I mentioned in an earlier post how I've become quite a "dancing machine" since I've been in Australia and consequently, I've had heaps of blog readers ask me further about that. Between the endless techno music, the flashing strobe lights, and the dancing Aussie boys, I find it hard NOT to catch the dancing disease.
Therefore, I thought I'd share another video with you so you can see what I mean. One of my favorite things about Australian boys is the fact that they LOVE to dance, and they don't care about what they look like while they're doing it. This is a video I took of my Aussie friend Cal. Yes, Australian boys REALLY do dance like this, I swear.
I'm really gonna miss this...*sigh*
Friday, November 13, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Waking up in Vegas
And last but not least....part 5 of my spring break trip!
Day 14: Brisbane --> Gold Coast --> Surfer's Paradise
Jess and I decided to sleep in as long as possible until we eventually had to wake around 9:30 because we had to check out of our hostel by 10 AM. After checking out, we weren't keen to stay in Brisbane any longer, so we made our way to the Roma St. Station to find a train to catch to go down to the Gold Coast for the final part of our trip.
The Gold Coast is a city in the state Queensland, about an hour south of Brisbane. The Gold Coast is infamous for its sunny subtropical climate, surfing beaches, active nightlife, and numerous tourist attractions including theme parks, water parks, and the ever popular Steve Irwin Zoo. It is said that approximately 10 million tourists visit the Gold Coast each year. If you're an Australian, this is most likely the place that you would go on holiday.
We decided that we wanted to visit and stay in Surfer's Paradise (colloquially known as "Surfers"), the most popular suburb of the Gold Coast. After we arrived in the Gold Coast, we had to hop on another bus before we finally arrived in Surfer's Paradise around mid-afternoon. The moment I stepped off the bus I felt like I was in a slightly smaller version of Vegas. The city is heaps vibrant and just buzzing with people. Everyone in Surfer's Paradise is happy because they're on vacation!
When we arrived in Surfers we hadn't decided or booked a hostel to stay at. We had a few in mind but were still kinda undecided and didn't even know where they were located. As we were walking past the Greyhound bus terminal, we saw two boys our age sitting on a bench waiting for a bus to leave Surfers. We decided to go up to them and see where they stayed and if they could suggest anything to us. It turned out that the boys ended up being Americans and after chatting with them for a few minutes we found out that they actually live in Newcastle and go to Uni with us. One of the boys actually goes to the same Uni back in Pennsylvania as my friend Catie. Small world? The boys were actually really helpful and gave us some great advice on places to go, things to see, and where to stay. We decided to take their suggestion and stay at the Surf'N'Sun hostel because they enjoyed staying there so much. It actually turned out that we got a discount for staying there 3 nights and that we could simply go inside the bus terminal and the receptionist could arrange for them to pick us up so we wouldn't have to walk 15 minutes with our suitcases. Both a huge help!
One of the things that the boys at the bus stop suggested we do was to go up to the observatory in the Q deck. The Q deck is titled the World's Tallest Residential Building and is also the 20th tallest building in the world. So we bought our tickets (cheers to student concessions!) and got into an elevator that took us up 77 floors in about 30 seconds.
The view was absolutely amazing; you could basically see the entire city and coast. We probably spent about 45 minutes walking around the deck and taking pictures. In the second picture below, it looks like I'm standing in front of a poster, but I swear that was real!
'
After we left, we were getting pretty hungry so we decided that instead of eating out every meal like we had been for the majority of break, it would be more wise for us to buy some food to cook at the hostel for the next few days. So we made our way over to Cole's and purchased our usual food items:
The Traveling American Study Abroad Student on a Budget's Shopping List
Since we usually never stay in one hostel long enough to buy grocery food to cook, I never realized that the kitchen's in hostels are a great way to meet other people. I also never realized how extravagant some people get in the meals they cook themselves and their friends. We met this one really nice guy from France who just recently moved from Perth where he worked at a hotel as a chef. When we met him he was making himself this fancy meat stew while we were slapping the PB&J on some cheap, white bread. This guy felt so bad for us that he ended up INSISTING that he cook us dinner for the next 2 nights. I mean how could I turn down food cooked by a chef? The dishes he made us were so extravagant that I'm not even 100% sure what they were, but they were definitely our 2 best meals over break.
Day 15: Surfer's Paradise
Today we had more time to explore the city a bit further. We basically just mucked around the city for the entire day, going into stores and down streets as we pleased. I think we were enjoying being able to do things at our own pace since we had been on a pretty tight schedule before. We also spent a few hours down at the beach, prime people watching spot.
We remembered that before break we figured out that our friends Jenna and Keithy (who live on Jess's floor) would be in the Gold Coast at the same time as us. We gave Jenna a call, seeing if they would want to go to one of the amusement parks with us tomorrow, but they were leaving for Newcastle tomorrow. However, Jenna did invite us to meet them and Keithy's friends at the Casino that night. We didn't have any plans for the night yet, so we were pretty keen to go. So after dinner, we took a bus to the casino in the Gold Coast named Conrad Jupiter's. Jess had been to a casino before, but I hadn't so I was heaps excited! Since I'm not old enough to gamble in the states yet, and since I'm in Australia, I had to give it ago. I only let myself spend $10 and played the 1 cent slot machines (or "pokies" as the Aussies call them).
Day 16: Surfer's Paradise
Today Jess and I planned to go to Dream World, the Gold Coast's main theme park. However, when we found out that a ticket costs $70, plus the $12 in transportation we would have to pay, AND the park was only open till 5:00 PM, we decided it would be wiser to save our money. After going to Cedar Point every year of my life, I found it hard to justify spending more money an a ticket to a less awesome amusement park!
Back when I first knew that I was going to Australia, my mom told me about an art piece located in Australia by one of her favorite artists. The piece is made completely of flip flops ("thongs"). Before I left, we looked it up online and found that it was currently located at the Gold Coast Art Museum. So since I was in the Gold Coast, I thought that I'd try to find the museum so that I could take pictures of it for her. I found directions to the museum and probably SHOULD have taken a bus there, but at that very moment I was feeling especially cheap and thought it would be a better idea to save a few bucks and walk there. Well about 45 minutes of walking later, I realized I probably made the wrong decision. Once we finally arrived at the museum, I was compleatly caught off guard when I saw a flip flop covered art piece outside. I had no idea that it would be located outside the museum. So we took a few shots and hung out there until we made the hike back to Surfers.
Day 17: Surfer's Paradise --> Gold Coast --> Newcastle
After waking up and checking out, we only had a few hours to kill until we had to head to the airport. So we ate lunch and hung out in the lounge of the hostel watching movies with some other people. Around 1 PM we left to catch our shuttle and made it to the Gold Coast airport for our 3:00 PM flight back to Newcastle. The shuttle company actually made a mistake with our booking and we didn't arrive at the aiport until 2:30 PM, which actually wasn't too horrible because we were allowed to cut everybody in line to check in! Also since we were last to check in the lady gave us seats in the "Emergency Exit Row" which meant that we got twice the leg room if we argreed to "help the crew in the event of an emergency." The guy sitting next to me told me that he paid $10 extra for the seat, so we lucked out there. Arriving back in Newcastle was the most depressing moment of the past 17 days because not only did it mean that our break had come to an end and we had Uni tomororw, but it was COLD and raining.
So that brings us to the end of my spring break adventures in Australia. Stay tuned to hear about my weekend travels to Melbourne and Sydney!
Day 14: Brisbane --> Gold Coast --> Surfer's Paradise
Jess and I decided to sleep in as long as possible until we eventually had to wake around 9:30 because we had to check out of our hostel by 10 AM. After checking out, we weren't keen to stay in Brisbane any longer, so we made our way to the Roma St. Station to find a train to catch to go down to the Gold Coast for the final part of our trip.
The Gold Coast is a city in the state Queensland, about an hour south of Brisbane. The Gold Coast is infamous for its sunny subtropical climate, surfing beaches, active nightlife, and numerous tourist attractions including theme parks, water parks, and the ever popular Steve Irwin Zoo. It is said that approximately 10 million tourists visit the Gold Coast each year. If you're an Australian, this is most likely the place that you would go on holiday.
We decided that we wanted to visit and stay in Surfer's Paradise (colloquially known as "Surfers"), the most popular suburb of the Gold Coast. After we arrived in the Gold Coast, we had to hop on another bus before we finally arrived in Surfer's Paradise around mid-afternoon. The moment I stepped off the bus I felt like I was in a slightly smaller version of Vegas. The city is heaps vibrant and just buzzing with people. Everyone in Surfer's Paradise is happy because they're on vacation!
When we arrived in Surfers we hadn't decided or booked a hostel to stay at. We had a few in mind but were still kinda undecided and didn't even know where they were located. As we were walking past the Greyhound bus terminal, we saw two boys our age sitting on a bench waiting for a bus to leave Surfers. We decided to go up to them and see where they stayed and if they could suggest anything to us. It turned out that the boys ended up being Americans and after chatting with them for a few minutes we found out that they actually live in Newcastle and go to Uni with us. One of the boys actually goes to the same Uni back in Pennsylvania as my friend Catie. Small world? The boys were actually really helpful and gave us some great advice on places to go, things to see, and where to stay. We decided to take their suggestion and stay at the Surf'N'Sun hostel because they enjoyed staying there so much. It actually turned out that we got a discount for staying there 3 nights and that we could simply go inside the bus terminal and the receptionist could arrange for them to pick us up so we wouldn't have to walk 15 minutes with our suitcases. Both a huge help!
From the moment we arrived at the hostel, we were treated like royalty. The entire staff learned our names (and remembered them), gave us "welcome lollies", actually gave as a tour of the hostel (something NO hostel ever does), and one of the staff members carried our suitcases to our room for us (what service!). The actual facilities of the hostel really weren't very nice, but the friendly atmosphere was like none other. This hostel is actually one that people generally stay at for at least a few weeks, so it was a bit weird that all of our 6 roommates were totally settled into the room and had their stuff scattered everywhere. Four of our roommates were these lovely Irish girls (2 of which were sisters) who were currently trying to find jobs in Surfers and stay there for a while. After a little bit of talking with them, we realized that they actually know my Irish friend Kevin because they met him when they were in Brisbane a few weeks earlier. SMALL WORLD?! Our other two roommates were these two very friendly and VERY TALL guys from the Netherlands. Random cultural fact: people from the Netherlands are the tallest people in the world! They were interested to talk to us because after traveling Australia, the US was their next stop so they had heaps of questions for us. They also later tried to teach us a bit of Dutch, but that was quite unsuccessful.
Jess and I then decided to spend the last few hours of our afternoon exploring the area. The city has such a fun vibe to it, but it is pretty apparent that everyone is a tourist/on vacation. We walked down to the beach so that we could see the famous Surfer's Paradise sign (pictured below).
One of the things that the boys at the bus stop suggested we do was to go up to the observatory in the Q deck. The Q deck is titled the World's Tallest Residential Building and is also the 20th tallest building in the world. So we bought our tickets (cheers to student concessions!) and got into an elevator that took us up 77 floors in about 30 seconds.
The view was absolutely amazing; you could basically see the entire city and coast. We probably spent about 45 minutes walking around the deck and taking pictures. In the second picture below, it looks like I'm standing in front of a poster, but I swear that was real!
'After we left, we were getting pretty hungry so we decided that instead of eating out every meal like we had been for the majority of break, it would be more wise for us to buy some food to cook at the hostel for the next few days. So we made our way over to Cole's and purchased our usual food items:
The Traveling American Study Abroad Student on a Budget's Shopping List
- jar of peanut butter (home brand)
- jar of jam
- loaf of bread (home brand)
- instant noodles (home brand)
- energy drinks
- apples (cheapest)
- museli bars (home brand)
Since we usually never stay in one hostel long enough to buy grocery food to cook, I never realized that the kitchen's in hostels are a great way to meet other people. I also never realized how extravagant some people get in the meals they cook themselves and their friends. We met this one really nice guy from France who just recently moved from Perth where he worked at a hotel as a chef. When we met him he was making himself this fancy meat stew while we were slapping the PB&J on some cheap, white bread. This guy felt so bad for us that he ended up INSISTING that he cook us dinner for the next 2 nights. I mean how could I turn down food cooked by a chef? The dishes he made us were so extravagant that I'm not even 100% sure what they were, but they were definitely our 2 best meals over break.
Day 15: Surfer's Paradise
Today we had more time to explore the city a bit further. We basically just mucked around the city for the entire day, going into stores and down streets as we pleased. I think we were enjoying being able to do things at our own pace since we had been on a pretty tight schedule before. We also spent a few hours down at the beach, prime people watching spot.
We remembered that before break we figured out that our friends Jenna and Keithy (who live on Jess's floor) would be in the Gold Coast at the same time as us. We gave Jenna a call, seeing if they would want to go to one of the amusement parks with us tomorrow, but they were leaving for Newcastle tomorrow. However, Jenna did invite us to meet them and Keithy's friends at the Casino that night. We didn't have any plans for the night yet, so we were pretty keen to go. So after dinner, we took a bus to the casino in the Gold Coast named Conrad Jupiter's. Jess had been to a casino before, but I hadn't so I was heaps excited! Since I'm not old enough to gamble in the states yet, and since I'm in Australia, I had to give it ago. I only let myself spend $10 and played the 1 cent slot machines (or "pokies" as the Aussies call them).
Day 16: Surfer's Paradise
Today Jess and I planned to go to Dream World, the Gold Coast's main theme park. However, when we found out that a ticket costs $70, plus the $12 in transportation we would have to pay, AND the park was only open till 5:00 PM, we decided it would be wiser to save our money. After going to Cedar Point every year of my life, I found it hard to justify spending more money an a ticket to a less awesome amusement park!
Back when I first knew that I was going to Australia, my mom told me about an art piece located in Australia by one of her favorite artists. The piece is made completely of flip flops ("thongs"). Before I left, we looked it up online and found that it was currently located at the Gold Coast Art Museum. So since I was in the Gold Coast, I thought that I'd try to find the museum so that I could take pictures of it for her. I found directions to the museum and probably SHOULD have taken a bus there, but at that very moment I was feeling especially cheap and thought it would be a better idea to save a few bucks and walk there. Well about 45 minutes of walking later, I realized I probably made the wrong decision. Once we finally arrived at the museum, I was compleatly caught off guard when I saw a flip flop covered art piece outside. I had no idea that it would be located outside the museum. So we took a few shots and hung out there until we made the hike back to Surfers.
Day 17: Surfer's Paradise --> Gold Coast --> Newcastle
After waking up and checking out, we only had a few hours to kill until we had to head to the airport. So we ate lunch and hung out in the lounge of the hostel watching movies with some other people. Around 1 PM we left to catch our shuttle and made it to the Gold Coast airport for our 3:00 PM flight back to Newcastle. The shuttle company actually made a mistake with our booking and we didn't arrive at the aiport until 2:30 PM, which actually wasn't too horrible because we were allowed to cut everybody in line to check in! Also since we were last to check in the lady gave us seats in the "Emergency Exit Row" which meant that we got twice the leg room if we argreed to "help the crew in the event of an emergency." The guy sitting next to me told me that he paid $10 extra for the seat, so we lucked out there. Arriving back in Newcastle was the most depressing moment of the past 17 days because not only did it mean that our break had come to an end and we had Uni tomororw, but it was COLD and raining.
So that brings us to the end of my spring break adventures in Australia. Stay tuned to hear about my weekend travels to Melbourne and Sydney!
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
Strange Sightings around Teds...Part 2
1. Shapes. In the shower??
I mean if you gotta eat, then you gotta eat.
2. Swooping Birds.
Saw this one on my way to class one day. They actually recently added the sign this month. I guess it must have been a problem?
3. Hey, you forgot your...mattress?
Perfect example of a common freshman mistake. If you leave your door open, your mattress WILL get stolen and placed somewhere else in the building. When will they learn?
4. PDS (Public Display of Studying)
Australians study?! In public!? Up until this week, I had never once seen an Australian actually studying. Apparently the only time it is socially acceptable to be caught PDSing is during exam month.
5. Boys in Boots
No your eyes are not deceiving you, that is in fact a hairy leg sporting the popular Ugg boots, and no it is not a hippie girl, but rather a boy. Yes, boys DO wear Ugg boots in Australia.
6. True Blue
A true blue is a term used to describe an Australian is loyal and patriotic to his or her country. I think this is enough proof to label this boy down the hall a true blue.
I mean if you gotta eat, then you gotta eat.
2. Swooping Birds.
Saw this one on my way to class one day. They actually recently added the sign this month. I guess it must have been a problem?
3. Hey, you forgot your...mattress?
Perfect example of a common freshman mistake. If you leave your door open, your mattress WILL get stolen and placed somewhere else in the building. When will they learn?
4. PDS (Public Display of Studying)
Australians study?! In public!? Up until this week, I had never once seen an Australian actually studying. Apparently the only time it is socially acceptable to be caught PDSing is during exam month.
5. Boys in Boots
No your eyes are not deceiving you, that is in fact a hairy leg sporting the popular Ugg boots, and no it is not a hippie girl, but rather a boy. Yes, boys DO wear Ugg boots in Australia.
6. True Blue
A true blue is a term used to describe an Australian is loyal and patriotic to his or her country. I think this is enough proof to label this boy down the hall a true blue.
Monday, November 9, 2009
Brissy, BrisVegas, or BrisBoring?
Hey everyone,
I actually decided to break up the last part of spring break into 2 separate entries, so this is part 4 of 5. I'm getting there! Since this is the portion of break that Jess and I planned ourselves and since we were starting to run pretty low on funds, we didn't have quite as many adventures as the previous week, but we still enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.
Day 13: Brisbane
After Jess and I woke up from probably our best (and cleanest) night's sleep, our only plan for the day was to explore the city of Brisbane. At every hostel I stay at, I always make it a habit to stop by the area lined with the brochures to have a look at possible activities and tours to do in that area as well as in other cities in Australia. I remember back in July when I stayed at my very first hostel in Cairns, I must have stared at the brochures for almost an hour with pure excitement and sparkling eyes thinking about the endless possibilities of things to do and places I could potentially see over the next few months. However, this time as I scanned the brochures, something was different. I realized that aside from a trip to the outback, I had been to nearly every place in Australia that there was a brochure for! Wow, I guess I have traveled more than I thought I did.
Anyway, we stopped at reception for a map of the city (which we eventually ended up ditching) and were off to explore. Brisbane (pronounced Briz-ben) is Australia's 3rd biggest city with a population of 2 million. If you're wondering about the title of my blog, "Brissy" is most often the city's nickname as well as "BrisVegas." However, I have NO idea why the city would be nicknamed BrisVegas because there was NO resemblance in any way, shape, or form. If it was up to me, the city's nickname would be "BrisBoring" because it was really just another city with nothing particularly unique about it. Before I came, I had heard that Brisbane was starting to become a more cultural and sophisticated city, but that backpackers generally disliked the city; however, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and thought that maybe I'd think differently. Not really...
Brisbane is situated on the Brisbane river, so there's about 3 different bridges you can walk across to get to the CBD area. During our walk, we did witness a few interesting sights such as a car accident between two ambulances and these 2 guys riding their bikes on rocks (see picture below).
For the next few hours we wandered around the South Bank area and Botanical Gardens, which was a pretty area. We saw heaps of business people walking around the area, probably on their lunch break. We also went inside the art gallery and state library for a little bit. We then stumbled upon Streets Beach. Since Brisbane doesn't have a beach, they built a man-made one in the middle of the South Bank area, which I thought was kinda funny.
One of my Irish friends that I met a few months ago in Byron Bay gave me a ring at this point. We had kept in touch since then and he was currently living in Brisbane and working. He had gotten off work early and wanted to know if we wanted to meet up. Since we were pretty bored, and had pretty much seen all of the city at this point, we were keen to do something else. He lived in a suburb only 4 train stops away from the city, so we made our way over to the train station to meet him. There I found this sign on the tracks, "STAY OFF THE TRACKS! Or cop at $150 fine. So don't say you didn't know." Haha, I'm really gonna miss these signs.
So we spent a few hours catching up with Kevin while he gave us some advice for the next leg of our trip. Jess and I then headed back to our hostel and called it a night.
Brisbane, slightly disappointing. Maybe I shouldn't have left the airport this time.
I actually decided to break up the last part of spring break into 2 separate entries, so this is part 4 of 5. I'm getting there! Since this is the portion of break that Jess and I planned ourselves and since we were starting to run pretty low on funds, we didn't have quite as many adventures as the previous week, but we still enjoyed ourselves nonetheless.
Day 13: Brisbane
After Jess and I woke up from probably our best (and cleanest) night's sleep, our only plan for the day was to explore the city of Brisbane. At every hostel I stay at, I always make it a habit to stop by the area lined with the brochures to have a look at possible activities and tours to do in that area as well as in other cities in Australia. I remember back in July when I stayed at my very first hostel in Cairns, I must have stared at the brochures for almost an hour with pure excitement and sparkling eyes thinking about the endless possibilities of things to do and places I could potentially see over the next few months. However, this time as I scanned the brochures, something was different. I realized that aside from a trip to the outback, I had been to nearly every place in Australia that there was a brochure for! Wow, I guess I have traveled more than I thought I did.
Anyway, we stopped at reception for a map of the city (which we eventually ended up ditching) and were off to explore. Brisbane (pronounced Briz-ben) is Australia's 3rd biggest city with a population of 2 million. If you're wondering about the title of my blog, "Brissy" is most often the city's nickname as well as "BrisVegas." However, I have NO idea why the city would be nicknamed BrisVegas because there was NO resemblance in any way, shape, or form. If it was up to me, the city's nickname would be "BrisBoring" because it was really just another city with nothing particularly unique about it. Before I came, I had heard that Brisbane was starting to become a more cultural and sophisticated city, but that backpackers generally disliked the city; however, I gave it the benefit of the doubt and thought that maybe I'd think differently. Not really...
Brisbane is situated on the Brisbane river, so there's about 3 different bridges you can walk across to get to the CBD area. During our walk, we did witness a few interesting sights such as a car accident between two ambulances and these 2 guys riding their bikes on rocks (see picture below).
For the next few hours we wandered around the South Bank area and Botanical Gardens, which was a pretty area. We saw heaps of business people walking around the area, probably on their lunch break. We also went inside the art gallery and state library for a little bit. We then stumbled upon Streets Beach. Since Brisbane doesn't have a beach, they built a man-made one in the middle of the South Bank area, which I thought was kinda funny.
One of my Irish friends that I met a few months ago in Byron Bay gave me a ring at this point. We had kept in touch since then and he was currently living in Brisbane and working. He had gotten off work early and wanted to know if we wanted to meet up. Since we were pretty bored, and had pretty much seen all of the city at this point, we were keen to do something else. He lived in a suburb only 4 train stops away from the city, so we made our way over to the train station to meet him. There I found this sign on the tracks, "STAY OFF THE TRACKS! Or cop at $150 fine. So don't say you didn't know." Haha, I'm really gonna miss these signs.
So we spent a few hours catching up with Kevin while he gave us some advice for the next leg of our trip. Jess and I then headed back to our hostel and called it a night.
Brisbane, slightly disappointing. Maybe I shouldn't have left the airport this time.
I reckon the old boy told his ankle biters to stop whinging about the mozzies on the way to Maccas this arvo.
I know many of my blog readers have expressed a special interest in the “Aussie lingo” and the way we speak here. When I think about it, it’s hard to believe how many different words and phrases I’ve picked up in the last 4 months. So I decided to compile a final list so that hopefully you will be able to understand me when I come home and I’m talking a bit funny. Some of these sound pretty ridiculous, but I promise I didn’t put anything on the list that I haven’t heard come out of an Australian’s mouth on numerous occasions. Enjoy!
To start off, we’ve all heard Paul Hogan use the expression, “G’day mate!” Well, that is said here, but not as much as you would think. I was actually surprised on how little I did here the phrase “G’day.” On the other hand, “mate” is used constantly. There is no fella, pal, buddy, dude, or hey you…just “mate”. There are also different contexts you can use the word. Of course, you could say, “Today is my mate’s birthday” meaning that today is my friend’s birthday. However, any stranger can also be your mate. You could tell the cashier at the gas station “Thanks, mate” or if you’re in trouble with the police they could tell you, “You’re under arrest, mate.” Also, as a general note, you wouldn’t call a girl a mate, even if she is your friend. Girls are more generally often referred to as "love," "darling," "doll," "babe," or "darling" (even by other woman). If you have a “D&M” with your friend, then you just had a deep and meaningful conversation.
Australia is truly the country of no worries. In addition to mate, the phrase “no worries” comes out of an Australians mouth almost every other word. “No worries” can mean no problem. If someone bumps into you and says “Sorry!” you would respond “no worries.” It can also replace “Yes.” If someone asked if they could borrow my glue stick, I would respond, “no worries.” Finally, the phrase can be used in place of “you’re welcome.” I told my friend “Thanks for the directions” and he responded, “no worries.”
HEAPS. Aussies say “heaps” heaps. Heaps can either be used in place of “a lot” like in there are heaps of people there or it can be used in place of “really” like in the surf was heaps good today.
“But” is used at the end of a statement. The weather is nice today but. I’m going to go out tonight but. I really like the beach but. You get the picture but.
“As” is used after an adjective to replace “really.” This store is expensive as. That story was funny as. Your car is sweet as. I think that boy is cute as.
When you pass someone or greet someone in the states you would generally say something like “Hey, what’s up? or “Hey, how you doing?” or “Hey, how are you?.” However, in Australia you would say “Hey, how ya going?” At first, it’s pretty weird and I had no idea how to even respond to that question, but it has definitely grown on me and I really like the phrase. Consequently, when asking about other people you would ask how they are “going.” In addition, Australia also uses the phrase “Hey, you alright?” to greet someone. This is more common in England, but I’ve heard this numerous times here. For example if you were to get up to the front of the line to order McDonalds, instead of the cashier asking you “How can I help you?” they often times rather say “Hey, you alright?” or simply “You right?” to which you would appropriately respond, “I’d like one McChicken, 2 Quarter pounders, 1 large coke…”
Australians rarely say “Thank you” but rather “Cheers.” So if a guy holds the door for you, you would respond “Cheers, mate.” I also often sign the end of my emails “Cheers, Kim.” “Good on ya” means “Good job” or “Good for you.” When I told my Australian friend that I received an A on my history paper, he responded “Good on ya.”
Australian’s don’t think, they “reckon.” They are not fond of things, but rather “big on” them. Someone they highly respect is a "legend" and if they dislike someone then they are "off" them. They don't call people, but they "ring" them. They don’t do things right away, but rather “straight away.” If they don’t feel like doing it then they “can’t be bothered.” They don’t rent things, but “hire” them. If they are interested or excited then they are “keen.” If my friends asked if I wanted to go to the beach on Friday I would respond, “I’m keen” and I could tell you that I was “keen for the weekend.”
Australians don’t say “yeah” but rather “yep” or "yer." They don’t say “no” but rather “nah" or "nar."
You never do something, but rather “have” it. I’m going to have a shower. You should have a think about that. We should have a chat later. Come have a look at my house.
You would ask your friends “whatya getting into tonight?” to find out their plans. Don’t go anywhere shady or “dodgy” or “seedy” with them. "Youse" is plural for you as in "youse should come out tonight with us!"
If you buy someone a drink or a meal, you are “shouting” and would most likely say, “It’s my shout.” Don’t expect to sleep at a hotel because a hotel is another name for a pub. You would buy alcohol at a “bottle shop” or “bottle-o.” “Goon” is boxed wine. A “stubby” is a beer bottle. Drunk driving is called “drink driving.” A “Booze bus” is not as fun as it sounds; it is actually a vehicle that cops use to catch people who are “drink driving.”
Your parents are your “oldies,” your mom is your “mum,” your dad can be called “old boy,” and your relatives are your “rellies” or “rellos.” You might get together with your rellies on Christmas or “Crissie” in which you’ll probably exchange “prezzies” or presents. With them, you might also see some “adverts” or advertisements on the “telly” or the television.
Australia also has some interesting job titles. A “sparky” is an electrician. A “firey” is a firefighter. A “chipie” is a carpenter. A “cabbie” is a cab driver. A “journo” is a journalist. An ambulance driver is an “ambo.” A “pollie” is a politician. A “brikie” is a bricklayer. And a garbage man is a “garbo.” A “truckie” is a truck driver. I bet you’d never guess that a “postie” is a postman. Mind you, these are mainstream terminology that would be heard on the evening news. Also, if you read a want add that says they are looking for “casual help” that means part-time work.
Transportation is also a bit confusing. A pick-up is a “ute” while a big transport truck is a “road train.” A car trunk is often called a “boot.” A “bike” refers to a motorcycle, while a “push-bike” refers to a bicycle. A “billy cart” is what we call a go-kart. Don’t forget that you park your car in the “car park” where you try to find a “park” or parking space. Finally, never ask an Aussie for a ride somewhere, but rather a “lift.”
It also seems like everything in Australia seems to get “chucked.” Most commonly it means to throw or toss, so my friend told me to “chuck your coat on the chair.” Someone can also “chuck a sickie” which means to call in sick to work. If you take a u-turn then you just “chucked a yewy.”
Moving on to clothing…bathing suits are called “swimmers” or “togs." "Budgie smuglers” refers to what typically an old man wears that is our equivalent to spedos. Trust me, this is a common thing to see at the beach. “Jim-Jams” or “Jammies” refers to pajamas. Jogging pants are called “trackies” and running shoes are “joggers” or “runners.” Flip flops are “thongs.” A tank top is a “singlet.” Sweatshirts and sweaters are “jumpers” and if you are cold you should “rug-up.” Your “sunnies” are your sunglasses. If you shop at the “op shop” then you shop at the thrift store. And if you're growing a mustache, then you've got a "mo."
As for food: breakfast is “brekkie,” “smoko” is a break, “tea” can often times mean dinner and “supper” can sometimes mean a snack. A sausage is a “snag” and all shrimp are “prawn.” Thus meaning that if you ever hear someone say the phrase “Let’s throw a shrimp on the barbie” that’s a sure way to know that they are definitely NOT Australian. If you’re vegetarian then you’re a “veggo.” McDonald’s is “Macca’s” (both pronounced and spelled exactly like that on many advertisements). While at Macca’s don’t forget that “tomato sauce” is ketchup. An “esky” is a cooler. I think you can figure that one out. If you ask for green peppers at Subway you’ll get a confused look because peppers are “capsicum.” If you ask for a vanilla milkshake you’ll be quite disappointed to discover that you’ll receive milk with vanilla flavoring in it. Rather, you should ask for a “thick shake.” A cookie is a “biscuit.” If someone asks you if you “got a chewie?” they’re asking you if you have any chewing gum. A general word for all candy or sweets is “lollies” and this can refer to anything from chocolate “chockie” to actual lollie pops to tick tacs. A popsicle is called a “paddle pop” or an “icy pole.” Sprite is “lemonade” and lemonade is “lemon sqash.” Jello is “jelly” while jelly is “jam.” Never tell an Australian you had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because that would be pretty gross. If you order bacon at a restaurant, you’re going to get what we would consider Canadian bacon, or ham. Don’t forget that “chips” are french-fries and “potato chips” are what we would call chips. If you order an “entrée” at a restaurant, you just ordered an appetizer. Instead, you should order a “main.” A “cuppa” is a cup of either coffee or tea. A “flat white” is a coffee with milk, a “long black” is a black coffee, and “short black” is a shot of espresso.
If you’re sick, or feeling a bit "crook" then you go to the “chemist” to fill your prescription. Imagine how confused Australians are the first time they come to America and see that we have a “drug store.”
Everything is described as “hectic.”
Instead of saying “come again?” or “what?” or “huh?” you simply say “hey?” Aussies are like Canadians and add “aye” or “hey” to the end of sentences. The weather is nice today, aye?
Children are “nippers” or my favorite, “ankle biters.” A stroller is called a “pram” and a diaper is called a “nappy.” When you “wagged” that means you skipped school. If a peer asks you for a “rubber” they simply want an eraser. If you went on “schoolies” that means you went on an insane vacation or “holiday” with your friends after year 12 exams. If you attend “Uni” then you go to college and if you’ve got “uni work” then you have homework. You don't do well on a test, but you "smash" it. If someone asks you what you are studying, they’re asking what your major is. A “course” is a class, a “tut” is a tutorial, and you get a “mark” not a grade in the class. You don’t receive a student discount but a “concession.”
Mosquitoes are “mozzies” and kangaroos are “roos.” To whine is to “whinge.” Garbage is “rubbish.” A “doco” is a documentary.” An elevator is a “lift.” "Petrol" is gas. An environmentalist is a “grennie.” Slot machines are “pokies.” Guys are called “boys” or “blokes.” The afternoon is titled “arvo” and the evening is “evo.” A "torch" is a flashlight. A "serviette" is a napkin. A redneck is a “bogan.” A receipt is a “docket.” A “hottie” is a hot water bottle. A shopping cart is a “trolly.” Something beautiful can be described as a “beaut.” If you went “OS” then you went over seas. If something is “right” then it’s okay. If you have red hair, then you're called a "bluey."
The word “piss” can have many different meanings here, all depending on the context. If you “take the piss out of someone” that means you joked around or made fun of them. Of course, you can also “take a piss,” I think we all know what that one means. If you go around saying “I’m pissed!” that means you’re drunk or “blind”, not to be confused with “pissed off” which means you’re angry. “Piss” can also sometimes be the name for alcohol. If, however, you are pissed, please don’t “spew” or puke everywhere. However, be careful if you leave a party or social event early or you might be labeled a “piker.”
The bathroom is always called the “toilet” and if you “got the shits” that means you’re angry. No one here knows what a cell phone is because it’s called your “mobile.” A text message is often called an SMS.
If you haven’t noticed, Aussies love to add the letter “o” to the end of words, especially in people’s names. John goes by Johnno, Steve is Stevo, and Dave is Davo. Consequently, the Aussies call me Kimo.
Aussie’s pronounce herbs WITH the h. A fish fillet is pronounced “fil-let.” Aluminum is pronounced “a-loo-min-e-um.” H is “haytch” and Z “is zed.”
If you are “devo” that means you are sad or depressed. It can also be used in place of “bummer.” If I heard it was going to rain today, I would probably respond, “Oh, devo!”
When saying goodbye, you’d probably hear “Catch ya later” or simply “Catch ya.” I wouldn’t’ talk to you later, but rather “chat to you later.” Often times workers or strangers will say, “See ya later” even though I probably will never see them again in my life.
Gosh, who knew studying abroad in an “English speaking country” would involve learning a new language?
To start off, we’ve all heard Paul Hogan use the expression, “G’day mate!” Well, that is said here, but not as much as you would think. I was actually surprised on how little I did here the phrase “G’day.” On the other hand, “mate” is used constantly. There is no fella, pal, buddy, dude, or hey you…just “mate”. There are also different contexts you can use the word. Of course, you could say, “Today is my mate’s birthday” meaning that today is my friend’s birthday. However, any stranger can also be your mate. You could tell the cashier at the gas station “Thanks, mate” or if you’re in trouble with the police they could tell you, “You’re under arrest, mate.” Also, as a general note, you wouldn’t call a girl a mate, even if she is your friend. Girls are more generally often referred to as "love," "darling," "doll," "babe," or "darling" (even by other woman). If you have a “D&M” with your friend, then you just had a deep and meaningful conversation.
Australia is truly the country of no worries. In addition to mate, the phrase “no worries” comes out of an Australians mouth almost every other word. “No worries” can mean no problem. If someone bumps into you and says “Sorry!” you would respond “no worries.” It can also replace “Yes.” If someone asked if they could borrow my glue stick, I would respond, “no worries.” Finally, the phrase can be used in place of “you’re welcome.” I told my friend “Thanks for the directions” and he responded, “no worries.”
HEAPS. Aussies say “heaps” heaps. Heaps can either be used in place of “a lot” like in there are heaps of people there or it can be used in place of “really” like in the surf was heaps good today.
“But” is used at the end of a statement. The weather is nice today but. I’m going to go out tonight but. I really like the beach but. You get the picture but.
“As” is used after an adjective to replace “really.” This store is expensive as. That story was funny as. Your car is sweet as. I think that boy is cute as.
When you pass someone or greet someone in the states you would generally say something like “Hey, what’s up? or “Hey, how you doing?” or “Hey, how are you?.” However, in Australia you would say “Hey, how ya going?” At first, it’s pretty weird and I had no idea how to even respond to that question, but it has definitely grown on me and I really like the phrase. Consequently, when asking about other people you would ask how they are “going.” In addition, Australia also uses the phrase “Hey, you alright?” to greet someone. This is more common in England, but I’ve heard this numerous times here. For example if you were to get up to the front of the line to order McDonalds, instead of the cashier asking you “How can I help you?” they often times rather say “Hey, you alright?” or simply “You right?” to which you would appropriately respond, “I’d like one McChicken, 2 Quarter pounders, 1 large coke…”
Australians rarely say “Thank you” but rather “Cheers.” So if a guy holds the door for you, you would respond “Cheers, mate.” I also often sign the end of my emails “Cheers, Kim.” “Good on ya” means “Good job” or “Good for you.” When I told my Australian friend that I received an A on my history paper, he responded “Good on ya.”
Australian’s don’t think, they “reckon.” They are not fond of things, but rather “big on” them. Someone they highly respect is a "legend" and if they dislike someone then they are "off" them. They don't call people, but they "ring" them. They don’t do things right away, but rather “straight away.” If they don’t feel like doing it then they “can’t be bothered.” They don’t rent things, but “hire” them. If they are interested or excited then they are “keen.” If my friends asked if I wanted to go to the beach on Friday I would respond, “I’m keen” and I could tell you that I was “keen for the weekend.”
Australians don’t say “yeah” but rather “yep” or "yer." They don’t say “no” but rather “nah" or "nar."
You never do something, but rather “have” it. I’m going to have a shower. You should have a think about that. We should have a chat later. Come have a look at my house.
You would ask your friends “whatya getting into tonight?” to find out their plans. Don’t go anywhere shady or “dodgy” or “seedy” with them. "Youse" is plural for you as in "youse should come out tonight with us!"
If you buy someone a drink or a meal, you are “shouting” and would most likely say, “It’s my shout.” Don’t expect to sleep at a hotel because a hotel is another name for a pub. You would buy alcohol at a “bottle shop” or “bottle-o.” “Goon” is boxed wine. A “stubby” is a beer bottle. Drunk driving is called “drink driving.” A “Booze bus” is not as fun as it sounds; it is actually a vehicle that cops use to catch people who are “drink driving.”
Your parents are your “oldies,” your mom is your “mum,” your dad can be called “old boy,” and your relatives are your “rellies” or “rellos.” You might get together with your rellies on Christmas or “Crissie” in which you’ll probably exchange “prezzies” or presents. With them, you might also see some “adverts” or advertisements on the “telly” or the television.
Australia also has some interesting job titles. A “sparky” is an electrician. A “firey” is a firefighter. A “chipie” is a carpenter. A “cabbie” is a cab driver. A “journo” is a journalist. An ambulance driver is an “ambo.” A “pollie” is a politician. A “brikie” is a bricklayer. And a garbage man is a “garbo.” A “truckie” is a truck driver. I bet you’d never guess that a “postie” is a postman. Mind you, these are mainstream terminology that would be heard on the evening news. Also, if you read a want add that says they are looking for “casual help” that means part-time work.
Transportation is also a bit confusing. A pick-up is a “ute” while a big transport truck is a “road train.” A car trunk is often called a “boot.” A “bike” refers to a motorcycle, while a “push-bike” refers to a bicycle. A “billy cart” is what we call a go-kart. Don’t forget that you park your car in the “car park” where you try to find a “park” or parking space. Finally, never ask an Aussie for a ride somewhere, but rather a “lift.”
It also seems like everything in Australia seems to get “chucked.” Most commonly it means to throw or toss, so my friend told me to “chuck your coat on the chair.” Someone can also “chuck a sickie” which means to call in sick to work. If you take a u-turn then you just “chucked a yewy.”
Moving on to clothing…bathing suits are called “swimmers” or “togs." "Budgie smuglers” refers to what typically an old man wears that is our equivalent to spedos. Trust me, this is a common thing to see at the beach. “Jim-Jams” or “Jammies” refers to pajamas. Jogging pants are called “trackies” and running shoes are “joggers” or “runners.” Flip flops are “thongs.” A tank top is a “singlet.” Sweatshirts and sweaters are “jumpers” and if you are cold you should “rug-up.” Your “sunnies” are your sunglasses. If you shop at the “op shop” then you shop at the thrift store. And if you're growing a mustache, then you've got a "mo."
As for food: breakfast is “brekkie,” “smoko” is a break, “tea” can often times mean dinner and “supper” can sometimes mean a snack. A sausage is a “snag” and all shrimp are “prawn.” Thus meaning that if you ever hear someone say the phrase “Let’s throw a shrimp on the barbie” that’s a sure way to know that they are definitely NOT Australian. If you’re vegetarian then you’re a “veggo.” McDonald’s is “Macca’s” (both pronounced and spelled exactly like that on many advertisements). While at Macca’s don’t forget that “tomato sauce” is ketchup. An “esky” is a cooler. I think you can figure that one out. If you ask for green peppers at Subway you’ll get a confused look because peppers are “capsicum.” If you ask for a vanilla milkshake you’ll be quite disappointed to discover that you’ll receive milk with vanilla flavoring in it. Rather, you should ask for a “thick shake.” A cookie is a “biscuit.” If someone asks you if you “got a chewie?” they’re asking you if you have any chewing gum. A general word for all candy or sweets is “lollies” and this can refer to anything from chocolate “chockie” to actual lollie pops to tick tacs. A popsicle is called a “paddle pop” or an “icy pole.” Sprite is “lemonade” and lemonade is “lemon sqash.” Jello is “jelly” while jelly is “jam.” Never tell an Australian you had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because that would be pretty gross. If you order bacon at a restaurant, you’re going to get what we would consider Canadian bacon, or ham. Don’t forget that “chips” are french-fries and “potato chips” are what we would call chips. If you order an “entrée” at a restaurant, you just ordered an appetizer. Instead, you should order a “main.” A “cuppa” is a cup of either coffee or tea. A “flat white” is a coffee with milk, a “long black” is a black coffee, and “short black” is a shot of espresso.
If you’re sick, or feeling a bit "crook" then you go to the “chemist” to fill your prescription. Imagine how confused Australians are the first time they come to America and see that we have a “drug store.”
Everything is described as “hectic.”
Instead of saying “come again?” or “what?” or “huh?” you simply say “hey?” Aussies are like Canadians and add “aye” or “hey” to the end of sentences. The weather is nice today, aye?
Children are “nippers” or my favorite, “ankle biters.” A stroller is called a “pram” and a diaper is called a “nappy.” When you “wagged” that means you skipped school. If a peer asks you for a “rubber” they simply want an eraser. If you went on “schoolies” that means you went on an insane vacation or “holiday” with your friends after year 12 exams. If you attend “Uni” then you go to college and if you’ve got “uni work” then you have homework. You don't do well on a test, but you "smash" it. If someone asks you what you are studying, they’re asking what your major is. A “course” is a class, a “tut” is a tutorial, and you get a “mark” not a grade in the class. You don’t receive a student discount but a “concession.”
Mosquitoes are “mozzies” and kangaroos are “roos.” To whine is to “whinge.” Garbage is “rubbish.” A “doco” is a documentary.” An elevator is a “lift.” "Petrol" is gas. An environmentalist is a “grennie.” Slot machines are “pokies.” Guys are called “boys” or “blokes.” The afternoon is titled “arvo” and the evening is “evo.” A "torch" is a flashlight. A "serviette" is a napkin. A redneck is a “bogan.” A receipt is a “docket.” A “hottie” is a hot water bottle. A shopping cart is a “trolly.” Something beautiful can be described as a “beaut.” If you went “OS” then you went over seas. If something is “right” then it’s okay. If you have red hair, then you're called a "bluey."
The word “piss” can have many different meanings here, all depending on the context. If you “take the piss out of someone” that means you joked around or made fun of them. Of course, you can also “take a piss,” I think we all know what that one means. If you go around saying “I’m pissed!” that means you’re drunk or “blind”, not to be confused with “pissed off” which means you’re angry. “Piss” can also sometimes be the name for alcohol. If, however, you are pissed, please don’t “spew” or puke everywhere. However, be careful if you leave a party or social event early or you might be labeled a “piker.”
The bathroom is always called the “toilet” and if you “got the shits” that means you’re angry. No one here knows what a cell phone is because it’s called your “mobile.” A text message is often called an SMS.
If you haven’t noticed, Aussies love to add the letter “o” to the end of words, especially in people’s names. John goes by Johnno, Steve is Stevo, and Dave is Davo. Consequently, the Aussies call me Kimo.
Aussie’s pronounce herbs WITH the h. A fish fillet is pronounced “fil-let.” Aluminum is pronounced “a-loo-min-e-um.” H is “haytch” and Z “is zed.”
If you are “devo” that means you are sad or depressed. It can also be used in place of “bummer.” If I heard it was going to rain today, I would probably respond, “Oh, devo!”
When saying goodbye, you’d probably hear “Catch ya later” or simply “Catch ya.” I wouldn’t’ talk to you later, but rather “chat to you later.” Often times workers or strangers will say, “See ya later” even though I probably will never see them again in my life.
Gosh, who knew studying abroad in an “English speaking country” would involve learning a new language?
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Beware of the Drop Bears!
As I’m sure you know, Australia has many unique animals found nowhere else such as the kangaroo, koala bear, and platypus as well as some of the deadliest snakes in the world. However, unless you’ve lived in Australia, you probably don’t know about the most dangerous animal of them all, the drop bear. The drop bear is an Australian marsupial animal that is a large (almost the size of an American grizzly bear), vicious, carnivorous subspecies of the koala bear with very sharp claws and teeth. Like koalas, the drop bears generally sleep in the treetops during the day. However, at night they hunt by waiting for unsuspecting victims to walk under their tree, at which point they drop from the branch (hence the name) onto the victim’s head. Luckily, I was warned about them the very first night that I moved into my room here. Drop bears have also been found to detest the smell of yeast extract, so people are advised to smear Vegemite behind their ears to prevent attacks. I’ve also heard that a way you can tell if one is hiding in a tree is by lying on your back under the tree and spitting upwards. If there’s a drop bear in that tree, it will spit back at you (and then you can quickly run away before it drops).
The reason I’m writing about drop bears is because unfortunately last night an international student was attacked near her residence hall on campus here at Uni. Unsuspectingly, the drop bear suddenly dropped out of the trees onto her head as she was passing by. She was immediately hospitalized after the incident. She’s going to be okay, but she apparently has heaps of deep scratches and teeth marks on the back of her neck. The Australian government has been trying to keep quiet about the recent drop bear attacks and keep them from the media because they’re concerned that it will decrease tourism in Australia (probably why most people have never heard of them). Ever since the attack, Campus Security has been highly suggesting that we give them a call for a lift back from the train station instead of risking walking back through campus at night. Scary right?
WRONG! I think I’ve lived in Australia too long because I’m just pulling your leg (or “taking the piss” as the Aussies would say). There are NO drop bears. There was NO attack on campus. Drop bears are fictitious animals that the Australians across the nation LOVE to use to scare foreigners, tourists, and international students (or in my case - all of you!). Did I get ya? Now if you ever make it over to Australia you’ll be wise enough to not fall for the Aussie drop bear myth. My friend who studied in Australia last year warned me before I came that the Aussies would probably tell me all about these vicious creatures. And sure enough, my very first day I was already being told about them and their violent ways. However, some of my naive American friends were completely frightened by the drop bear stories and walked with their heads in the air as they passed under trees for the entire first week they were in Australia.
Drop bears have even made it into popular culture, best known in the Bundaberg Rum commercial. I've added a link to the right side of my page so you can have a watch.
So remember to watch out for the drop bears mate!
The reason I’m writing about drop bears is because unfortunately last night an international student was attacked near her residence hall on campus here at Uni. Unsuspectingly, the drop bear suddenly dropped out of the trees onto her head as she was passing by. She was immediately hospitalized after the incident. She’s going to be okay, but she apparently has heaps of deep scratches and teeth marks on the back of her neck. The Australian government has been trying to keep quiet about the recent drop bear attacks and keep them from the media because they’re concerned that it will decrease tourism in Australia (probably why most people have never heard of them). Ever since the attack, Campus Security has been highly suggesting that we give them a call for a lift back from the train station instead of risking walking back through campus at night. Scary right?
WRONG! I think I’ve lived in Australia too long because I’m just pulling your leg (or “taking the piss” as the Aussies would say). There are NO drop bears. There was NO attack on campus. Drop bears are fictitious animals that the Australians across the nation LOVE to use to scare foreigners, tourists, and international students (or in my case - all of you!). Did I get ya? Now if you ever make it over to Australia you’ll be wise enough to not fall for the Aussie drop bear myth. My friend who studied in Australia last year warned me before I came that the Aussies would probably tell me all about these vicious creatures. And sure enough, my very first day I was already being told about them and their violent ways. However, some of my naive American friends were completely frightened by the drop bear stories and walked with their heads in the air as they passed under trees for the entire first week they were in Australia.
Drop bears have even made it into popular culture, best known in the Bundaberg Rum commercial. I've added a link to the right side of my page so you can have a watch.
So remember to watch out for the drop bears mate!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Sail Away, Sail Away, Sail Away
Part 3!
Day 8: Airlie Beach
After the bus ride from hell, we finally arrived in Airlie Beach (pronounced our-lee) around 9 am and boy it was hot! The farther north you travel in Australia, the warmer it gets because you’re getting closer to the equator. The weather was probably around 85-90 degrees and sunny everyday; it was pretty similar to the weather back when I was in Cairns in July. So we made our way to Magnums, our hostel for the night. Magnums was by no means the nicest hostel I’ve been to, but definitely my favorite because I loved the atmosphere and people.
Now at this point, the only thought on our minds was “MUST TAKE A SHOWER!” If you know me very well, you’d know that I’m that person who usually takes up to 2 showers a day, so I’m sure you could imagine this whole no showering thing was pretty rough. My last shower had been at 9pm on Monday evening before we left Hervey Bay and it was currently FRIDAY morning. Gross! This was by far the longest I’ve ever gone in my life without showering. So once we arrived at the check in desk at Magnum’s we heard the dreaded phrase that we all feared, “Sorry, but you can’t check in until 2 pm.” NOOOOOOOOO!!!! 5 more hours until we could check in?! Well, we knew there really wasn’t anything we could do about it, so we threw our suitcases in the luggage storage, pulled our hair into braids, put on our biggest sunglasses, and tried not to make eye contact with too many people as we ventured off to McDonalds for brekkie and free Wi-Fi.
We then spent the rest of our morning and early afternoon exploring Airlie Beach. There really wasn’t a whole lot to the city; it was basically just one long street. Any local will tell you that they hate Airlie, but any backpacker will tell you that they love it. Airlie is basically a gateway to the Whitsunday’s islands so it attracts heaps of tourists and backpackers. There was lots of good shopping and we really enjoyed just walking around for a few hours.
We made sure that at 2 on the dot we were at reception, ready to check in and anxiously awaiting being clean again. So finally we were allowed into our rooms. However, as always, there was a slight problem. Most hostels have communal bathrooms like in dorms where there are 3-6 showers that you share with your floor. Well at Magnums, we were put in these 10-share little cabin-like houses with an ensuite bathroom. Usually an ensuite bathroom is a desirable thing; however, in our case this now meant that there were currently 10 smelly, cranky people who haven’t showered in 4 days and only ONE shower to share. NOT GOOD. It only took a few minutes before the claws broke out. “I call shower first!” “Not fair…I was here first!” “But guys… I’m sick so I should go first.” As badly as I wanted to shower, I was not about to get involved in this drama, so I volunteered to go last. I figured I waited 4 days, what’s another hour? Some of the boys staying in our room ended up going down to the beach, so I actually didn’t even have to wait very long. Hands down, the best shower of my life.
The actual date of Day 8 was October 2nd, so that meant that tomorrow was my 20th birthday! Since we’d be out sailing and in the middle of the ocean on my actual birthday, we decided to celebrate tonight instead. After getting ready, we went out to a nearby restaurant where we got a backpacker special of steak, salad, and fries for only $10 (quite a steal in Australia!). Then we came back to Magnums for a little bit where they had some live acoustic music playing. Then eventually we went out to a few different dance clubs including my favorite one called Mamma Africa’s, where everything (including the bathroom) was jungle-themed. We danced the night away and I could probably say that it was the most fun birthday (eve) yet.
Day 9: Airlie Beach → The Whitsunday’s Islands
The next morning when I woke up, I completely forgot that it was even my actual birthday until one of the German boys told me “Congratulations” (apparently that’s what they say for “Happy Birthday” over in Germany). The sailing office gave us these tiny bags to pack our stuff in for the next few days (we weren’t even allowed to bring our backpacks). After packing up and checking out we headed over to the sailing office to put our suitcases and backpacks in storage for the next few days. We grabbed lunch, and then had to take about a 25-minute walk to the dock where our boat would leave. At about 12:30 pm we were met by the crew who took us to our boat where we’d be living for the next few days. We were going to be sailing the S.V. Whitehaven. When we arrived at the boat, I think everyone was a little disappointed at how small it was, but we were all still heaps excited. There were 24 of us and the boat defiantly didn’t look big enough for 24 people + crew to sleep on...
Again, let me give you a little background on where we were going if you’re not familiar with the Whitsunday’s. The Whitsunday’s Islands consist of 74 islands off the east coast, the largest group of offshore islands in Australia and only 8 of which are actually inhabited. Although the most popular chunk of the Great Barrier Reef is location further north off the coast of Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park stretches all the way to surround the Whitsunday’s Islands as well. So therefore, I had to cough up some more money for national park entry fees since we’d be sailing in the Marne Park (Aye...beauty comes at a price, I guess).
So before we even got on the boat, the crew took our shoes from us and we didn’t see those again for a few days. So once we got on the crew gave us a safety briefing (i.e. what to do if you fall of the boat, what to do if you see someone fall of the boat, why you have to walk down the stairs backwards, etc). Then Amy showed us to our rooms on the bottom deck. Catie, Amber, Jess, and I volunteered to share 2 double size beds since no one else really wanted to. However, it’s a good thing we did because by sharing a bigger bed, we ended up having WAY more room than the people with the single beds. Take a look at the room we slept in. 8 people slept in here. Yes, 8 people. Personal space wasn’t really a concept I understood over break.
After we got settled into our rooms, we had to go into this TINY bathroom in groups of two so that Andy could give us “toilet training.” I’ve never been in a bathroom with so many rules! Basically after you went, you had to crank this knob to flush, then you had to hold down this button for about 20 seconds to let the toilet bowl fill up with more water. Then you had to repeat that process 3 times! Going to the bathroom was quite a hassle. Then the “shower” was also in the tiny bathroom but we were restricted to 1-minute showers MAX and we were only allowed to shower after 8 pm.
We basically spent the entire afternoon laying out on the deck and relaxing (what a way to spend a birthday!). After our stressful Fraser Island adventures, we were enjoying not having any worries. We didn’t have to navigate, drive, set up and take down camp, or cook for ourselves! This was a bit more of the spring break that we had imagined. We had the option to go snorkeling, but I passed today because I knew we’d have 2 more opportunities over the next few days at even better dive spots. At one point, the skipper Dave even taught me how to drive the boat and let me do it by myself for a little while. It was a bit confusing at first, but quite easy once I go the hang of it.
Around 7 pm we anchored the boat for the night and watched the sunset as we ate dinner. After dinner, Andy pulled out a map and showed us the path we’d be traveling and taught us more about the Whitsunday’s in general. We spent the rest of the night relaxing, hanging out, and stargazing. It was so peaceful to basically be secluded in middle of the Pacific Ocean! A birthday I will never forget.
Day 10: The Whitsunday's Islands
Before we went to bed the night before, we were a little concerned about how we would wake up the next morning since we didn’t have mobile service, alarms clocks, or anything of the like. Andy responded, “Don’t worry, you’ll wake when you need to.” Some of us objected that we were heavy sleepers, but Andy insisted, “Trust me, you’ll wake up.” Well I finally understood what he meant. At exactly 6 AM Andy turned the boat engine on and between the noise and the shaking of your bed, there was no way ANYONE could sleep through that. So now it was 6 AM and we were wide awake. If you haven’t noticed yet, I didn’t really sleep very much on this trip. So anyway, we got ready and went up to the top deck for brekkie. Dave told us it’d only be about an hour until we’d reach Whitehaven Island. This was the part of the entire 2-week trip that I was most looking forward to! :) :) :) :)
We had to take the tugboat over to the island in a few different trips. Once everyone in our group was there, we walked together on a short rainforest walk until we reached the Hill Inlet lookout point. This was absolutely unbelievable! This inlet is where the tide shifts the sand and water to create the most amazing fusion of colors. I think the 4 of us just stood here for a good 10 minutes with our jaws dropped in complete awe that we were actually viewing such a sight.
Once we got a few photos, we made out way down to the pristine, award winning Whitehaven Beach. This beach was named the 2nd most beautiful beach in world, and in one look you knew why. Remember in my last post when I said that Lake McKenzie had the clearest water and the whitest sand I’d ever seen? Well scratch that – THIS was the clearest water and the whitest sand I had ever seen. The sand is composed of 98% silica and known to be amongst the purest in the world. Often people bring jewelry to this beach to polish. We were also told that you could brush your teeth with the sand or use it to exfoliate your skin. The best way to describe the sand was it almost felt like powder. It was quite a risk for me even to BRING my camera to this beach so I hope you appreciate my photos haha! The best part about the sand being silica means that the sand never gets hot. It was the perfect temperature to walk on. The beach is about 5 miles along, but this beach was different than any I had ever seen. Typically when you think of a beach, you think water and then sand which are obviously divided. Well at this beach, the water and sand mixed together to create quite a heaps of swirls of sand and water, which was VERY cool.
We had about 3 hours to explore the beach, but I wish we could have stayed all day. The atmosphere at this beach was like none other. This was the point in my trip that felt completely unreal. I felt like I was walking around in a postcard. It’s hard to believe that a place like this actually exists! This was by far the most beautiful place I had ever laid eyes on, and perhaps the most beautiful place I will EVER lay eyes on. At one point I even started to tear up a bit because I wished that my friends and family from home could have been there with me to witness this spectacular place. I was so overwhelmed by its beauty that I started getting a little picture happy and at one point Jess yelled at me, “Kim, you need to stop taking pictures and just ENJOY being here.” She was right. So for the rest of our time on the beach I put my camera away and tried to soak up every minute of being there.
Around 11 we had to go back to the boat (they practically had to drag us away). After lunch we had the opportunity to go on another snorkel. I decided to do this one. So after we dressed in our fashionable stinger suits, flippers, goggles, and snorkels, Andy took us out in the tugboat to the spot for the today. This snorkel was much different than the one I did in Cairns in July, but it was still pretty amazing. I saw a sea turtle! I also saw the hugest fish I had ever seen. It was probably as big as me if not bigger…no joke! I had no idea fish this big existed!?
We had the rest of the afternoon to lay out, relax, and enjoy sailing. The crew decided that they would take us to a small beach for “nachos and sunset.” This place was actually heaps cool because it had an intriguing looking cave. So of course, we decided to bust out some music and have a “CAVE RAVE!” before the sun started to set.
Day 11: The Whitsunday’s Islands → Airlie Beach
This morning instead of being waken up by the boat’s engine, we were woken at 6 AM by Andy running into our room screaming, “TIME TO GO FOR A SNORKEL!!” So we rolled out of and went upstairs for brekkie. Since the water was freezing and I was still half asleep, I decided not to snorkel today. The rest of the day was spent doing some more sun bathing, relaxing, and hanging out until we finally returned back to Airlie around noon.
Now the rest of the STA package east coast trip was planned to go north to Cairns for the last 6 days. However, since Jess and I had already been to Cairns in July, we decided not to buy the Cairns part of the package and to go somewhere new instead by ourselves. Since it was cheaper to fly out on Tuesday (tomorrow) we decided to stay another night in Airlie at Magnums. Everyone else was catching another overnight bus to Cairns that night at 9 PM, so it worked out well that we had a room because we let Catie, Amber, and Adam keep their luggage in our room and used our shower. We then mucked around for the rest of the afternoon, walking around Airlie, going on the internet (I had 86 Facebook notifications!) and the like. I also decided to do a load of laundry, which ended up costing me $12 (how ridiculous is that?).
Once we saw everyone off to the bus stop and said our goodbyes, we decided that we wanted to go back to Mamma Africa’s tonight since we had so much fun there on Friday night. Even though it was only the two of us, we ended up meeting heaps of people and having a blast this night. Check out these two videos that we took. When you’re watching them, I want you to pay close attention to 3 things: 1) The guy to girl ratio 2) The type of music playing 3) The way Australian boys dance. Much different from the states, hey?
Day 12: Airlie Beach → Brisbane
After waking up and checking out, Jess and I put our suitcases in luggage storage and went down to the lagoon for the afternoon. Despite its name, Airlie BEACH, actually has quite a small beach and you can’t swim in the water because it’s inhabited by marine stingers (a type of jellyfish). So to provide somewhere for all the tourists to swim, they built a public lagoon in the park. The lagoon basically looked like an expensive resort pool, I couldn’t believe that it was just in a public park!
We spent most of our morning and afternoon at the lagoon until we headed to the bus stop to catch a shuttle to the airport. The closest airport is in Prosperine which is about 45 minutes away from Airlie. The airport is TINY and there’s only 1 flight per day (at 6:30 PM) and the only place that it flies to is Brisbane. At the airport we ran into a girl from Austria who goes to Uni with us that was on our same flight. Small world? My favorite part about this airport was the fact that the gate was OUTSIDE! Ha! Only in Australia…
We landed in Brisbane around 7:45 PM and finally on my 3rd visit to Brisbane I actually left the airport. Unfortunately we missed the last train by like 5 minutes, so we had to catch a taxi to our hostel. We were pretty exhausted from the past few days, so we passed out by 10 PM.
There's still 5 more days of break, check back soon :)
Day 8: Airlie Beach
After the bus ride from hell, we finally arrived in Airlie Beach (pronounced our-lee) around 9 am and boy it was hot! The farther north you travel in Australia, the warmer it gets because you’re getting closer to the equator. The weather was probably around 85-90 degrees and sunny everyday; it was pretty similar to the weather back when I was in Cairns in July. So we made our way to Magnums, our hostel for the night. Magnums was by no means the nicest hostel I’ve been to, but definitely my favorite because I loved the atmosphere and people.
Now at this point, the only thought on our minds was “MUST TAKE A SHOWER!” If you know me very well, you’d know that I’m that person who usually takes up to 2 showers a day, so I’m sure you could imagine this whole no showering thing was pretty rough. My last shower had been at 9pm on Monday evening before we left Hervey Bay and it was currently FRIDAY morning. Gross! This was by far the longest I’ve ever gone in my life without showering. So once we arrived at the check in desk at Magnum’s we heard the dreaded phrase that we all feared, “Sorry, but you can’t check in until 2 pm.” NOOOOOOOOO!!!! 5 more hours until we could check in?! Well, we knew there really wasn’t anything we could do about it, so we threw our suitcases in the luggage storage, pulled our hair into braids, put on our biggest sunglasses, and tried not to make eye contact with too many people as we ventured off to McDonalds for brekkie and free Wi-Fi.
We then spent the rest of our morning and early afternoon exploring Airlie Beach. There really wasn’t a whole lot to the city; it was basically just one long street. Any local will tell you that they hate Airlie, but any backpacker will tell you that they love it. Airlie is basically a gateway to the Whitsunday’s islands so it attracts heaps of tourists and backpackers. There was lots of good shopping and we really enjoyed just walking around for a few hours.
We made sure that at 2 on the dot we were at reception, ready to check in and anxiously awaiting being clean again. So finally we were allowed into our rooms. However, as always, there was a slight problem. Most hostels have communal bathrooms like in dorms where there are 3-6 showers that you share with your floor. Well at Magnums, we were put in these 10-share little cabin-like houses with an ensuite bathroom. Usually an ensuite bathroom is a desirable thing; however, in our case this now meant that there were currently 10 smelly, cranky people who haven’t showered in 4 days and only ONE shower to share. NOT GOOD. It only took a few minutes before the claws broke out. “I call shower first!” “Not fair…I was here first!” “But guys… I’m sick so I should go first.” As badly as I wanted to shower, I was not about to get involved in this drama, so I volunteered to go last. I figured I waited 4 days, what’s another hour? Some of the boys staying in our room ended up going down to the beach, so I actually didn’t even have to wait very long. Hands down, the best shower of my life.
The actual date of Day 8 was October 2nd, so that meant that tomorrow was my 20th birthday! Since we’d be out sailing and in the middle of the ocean on my actual birthday, we decided to celebrate tonight instead. After getting ready, we went out to a nearby restaurant where we got a backpacker special of steak, salad, and fries for only $10 (quite a steal in Australia!). Then we came back to Magnums for a little bit where they had some live acoustic music playing. Then eventually we went out to a few different dance clubs including my favorite one called Mamma Africa’s, where everything (including the bathroom) was jungle-themed. We danced the night away and I could probably say that it was the most fun birthday (eve) yet.
Day 9: Airlie Beach → The Whitsunday’s Islands
The next morning when I woke up, I completely forgot that it was even my actual birthday until one of the German boys told me “Congratulations” (apparently that’s what they say for “Happy Birthday” over in Germany). The sailing office gave us these tiny bags to pack our stuff in for the next few days (we weren’t even allowed to bring our backpacks). After packing up and checking out we headed over to the sailing office to put our suitcases and backpacks in storage for the next few days. We grabbed lunch, and then had to take about a 25-minute walk to the dock where our boat would leave. At about 12:30 pm we were met by the crew who took us to our boat where we’d be living for the next few days. We were going to be sailing the S.V. Whitehaven. When we arrived at the boat, I think everyone was a little disappointed at how small it was, but we were all still heaps excited. There were 24 of us and the boat defiantly didn’t look big enough for 24 people + crew to sleep on...
Again, let me give you a little background on where we were going if you’re not familiar with the Whitsunday’s. The Whitsunday’s Islands consist of 74 islands off the east coast, the largest group of offshore islands in Australia and only 8 of which are actually inhabited. Although the most popular chunk of the Great Barrier Reef is location further north off the coast of Cairns, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park stretches all the way to surround the Whitsunday’s Islands as well. So therefore, I had to cough up some more money for national park entry fees since we’d be sailing in the Marne Park (Aye...beauty comes at a price, I guess).
So before we even got on the boat, the crew took our shoes from us and we didn’t see those again for a few days. So once we got on the crew gave us a safety briefing (i.e. what to do if you fall of the boat, what to do if you see someone fall of the boat, why you have to walk down the stairs backwards, etc). Then Amy showed us to our rooms on the bottom deck. Catie, Amber, Jess, and I volunteered to share 2 double size beds since no one else really wanted to. However, it’s a good thing we did because by sharing a bigger bed, we ended up having WAY more room than the people with the single beds. Take a look at the room we slept in. 8 people slept in here. Yes, 8 people. Personal space wasn’t really a concept I understood over break.
After we got settled into our rooms, we had to go into this TINY bathroom in groups of two so that Andy could give us “toilet training.” I’ve never been in a bathroom with so many rules! Basically after you went, you had to crank this knob to flush, then you had to hold down this button for about 20 seconds to let the toilet bowl fill up with more water. Then you had to repeat that process 3 times! Going to the bathroom was quite a hassle. Then the “shower” was also in the tiny bathroom but we were restricted to 1-minute showers MAX and we were only allowed to shower after 8 pm.
We basically spent the entire afternoon laying out on the deck and relaxing (what a way to spend a birthday!). After our stressful Fraser Island adventures, we were enjoying not having any worries. We didn’t have to navigate, drive, set up and take down camp, or cook for ourselves! This was a bit more of the spring break that we had imagined. We had the option to go snorkeling, but I passed today because I knew we’d have 2 more opportunities over the next few days at even better dive spots. At one point, the skipper Dave even taught me how to drive the boat and let me do it by myself for a little while. It was a bit confusing at first, but quite easy once I go the hang of it.
Around 7 pm we anchored the boat for the night and watched the sunset as we ate dinner. After dinner, Andy pulled out a map and showed us the path we’d be traveling and taught us more about the Whitsunday’s in general. We spent the rest of the night relaxing, hanging out, and stargazing. It was so peaceful to basically be secluded in middle of the Pacific Ocean! A birthday I will never forget.
Day 10: The Whitsunday's Islands
Before we went to bed the night before, we were a little concerned about how we would wake up the next morning since we didn’t have mobile service, alarms clocks, or anything of the like. Andy responded, “Don’t worry, you’ll wake when you need to.” Some of us objected that we were heavy sleepers, but Andy insisted, “Trust me, you’ll wake up.” Well I finally understood what he meant. At exactly 6 AM Andy turned the boat engine on and between the noise and the shaking of your bed, there was no way ANYONE could sleep through that. So now it was 6 AM and we were wide awake. If you haven’t noticed yet, I didn’t really sleep very much on this trip. So anyway, we got ready and went up to the top deck for brekkie. Dave told us it’d only be about an hour until we’d reach Whitehaven Island. This was the part of the entire 2-week trip that I was most looking forward to! :) :) :) :)
We had to take the tugboat over to the island in a few different trips. Once everyone in our group was there, we walked together on a short rainforest walk until we reached the Hill Inlet lookout point. This was absolutely unbelievable! This inlet is where the tide shifts the sand and water to create the most amazing fusion of colors. I think the 4 of us just stood here for a good 10 minutes with our jaws dropped in complete awe that we were actually viewing such a sight.
Once we got a few photos, we made out way down to the pristine, award winning Whitehaven Beach. This beach was named the 2nd most beautiful beach in world, and in one look you knew why. Remember in my last post when I said that Lake McKenzie had the clearest water and the whitest sand I’d ever seen? Well scratch that – THIS was the clearest water and the whitest sand I had ever seen. The sand is composed of 98% silica and known to be amongst the purest in the world. Often people bring jewelry to this beach to polish. We were also told that you could brush your teeth with the sand or use it to exfoliate your skin. The best way to describe the sand was it almost felt like powder. It was quite a risk for me even to BRING my camera to this beach so I hope you appreciate my photos haha! The best part about the sand being silica means that the sand never gets hot. It was the perfect temperature to walk on. The beach is about 5 miles along, but this beach was different than any I had ever seen. Typically when you think of a beach, you think water and then sand which are obviously divided. Well at this beach, the water and sand mixed together to create quite a heaps of swirls of sand and water, which was VERY cool.
We had about 3 hours to explore the beach, but I wish we could have stayed all day. The atmosphere at this beach was like none other. This was the point in my trip that felt completely unreal. I felt like I was walking around in a postcard. It’s hard to believe that a place like this actually exists! This was by far the most beautiful place I had ever laid eyes on, and perhaps the most beautiful place I will EVER lay eyes on. At one point I even started to tear up a bit because I wished that my friends and family from home could have been there with me to witness this spectacular place. I was so overwhelmed by its beauty that I started getting a little picture happy and at one point Jess yelled at me, “Kim, you need to stop taking pictures and just ENJOY being here.” She was right. So for the rest of our time on the beach I put my camera away and tried to soak up every minute of being there.
Around 11 we had to go back to the boat (they practically had to drag us away). After lunch we had the opportunity to go on another snorkel. I decided to do this one. So after we dressed in our fashionable stinger suits, flippers, goggles, and snorkels, Andy took us out in the tugboat to the spot for the today. This snorkel was much different than the one I did in Cairns in July, but it was still pretty amazing. I saw a sea turtle! I also saw the hugest fish I had ever seen. It was probably as big as me if not bigger…no joke! I had no idea fish this big existed!?
We had the rest of the afternoon to lay out, relax, and enjoy sailing. The crew decided that they would take us to a small beach for “nachos and sunset.” This place was actually heaps cool because it had an intriguing looking cave. So of course, we decided to bust out some music and have a “CAVE RAVE!” before the sun started to set.
Day 11: The Whitsunday’s Islands → Airlie Beach
This morning instead of being waken up by the boat’s engine, we were woken at 6 AM by Andy running into our room screaming, “TIME TO GO FOR A SNORKEL!!” So we rolled out of and went upstairs for brekkie. Since the water was freezing and I was still half asleep, I decided not to snorkel today. The rest of the day was spent doing some more sun bathing, relaxing, and hanging out until we finally returned back to Airlie around noon.
Now the rest of the STA package east coast trip was planned to go north to Cairns for the last 6 days. However, since Jess and I had already been to Cairns in July, we decided not to buy the Cairns part of the package and to go somewhere new instead by ourselves. Since it was cheaper to fly out on Tuesday (tomorrow) we decided to stay another night in Airlie at Magnums. Everyone else was catching another overnight bus to Cairns that night at 9 PM, so it worked out well that we had a room because we let Catie, Amber, and Adam keep their luggage in our room and used our shower. We then mucked around for the rest of the afternoon, walking around Airlie, going on the internet (I had 86 Facebook notifications!) and the like. I also decided to do a load of laundry, which ended up costing me $12 (how ridiculous is that?).
Once we saw everyone off to the bus stop and said our goodbyes, we decided that we wanted to go back to Mamma Africa’s tonight since we had so much fun there on Friday night. Even though it was only the two of us, we ended up meeting heaps of people and having a blast this night. Check out these two videos that we took. When you’re watching them, I want you to pay close attention to 3 things: 1) The guy to girl ratio 2) The type of music playing 3) The way Australian boys dance. Much different from the states, hey?
Day 12: Airlie Beach → Brisbane
After waking up and checking out, Jess and I put our suitcases in luggage storage and went down to the lagoon for the afternoon. Despite its name, Airlie BEACH, actually has quite a small beach and you can’t swim in the water because it’s inhabited by marine stingers (a type of jellyfish). So to provide somewhere for all the tourists to swim, they built a public lagoon in the park. The lagoon basically looked like an expensive resort pool, I couldn’t believe that it was just in a public park!
We spent most of our morning and afternoon at the lagoon until we headed to the bus stop to catch a shuttle to the airport. The closest airport is in Prosperine which is about 45 minutes away from Airlie. The airport is TINY and there’s only 1 flight per day (at 6:30 PM) and the only place that it flies to is Brisbane. At the airport we ran into a girl from Austria who goes to Uni with us that was on our same flight. Small world? My favorite part about this airport was the fact that the gate was OUTSIDE! Ha! Only in Australia…
We landed in Brisbane around 7:45 PM and finally on my 3rd visit to Brisbane I actually left the airport. Unfortunately we missed the last train by like 5 minutes, so we had to catch a taxi to our hostel. We were pretty exhausted from the past few days, so we passed out by 10 PM.
There's still 5 more days of break, check back soon :)
Friday, October 30, 2009
Maybe the Dingo Ate Your Baby?
Righteo, and on to part 2 of my spring break trip...
Day 4: Byron Bay → Brisbane → Harvey Bay
Since there are no overnight buses that run to Hervey Bay (pronounced Har-vey), we were lucky enough to sleep in beds for another night in Byron. However, we were also lucky enough to be scheduled for the 7 AM bus to Brisbane. We had to connect in Brisbane because there were no direct buses to Hervey Bay. I realized that this was the second time that I had been in Brisbane and never left the airport/bus terminal. We arrived in Brisbane around 11 and didn’t arrive in Hervey Bay till around 5:30 p.m. After this extremely wasteful day of sitting on 2 buses all day, I actually wished that we had taken another overnight bus. Oh well. By the way, down on the bottom of the bus where you put your luggage, there was a box of day old baby chicks! I can't believe that they were just thrown amongst the luggage. I'm still trying to figure out why someone traveling on the Greyhound was carrying day old baby chicks?
Once we arrived in Hervey Bay, we were told that we’d be met by someone who would take us to our hostel. Well we were met by a tiny van that fit 8 people. So since there were 24 of us, I ended up having to wait in the car park for about 45 minutes while the van shuttled back and forth. During this time that I was stranded in the car park, I could easily conclude that the town of Hervey Bay was quite a shit hole. Basically, the only reason anyone ever goes to Hervey Bay is because it’s where the ferry leaves from to go to Fraser Island.
So once we finally got to our hostel, we had to cough up $109 buckaroos for National Park Entry Fees...how annoying! Like I didn’t spend enough money on this trip already? Anyway, this hostel was by far the worst hostel we stayed at during our trip. Check out this picture below of my mattress. Those black spots would be the remains of bed bug poop. And if your mattress has bed bug poop, one could assume that your mattress therefore has bed bugs. Awesome. At this point, all we could do was laugh about it. Goodnight, don’t let the bed bugs bite…literally!
Despite the poor sleeping conditions, the hostel did give us all a free barbie that night, and you know how we love anything free, especially food. I remember one of the German guys asking my English friend Becca, “Becca, why are you eating so much food tonight?” And she responded, “Well I don’t know when or what my next meal will be…this is free…I’m gonna eat!” The words of a true traveler. Since we were all pretty exhausted from a day of sitting on a bus (it’s tiring!), most of us just mocked around this night, went on the internet, packed our bags (we could only bring a small backpack each), and enjoyed our last showers we’d get for the next few days.
Day 5: Hervey Bay → Fraser Island
And so day 5 began of the infamous Fraser (pronounced Fray-zer) Island adventure. We wasted no time either. By 6:00 AM we had to be up, ready, have our suitcases locked away in lockers, and in the TV room ready for our safety briefing. Before I go on, let me give you a little background about where we were going. Fraser Island is an island off the east coast of Australia and the world’s largest sand island (it’s about 75 miles in length and 13 miles in width!). Recently, in 1992 Fraser Island was added to the World Heritage listing. If you don’t know much about this, it’s a pretty big deal. There are only 890 places in the entire world on this list and they have to go through an extensive selection process before they are added. Once a place is added, it remains under strict regulations so that they can “preserve its natural beauty.” So this makes Fraser ranking right up there with the Great Barrier Reef and Ayer’s Rock (also partly why the entry fees are so steep). Fraser is also unique because it’s known for its wild dingoes. In particular, it has some of Australia’s last pure breeds of dingoes in eastern Australia, so dogs are actually not permitted on the island at all.
So anyway, getting back on track…we had to meet to watch a Fraser Island safety video before we left warning of us of certain things. For example, camp fires & feeding the dingoes are illegal on the island. Also, there are very strong ocean currents and numerous jelly fish and sharks in the area, so swimming in the ocean is also not permitted. Now one small detail that we somehow managed to overlook about our trip was that fact that we were signed up for a 3 day SELF DRIVE CAMPING SAFARI. Self drive?! Camping!? Again…what was I getting myself into? We divided up into 3 different groups for 3 different troop carrier cars (or as we liked to call them "Jurassic Park vehicles"). You had to be 21 to drive the car, so I wasn’t even able to drive it (although even if I was 21, I think my parents probably would have killed me if I would have driven a manual gear 4WD troop carrier on the left side of the road across the world’s largest sand island!). Our group consisted of me, Jess, Catie, Amber, 2 of the guys in our group from Germany, 1 guy from Finland, 2 other random German girls who weren’t in our group, and this crazy boy from Switzerland named Robin (who we later only called Robinhood). Between the 10 of us we had to scrounge up $1,000 for a car deposit before we left. Somehow I was put in charge of collecting the money. I don’t think I’ve ever held so much cash in my entire life.
After we got everything straightened away, we hopped in our troop carriers and headed over to “the shop” to pick up our camping equipment and fill out a condition report of the car. They also showed us how to set up the tent, how to work the car, what type of gears to use for each type of driving (i.e. pavement vs. hard sand vs. soft sand, etc), and how to change the tire pressure. Most of this stuff went right over my head, especially the stuff about driving the car. We were starting to run short on time and the guy was talking heaps fast so I didn’t even know if the guys in our group who WOULD be driving (and didn’t speak English very well) even understood a word this guy was saying. I don’t know how we got so behind on time (I mean we started at 6 AM!), but by the time that we packed up the car, we were only left with approximately 20 minutes to complete 3 days worth of grocery shopping for 10 people before we had to leave to catch our ferry to Fraser.
As I’m sure you could only imagine, this was absolute mayhem. I can’t remember the last time I was as stressed out as I was in Woolworths this day. Remember that old game show where the contestants would run around the grocery store throwing everything they saw in their cart before time ran out? Well combine that show with the Amazing Race and that’s exactly how those short 20 minutes felt. The 10 of us had to divide up buying “the essentials” like toilet paper, bug spray, foil, paper towels, etc. and then we just split off into groups for buying food. Jess, Catie, Amber, and I just bought all of our food together and then split the cost when we checked out. I’m not a very picky eater; however, my friends are, which made this 20-minute grocery shopping trip even more stressful. We couldn’t agree on crunchy or creamy, white or wheat, strawberry or blueberry, apples or oranges, turkey or ham. Most of the debates ended in someone saying something like, “Screw it, we’ll get both!” We felt like we were on the Amazing Race when we started to see that they other groups were already finished and checking out and we weren’t ready yet. So we just hoped that we had enough food at that point, checked out, and ran back to the car park. It was at this point that our group realized that the car rides were going to be quite a tight fit when we now had 20+ bags of groceries and 30 liters of water to add.
So let’s recap. Take another look at that car up there. That car was currently holding 10 people who spoke 4 different languages, with 10 backpacks, 2 coolers of food, 3 days worth of groceries, 3 tents, 3 tarps, 10 sleeping bags, 10 mats, 30 liters of water, a grill, a shovel, and dishes. This was going to be an interesting trip, to say the very least.
We made it to the ferry on time, thankfully. The ferry was filled with people from our group as well as other families who were taking their own 4WD cars over to the island. The ride took about 45 minutes until we finally arrived on the west coast of Fraser. Once we drove the car off the boat we had to stop at this resort to get our camping permits and let air out of the tires. We were pretty jealous of the people staying at the resort who were lounging by the pool eating lunch while we knew that we’d be camping the next few days…
Now we were ready to begin our journey. The east coast of Fraser Island has all the nice spots, so the plan was to drive across the island today and set up camp on the east coast. As one could imagine, driving on sand is not easy, especially soft sand. Across the inland, Fraser basically just has these narrow sand “roads” that you can’t really drive any faster than 20mph on. And trust me, that was fast enough. We were getting jolted and thrown every which way. It was kinda like driving on speed bump after speed bump for a few hours. The funny thing about the roads is that they were only wide enough for one lane of driving, but you were allowed to drive on the roads both ways. So if while you’re driving along, you see another car come from the opposition direction, one person had to stop and back up until the other person could pass. This didn’t really happen that often, but it still got pretty annoying after a while. None of the roads had names or signs either. The map below is almost the exact map we were given of the island. As you can see, the “roads” are basically just a bunch of squiggly lines on the map. We really had no way to know if we were even driving in the right direction and it didn’t take long for people to get pretty testy and irritated with each other as we argued about which way to drive. Being in this car was sorta like being on a stressful family vacation, except with some strangers and some friends. Weird combination.
After a few hours of bumpy driving, we managed to make it to our first destination, Central Station, which was exactly half way in the middle of the island. Here at Central Station, we started to notice the warning signs everywhere for dingoes. Being an avid Seinfeld fan, and cracking the joke so many times, I wanted to see a wild dingo so bad! If I only knew what the next few days had in store for me…. Anyway, here we went on a pretty cool rainforest walk.
We hadn’t seen our other two groups since we arrived, so we figured we were ahead of them since our car was the first to leave. So we decided to go on a bit longer walk to see Basin Lake. It turned out that the walk was a bit longer than we imagined, and Basin Lake wasn’t really anything special. So we made it back to our car around mid afternoon and our next plan was to finish driving to the beach and set up camp for the night.
Well I’m not quite sure what happened… maybe it was the slow driving, or maybe it was the wrong turns, but the sun was setting and we still had not arrived at our camp site. By the time we found our site and met up with the other 2 groups, it was pitch black outside. So we had to set up our tents and cook ourselves dinner with the only light source being the headlights of our car. I had never really camped before, so I was in for quite a treat. The 4 of us shared a pretty small tent, so thankfully we all liked each other haha. We didn’t have any mobile service on the island, so I’m not really sure what time we fell asleep that night. After an early morning and a stressful day, I’d estimate we passed out before 10 pm.
Day 6: Fraser Island
Today was our full day to explore Fraser. Because we’d be driving along the beach, we were restricted to the times that we were allowed to drive based on when the high tide was that day. So we all woke up around 7 am so that we could take down camp, pack up the car, eat brekkie, and be on the road by 8 am. After we woke up, our English friends Becca and Ellie told us that when they went to bed the night before there were 2 dingoes right outside our tent. Dingoes RIGHT outside my tent and I was sleeping and didn't even know!
Today’s ride was MUCH smoother than yesterday and MUCH faster. The speed limit on the beach was 80 km per hour. We were literally just driving parallel to the ocean, which was absolutely amazing. This was my view from the car…rough right?
Our first stop for the day was at the shipwreck of the S.S. Maheno. There was no way you could miss this! The ship was originally built in the early 1900s in Scotland as a luxury passenger ship. Then during WWI the ship served as a hospital ship in the English Channel. Then in 1935 the ship was being towed from Melbourne when it was caught in a cyclone and ended up beached on Fraser Island. The shipwreck looks pretty huge (and it is), but actually 3 stories of it are buried under the sand. Because of its deteriorating condition, you’re actually not allowed to come within 3 meters of the shipwreck, but not very many people seemed to actually follow that rule.
Our next destination was the Champagne Pools. However, on our way there we stopped to help out a family whose car was stuck in the sand. Well, the boys really did most of the helping/pushing while we had a chat with the mom and daughter of the family. They were from Melborune and just on holiday. It seems like Fraser Island is a popular vacation spot for Australians as well as backpackers.
Finally we made it to the Champagne Pools, where we spent about 2 hours hanging out. The pools are a popular swimming hole on Fraser where the ocean waves crash over the rocks into shallow sandy pools. They got their name from the foaming water in the pools. Some of the water formed puddles in the sand which was really warm and perfect for relaxing.
While I was laying around, I started to see a huge crowd of people rush toward one of the pools. It looked like something big was going on, so of course I also rushed over (unfortunately without my camera!). Turns out that an octopus washed up in one of the pools. An OCTOPUS…how cool! However, one jerk decided that he should actually pick up the octopus, so it obviously got angry and inked all over the place. I saw an octopus ink!
Our next stop was Indian Head which is a coastal headland towards the top of the 75 mile beach of Fraser. It only took about 10 minutes to climb to the top. Indian Head had some of the most beautiful views of the island (like the ones on the postcards). The areas on the edge were restricted areas, but again no one really seemed to follow that rule.
On our way back, we experienced probably the scariest moment of our entire trip. To get back to the beach, we had to drive down a pretty steep sand dune. We watched the cars in front of us go down, and decided that going to the left of the dune would be safest. Well we went for it, and our car nearly tipped over! Thankfully it didn’t, but it was still pretty scary. Why didn’t we sign up to go on the air-conditioned bus tour again?
So after that thrill, we decided to head to our campsite for the night and set up (before dark this time!). Although I wasn’t becoming a huge fan of the whole camping thing, I will admit that camping along the beach was pretty awesome. I mean this was our view from inside the tent…hard to complain?
After setting up camp, we decided to take a 2 km walk to Eli Creek. On the way there we spotted about 10 different jellyfish washed up, so we had to be especially careful where we walked. Eli Creek is the largest creek on the eastern beach of Fraser and pours up to 4 million liters of clear, fresh water into the ocean nearly every hour. Who needs showers anyway when we got to hang out in a fresh water creek?
We made our way back to camp, cooked ourselves dinner, hung out for the rest of the night by the beach until we passed out pretty early again.
Day 7: Fraser Island → Hervey Bay → Airlie Beach
Day 7 began around 5:00 AM when our friend Adam knocked on our tent telling us to get up to watch the sunrise with him. As much as I didn't want to get up, I really did want to see the sunrise. So Amber, Catie, and I grabbed our cameras and walked down to the beach to join Adam. This sunrise was absolutely stunning and I’m so glad I made myself get up to see it. That was probably one of my favorite parts of this trip.
After the sun had risen, Adam, Amber, and I were just hanging out by the beach talking. Then suddenly I see Adam look to the right of me and casually say, “Oh, hey.” I thought that someone else from our group had joined us, so I turned to look to see who it was. Well to my surprise, it was not a person, but rather a dingo! A dingo! A wild dingo was standing only a few close feet away from me.
AH! What was I suppose to do again? The funny thing about the whole situation was that I remember back when we were watching the safety video, everyone laughed and made fun of the part of the video where the corny people demonstrated what to do if you see a dingo as they crossed their arms and slowly backed away. Well you can laugh as much as you want, but when the time actually comes and there’s a dingo in front of you, you’re gonna cross your arms and slowly back away! I couldn’t remember if you were supposed to look at it or not. The dingo was defiantly staring at me though. All I could remember was the part of the Dingo Warning sign that read, “If attacked – Defend yourself aggressively.” I sure hoped I wouldn’t have to do that! I was absolutely terrified, but quite excited at the same time because I was seeing a dingo up close and personal. The dingo then actually laid down and started growling at me. As I was standing there shaking in my shoes, I was actually snapping some shots of him as well since I still had my camera from the sunrise. Typical me, right? Eventually the dingoe got uninterested in me and left. That was quite an interesting start to my day.
After eating brekkie, taking down camp, and packing up, we were off at about 8 AM. Our only destination for the day was the place that we were most excited to visit on Fraser Island, Lake McKenzie. Lake McKenzie is probably the most visited site on the island, and after seeing the pictures, you’d understand why!
The water in the lake is some of the clearest in the world. Lake McKenzie is a “perched” lake which means that it only contains rainwater, no groundwater, and isn’t fed by streams and doesn’t flow into the ocean either. Before arriving, I had seen pictures of Lake McKenzie, but when I finally set my own eyes on it, I couldn’t believe its beauty. The sand was almost pure white and the water was crystal clear. I couldn’t believe that a place like this actually existed… and I couldn't believe that I was actually there!
We spent about 3 hours enjoying our time at Lake McKenzie. Lying on the sand was almost like getting a massage. It was also interesting that there was absolutely no wind at all, so it got pretty hot and we needed to take constant dips in the water.
We knew that we had to catch the 4 PM ferry back to Hervey Bay, so we planned to leave Lake McKenzie at 1:30 which would give us more than plenty of time to drive back, pump up our tires, and get on the ferry. Well everything was going just fine, until we were about 45 minutes away. There seemed to be a hold up on the road. We got out of the car to see what was going on. Well there was a 7 car hold up, because one car was stuck and wasn’t able to make it up one of the sand dunes. And since the roads are only one lane and so narrow, you can’t exactly pass the other cars. This wasn’t good. We sat there for about a half an hour watching this car 7 cars ahead of us fail numerous times at driving up this sand dune. Then we started to get kinda worried. Our ferry left at 4 PM and that was the last ferry that left Fraser Island for the day. If we missed this ferry then we would be stuck on the island for another night, miss our bus to Airlie Beach, and be totally screwed for the rest of our trip…and it wouldn’t even be our fault! So FINALLY this car made it up the hill, but then we sat there and watched this huge bus fail numerous times at making it up as well. We were doomed. Finally some guy who worked at the resort on the island (and was also late for work) came and told everyone that they had to let more air out of the tires and get more acceleration if we wanted to make it up the dune. So everyone started letting air out of their tires and finally everyone started making it up. We rushed back to the resort to pump our tires and made it onto the ferry with only about 5 minutes to spare. PHEW! Talk about a close one.
After dropping off our camping equipment at the shop, we finally arrived back at our hostel around 5:30. However, since we actually weren't staying at the hostel that night, we weren't able to take any showers. At this point, no one had showered in 3+ days, so everyone was pretty pissed off and cranky about this. Especially because in a few hours we'd be cramming onto another overnight Greyhound and wouldn't be able to shower until the next day....gross. We had some spare time to reorganize our suitcases and eat dinner before heading back to the bus terminal.
Next we were off to Airlie Beach. This bus ride was by far the worst one yet. It was the longest (13 hours...only 1 hour short of a plane ride from LA to Sydney), and had some interesting happenings along the way. Only about an hour in, the bus driver pulled off the side of the road for 35 minutes because someone had clogged the toilet on the bus and he had to fix it (wouldn't you hate to be that person?). Then a few hours later, the bus driver stops the bus and runs outside with a tiny fire extinguisher. What was going on? Well the truck in front of us was completely on fire! Why the bus driver thought that his tiny fire extinguisher would help is beyond me. After about 5 minutes, the bus driver runs back on our bus, hits the gas, swerves around the truck on fire, then gets on the PA and says "good thing we got around that before the gas tank blew up!" Gosh, what a trip. And it's not even half over yet....
Stay tuned for Part 3, Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays Islands coming soon :)
Catch ya later!
P.S. For those of you who haven’t heard yet…I recently booked a 10 day trip to Fiji at the end of November before I return home. I mean, I gotta go out with a bang, hey?
Day 4: Byron Bay → Brisbane → Harvey Bay
Since there are no overnight buses that run to Hervey Bay (pronounced Har-vey), we were lucky enough to sleep in beds for another night in Byron. However, we were also lucky enough to be scheduled for the 7 AM bus to Brisbane. We had to connect in Brisbane because there were no direct buses to Hervey Bay. I realized that this was the second time that I had been in Brisbane and never left the airport/bus terminal. We arrived in Brisbane around 11 and didn’t arrive in Hervey Bay till around 5:30 p.m. After this extremely wasteful day of sitting on 2 buses all day, I actually wished that we had taken another overnight bus. Oh well. By the way, down on the bottom of the bus where you put your luggage, there was a box of day old baby chicks! I can't believe that they were just thrown amongst the luggage. I'm still trying to figure out why someone traveling on the Greyhound was carrying day old baby chicks?
Once we arrived in Hervey Bay, we were told that we’d be met by someone who would take us to our hostel. Well we were met by a tiny van that fit 8 people. So since there were 24 of us, I ended up having to wait in the car park for about 45 minutes while the van shuttled back and forth. During this time that I was stranded in the car park, I could easily conclude that the town of Hervey Bay was quite a shit hole. Basically, the only reason anyone ever goes to Hervey Bay is because it’s where the ferry leaves from to go to Fraser Island.
So once we finally got to our hostel, we had to cough up $109 buckaroos for National Park Entry Fees...how annoying! Like I didn’t spend enough money on this trip already? Anyway, this hostel was by far the worst hostel we stayed at during our trip. Check out this picture below of my mattress. Those black spots would be the remains of bed bug poop. And if your mattress has bed bug poop, one could assume that your mattress therefore has bed bugs. Awesome. At this point, all we could do was laugh about it. Goodnight, don’t let the bed bugs bite…literally!
Despite the poor sleeping conditions, the hostel did give us all a free barbie that night, and you know how we love anything free, especially food. I remember one of the German guys asking my English friend Becca, “Becca, why are you eating so much food tonight?” And she responded, “Well I don’t know when or what my next meal will be…this is free…I’m gonna eat!” The words of a true traveler. Since we were all pretty exhausted from a day of sitting on a bus (it’s tiring!), most of us just mocked around this night, went on the internet, packed our bags (we could only bring a small backpack each), and enjoyed our last showers we’d get for the next few days.
Day 5: Hervey Bay → Fraser Island
And so day 5 began of the infamous Fraser (pronounced Fray-zer) Island adventure. We wasted no time either. By 6:00 AM we had to be up, ready, have our suitcases locked away in lockers, and in the TV room ready for our safety briefing. Before I go on, let me give you a little background about where we were going. Fraser Island is an island off the east coast of Australia and the world’s largest sand island (it’s about 75 miles in length and 13 miles in width!). Recently, in 1992 Fraser Island was added to the World Heritage listing. If you don’t know much about this, it’s a pretty big deal. There are only 890 places in the entire world on this list and they have to go through an extensive selection process before they are added. Once a place is added, it remains under strict regulations so that they can “preserve its natural beauty.” So this makes Fraser ranking right up there with the Great Barrier Reef and Ayer’s Rock (also partly why the entry fees are so steep). Fraser is also unique because it’s known for its wild dingoes. In particular, it has some of Australia’s last pure breeds of dingoes in eastern Australia, so dogs are actually not permitted on the island at all.
So anyway, getting back on track…we had to meet to watch a Fraser Island safety video before we left warning of us of certain things. For example, camp fires & feeding the dingoes are illegal on the island. Also, there are very strong ocean currents and numerous jelly fish and sharks in the area, so swimming in the ocean is also not permitted. Now one small detail that we somehow managed to overlook about our trip was that fact that we were signed up for a 3 day SELF DRIVE CAMPING SAFARI. Self drive?! Camping!? Again…what was I getting myself into? We divided up into 3 different groups for 3 different troop carrier cars (or as we liked to call them "Jurassic Park vehicles"). You had to be 21 to drive the car, so I wasn’t even able to drive it (although even if I was 21, I think my parents probably would have killed me if I would have driven a manual gear 4WD troop carrier on the left side of the road across the world’s largest sand island!). Our group consisted of me, Jess, Catie, Amber, 2 of the guys in our group from Germany, 1 guy from Finland, 2 other random German girls who weren’t in our group, and this crazy boy from Switzerland named Robin (who we later only called Robinhood). Between the 10 of us we had to scrounge up $1,000 for a car deposit before we left. Somehow I was put in charge of collecting the money. I don’t think I’ve ever held so much cash in my entire life.
After we got everything straightened away, we hopped in our troop carriers and headed over to “the shop” to pick up our camping equipment and fill out a condition report of the car. They also showed us how to set up the tent, how to work the car, what type of gears to use for each type of driving (i.e. pavement vs. hard sand vs. soft sand, etc), and how to change the tire pressure. Most of this stuff went right over my head, especially the stuff about driving the car. We were starting to run short on time and the guy was talking heaps fast so I didn’t even know if the guys in our group who WOULD be driving (and didn’t speak English very well) even understood a word this guy was saying. I don’t know how we got so behind on time (I mean we started at 6 AM!), but by the time that we packed up the car, we were only left with approximately 20 minutes to complete 3 days worth of grocery shopping for 10 people before we had to leave to catch our ferry to Fraser.
As I’m sure you could only imagine, this was absolute mayhem. I can’t remember the last time I was as stressed out as I was in Woolworths this day. Remember that old game show where the contestants would run around the grocery store throwing everything they saw in their cart before time ran out? Well combine that show with the Amazing Race and that’s exactly how those short 20 minutes felt. The 10 of us had to divide up buying “the essentials” like toilet paper, bug spray, foil, paper towels, etc. and then we just split off into groups for buying food. Jess, Catie, Amber, and I just bought all of our food together and then split the cost when we checked out. I’m not a very picky eater; however, my friends are, which made this 20-minute grocery shopping trip even more stressful. We couldn’t agree on crunchy or creamy, white or wheat, strawberry or blueberry, apples or oranges, turkey or ham. Most of the debates ended in someone saying something like, “Screw it, we’ll get both!” We felt like we were on the Amazing Race when we started to see that they other groups were already finished and checking out and we weren’t ready yet. So we just hoped that we had enough food at that point, checked out, and ran back to the car park. It was at this point that our group realized that the car rides were going to be quite a tight fit when we now had 20+ bags of groceries and 30 liters of water to add.
So let’s recap. Take another look at that car up there. That car was currently holding 10 people who spoke 4 different languages, with 10 backpacks, 2 coolers of food, 3 days worth of groceries, 3 tents, 3 tarps, 10 sleeping bags, 10 mats, 30 liters of water, a grill, a shovel, and dishes. This was going to be an interesting trip, to say the very least.
We made it to the ferry on time, thankfully. The ferry was filled with people from our group as well as other families who were taking their own 4WD cars over to the island. The ride took about 45 minutes until we finally arrived on the west coast of Fraser. Once we drove the car off the boat we had to stop at this resort to get our camping permits and let air out of the tires. We were pretty jealous of the people staying at the resort who were lounging by the pool eating lunch while we knew that we’d be camping the next few days…
Now we were ready to begin our journey. The east coast of Fraser Island has all the nice spots, so the plan was to drive across the island today and set up camp on the east coast. As one could imagine, driving on sand is not easy, especially soft sand. Across the inland, Fraser basically just has these narrow sand “roads” that you can’t really drive any faster than 20mph on. And trust me, that was fast enough. We were getting jolted and thrown every which way. It was kinda like driving on speed bump after speed bump for a few hours. The funny thing about the roads is that they were only wide enough for one lane of driving, but you were allowed to drive on the roads both ways. So if while you’re driving along, you see another car come from the opposition direction, one person had to stop and back up until the other person could pass. This didn’t really happen that often, but it still got pretty annoying after a while. None of the roads had names or signs either. The map below is almost the exact map we were given of the island. As you can see, the “roads” are basically just a bunch of squiggly lines on the map. We really had no way to know if we were even driving in the right direction and it didn’t take long for people to get pretty testy and irritated with each other as we argued about which way to drive. Being in this car was sorta like being on a stressful family vacation, except with some strangers and some friends. Weird combination.
After a few hours of bumpy driving, we managed to make it to our first destination, Central Station, which was exactly half way in the middle of the island. Here at Central Station, we started to notice the warning signs everywhere for dingoes. Being an avid Seinfeld fan, and cracking the joke so many times, I wanted to see a wild dingo so bad! If I only knew what the next few days had in store for me…. Anyway, here we went on a pretty cool rainforest walk.
We hadn’t seen our other two groups since we arrived, so we figured we were ahead of them since our car was the first to leave. So we decided to go on a bit longer walk to see Basin Lake. It turned out that the walk was a bit longer than we imagined, and Basin Lake wasn’t really anything special. So we made it back to our car around mid afternoon and our next plan was to finish driving to the beach and set up camp for the night.
Well I’m not quite sure what happened… maybe it was the slow driving, or maybe it was the wrong turns, but the sun was setting and we still had not arrived at our camp site. By the time we found our site and met up with the other 2 groups, it was pitch black outside. So we had to set up our tents and cook ourselves dinner with the only light source being the headlights of our car. I had never really camped before, so I was in for quite a treat. The 4 of us shared a pretty small tent, so thankfully we all liked each other haha. We didn’t have any mobile service on the island, so I’m not really sure what time we fell asleep that night. After an early morning and a stressful day, I’d estimate we passed out before 10 pm.
Day 6: Fraser Island
Today was our full day to explore Fraser. Because we’d be driving along the beach, we were restricted to the times that we were allowed to drive based on when the high tide was that day. So we all woke up around 7 am so that we could take down camp, pack up the car, eat brekkie, and be on the road by 8 am. After we woke up, our English friends Becca and Ellie told us that when they went to bed the night before there were 2 dingoes right outside our tent. Dingoes RIGHT outside my tent and I was sleeping and didn't even know!
Today’s ride was MUCH smoother than yesterday and MUCH faster. The speed limit on the beach was 80 km per hour. We were literally just driving parallel to the ocean, which was absolutely amazing. This was my view from the car…rough right?
Our first stop for the day was at the shipwreck of the S.S. Maheno. There was no way you could miss this! The ship was originally built in the early 1900s in Scotland as a luxury passenger ship. Then during WWI the ship served as a hospital ship in the English Channel. Then in 1935 the ship was being towed from Melbourne when it was caught in a cyclone and ended up beached on Fraser Island. The shipwreck looks pretty huge (and it is), but actually 3 stories of it are buried under the sand. Because of its deteriorating condition, you’re actually not allowed to come within 3 meters of the shipwreck, but not very many people seemed to actually follow that rule.
Our next destination was the Champagne Pools. However, on our way there we stopped to help out a family whose car was stuck in the sand. Well, the boys really did most of the helping/pushing while we had a chat with the mom and daughter of the family. They were from Melborune and just on holiday. It seems like Fraser Island is a popular vacation spot for Australians as well as backpackers.
Finally we made it to the Champagne Pools, where we spent about 2 hours hanging out. The pools are a popular swimming hole on Fraser where the ocean waves crash over the rocks into shallow sandy pools. They got their name from the foaming water in the pools. Some of the water formed puddles in the sand which was really warm and perfect for relaxing.
While I was laying around, I started to see a huge crowd of people rush toward one of the pools. It looked like something big was going on, so of course I also rushed over (unfortunately without my camera!). Turns out that an octopus washed up in one of the pools. An OCTOPUS…how cool! However, one jerk decided that he should actually pick up the octopus, so it obviously got angry and inked all over the place. I saw an octopus ink!
Our next stop was Indian Head which is a coastal headland towards the top of the 75 mile beach of Fraser. It only took about 10 minutes to climb to the top. Indian Head had some of the most beautiful views of the island (like the ones on the postcards). The areas on the edge were restricted areas, but again no one really seemed to follow that rule.
On our way back, we experienced probably the scariest moment of our entire trip. To get back to the beach, we had to drive down a pretty steep sand dune. We watched the cars in front of us go down, and decided that going to the left of the dune would be safest. Well we went for it, and our car nearly tipped over! Thankfully it didn’t, but it was still pretty scary. Why didn’t we sign up to go on the air-conditioned bus tour again?
So after that thrill, we decided to head to our campsite for the night and set up (before dark this time!). Although I wasn’t becoming a huge fan of the whole camping thing, I will admit that camping along the beach was pretty awesome. I mean this was our view from inside the tent…hard to complain?
After setting up camp, we decided to take a 2 km walk to Eli Creek. On the way there we spotted about 10 different jellyfish washed up, so we had to be especially careful where we walked. Eli Creek is the largest creek on the eastern beach of Fraser and pours up to 4 million liters of clear, fresh water into the ocean nearly every hour. Who needs showers anyway when we got to hang out in a fresh water creek?
We made our way back to camp, cooked ourselves dinner, hung out for the rest of the night by the beach until we passed out pretty early again.
Day 7: Fraser Island → Hervey Bay → Airlie Beach
Day 7 began around 5:00 AM when our friend Adam knocked on our tent telling us to get up to watch the sunrise with him. As much as I didn't want to get up, I really did want to see the sunrise. So Amber, Catie, and I grabbed our cameras and walked down to the beach to join Adam. This sunrise was absolutely stunning and I’m so glad I made myself get up to see it. That was probably one of my favorite parts of this trip.
After the sun had risen, Adam, Amber, and I were just hanging out by the beach talking. Then suddenly I see Adam look to the right of me and casually say, “Oh, hey.” I thought that someone else from our group had joined us, so I turned to look to see who it was. Well to my surprise, it was not a person, but rather a dingo! A dingo! A wild dingo was standing only a few close feet away from me.
AH! What was I suppose to do again? The funny thing about the whole situation was that I remember back when we were watching the safety video, everyone laughed and made fun of the part of the video where the corny people demonstrated what to do if you see a dingo as they crossed their arms and slowly backed away. Well you can laugh as much as you want, but when the time actually comes and there’s a dingo in front of you, you’re gonna cross your arms and slowly back away! I couldn’t remember if you were supposed to look at it or not. The dingo was defiantly staring at me though. All I could remember was the part of the Dingo Warning sign that read, “If attacked – Defend yourself aggressively.” I sure hoped I wouldn’t have to do that! I was absolutely terrified, but quite excited at the same time because I was seeing a dingo up close and personal. The dingo then actually laid down and started growling at me. As I was standing there shaking in my shoes, I was actually snapping some shots of him as well since I still had my camera from the sunrise. Typical me, right? Eventually the dingoe got uninterested in me and left. That was quite an interesting start to my day.
After eating brekkie, taking down camp, and packing up, we were off at about 8 AM. Our only destination for the day was the place that we were most excited to visit on Fraser Island, Lake McKenzie. Lake McKenzie is probably the most visited site on the island, and after seeing the pictures, you’d understand why!
The water in the lake is some of the clearest in the world. Lake McKenzie is a “perched” lake which means that it only contains rainwater, no groundwater, and isn’t fed by streams and doesn’t flow into the ocean either. Before arriving, I had seen pictures of Lake McKenzie, but when I finally set my own eyes on it, I couldn’t believe its beauty. The sand was almost pure white and the water was crystal clear. I couldn’t believe that a place like this actually existed… and I couldn't believe that I was actually there!
We spent about 3 hours enjoying our time at Lake McKenzie. Lying on the sand was almost like getting a massage. It was also interesting that there was absolutely no wind at all, so it got pretty hot and we needed to take constant dips in the water.
We knew that we had to catch the 4 PM ferry back to Hervey Bay, so we planned to leave Lake McKenzie at 1:30 which would give us more than plenty of time to drive back, pump up our tires, and get on the ferry. Well everything was going just fine, until we were about 45 minutes away. There seemed to be a hold up on the road. We got out of the car to see what was going on. Well there was a 7 car hold up, because one car was stuck and wasn’t able to make it up one of the sand dunes. And since the roads are only one lane and so narrow, you can’t exactly pass the other cars. This wasn’t good. We sat there for about a half an hour watching this car 7 cars ahead of us fail numerous times at driving up this sand dune. Then we started to get kinda worried. Our ferry left at 4 PM and that was the last ferry that left Fraser Island for the day. If we missed this ferry then we would be stuck on the island for another night, miss our bus to Airlie Beach, and be totally screwed for the rest of our trip…and it wouldn’t even be our fault! So FINALLY this car made it up the hill, but then we sat there and watched this huge bus fail numerous times at making it up as well. We were doomed. Finally some guy who worked at the resort on the island (and was also late for work) came and told everyone that they had to let more air out of the tires and get more acceleration if we wanted to make it up the dune. So everyone started letting air out of their tires and finally everyone started making it up. We rushed back to the resort to pump our tires and made it onto the ferry with only about 5 minutes to spare. PHEW! Talk about a close one.
After dropping off our camping equipment at the shop, we finally arrived back at our hostel around 5:30. However, since we actually weren't staying at the hostel that night, we weren't able to take any showers. At this point, no one had showered in 3+ days, so everyone was pretty pissed off and cranky about this. Especially because in a few hours we'd be cramming onto another overnight Greyhound and wouldn't be able to shower until the next day....gross. We had some spare time to reorganize our suitcases and eat dinner before heading back to the bus terminal.
Next we were off to Airlie Beach. This bus ride was by far the worst one yet. It was the longest (13 hours...only 1 hour short of a plane ride from LA to Sydney), and had some interesting happenings along the way. Only about an hour in, the bus driver pulled off the side of the road for 35 minutes because someone had clogged the toilet on the bus and he had to fix it (wouldn't you hate to be that person?). Then a few hours later, the bus driver stops the bus and runs outside with a tiny fire extinguisher. What was going on? Well the truck in front of us was completely on fire! Why the bus driver thought that his tiny fire extinguisher would help is beyond me. After about 5 minutes, the bus driver runs back on our bus, hits the gas, swerves around the truck on fire, then gets on the PA and says "good thing we got around that before the gas tank blew up!" Gosh, what a trip. And it's not even half over yet....
Stay tuned for Part 3, Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays Islands coming soon :)
Catch ya later!
P.S. For those of you who haven’t heard yet…I recently booked a 10 day trip to Fiji at the end of November before I return home. I mean, I gotta go out with a bang, hey?
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