*** HAPPY BIRTHDAY CLAIREBEAR ***

We would both like to say a BIG HAPPY BIRTHDAY MATEY from down under to Lex's best mate Claire who's 24 today (thats pretty old!). Hope you have a rippa of a day hunny. Missing you loads. Have a few tinnies for us! xxxxx

Lost and found

After our adventures on the high seas we started our least leg north on the east coast. We drove up to port douglas as Clairebear had been raving about this big fish that we had to see. So we turn up at this bar and have to wait 30mins for some guy to throw some big fish remains into the sea to be eaten by a bigger fish (called george the groper). If you can imagine the scene it was basically about one hundred people gathered around the edge of a jetty, with lex and I firmly at the back, unable to see anything. We'd got there nice and early, and even thought we had a good spot picked out, but good old george thought he'd get right into the only corner that we couldn't see. The place even has big screens set up for such an eventuallity, but even these weren't pointing in the right direction!



Verdict: Sorry claire, but it george wasn't playing ball.

After Port Douggie which was lovely, we drove up to cape tribulation and the daintree rainforest to spend a couple of days in the 'proper tropics'

The area is lovely with proper rainforest to walk around in (although you do have to be wary of cassowarys and crocs). It really feels like being in the jungle, with giant ferns and palm trees above you and swing bridges across canyons and beautiful gorges plus some proper tropical spiders including a big golden orb spider that looked as big as your head! We walked along the beach at cape tribulation, where the rainforest meets the sea, and even had ago at cracking open a coconut (unfortunately it was rotten, and smelt really bad!).








We left the cape and port doug today and swung by the mountains to meet Chris and Linda and lovely Aussie couple who Claire came over to visit. They showed us around there lovely new home which they have nearly finished building and also gave us a load of free fruit from their garden.

Keeping with tradition we lost some more stuff. Adam lost one of his flip flops, and lex lost her anorak. But fortunately we found the flip flop two days later in the jungle, and after a 100km detour lex was reunited with her jacket. Now all we need to do is find a digital camera, a sleeping bag and some sunnies and we're even!

Next we're heading into the Atherton tablelands to look at some waterfalls before heading back to townsville to head inland. We are both really chuffed that we've driven as far north as we can in our little van. We'd both like to go all the way to the top, but you need to have some serious 4WD kit, regardless of how many ray mears episodes you've watched! In total we reckon we've put more than 8000km on the clock since sydney, which is more than we did in the whole of New Zealand!

Diving Deep

So we arrived in townsville, and although we only spent the one night we both really liked the town. It's got lots of wide open spaces and the beachfront is really well set up for people to use and enjoy. The only other thing of note that happened was our first warning for free camping. We awoke in the morning to find that we had a sheet of council camping regulations stuck under our windscreen wipers (at least they didn't wake us at 5am, which seems to be the standard response).

After townsville, we spent two days travelling up to carins where we were due to have our trip snorkelling on the reef. This trip was nearly a non event as the company we had bought it from told us that we had to pay $150 extra for the trip. After a few hour long phone calls arguing we decided to meet them half way. So we were all set for our trip the next day.

We woke to a bit of a cloudy day, but hoped things might get brighter out on the water. Oh how we were wrong! We had a two hour ride out to the reef which was a bumpy ride to say the least. Adam was spewing all over the shop but lex managed to just about keep hers down. Generally I dont think my sea legs are too bad, but when even members of the crew are being sea sick your not filled with confidence. We had a briefing on the way out as we both decided to do an intro scuba dive to see what all the fuss was about. Although the reef was beautiful, we both thought the day was a bit of a rip off. We spent 2 hours getting out there, and then some time transferring people over to a dive ship. We got 45mins in the water and then had to get out for lunch which was a bit of a greasy mess. After lunch we had another 45mins at a different site before being told that we had to leave, only to face about a three hour journey back to land.

Adam was first up for the intro dive with our dive master Warren, who strangely looked like Keith Harris (the guy with Orville-check it out!) We were briefly shown our equipment and went through some key tasks we would have to perform in the water before diving deeper. Adam seemed to take it all in his stride and as he was the only one able to complete the tasks he was able to dive one-on-one with the dive master. As he was swimming deep around the stunning rainbow-coloured coral, Alexia was snorkelling around above. We saw amazing parrot fish, swam through tunnels of coral and Ad even touched the inside of a giant clam. After lunch, it was Lex's go at diving, which she was really nervous about, especially with her fear of deep water! After being loaded up with the heavy dive gear (which really makes you feel like a lead balloon) it took her a while to get the confidence to jump in. She gave it a good go and managed to dive a couple of metres breathing through the regulator but then the fear factor kicked in and she pulled back up.











The ride back was no smoother than before and this time even lex couldn't hold her stomach down! The boat was getting bashed back and forth all over the shop and in the words of one other passenger "I'm no mariner, but something here isn't right". As water started getting washed onto the deck, I dont think i was the only person thinking the boat might not make it back. But after another hellish time, we were both very glad to get our feet back on dry land.

**** Happy Daddy's Day ! ****

Hope you have a ripper of a day, thinking of you down under!

A&A xxx

The Wetsundays

So we arrived in Arlie beach, gateway to the whitsunday islands and suitably billed as 'a drinking town with a sailing problem'. The town is basically just one road that runs along the habour and is filled with backpacker pubs and clubs. We had a free night in a hostel before our three day sailing adventure. It was nice to be back in a room with a shower again.



We had to meet at the marina at 12.30 the next day to get a briefing and load up before leaving the dock. The boat we were on is called 'the broomstick' (they decided to change the name from marchioness as they thought it might put off some english customers!!!). The boat was a 75ft retired maxi racing yacht so we were looking forward to some good sailing action. We had 24 people on board plus a four man crew, one of whom looked suspiciously like one of the cranky's.





We didn't have to wait long to get our feet wet (literally), after motoring out of the habour we cranked up the main sail and got going. The crew were keen to get us stuck in, so a few of us got stuck in to grinding and hoisting the main masts, which is easily that it looks! Over our three days out at sea the water was pretty choppy and being sat on the high side with our feet dangliging over the sides, we got pretty soaked by all the giant waves crashing over us. It was a bit like a roller coaster ride being thrown around and some moments were alittle hairy flying through at a fast speed of 15 knotts (trust me, that's fast) and it felt as if the yacht was going to tip over any second, but it was all good fun.

We spent most of the day sailing betwen islands and had a brief stop at Whitehaven beach, apparently the 2nd most beautiful beach in the world and we could see why, as it was secluded national park land with perfect clear blue water. We all played cricket on the beacjh in the rain and as we had a walk alon the beach we even saw a leopard shark which was pretty awesome.



The only real downside of the trip came when we went to go snorkelling. We had been offered stinger suits (to protect from jellyfish stings) before getting on the boat, but told that it was up to us whether or not we wanted them as the high season was over and there was not much of a risk. However the crew on the boat said that we should not get in the water without them, and should have been told this before getting onboard. The skipper talked us through the risks, and said that if you get stung you notice a small goose bump like rash on your arm, before getting crippling cramps in your back and needing to be helicoptered out to intensive care for a week. He said that the risk would not stop him going in the water, as only about 20 people a year get stung. With this in mind we decided to have a go and were soon in the water, but it was bloody cold, so we swam around for about ten minutes and then went back on the boat. No problems.

But then lex goes down stairs to dry herself off and comes back on deck with these three patches of red goosebumps on her arm (the first sign of a sting). Everyone eld their breath for a little while, but luckily no other symptoms developed and iot was put down to a bit of coral burn! Panic over, no need to call the helicopter!

In the evenings we dropped anchor and quickly got out our goon (cheap boxed wine) ready for a night of dodgy jokes and drinking games. Our team (team broomstick) was pretty good on the whole with only a handful of irritating americans/canadians. There were two californian barbie dolls dressed head to toe in Dior, gucci etc, everything you don't want to be wearing on a boat (true dumb blondes!) and if this wasn't bad enough they didn't even know there was a war on, let alone heard of Iraq! This was also nicely topped off by yet another annoying canadian who thought he was a rockstar and unfortunately brought his guitar on board... it sadly is as bad as it sounds! Let's just say after a brilliant 3 days of sailing we were both very happy to see land again.



Oh, and adam broke his new digi camera!

The dingo's got me baby!

Our next stop was hervey bay for a trip to fraser island, the world's largest sandshelf island complete with dingos. We arrived at our hostel for a mid afternoon and were put into our 3 groups, we had a group of ten, with a couple cally Olly and Katie, an Irish guy called james (or Jimbo) and alison, a crazy scottish girl plus an english guy called andy and three dutch girls who's names I never managed to get the hang of!



We had all our briefings before getting up the next morning at silly o'clock to catch the ferry over to the island. The whole thing is a self drive and camp affair for three days and two nights. We spent the first day driving across the island and heading to lake wabby, which was a good hard walk through more sand dunes to it's cold water. We chilled out, had a swim, and sandboarded down the dunes straight into the water. I spent a little too long kneeling down on the sand in the water and ended up with green algee all over my legs, which didn't want to come off however hard I scrubbed it!

Afterwards we walked back to our campsite with the guys from group A (we were group B) only to find that group C had turned up and were all absolutly plastered. Olly did a sterling job of making us spag bol, seeing as he stared off with a couple of kilos of frozen mince (read fat) and a large pot of water that wouldn't boil. After dinner the evening decended downhill as the messy drinking games came out and everyone got plastered, after drinking more than her fair share of a box of wime (or goon as it's lovingly known) lex could bearly stand. (It didn't help that we were camping on the beach, and you had to dig your own toilet!

The next morning we drove up the beach to check out the wreck of an old ship that has washed onto the beach and go for a swim in a nearby creek. We then pitched camp again and went for another 'lets go off road' drive to a lake in the center of the island.






The evening was looking set to be a fairly quiet one as we had put up our tents down on the beach away from the other groups. We had been told that we were only allowed to drive on the beach until 12.45 pm that day as a high tide would damage our cars and we would lose our $600 bond. We were all then very suprised, but equally delighted when at about 4.30 pm half of group A rocked up in there van. They'd got bored and come to look for us. They then had another hour and a half round trip if they wanted to go back, get the rest of their group and come back down to us, so when 6pm came and there was no sign of them we figured they weren't coming back. However a spot of light that we saw in the dark distance slowly got closer and to everyones amazment they all turned up. We helped them pitch their tents in the dark, before another night much the same as the first, with the exception of some skinny dipping thrown in for good fun (it's definatly the style here in oz to 'hang out with your wang out')



The next morning with sore heads we drove inland again to lake McKenzie, a beautiful freshwater lake for some more swimming and relaxing before heading back to the ferry and home to the hostel. We than unloaded all our stuff and it check and double checked by a campmaster on a powertrip before we all had our deposits safely returned.



That night in way of a celebration a few of us from group A and B went out for something to eat and a few quiet drinks, it was ian from group A's last night in OZ, so we thought we'd give him a bit of a send off. As always, our idea of quiet soon turned into noisy. After dinner we went to the local pub where we met Latisha who kept screaming at us 'ITS MY BIRTHDAY' 'IM 18' and also came out with one of the best lines we've ever heard when olly commented that we was sweating buckets she came back with 'IS THAT 'CAUSE I'M SO HOT' pure genius we thought. It turned out she'd been in the pub for about 8 hours going at it, so we were impressed that she was still standing. Anyway long story short, we ended up in some hell hole of a nightclub where shot followed shot before finally calling it a night.





The next morning we planned on leaving town, and as a few guys were heading to a place called The Town of 1770 we headed up in a bit of a convoy with Olly and Katie to meet a Ali Olivia simon and andy who were going up on the bus.

It was along drive of about 400km to the town and then we had to wait around for a few hours for the bus to arrive. We soon found out that we had no mobile reception most of the time, and when we did Ali's phone went straight to voicemail, so we decided to have a drive and look for them, we pulled up by one hostel and lex went in to see if they had arrived, only to be approced in the street by Olivia asking for directions as their minibus had not turned up.

We ended up giving them a lift to their hostel, which was actually a hotel which rented out its rooms to backpackers when they were empty, so the guys let us chill out, watch TV and have a shower in their place. As payment the next day we took advantage of there kitchen and cooked everyone a roast beef dinner (a nice change from 2 minute noodles) . The roast spuds were a bit soft, but apart from that it was all good.

Anyway, this has been a monster post, and my fingers are tired from typing.

We're now in the Whitsundays and are heading out on a Maxi racing boat tomorrow for a two night sailing trip, we'll update you on more when we return.

xx

the bog blog

So, its been a long time and there's a lot to cover over. After leaving noosa we headed up to a place called rainbow beach, it was quite a long drive, especially as lex choose to check out how we'd go along a 5k dirt road. The drive out was our first real taste of what is to come, when we spent about an hour and a half driving along one road that just kept going and going, but eventually we got there.

We decided to camp at a spot called Inskip Point which is a national park and so you only have to pay $4 each, a bargin we thought. The woman assured us that we'd be fine in a 2 wheel drive so we headed up to the point. By this time it was starting to get dark and we just wanted to find somewhere after a long day of driving. The first site we came to said that it was for 4wd only so we drove around for a bit and found one that was good for both 2 and 4WD. We drove down this dark and sandy track, thinking we'd get bogged down at any minute, and finally just as we got to the crest of a little hill, we did. We tried going forward a bit, and then back, but to no avail. Fortunatly all the hours I've spent watching Ray Mears paid off, and with a bit of scraping of sand from under the wheels we managed to back it out.

We thought better of trying to get up the hill again and slowly backed down the track, how ever due to the darkness I failed to see that the track and turned and instead back into a lovely patch of soft sand. This time no amount of scraping of sand was going to get us out, we were well and truely bogged. Luckily for us though there was a group of aussies from a caravan club all huddled around their camp fire, and with Alexia's pushing, a shovel, some shower mats and a good 20 minutes of the eight of them pushing we finally managed to get it out.

They were all very frienly and sympatheic to my poor off-road skills and invited us to sit by their fire and even let us induldge in some of there apple crumble, which was lovely, but not a patch on my grans!

The next morning we basically got out of there as quickly as possible all the while praying that we wouldn't get bogged down again, as our new mates were watching with interest hoping we'd get back on to the tarmacin one piece. we did, and didn't look back.



Rainbow beach is so named because it's beach is backed by cliffs with loads of different coloured sands for about a 2km stretch. We started walking down the beach for about half and hour before deciding it was getting a bit hot and headed back, but the cliffs are pretty cool.

We also walked up to the sandblow which is a massive sand dune which over looks the town, There's not too much to say about it, apart from that it was big and sandy. It felt a bit like being on the set of star wars, any minute we were expecting to see R2D2 and C3PO come shuffling over the sand!



After our walk in the sand we left Rainbow beach to drive to tin can bay, which is the next town along. We would normally have skipped it but there was a rumour that a dolphin swan up to a spot near the jetty every morning and you could feed him. We thought this was worth a look.

The drive over was farily uneventful as was the town of tin can bay. We got there early and wondered if it was worth waiting until 7.30am the following day on the off chace that Mr dolphin would turn up. We'd spyed a nice little spot to camp behind the shops and thought we had nothing to lose by hanging around.

The next morning after waiting around by the harbour for a good hour our aquatic friend finally showed up, we were given some fish and told to walk out into the river up to our knees, hold the fish under the water, and the dolphin would do the rest. Although it took him a while to get used to lex's cooking (he spat the first fish out) he soon got the taste.



The locals told us that the dolphins mother had come up the river about thirty years ago after an acciedent and found a quiet spot to die, but the locals had nursed her back to health with fish every morning until she was well enough to swim off, but she kept coming back every morning for the fish. Eventually she had two baby dolphins, and they now both regularly turn up for a feed in the morning.

It's pretty cool.