Helllooo,
It’s been a while & I guess you’re all winding down for crimbo now. Not sure if we’ll be able to get online again closer to Xmas so hope you all have a great time. I’m already getting turkey & yule log envy!!
What have we been up to since our last post? Well, on leaving Cairns we headed for Magnetic (Maggie) Island. Not sure if our expectations had been built up a little too much by the idea of a Robinson Crusoe paradise but we were pretty disappointed. Admittedly the fact that it’s stinger season didn’t help as only two of the eight or so beaches had nets set up so that you could swim but the whole place just seemed a bit meh. Not a patch on Rottness. It probably didn’t help that we had a pretty long journey & when we got to the hostel on Magnetic Island the check in was the most chaotic thing ever, run by a woman who clearly loved herself but did nothing whilst two junior members of staff tried to figure things out. Our room was a mattress in a shed with a fridge. It was boiling hot & had really sloping sides so we kept hitting our heads. There were also loads of really young Europeans staying there that seemed to think it took 10 of them to make some pasta in the communal kitchen so that there wasn’t room for anyone else. That aside we had a great time! Gary would also like me to mention here that he made an amazing bolognese, which was no mean feat in their kitchen, given the number of people & lack of any decent cooking equipment.
From here we moved on to Airlie Beach, which luckily was the opposite of Magnetic Island. Gorgeous place, with a great atmosphere. We shared a 4 bed dorm with a German couple called Felix & Christina who were really nice. Our hostel was on a hill overlooking the bay & it was just a short 5 minute walk to the street with all the shops/cafes/bars. The first day here we chilled by the lagoon, which as per all the other lagoons we’d encountered was lovely.
The next day we’d booked a trip to the Whitsunday’s on a speedboat. Naturally on a day trip you can’t fit everything in so this trip focused on Whitehaven Beach & some snorkelling at a place called Chalkie Beach. Whitehaven is stunning with the only downside being it’s popularity so there were quite a few other boats there & some posh, non-budgeting people arriving by sea-plane! Gary saw a shark swimming 2-3 metres from the shore but our skipper said it was too small to kill you yet but in a few years time it could, the chinese were running up and down trying to get pictures of it. Snorkelling was also really good fun & we saw loads of great fish. On the way back the sea was mental with the biggest swells/waves so we were thrown around for about an hour & got absolutely drenched. Thank god for my travel bands!! Gary said he thought the boat was going to go at one point. To celebrate our survival we had $5 dominoes pizzas, best value meal yet & as my pizza included pineapple it was part of my 5 a day!
Sadly that brought our time in Airlie Beach to an end & it was on to an overnight Greyhound bus to take us to Hervey Bay. Greyhound have rolled out lots of swank new buses with wifi, leather seats, more legroom etc so we assumed the overnight bus would be one of these beauties but unfortunately not. Gary has still not got over it! It was a pretty long journey with not much sleep but it did save us the cost of a night’s accommodation, which was handy. At the service station stop at 1.30am this girl off another coach must have seen her friend on our coach & came on board for 5 minutes of squealing & jazz hands, waking everybody who was asleep on board. Gary got the look of a serial killer & I think they’re lucky to both still be alive. Even now he’s still talking about making a voodoo doll of them!
Hervey Bay was worth the trip though. We’d heard it was a sleepy, retirement town (right up our street!) but it was pretty busy, possibly because of Xmas hols. Our accommodation gave us free bikes to go & explore. When I first got on mine, the pedal fell off, which was a grand start (it was like our Richmond bike ride all over again Della!). We headed along the beach to a shark museum that Gary wanted to check out. Museum is possibly a little over-zealous, as it was pretty much a large room but it was really interesting & had a frozen great white shark on display. The guy behind it thinks that the Oz government are trying to downplay shark attacks to protect tourism and from his stats and newspaper cuttings it’s hard not to agree. There were some horrific pictures of limbs that had been torn off. It has made me a little more weary of taking surf lessons now but given that I probably won’t get further than 2 metres from the shore, I should be safe! After this slightly morbid trip we cheered ourselves up with a visit to the ice creamery, which had over 75 flavours, imagine the challenge for someone as indecisive as me!
On our second day here we headed to Fraser Island for a day trip. Again, as it was only a day it was pretty whistlestop but great nonetheless. It’s a really unusual island as its all sand & yet has a rainforest & lots of lakes. We were on a 4x4 bus & hats off to the driver as driving in the sand over there, especially with hills & sharp turns, is ridiculously challenging. We saw lots of people getting stuck. We got to swim in two beautiful places, Lake Mackenzie & Eli Creek. We also went along 75 mile beach, which is stunning but you can’t swim because of sharks, Great Whites, Tiger, Bull (we didn’t want to end up as a case study in the museum!) There is a cool shipwreck on this beach that crashed in 1935 that we took pics of.
We were going to spend another night in Hervey but the accommodation had no space so it was a manic rush to pack up & get ourselves on the Greyhound to Rainbow Beach. At the risk of sounding repetitive, this is another gorgeous place & has a beach to rival Cottesloe or Rottnest. We also got to do one of my highlights of the trip so far here by feeding wild dolphins. There’s a place nearby called Tin Can Bay where the dolphins have been coming for years. They’re really friendly & come into the shallows to take a fish out of your hand. So cute.
There’s also an amazing sand dune called Carlos Sandblow in Rainbow Beach where you can sandboard (I ate a lot of sand!) & has amazing views over the beach and Fraser Island. It feels like you’re on an uninhabited planet up there, or in the middle of the desert, very weird.
That brings us up to date. Next stop is Noosa for Xmas, where the lovely Duck & Claire are letting us stay - thanks guys (beers are on us!)
Merry Crimbo, have a good one & keep in touch with all your news.
G & C xxx
P.S. We'll try to uplod some pics for this blog & the previous one when we have better internet
