars. Though the ratio of live music to people who actually like it is very out of whack. On the bright side, the ratio of mullets to normal hair cuts is like 2:1 so I have spent probably 60% of my time laughing and pointing out said hair dos to anyone that wants to see. Which is alot, in case you were wondering. Our first hostel came complete with no working lights and no sheets so that was just great. Really classy establisment. We grabbed some dinner in town then came back and made friends with a group of English boys who were playing drinking games on the patio. We played several rounds of a variation of the game Zoo that had all of us dying laughing. Then it was out to Mama Africas where I went for something different and alternated my time between spotting every mullet in the room and dancing like an idiot. The night ended as every night should-at McDonalds discussing the different pronunciations that Americans and English have for the same word. I think we got stuck on "yoghurt" for at least 10 minutes. This was clearly more fun than going to sleep so we didnt hit the non-existent sheets til 4 am and had to be up at 7. Smooth move.
The Whitsundays were just....so many things. I think we set the tone for the trip the night before and that only continued. We were late getting into town and registering with the boat so we had to do that in the morning and the woman behind the counter seriously would not stop talking. Then we ran across town to the marina to get the boat and of course purchased 3 giant boxes of goon on the way. You can imagine the looks we got from our fellow passengers when we rolled up looking like hell with as much booze and you can carry at 10 am. We quickly realized we were in the minority what with bringing booze and liking to have fun. We met two really fun girls from Canada- Mariel and Meghan- the only other two who got the BYOB memo. The rest of the boat was mostly couples with a few randoms and then this funny old Italian family that we were all skeptical about but actually ended up making the trip. There were 3 little old Italian ladies who just hung out in bikinis all day..and one who was such a diva. She pursed her lips and every bikini she had was adorned with either sequins or jewels of some sort. So funny. The first day out we sailed to Hook Island and did some snorkeling complete with stinger suits (think full body lycra) and then some actual sailing in the afternoon. We parked the boat and had dinner and then played games with the crew at night. A fair amount of time was also spent looking up- with no light pollution you could see thousands of stars. I think we were all awed into silence for a least a half an hour just looking up at all the constellations. Claire, Sean and I were supposed to camp on the island but we finagled a spot to sleep on the boat instead-in the sail. Yes seriously, we all cocooned up in the sail and after some moving around it was actually quite comfortable. Illegal too I'm sure, but quite the experience none the less.
The next day we set off for Whitehaven Beach which I am going to ahead and say is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I'm sure everyone has seen pictures-white sand beaches, crystal clear water, vivid blue sky. Absolutely unreal. We took about 9000 pictures there and not one does the spot justice. It really is just incredible. I got to use the underwater capabilities on my new camera which was quite fun and we ended up with some really fun pictures! Poor Meghan tried to do a handstand and dislocated her shoulder so she had to get off the boat that afternoon to get it taken care of! But she's ok now, she was such a trooper she didn't even complain once. After getting her taken care of we went snorkelling and sailing some more before doing dinner and drinks again. We played games down in the cabin and the Italians were just fascinated. They kept trying to figure out how we were playing and what was going on, it was so cute. One of the grandmas took a liking to Sean and kept stealing his nose. Like your grandma probably did to you when you were five. So funny. We decided to venture onto the island to the only bar for a drink and it was a bit of a shitshow of University students so that didn't last long. Getting back to the boat, our Host, Rachel fell into the water! And we had just had a conversation about how we were both deathly afraid of the ocean at night...thankfully her cigarettes stayed dry so she was happy. Back into the sail we went, until Sean tried to climb out later and snapped one of the sides. Ooops. But it ended up being ok (fixable) and we got to steal someone's bed so that actually worked out for the better. Leave it to us to break something on the boat. The next morning we headed home and yup, the power steering went out. So we had to jump on this little dingy to get in from outside of the marina. Definitely a fantastic trip-I know I'm not describing it that well and it's probably one of those "had to be there" things, but really so much fun.
We got back to Airlie and decided to go swimming at the local watering hole and on the way over I ran into Tristan and his girlriend LeAnn! Small world, Tristan and I worked together at Blue Hour and we knew each other was coming but to just randomly run into him was so funny! We went swimming and then tried to do internet stuff but my computer has been rather rude lately so that ended up with me fuming mad about not getting any pictures up. It was definitely one of those "I'm turning into my mother" moments. Love you Mom! Then it was goon time. After the boats get back its a tradition to get a table with the crew at one of the bars and get drinks and have fun. We saw our English friends too so that was great fun, and then in another small world story I saw Andrew Aaberg! Just sitting a table away from me! He's here working for a year and I had no idea (we went to SCU together) so we caught up for a while which was really nice! Then one way or another we all ended up back at Mama Africas on the dance floor. On our way there I saw a couple making out heavily on the ground (like sitting up..in an alley....classy) and the guy was wearing neon yellow underwear. So I dared Claire to go give him an atomic wedgie. She did. I cried. It was fantastic. We danced till the wee hours of the night and then took a little walk down the bay and saw the town by night. Again, very pretty.
Today it's been internet galore! And now we have an overnight bus that leaves at 6 pm and gets into Hervey Bay at 7 am and then it's time for Frasier Island! I'm mentally preparing myself for being covered head to toe in sand. I can't wait.
Until then...love and miss you all!!!
Jen
Between the time of getting off the ferry from Magnetic Island and jumping on the greyhound we had about 45 minutes to grab food. Which you would think would be enough time to get to McDonalds and back, right? Well, if you are like us, you thought wrong. We asked a nice man who was either very turned around or just wanted to mess with us how close it was and he said like 2 blocks away. Add a zero onto the end of that number and thats how close it was. 20 blocks away. We found this out the hard way, and also arrived right about feeding time for the kiddies so it was like a Twilight convention with Big Macs. Kill me. Cut to Sean and I dead out sprinting through the streets of Townsville with McDonalds bags in hand and you can understand why people were pointing and laughing. We did however make it to the bus just in time to realize that our driver was the crankiest old man ever and we had to not only sneak the food onto the bus but sneak taking bites while the old man wasn't wheezing about switching seats. Seriously it was like being back in elementary school all over again. Claire also snuck a popsicle onto the bus after we stopped at the grossest pit stop ever and she had to literally shove it between the seats so old man river wouldn't kick her off the bus for having it. I laughed so hard I cried when I saw the look on her face and subsequent panic at realizing he was walking towards us while she had a mouth full of ice cream. Things I wish I had on videotape...
We got into Airlie Beach and took a nice overextended stroll to find our hostel. The town is really cute with lots of fun shops, restaurants and bars. Though the ratio of live music to people who actually like it is very out of whack. On the bright side, the ratio of mullets to normal hair cuts is like 2:1 so I have spent probably 60% of my time laughing and pointing out said hair dos to anyone that wants to see. Which is alot, in case you were wondering. Our first hostel came complete with no working lights and no sheets so that was just great. Really classy establisment. We grabbed some dinner in town then came back and made friends with a group of English boys who were playing drinking games on the patio. We played several rounds of a variation of the game Zoo that had all of us dying laughing. Then it was out to Mama Africas where I went for something different and alternated my time between spotting every mullet in the room and dancing like an idiot. The night ended as every night should-at McDonalds discussing the different pronunciations that Americans and English have for the same word. I think we got stuck on "yoghurt" for at least 10 minutes. This was clearly more fun than going to sleep so we didnt hit the non-existent sheets til 4 am and had to be up at 7. Smooth move.
The Whitsundays were just....so many things. I think we set the tone for the trip the night before and that only continued. We were late getting into town and registering with the boat so we had to do that in the morning and the woman behind the counter seriously would not stop talking. Then we ran across town to the marina to get the boat and of course purchased 3 giant boxes of goon on the way. You can imagine the looks we got from our fellow passengers when we rolled up looking like hell with as much booze and you can carry at 10 am. We quickly realized we were in the minority what with bringing booze and liking to have fun. We met two really fun girls from Canada- Mariel and Meghan- the only other two who got the BYOB memo. The rest of the boat was mostly couples with a few randoms and then this funny old Italian family that we were all skeptical about but actually ended up making the trip. There were 3 little old Italian ladies who just hung out in bikinis all day..and one who was such a diva. She pursed her lips and every bikini she had was adorned with either sequins or jewels of some sort. So funny. The first day out we sailed to Hook Island and did some snorkeling complete with stinger suits (think full body lycra) and then some actual sailing in the afternoon. We parked the boat and had dinner and then played games with the crew at night. A fair amount of time was also spent looking up- with no light pollution you could see thousands of stars. I think we were all awed into silence for a least a half an hour just looking up at all the constellations. Claire, Sean and I were supposed to camp on the island but we finagled a spot to sleep on the boat instead-in the sail. Yes seriously, we all cocooned up in the sail and after some moving around it was actually quite comfortable. Illegal too I'm sure, but quite the experience none the less.
The next day we set off for Whitehaven Beach which I am going to ahead and say is one of the most beautiful places on earth. I'm sure everyone has seen pictures-white sand beaches, crystal clear water, vivid blue sky. Absolutely unreal. We took about 9000 pictures there and not one does the spot justice. It really is just incredible. I got to use the underwater capabilities on my new camera which was quite fun and we ended up with some really fun pictures! Poor Meghan tried to do a handstand and dislocated her shoulder so she had to get off the boat that afternoon to get it taken care of! But she's ok now, she was such a trooper she didn't even complain once. After getting her taken care of we went snorkelling and sailing some more before doing dinner and drinks again. We played games down in the cabin and the Italians were just fascinated. They kept trying to figure out how we were playing and what was going on, it was so cute. One of the grandmas took a liking to Sean and kept stealing his nose. Like your grandma probably did to you when you were five. So funny. We decided to venture onto the island to the only bar for a drink and it was a bit of a shitshow of University students so that didn't last long. Getting back to the boat, our Host, Rachel fell into the water! And we had just had a conversation about how we were both deathly afraid of the ocean at night...thankfully her cigarettes stayed dry so she was happy. Back into the sail we went, until Sean tried to climb out later and snapped one of the sides. Ooops. But it ended up being ok (fixable) and we got to steal someone's bed so that actually worked out for the better. Leave it to us to break something on the boat. The next morning we headed home and yup, the power steering went out. So we had to jump on this little dingy to get in from outside of the marina. Definitely a fantastic trip-I know I'm not describing it that well and it's probably one of those "had to be there" things, but really so much fun.
We got back to Airlie and decided to go swimming at the local watering hole and on the way over I ran into Tristan and his girlriend LeAnn! Small world, Tristan and I worked together at Blue Hour and we knew each other was coming but to just randomly run into him was so funny! We went swimming and then tried to do internet stuff but my computer has been rather rude lately so that ended up with me fuming mad about not getting any pictures up. It was definitely one of those "I'm turning into my mother" moments. Love you Mom! Then it was goon time. After the boats get back its a tradition to get a table with the crew at one of the bars and get drinks and have fun. We saw our English friends too so that was great fun, and then in another small world story I saw Andrew Aaberg! Just sitting a table away from me! He's here working for a year and I had no idea (we went to SCU together) so we caught up for a while which was really nice! Then one way or another we all ended up back at Mama Africas on the dance floor. On our way there I saw a couple making out heavily on the ground (like sitting up..in an alley....classy) and the guy was wearing neon yellow underwear. So I dared Claire to go give him an atomic wedgie. She did. I cried. It was fantastic. We danced till the wee hours of the night and then took a little walk down the bay and saw the town by night. Again, very pretty.
Today it's been internet galore! And now we have an overnight bus that leaves at 6 pm and gets into Hervey Bay at 7 am and then it's time for Frasier Island! I'm mentally preparing myself for being covered head to toe in sand. I can't wait.
Until then...love and miss you all!!!
Jen
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Coming Down South
Soooo this post was written a few days ago and when I went to post it my computer decided that the internet did not exist anymore. Fantastic. So it's a bit old, but you still get the idea...
Hello everyone! And welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy it. Anywho, where did we leave off? Mission Beach. Right. So, we were feeling a bit stressed about trying to make it all the way down the coast in a matter of weeks and decided to kind of switch up the trip a bit and extend some spots and cut out everything below Brisbane. I know, I know, but sacrifices must be made and I’ll just do it next trip. So, we stayed in Mission Beach an extra night. Don’t let the name fool you, there is not much more than a beach there. Literally-we ate at a gas station/car garage/mini mart/restaurant which was surprisingly delicious, though awkward, for obvious reasons. The day was spent on the beach laying in the sun and thinking in my head “this is actually happening. I am actually here” Over and over again. Really, it blows my mind when I stop and think of where I am, what I’m doing, and most importantly, what I would be doing if I were home in Portland. That night the hostel put on an “In Bad Taste” party, which translates to everyone wear the most ridiculous thing you can find in the dress up bins- I ended up in a lovely dance leotard complete with sequins and built-in choker. I should mention this was probably made for a 7 year old. We then went to the only bar in town and danced around like idiots for the better part of 4 hours. I did not win the dance competition, but did get an A for effort. So that’s something…
The next day we were up and off to Townsville-mistake #1. Townsville is a shabby, run down, military base town that has not much to offer besides a little kids water playground. Which was awesome but we didn’t get a chance to play in. We did run into a girl named Stephanie that we had known from our hostel in Sydney so she joined us for the night which we spent sleeping in our dirty hostel. So Townsville..cross it off the list.
We caught a ferry to Magnetic Island the next day which is about 20 minutes off the coast of Townsville. It’s beautiful-the water is that aqua that everyone loves in the pictures, there are trees galore and a bunch of funny little animals called rock wallabies that hop about and I swear were the inspiration for parkour. It reminds me quite a bit of McCall actually-there are these rocks that jut out into the water and are begging to be jumped off of, but there are also jellyfish in the water waiting to kill me so I had to control myself. Our hostel here was a funny place called Magnums that plays terrible music videos (which is a common theme among bars and hostels here in Oz) and they charge you to rent pillows. We had the bright idea to try mixing skittles and vodka- mistake #2. Some Welsh guys on our Great Barrier Reef boat had told us it tasted "sooooo good" and we believed them. The end result wasn’t terrible but definitely not something I would do all the time. We then had the unusual pleasure of attending the local Toad Races. Yes, they are exactly how they sound. It’s a local get-together that involved about 50 chairs circled around the “toad race” which was essentially a giant circle. An old local would auction off toads, which was y him making up stories about how fast all the toads were and then manhandling them about the ring to the highest bidder. We of course found it really fun to yell out obscene bids (my favorite was "my first born baby"-screw monetary values) and get beaten out, but some of these toads went for upwards of $100. The local scene was beyond entertaining and we got some fabulous shots of the spectators-think Eastern Oregon if you can. I did however win a pen for knowing the second smallest state of the US at trivia time between rounds (Delaware. I guessed.) After enough toad abuse for one evening we decided to see what else Magnetic Island had to offer-that led us to X Base-another hostel on the island. Where naturally I danced around like an idiot for another three hours with Claire and tried to make friends. There is just something about awesomely bad 90’s music complete with music videos that my body just cannot stand still.
Im slowly starting to pick up on people’s accents the more I meet new people, but still cannot understand half of what they are saying, if that makes sense. I can tell the person is Irish, but could not tell you anything about a 5 minute conversation we had. I’ve gotten really good at the “smile and nod” policy of pretending to know what’s being said but really singing bad music in my head.
Yesterday we made like real tourists and rented a funny little car that looks like a go-kart and drove around the island. That took about 20 minutes of actual driving. We drove down to one beach and went swimming, then hopped back into the car and off to another beach to swim. It was like musical beaches. But it was really, really fantastic and we got to see a lot of the island that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to. I even drove! Granted that lasted for about 2 minutes of my brain trying to figure out a 4-gear stick shift on the wrong side of me, and driving on the wrong side of the road before it just shut down and I turned the wheel over to Sean and Claire for the remainder of the trip. But at least I tried, and no one was harmed. The island is really beautiful and definitely worth the ferry trip out here. Last night we went to X Base again because it literally is the only place on the island to go out, and it was considerably less crowded, but still fun. We took it somewhat easy since we have the Whitsundays coming up and have to be on our A game for that.
Today we are catching a ferry, then a greyhound bus to make it down to Airlie Beach where we take off for the Whitsundays tomorrow. I am so excited that I can’t convey it properly on this blog-Whitsundays are what I have been looking forward to the most of this trip. So, I’m quite excited that the time for it has finally arrived! God I sound like a little fat kid in a cake shop.
Until then..
Love you all.
Jen
Hello everyone! And welcome to my blog. I hope you enjoy it. Anywho, where did we leave off? Mission Beach. Right. So, we were feeling a bit stressed about trying to make it all the way down the coast in a matter of weeks and decided to kind of switch up the trip a bit and extend some spots and cut out everything below Brisbane. I know, I know, but sacrifices must be made and I’ll just do it next trip. So, we stayed in Mission Beach an extra night. Don’t let the name fool you, there is not much more than a beach there. Literally-we ate at a gas station/car garage/mini mart/restaurant which was surprisingly delicious, though awkward, for obvious reasons. The day was spent on the beach laying in the sun and thinking in my head “this is actually happening. I am actually here” Over and over again. Really, it blows my mind when I stop and think of where I am, what I’m doing, and most importantly, what I would be doing if I were home in Portland. That night the hostel put on an “In Bad Taste” party, which translates to everyone wear the most ridiculous thing you can find in the dress up bins- I ended up in a lovely dance leotard complete with sequins and built-in choker. I should mention this was probably made for a 7 year old. We then went to the only bar in town and danced around like idiots for the better part of 4 hours. I did not win the dance competition, but did get an A for effort. So that’s something…
The next day we were up and off to Townsville-mistake #1. Townsville is a shabby, run down, military base town that has not much to offer besides a little kids water playground. Which was awesome but we didn’t get a chance to play in. We did run into a girl named Stephanie that we had known from our hostel in Sydney so she joined us for the night which we spent sleeping in our dirty hostel. So Townsville..cross it off the list.
We caught a ferry to Magnetic Island the next day which is about 20 minutes off the coast of Townsville. It’s beautiful-the water is that aqua that everyone loves in the pictures, there are trees galore and a bunch of funny little animals called rock wallabies that hop about and I swear were the inspiration for parkour. It reminds me quite a bit of McCall actually-there are these rocks that jut out into the water and are begging to be jumped off of, but there are also jellyfish in the water waiting to kill me so I had to control myself. Our hostel here was a funny place called Magnums that plays terrible music videos (which is a common theme among bars and hostels here in Oz) and they charge you to rent pillows. We had the bright idea to try mixing skittles and vodka- mistake #2. Some Welsh guys on our Great Barrier Reef boat had told us it tasted "sooooo good" and we believed them. The end result wasn’t terrible but definitely not something I would do all the time. We then had the unusual pleasure of attending the local Toad Races. Yes, they are exactly how they sound. It’s a local get-together that involved about 50 chairs circled around the “toad race” which was essentially a giant circle. An old local would auction off toads, which was y him making up stories about how fast all the toads were and then manhandling them about the ring to the highest bidder. We of course found it really fun to yell out obscene bids (my favorite was "my first born baby"-screw monetary values) and get beaten out, but some of these toads went for upwards of $100. The local scene was beyond entertaining and we got some fabulous shots of the spectators-think Eastern Oregon if you can. I did however win a pen for knowing the second smallest state of the US at trivia time between rounds (Delaware. I guessed.) After enough toad abuse for one evening we decided to see what else Magnetic Island had to offer-that led us to X Base-another hostel on the island. Where naturally I danced around like an idiot for another three hours with Claire and tried to make friends. There is just something about awesomely bad 90’s music complete with music videos that my body just cannot stand still.
Im slowly starting to pick up on people’s accents the more I meet new people, but still cannot understand half of what they are saying, if that makes sense. I can tell the person is Irish, but could not tell you anything about a 5 minute conversation we had. I’ve gotten really good at the “smile and nod” policy of pretending to know what’s being said but really singing bad music in my head.
Yesterday we made like real tourists and rented a funny little car that looks like a go-kart and drove around the island. That took about 20 minutes of actual driving. We drove down to one beach and went swimming, then hopped back into the car and off to another beach to swim. It was like musical beaches. But it was really, really fantastic and we got to see a lot of the island that we wouldn’t have otherwise been able to. I even drove! Granted that lasted for about 2 minutes of my brain trying to figure out a 4-gear stick shift on the wrong side of me, and driving on the wrong side of the road before it just shut down and I turned the wheel over to Sean and Claire for the remainder of the trip. But at least I tried, and no one was harmed. The island is really beautiful and definitely worth the ferry trip out here. Last night we went to X Base again because it literally is the only place on the island to go out, and it was considerably less crowded, but still fun. We took it somewhat easy since we have the Whitsundays coming up and have to be on our A game for that.
Today we are catching a ferry, then a greyhound bus to make it down to Airlie Beach where we take off for the Whitsundays tomorrow. I am so excited that I can’t convey it properly on this blog-Whitsundays are what I have been looking forward to the most of this trip. So, I’m quite excited that the time for it has finally arrived! God I sound like a little fat kid in a cake shop.
Until then..
Love you all.
Jen
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