Saturday, September 27, 2008

Brissy



We finally got to Brissy (that's what Aussie's call Brisbane - they don't like using full words much) at about 6 in the morning. We were picking up our campervan (finally!) so we had to hang around until 9:30 when Jucy, our rental car company, opened. We hung out, had some breakfast at Micky D's, and wrote some blogs. Around 9, I was walking to the ladies room and I heard, "Virginia?". Who do I know in Brisbane? It was our friend Alan who we met on the Taka dive trip! He had gone away for a few days to Surfer's Paradise and Byron Bay and was just on his way back to Brissy. He and Jigar and I all caught up for a few minutes until we had to leave to go pick up our campervan. Alan went back to where he was staying and we agreed to catch up later.
We picked up our Jucy campervan and it was like home, sweet home. We were pretty sick of greyhound buses and staying in hostels. It was nice to have our own space and to have our own transportation so we could get off the beaten track a bit. But before we set out, we wanted to spend a few days in Brissy with Alan.

We didn't do much the first day. Just called our parents, sent some emails, and explored the city a bit. At nightfall, we decided to find a place to sleep. We found a spot on the Q.U.T. Campus. It was quiet and safe. Just as we were getting ready to set up our bed for the first time, Jigar heard some music in the distance. I was exhausted but he convinced me to go with him to investigate. It turns out that it was Navratri which is an Indian festival. There was a celebration going on on the campus. There were tons of people. They were all dressed up and they were dancing. It was fun to watch.

The next day, we picked up Alan and we all headed out to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. It is the biggest and oldest koala sanctuary in Australia. They had lots of shows going on like the birds of prey show. The birds would fly right in front of us! We also got to feed the kangaroos. One of them tried to mug me. He came up and stuck his nose right into my food bag and started eating. They were really cute. I also got to hold a koala. They are heavy and they have sharp claws, but he was really cute and cuddly nonetheless. We got to see all of the native Australian animals (even the wombats) except for the Tassy Devil.


We spent a few more days in Brissy. Mostly just hanging out with Alan and enjoying the delicious food there. At the Wok On Inn noodle bar, they have the best chicken satay I have ever tasted! We enjoyed our time in Brissy, but we were ready to head out and visit our friends Mark & Jo whom we met on Whitehaven Beach at the Whitsunday Islands.

Friday, September 26, 2008

Pit Stop in Bundy


We stopped in Bundaberg (a.k.a "Bundy") on our way to Brisbane. Mostly we stopped there because it was a convenient place to spend the afternoon. From Bundy, we could take an overnight bus to Brisbane rather than spending the whole day on the bus. We enjoyed it because it was the first "real" town we had been to. Every other town was a tourist town, but Bundy is a place where people actually work and live. It was cool to finally experience that side of Australia. We spent a few hours there, before catching the midnight bus to Brissy.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

1770/Agnes Water




After Airlie Beach, we hopped on an overnight Greyhound to the town of 1770. It is named 1770 after the year when Capt. Cook first set foot there. The bus actually drops you off about a half an hour from town and a shuttle picks you up. The shuttle takes you to Agnes Water, the town next to 1770. We ended up staying in Agnes Water, as most people do.

There are 2 hostels in town. "Cool Bananas" was pretty rude and didn't want to show us the room, so we stayed at the other one, "1770 Backpackers". They didn't have any private rooms, but since they weren't too busy, they gave us a dorm room and told us they wouldn't put anyone else in there.

It was pretty early in the day, so we made something to eat and chatted with Janni, a Finnish guy who was on our bus. Then we explored the town a bit (that didn't take long) and headed to the beach.

Paul, the shuttle bus driver, is also the resident surf coach and gives surf lessons every morning on the beach. We opted out since it was pretty windy and it was a bit too chilly for us to hit the waves, but we did hang out and watch the braver souls who were out there attempting it.

Later in the afternoon, we lounged around the hostel and read our books and started talking with some of the other guests and staff. The girl who worked there was so sweet - she gave us each a piece of cake. I couldn't eat it, but the gesture was sweet, nonethelss. She told us about her experience traveling around Uluru and the Olgas. She had an amazing time there.

After dinner, we were loitering in the kitchen and we started chatting with some girls who came in. There was Heather and Grace from the U.K. & Tooey and Van from Sydney. Well, it turns out that they had been in town for a while and they knew the entire hostel. Soon they had brought out the 4 liter cask (we would call it a box) of wine and everyone was hanging out and learning about each other's travels. A huge group of us from the hostel went to the Agnes Water Tavern together for a night out on the town. It was so much fun! It was just cool to hang out with such an interesting mix of people from all over the globe. There was Aurelia from France, Lukas from Germany, Lisa from Ireland and her cousin Sana from Sweden, among others. Of course, Heather & Grace from the UK and Tooey and Van from Sydney were also there. Tooey and Van were actually getting on a bus later that night to start their journey home!

When we left Airlie Beach, we were over hostels. The Whitsundays were amazing, but Airlie Beach was horrible. We were ready to be off the hostel circuit and into our campervan, but we still had one last stop to make in Agnes Water/1770. I am glad that we did. It made us realize that hostels can be fun and they can be good places to meet people. We met a lot of cool people in Agnes Water, but Tooey and Van stood out from the crowd. We look forward to visiting them in Sydney.

Unfortunately, we had to get on a bus the next morning. We would have loved to hang out in Agnes Water for a while longer - it has that laid back beach town kind of vibe that just sucks you in. But we had to be in Brisbane in two days to pick up our campervan. We got on the shuttle that would take us to the Greyhound. We had the same driver, Paul, again. When we got to the bus stop and had all our luggage out, he said, "I want to show you guys something." He got a cloth bag out of the back that had a python in it! He explained that this snake was getting into his boss' chickens. If you call the snake removal people, they are only required to take the snake 1 kilometer away before they release it. The snake will find his way back if you release it that close. So he brings them out to the bus stop because it is 30 k's out of town. He let him go and the snake wriggled away into the grass.




Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Whitehaven Beach - Whitsunday Islands



Magnetic Islands was an excellent getaway, but now Gin & I were ready to get to Airlie Beach (jump off point to the Whitsunday Islands).

Since we had gone for diving at the great barrier reef and had did the live aboard with Taka Dive, we did not have any further intensions on getting on another boat. Sailing in the Whitsunday Islands seemed to be the most common thing all tourist did. Gin & I certainly were tired of being on the silly tourist track and wanted to do something different. We decided to do camping at the Whitehaven beach on the Whitsunday. Since I have virtually no real experience with camping and Gin only remembers her camping experiences from her childhood, we decided to do camping for only 3 days. Fortunately our travel agent got us everything we needed in order to camp at the Whitehaven beach.



We hopped on a barge (a small boat) with all our camping gear and all excited to check out the famous Whitehaven beach. It was almost a 2 hour ride to the Whitehaven beach. The captain of the boat told us to look around for humpback whales since it was that time of the year. Unfortunately, we didn't see any whales.

Once we arrived at the Whiteheaven beach, it was full of daytrippers. I could not believe how many people were around the beach area. Gin & I get an awesome spot to camp on the beach about 50 feet away from the water. Besides a German couple, there was no one around camping at the Whitehaven beach. Once we setup the tent, we were both ready for a nap, especially since there were so many daytrippers at the beach. Being a weekend made it a lot worse and to make matters worse, it was school holidays. So needless to say, everyone wanted to have a piece of "heaven", Whitehaven beach was the answer.

Luckily by the time we woke up from our nap (around 4pm), all the day trippers were leaving and most of them were gone. The entire Whitehaven beach was almost deserted. Now we realized why everyone wanted to be at the Whitehaven beach. It was absolutely gorgeous. The white silica sand and the crystal clear turquoise colored water was absolutely breathtaking. Gin & I laid there watching the sun go down and listening to the sounds of the waves. It was almost a reminder of our little beach resort in Fiji with the beach front bungalow. It was prestine nonetheless.

We hung out until the sun went down and we soon realized that we were being eaten alive by the sandflies. Neither one of us had any experience with sandflies, but boy it was a very itchy experience. We had no idea how many places we were bitten by the sandflies until we started scratching everywhere. I ran back to the tent and grabbed our all-natural-insect-repellent. At this stage it was only damage control. We were informed about the sandfly problem before we left for the Whiteheaven beach, but we had no clue it was that bad. Luckily a woman at the pharmacy told us to buy something for afterbite and boy I'm glad we listened to her. It made a huge difference between a night of scratching vs a night of relatively less scratchy sleep.
Since we watched the sun go down, by the time we got to making dinner it was getting really dark. We had no lantern or substantial light around to cook dinner so we had to use our flash lights. Luckily the camping gear included a flash light, but unluckily it didn't include a lantern. Under these circumstances you have to start improvising and start making mental notes for the following days we had left. We managed to cook some gluten free pasta and it was delicious. The camping gear included everything but food, so we had to buy our own food. We had brought so much food from the supermarket that we could've camped there for a week. So running out of food wasn't a concern at all. We watched the beautiful starry sky and then decided to hangout inside the tent since we were getting bitten left & right. Gin taught me how to play blackjack and I taught her the Indian version of "Rummy" before we scratched ourselves to sleep.

We woke up early the next morning to the sounds of singing birds and the waves. All I had to do was open the tent "door" to get a beautiful view of the beach. Since it was monday and early morning, we had plenty of time to have the entire beach by ourselves before the daytrippers would arrive. We took full advantage of that and took several snaps of the beach and laid around the beach.

Unfortunately, the daytrippers started arriving after a couple of hours in the morning and soon the beach was starting to get crowded. It didn't matter to us since we already had our spot in front of the beach in between our tent and the ocean. Soon it was lunch time, but the stove wasn't having it. It would not ignite and we had no matches or a lighter to ignite the stove. Fortunately, the "scamper" barge that brought us there the previous day arrived there again and we informed the guy (Wayne) about our stove situation. He told us that he'd come back with another stove since he had more people to bring to the island. Unforunately, it brought a big group of people with kayaks to stay at the camp site before they would head out with their kayaks in a couple of days. There was no Whitehaven beach to ourselves. We had to share!

The couple in charge of the kayaking group (Aussie Sea Kayaking, http://www.ausseakayaking.com), Mark & Jo, were the only people we were sharing our camp site with. The rest of the group stayed at a different site. While they were still bringing their stuff from the beach to the camp site, Mark yelled out "Whales!" and told everyone to come quickly. It was the first time we saw whales. Without Mark & Jo being around, we wouldn't have seen them. Later we borrowed some match sticks from them to cook breakfast. Thanks to Mark & Jo we were able to cook our breakfast. As the day progressed, we had to bum a few more things from them besides just the match sticks. As if that wasn't enough generousity, they invited us to stay with them on our way from Whitsunday Islands to Brisbane. We told them we'd take them up on that and they were happy to hear that. It was fun chatting & hanging out with them.

Gin & I went back to our spot on the beach and continued reading our book. I can't believe that I'm still lugging around Shantaram which I started reading 3 years ago and still haven't finished. It has traveled with me to many countries in the hope of being read by me. I have a feeling that I will finish the book in India since the book started in Australia and ends in India it would be very appropriate.

In the evening Mark invited us to join them for a hike to a lookout. They had never done it before, but we were glad to join them. There were beautiful views from the lookout. We hung out there for some time, took some snaps and relaxed. It was a fun short hike.

After the hike, Gin & I cooked and ate dinner. We hung out on the beach looking at the stars and talking about life. I always wonder why we don't make time to do these things back home. Gin had a very good answer to that: "We get too caught up in our daily routine and don't enjoy life." I think it was very well put. Anyways, it was a beautiful starry night and we hadn't had any care in the world. We made a promise to ourselves to enjoy more of life when we return to USA.

Soon we went back to the tent, played cards again and then called it a night. We were contemplating making this camping trip for 5 nights instead of 3. But we were happy with our time spent at the Whitehaven beach and I had my first camping experience here.

Next morning, after eating breakfast, we laid on the beach again reading our books. I decided to go snorkeling and Gin opted out. I put on my stinger suit and went out in the water. We did know that Whitehaven wasn't known for snorkeling, but I wanted to check it out anyways. What you know, they were right. There wasn't much there for snorklers. However, I did get bit by something and I asked Jo what it could've been and she said it probably was a water lice. Soon the day trippers starting arriving, but there weren't quite as many as there were on the first day. The reason we think is because the school holidays were over and it wasn't a weekend.

It was our last day before heading back to Airlie beach. We were told that the scamper would come pick us up anytime from late morning to late afternoon. So we had to stick around the campsite waiting for Wayne to pick us up. While we were waiting for scamper to pick us up, we met a school teacher from Melbourne. His name was Ian. He was informed that they'd come anytime from midmorning to late afternoon, so he was packed and ready to go. We ended up chatting with him until late afternoon when the scamper arrived to pick us up. In the mean time, Ian shared his vegemite with us and after trying it twice, I had to spit it out. He ate crackers and vegemite for lunch. I was impressed by that (also a bit disgusted but that was because I didn't like vegemite). No offence to Aussies, vegemite is NASTY!

When Wayne, the scamper captain, arrived, he informed everyone that came with him for any tour or camping that there was a storm apporaching and it was best that everyone went back. He made no promises of returning to pickup anyone in the middle of the storm. Everyone that was camping was smart enough to leave. It took a lot a longer before we left Whitehaven beach because people that were camping there for more nights had to pick everything up unannounced. We had to do the same with other campers all around the Whitsunday Islands. The process took so long that by the time we arrived at the Airlie beach it was already pitch dark and the last shuttle bus to Airlie beach from the harbor had left 20 minutes before. Thanks to Ian, who was heading back to Airlie beach as well, who picked up the taxi tab. We had left all our luggage with our tour agent and they were already closed. This meant that we'd have to stay an extra night at the Airlie beach instead of heading down to 1770/Agnes Waters. So we hungout with Ian. He introduced us to his buddy Stefan. Both of them had brought students with them from Melbourne University. Stefan is a firefighter in Melbourne and both Ian & Stefan bring college students during their 2 weeks vacation from Melbourne University. It was fun hanging out with them and we decided to meet up again in Melbourne before or after doing the great ocean road trip.



Overall, I was very happy with our decision to camp at the Whitehaven beach instead of falling into the tourist trap of sailing the Whitesunday Islands. It was my first camping experience and I loved every bit of it (maybe not the part with the sandflies). It was also really fun meeting Mark & Jo and hanging out with Ian & Stefan. We look forward to staying with Mark & Jo and hangingout again with Ian & Stefan in Melbourne.

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Magnetic Island

The Taka diving trip was an intense experience. After that, we needed a break. Unfortunately, there weren't any campervans available in Cairns. So we reserved one in Brisbane in 10 days and hopped on a Greyhound.

Our first stop was Townsville. We didn't even know what was in Townsville. It just seemed like a good place to stop. Well, as it turns out, there isn't much in Townsville. We looked out the bus window as we rolled into town and saw "closed" signs in the windows of one business after another.

When we got off the bus, we decided to do a little reading and find out exactly what there was to do in this town. We found out that Magnetic Island is 20 minutes off the coast. It has beaches and laying on the beach was about all we had the energy for. Luckily, the Greyhound station is also the ferry stop so we got our tickets and hopped on the ferry.

When we got to the island, we had to find a place to stay. We called around and couldn't find any private rooms so we had to settle on a dorm room. We found a place called Magnum's (which is a chain here). They had a dorm room that no one else was in so it was a sort of private room. Unfortunately, we realized quickly after we moved in, it had no ventilation (which made it sort of mildewy). We learned to look a little closer before we get the rooms and we missed our campervan a little more.

The next morning we went down the street for a little brekky (that's Aussie for breakfast) and to explore the beaches. The first beach we went to Jigar went into the water about ankle deep. He was joking around, pointing to any shadow or rock in the water and saying, "Oh no! What's that? A saltwater croc? A sting ray?". But one of them really was a sting ray and swam about 2 feet away him. We left that beach.
Across the street from our hostel, there was a beach called Alma Bay, which is supposed to be one of the prettiest on the island. It didn't disappoint us. It was a nice place to lay out and swim without the sting rays. It was school holidays so there were a number of people there, but it wasn't too crowded.

That afternoon we moved to a hostel on the other side of the island. They hadn't had any private rooms the night before, but they had one for us now. It was called Bungalow Bay and the rooms were all little log cabin type things. It was very cute and a huge improvement over the first place. It was in an area called Horseshoe Bay. We walked to the beach and just sat there and enjoyed the view for a bit.

The next day, we lounged around again until the late afternoon. There is a hike on Magnetic
Island called The Forts Walk. It is a walk through a eucilyptus forest to a lookout where the Australian army had a base during the second world war. The biggest thing motivating us to do the Forts Walk was that koalas live in the eucilyptus trees that line the trail. They are most active in the early morning or late afternoon which is why we waited for late afternoon to start our walk.

We started out along the path. We looked in the trees. It was hard because we didn't which ones were eucilyptus so we had to look in all the trees. And koalas don't really do anything so you are just looking for a furry grey bum up in the tree. We looked and looked, but we didn't see anything. We thought that maybe the koalas lived in a different part of the walk. Eventually we passed an Aussie family. They asked us if we had seen any koalas. We told them no so they showed us where one was and told us we had just walked past another. The one they pointed out
to us was a mama koala and her joey. It was so cute! They were sleeping and they didn't pay any attention to us at all. We walked right up to them and took pictures. We saw a couple more koalas along the way. One was really hard to miss because he was walking around, but they are shy so he scampered away when he saw us coming.

About halfway up the path, we heard what sounded like a wild boar in the woods. We didn't know they had wild boar on this hike! It turns out it was a koala. That is the sound that they make. I thought a giant wild pig was going to come running out of the woods after us!

It was a really pretty walk that culminated in a lookout with a beautiful view, but the highlight was definitely seeing the cute and cuddly koalas along the way. They are so sleepy looking. They look like huggable little teddy bears. We kind of wanted to kidnap one, but we felt a pet koala might hamper us in our travels.

We left Magnetic Island the next morning. We had to catch a morning bus to Airlie Beach so we could check out the Whitsundays. We had a lovely little holiday there and got the rest and recuperation we needed.


More photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33990&l=8d51c&id=813269869

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

More Diving Photos...

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33462&l=e5614&id=813269869

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33978&l=7f267&id=813269869

Day 5: Taka Dive, The Great Barrier Reef


On the last day, everyone was pretty sad that this adventure was coming to an end. We only had 2 more dives left and no more dive briefings left. On the first dive of the last day, we saw a shrimp, puffer fish and a giant butterfly flish. On the last sad dive we saw a huge Napolean Wrasse (Wally) about 1.5 meters in length. As soon as we got in the water, it was hard to miss. It was just hanging out with other divers. The Wally was so used to having people around, that it let both Gin & I touch it. It was really exciting since it was such a big fish and that it felt very comfortable around human company. That concluded all our dives with Taka Dive.

We all got around the sun deck and hung out there until lunch time. At lunch Chriso showed us the final version of the DVD he had made. There was absolutely no doubt we were going to buy the DVD. It was beautifully done. Thanks to our Spanish friends we all chipped in for the cost of the DVD. Trent announced a get together for the evening at Rattle & Hum and it brought us the memories of the night Gin had finished her open water course. After we disembarked the boat, we had a shuttle waiting to take us all to our accomodation. The driver was so upset at our group that he was slamming the door everytime he got out of the bus. Alan, Xavi and Franchesco didn't tell him when they boarded the bus where they were going and the driver later refused to take them to their hostel. Gin told the driver off and told him that he was being extremely rude to people and that there was no need for it. She also told him that he better bring our Spanish friends to their hostel. Everyone was cheering for Ginnie as we went from one hotel/hostel to another. Later when we met for dinner, we found out that the driver did, unhappily, drop Alan, Xavi & Franchesco at their hostel.


At night we got together for dinner/drinks. It was fun. It was also fun dancing at Woolshed with everyone from the trip. Alan, Xavi and Franchesco left with us when we finally left Woolshed. While we were outside wooldshed, we saw Trent getting kicked out of the bar and wasn't allowed a re-entry. He was totally wasted. It was fun hanging outside the bar for some time until we all decided to call it a night.


What an adventure it was, a unique once in a life time opportunity that Gin & I had decided to cease diving at The Great Barrier Reef. It was simply marvelous.