Ayr

Was great to see Brett and Kerrie again, they had a great honeymoon and returned with good news. We spent the weekend at Raline and Brians place. They have a beatiful house, it's really big and on loads of land, a very quiet and peaceful spot. They were great hosts and Brian took us out fishing on the creek, he'd already put some crab pots out and caught quite a few! Brian told us he'd seen a 9 foot croc out there a few days before, so it was a bit scary as we were only in a little tinny! When Rich Brett and Brian went out on the creek the following day, Brett was standing in the water by the jetty holding the boat, when a lady nearby told him that the croc was seen on the jetty earlier! They all came back with 4 limbs though so they didn't have any close encounters! Brian also drove us around and told us all about the cane farm. Unfortunately though there was to be no cane burning that weekend, something to do with farming politics. He drove us to the beach and then drove along the beach with us all stood in the back of his Ute, that was fun. Brett took us round the cane fields on a quad bike and we were followed by the craziest dog ever, he was running around in circles in front of the bike and barking at the front wheels, he'd already been run over by it once, but he carried on playing 'chicken' with us!!

On our last night there, some of Raline and Brians friends came over for a BBQ which was nice, was sad that it was our last night in Queensland as it's been our favourite state. But, new adventures await us.

So, we said goodbye to our friends, and promised to return, which we definately will, and boarded our flight to Sydney....

....so peeps, all up to date as Sydney is where we is at! Don't know when the next update will be as we're leaving in a couple of days for Asia and that's going to be hectic, so have patience my friends.....

Are tiger sharks really that hard?

After all the fun of the rainforest, we got an early bus back to Townsville where we'd got a 3 night diving trip booked for the outer part of the Great Barrier Reef.

We had an afternoon in Townsville shopping (I had to buy a new hoodie as I'd lost my pink one somewhere :-( ) and going to the cinema.

The next day I went on a refresher course just to practice my diving skills before we set out on the boat, that all went well and I was feeling pretty confident. We boarded the boat about 8pm but it didn't set off till about 11, by this time everyone was in bed, but nobody slept!!! It was very windy and choppy and the boat ride was awful. It took 8 hours to get to our first dive spot and it was a long 8 hours, we were being chucked all over the place, and if that wasn't bad enough our room was right under the engine and so it was really noisy! Quite a few people were sick too so it wasn't a pleasant night!!

When we arrived at our dive site, everyone was very bleary eyed and not very enthusiastic, but we all went and dived anyway, it was still pretty choppy and cold out there, but the water was nice and warm. I only did 1 dive that day, I tried to do 2 but on the second dive I couldn't equalize so I gave up for the day! Rich did 3 dives I think. It was all very pretty down there.

Day 2 was at a different spot but the skipper didn't drive through the night this time, he just left really early! Rich did 3 dives including a night dive which he really enjoyed. I was still having loads of trouble with my ears and it was starting to get really stressful and I wasn't enjoying it. So I gave up!! I was enjoying being on the boat and it was a good group of people on there.

Day 3 was supposed to be diving at a wreck called the Yongala but it was too rough for the boat to get to, Rich was disappointed but it couldn't be helped. He did a reef dive in the morning. Then there was an 8 hour journey back to Townsville, which was really rough still, but nobody was sick this time and we weren't trying to sleep so it was OK. Had a few beers back in Townsville with fellow divers, then we made our way to the airport to meet up with Brett and Kerrie and go to Ayr and stay with Raline and Brian.

The Daintree / Cape Tribulation

We had a 2 day tour booked from Cairns up through the Daintree rainforest up to Cape Tribulation and were picked up early doors. First stop was a zoo type place which was all very nice but we'd seen it all before! After that we had lunch on the beach then headed to Mosman Gorge for a walk through the rainforest and a swim in a very cold river...brrrr!! There was a boat trip along a croc infested river, where we saw lots of saltwater crocs (the big ones!!) in the wild, which was cool albeit a bit scary! Unfortunately our camera battery died at this point and so we didn't manage to get any pics of the rest of our tour :-( We also saw a lot of snakes along the river bed and a teeny tiny baby croc!

We were dropped at our hostel in the rainforest for the evening, we had a look at the beach which was very nice and spent our evening playing scrabble!

The second day we went for a nice walk through the rainforest and in the afternoon we went 'jungle surfing', this was great fun, flying fox type things in the rainforest. There were about 5 slides in all and the last one was done upside down, was pretty neat, Rich thought it was tame, but he would! I thought it was great!! Again though, no pics, sorry! Later on we had a 3 hour journey back to Cairns, back to hostel for one night. Didn't get to see Cairns which is a shame as it looked like a good place with lots to see and do. Nevermind, can't see it all!!

Chard gets a haircut.....

.....only joking! It's Magnetic Island really, but I bet you all looked at this one first!

As we'd missed the 6.20am bus we had to get a later one and after a short ferry ride from Townsville we finally arrived on Magnetic Island about 6pm. Didn't do much that evening as we were feeling a little curly.

The next day though we hired a little open top jeep thingy and went and picked up Claire and had a little drive round the Island. It was only a little island so it didn't take long. We spent the day lazing on the beach, walking and hooning around in our jeep! We did a walk up to the highest point on the island and were rewarded with fantastic views as well as seeing a couple of Koalas in the wild :-) and a snake, but I don't know what sort.

That was pretty much it as we only had 2 nights there, we left early the next day for our bus to Cairns which took up the best part of the day. When we arrived in Cairns we said bye to Claire and arranged to meet up with here again in Sydney, then found ourselves a bed for the night.

Airlie Beach / Whitsunday Islands

We arrived in Airlie beach all nice and refreshed after a good nights sleep on the bus.........NOT! We didn't get any sleep and were feeling as rough as....we couldn't check into our room at hostel till 10 am either so had to hang about for a few hours. We went into town and booked ourselves a 2 day sailing trip around the whitsundays for the following day.

Later that day, a guy called Hud (who we'd met in Torquay, a couple of months ago) arrived at he hostel, we had arranged to meet him there for a night out in Airlie Beach. Rich went out early doors but I had to have some sleep. We had a few beers in the hostel and got talking to 3 girls from Sunderland who were a scream! Did the quiz with them and won a bottle of fizzy goon, then ventured out, met up with Claire and some of the others too. It wasn't the wild night we were expecting but it was a great night!

Needless to say the next day we were feeling a bit secondhand, but we said adios to Hud and boarded our boat......which was a racing yacht and had won numerous races. There were 21 people on board and 4 crew and it was pretty cramped.

Rich and I didn't really want a party boat, but we got one! There were some lads from Croyden who were on a mission to drink as much as possible and be as loud and silly as they could! Hey-ho, we joined in with a bit of drinking but not the drinking games, we wanted to enjoy the sailing!! The sailing part was really good fun, very scary at first as when it sails in a decent wind the boat is right up on its side and if feels like the boat is going to keel over, but when I realised it was supposed to be at that angle and the crew knew what they were doing, I relaxed and enjoyed it!!! The weather was pretty crappy over our couple of days but we still had a good time, we visited whitsunday island which was beautiful and we did some snorkelling at a couple of places.

After a pleasant sail back to Airlie Beach we went back to the hostel, we spent the evening in the hostel bar with the 3 sunderland girls, we did the quiz and won fizzy goon, then another quiz, and more fizzy goon, and the quizzes and goon kept coming! Had a great night but didn't end up going to bed till 2.30am, our bus was at 6.20am........we missed it!!!

Note: 'Goon' an aussie word for cheap wine that usually comes in a box. A derivative of the aboriginal pronunciation of the word flagon, flagoon, and the aussies shortened that to goon. Goon, our new favourite word!

Rockhampton / Great Kepple Island

After a gruelling 12 hour bus journey we arrived in Rocky and settled into our hostel. We were only there for a couple of nights, which was good as there's not much going on in Rocky, we visited the art gallery and that was pretty much all there was to do!!

Then along came Capricorn Dave, we met up with him at the hostel bar the night before our tour (sorry adventure, he doesn't do tours, he does adventures!!!) with him and had a few beers. Next day he picked us up along with a few others and set off into the bush! We had a hectic day which involved dancing barefoot on ants nests (not pleasant as they are viscious!!), going head to head with big bulls, searching for spiders and snakes found some golden orb weaver spiders, which I braved myself to hold and a massive Huntsman, which nobody but Dave wanted to hold!! and we also came accross a Taipan snake which is Australias most deadly, didn't manage to get a picture though as he scarpered! We licked ant's bottoms, yes I did say we licked ant's bottoms, it's a bizarre thing, but you get an extreme hit of citrus, sort of limey and they're full of vitamin C (there is a photo of Rich doing this but you can't see the ant!!). We covered our selves in lemon tea tree mud and had a swim in a billabong. In the evening we made a big fire and camped out under the stars, no tents, just matresses around the fire and sleeping bags, that was the best bit!

On the second day it was just me and Rich with Dave, we went to an area of wetlands to see what wildlife we could spot, we found some Brogers (big birds) and a little tree snake, I was brave enough to hold that, don't have a problem with snakes, and it was really cute. Dave kept trying to get it to go into his mouth (he's not right in the head!) but I don't think it liked his fag breath!! We had lunch at a little restaurant in the rainforest then went canoeing down the river through the rainforest, which was really nice, even though it was raining and none of the wildlife came out to play! That eveing we couldn't sleep under the stars :-( as the rain had soaked the matresses and firewood, so we had to go to a campground and sleep in a tent :-(

Next day we took a bus and a ferry to Great Kepple Island, it was still raining and so we spent the afternoon just chilling out, we met a girl on the bus called Claire, from York, and spent our afternoon with her and a few others, we were all pretty much going in the same direction over the next couple of weeks so guessed we might keep bumping into them!

The next couple of days there we had great weather, and spent our time walking to various beaches (some great beaches you can have all to yourself!) and snorkelling. On one walk we walked over to the other side of the island, to the lighthouse with our snorkelling gear as we were told there's great snorkelling to be had, Yuko (a japanese girl) came with us too. It took about 2 1/2 hours to get there and was pretty tough going in parts, but when we got there, we could see the reef all around and it looked great but it was low tide and there was nowhere for us to get in without cutting ourselves to shreds on coral! Bugger, it was a really hot day and it was a gruelling walk back, felt really sorry for Yuko as she really wanted to snorkell and she wasn't much of a walker!

On our last day we went out on a motorised canoe, which had outriggers that you could hold onto and snorkell as the canoe motored on, that was cool and we saw an enormous turtle! After that it was a ferry back to Rockhampton where we were booked onto the overnight bus to Airlie Beach, the bus was leaving at 11.50pm so had to hang around in Rocky till then. We went to the hostel where we'd stayed previously and they were happy for us to hang about there. Claire was with us too as she was getting the same bus. Rocky was good for one thing, steak! We had a great steak at the hostel and Rich won a bottle of Bundaberg Rum so we had a pretty good evening waiting for the bus!

Er.....Brisbane part c - the laziness!

Hallo avrybody peeps!

Right then I've put aside the afternoon for blogging updates, and then I saw how far behind I was so might not get it all done, but I'll give it a good go.

Just so you all know though, we're currently in Sydney where it is bloody cold, no, really bloody cold! We're leaving on Wednesday though :-( be sad to leave Oz cos we've really enjoyed it here. But we'll be moving onto the next leg of our adventure.....South East Asia, starting in Singapore....

But anyway, back to Brisbane part c.......in our last 2 weeks in Brisbane we did a lot of loafing around watching DVD's! Sad I know but that's what we did! We had a lot of BBQ's too, mainly with Brad and Lisa (friends of Brett and Kerries) and we went out with them a couple of nights and got quite drunk and on one of these occaisions Rich nearly bought a house for a million dollars (and for some reason thought he could afford it)!!

We spent a lot of time planning our trip through asia too as we haven't really got much time in each country so want to make sure we make the most of it so that's gonna be a really hectic couple of months.

And we made a couple of journeys down to the gold coast to go and play at the theme parks. We went to Movieworld, which was OK, very tacky and only had one decent ride (the superman which goes from 0-100km in 2 seconds!). The other was Dreamworld which was better, had more good rides and wasn't so cheesy. The best bit though was that at both places there were barely any people there so we didn't have to queue for any rides......we liked that :-)

And then all of a sudden it was time to leave :-( we had a bus to catch at 7.30 am to Rockhampton.......

Just a quickie

Dear Telly et al,

Sorry there has been no updates recently but we've been flat out cruising up the Queensland coast for the last few weeks and have been no stop (I know, I know, it's a hard life). But rest assured, we'll be in Sydney in a weeks time and the updates will come thick and fast, expect such treats as:

Chard gets a hair cut
A night off the booze
Who keeps stealing my pants
Is that a pillow up your top or are you just a big fat lazy git?
and
Are Tiger Sharks really that hard?

Love to all,

Rich and Kaz