Brisbane Round Two

Well, not too much has happened over the last few days. Instead of staying in hostels for the last week, we have been crashing on couches along the coast. We got hooked up with some names and numbers from an old camp guy who lives in Australia (thanks Rippa). It has been great being able to hang out with some real Australians for the first time.

We spent some time in Mooloolaba, and now we are in Brisbane staying with five girls who have been incredibly accomodating. There isn't too much to do in Brisbane, as Rob informed me since he was here two months ago, but we have been taking it easy watching a few movies and walking around seeing the sights. Our busy day today in Brisbane included, mailing postcards, buying some clothes, and eating ice cream.

The house we are staying at is a really nice "Queenslander" but it doesn't have many functional door knobs. The one in this picture doesn't turn or serve much of a purpose except reminding us of Lord of the Rings.

In Mooloolaba we borrow some surfboards off the guys we were staying with but they were way too small for our skill level. But, hey, we looked cool.

Brisbane on our walk home.

In an effort to save money we got our hair cut at a Hairdressing Academy. Bad Idea. We thought, "How bad could a $15 hair cut be." Just imagine, and thats probably pretty close.

Exodus of the Crabs

The Crab Video you've all been dying to see...

on Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays

Sand, Sand, and More Sand

On Wednesday we woke up at the crack of dawn to prepare for our trip to Fraser Island. There is more sand on Fraser than the Saraha Desert. Rob and I were placed in a group with two Swedes, three Swiss, a German, a Norweigen, and an Italian so we had a great mix of people from all over.

The "A" Team

Wait wait wait, can you take one with my camera too?

The tour was a self guided tour meaning they give you food, tents, a map, and a really old Toyota 4x4 and send you on your way. Just before we left we found out about the costs that would befall us if we damaged the vehicle in any way. Lets just say that if anything happened to the truck we would all be coming home early because the repairs would have cleaned out our bank account. We heard a horror story about a group who took a corner too fast, rolled their truck, and had to pay $16,000 to have it repaired (4 days before we went out). So, we treated it like a million bucks and everything was fine.

Our sweet, but very expensive ride.

Driving on the beach.

Driving the truck was not an easy task. First, the steering wheel and shifter are on the right, there are no roads, just sand, and then throw in nine backseat drivers, and the fear of bankruptcy. Two of the girls sat in the front seat the entire time with their fingernails dug into the dash because they were terrified we were going to crash. I hit an ocean wave which put a damper on things for a while because everyone thought we were going to have to pay through the roof for salt water damage. One evening on the way to the camp site Rob almost rolled the truck becuase of the insane sideways slope on the trail in. That caused a few girls in the back to have heart attacks.

By the end of our three days we had had a great time but we were ready to leave. Not that it wasn't beautiful or the company nice. I just don't want to see sand again for a week. Everything I brought with me was covered in sand. Sand in my tent, sleeping bag, clothes, camera, my mouth. ahhhh. I think we are going to be spending some serious time indoors and away from our 5am wake up times in the furnace of a tent that we woke up to every morning.

During the day we drove around to a few beautiful fresh water lakes, a few look outs, and took pictures of dingoes when they weren't pilliging our camp site for food scraps. The Norweigen guy provided some comedy when both nights he stripped naked and went streaking through neigbouring camp sites.

Sunrise at our campsite.

Sand dunes in the almost desert we had to cross to get to Lake Wabi.

A shipwreck on the beach.

Thats right. We had to lug this pink suitcase around with us for three days. I think the bright colour might have scared off the dingos for a while though.

Fraser Island is the only place with pure wild dingoes. Here is one in all its glory.

A shot of Lake Mackenzie. It had the clearest water and the whitest sand I have ever seen.

The long walk to Lake Wabby. We forgot to bring water which really didn't help in the furnace like temperatures.

Lake Wabby. A small fresh water lake surrounded buy sand dunes and rain forest.

Ocean's House of Pain

Alright, now for a little catch up.

Last week we stopped at a cattle station in the middle of no where and seriously mean NO WHERE. Anyways, we got to practice cracking whips, riding a mechanical bull which proved to be quite painful, shooting clay pigeons and mustering goats. Ben didn't want to do the mustering but I did and lucky me, I got the slowest horse of the lot. He had two speeds, slow and slower.

Here we are almost finished.

Here is the dog. I liked him, Ben didn't.

1770
The next day we headed south to a town called 1770 (yes, a number). Captain cook made his second landing in Australia here that year to repair his ship. They love that guy here. It's a tiny little town of one small street and a surf shop. We took the opportunity to take a surfing lesson. The first day went pretty well as we had small, easy waves and big boards.

This is me paddling into one.

Here is Ben kind of bailing but we don't have many pictures of actually surfing so this will have to do.

A couple days later we both went out for 4 hours when the waves were way bigger. We started around 10:30 and they were slowly building. At the beginning it was no problem but by the end we were just getting annihilated. It was common to see one of us go for a wave then the next moment see the board go flying up in the air and the person disappear in a frothing mass of water. Despite the burnt calves, rashes, chaffing and swallowing gallons of saltwater, it was worth it. We'll defintiely be hitting the beaches as we head south.

This is the beach we were on.

Here's Ben on the lookout. How romantic.

This is the spider of the web I ran into on my way back from the lookout. It was close, he almost landed on me. Lesson: let Ben walk first.

The lookout.

The TronSki

In the last week or so Rob and I have started to refer to everything with either a tron or ski on the end of the word. For example "Rob that bed you are sleeping in is a real squeektron" or "Ben can you pass me that can of popski." It started when every hostel we stayed in had a bed that sqeeked so loud that it would wake everyone up whenever someone rolled over. And so came the squeektron or squeekski. We use it so frequently that I am surprised that we aren't getting more looks of confusion from everyone we talk to. Especially from the German contingent becuase its hard to carry a conversation with them and it seems like all of Germany is in Australia.

You guys might not think its too funny but we think its hilarious.

Wowed in the Whitsundays

Day 1
On Friday morning we boarded the "Siska", an 80ft maxi sailing boat which in it's heyday smoked a bunch of records and even had Prince Charles on the crew. Joining us were 19 other guests and 3 crew members. The sky was crystal clear and there was a light breeze in the air. It was going to be a scorcher you could tell. What better way to spend it than sailing on a sick boat in the tropics.

The Siska!

We set sail an hour or two in and got up to 12 knots by wind power as the boat hiked way over. It was cool. After continual reminders by the crew not to be "that guy" and pretend like we won't get burned Ben and I donned some sunscreen around 11am. This however was not early enough and later that evening to our horror we deemed ourselves "those guys" and had to ask around for some aloe. I also torched my lips. We pulled up to Whitehaven beach in the evening which is 98% silica (really high %) and it squeaked when you walked on it. Apparently they used that sand to construct the lenses for the hubble telescope and the Chinese keep asking the Australian government to buy a bunch of it for their stuff. So after a game of cricket and soccer on the beach we headed back to the boat for a great meal. That night I slept on deck after trying to sleep in the cabin which must have been 40 degrees.

Ben on deck

Day 2
I woke up at 5:30 to a turtle coming up for air and a beautiful sunrise. We headed up from Whitehaven beach to a sick lookout overlooking hill inlet where all the nice white sand from the beach heads inland or something like that. Anyways, it looks spectacular.

Wow


My footprints.

Then we had a few hours to wander around, go swimming if you dared (jelly fish season). Everything was so beautiful it was nice to be able to wander around and check it out for yourself. We saw stingrays, birds and a turtle stuck in a tidal pool. (it just had to wait for the tide to come back in) As the time to head back to the boat came Ben and I saw the ground moving ahead of us. As we moved closer we saw it was zillions (yes, zillions) of tiny crab running around. So of course we chased them. They were definitely subscribers to "strength in numbers".

Later we went to a tiny island/cay and watched the sunset. Initially this sounded lame but it was actually really fun.

Day 3
I slept on deck again and at 7am it was already pretty hot. We hung out on Black Island then did some snorkeling then raced another boat home and heckled them when they got close. It was really fun. I think the other boat was full of librarians or something b/c they were pretty lame.

Black Island
The Siska in action
The enemy