Adventures of Laurie and Matt

Fraser Island – The Largest Sand Island in the World

laurieandmatt — Mon, 1 Nov 2010 17:54:00 GMT

We arrived at Hervey Bay and said Goodbye to Kristen as she was going further down the coast to Rainbow beach to get to Fraser. We caught one of the hostel mini buses to the hostel we were staying at 'The Friendly Hostel”.

The guy was lovely and checked us in, we also got to use the free bikes they had and took them down to the esplanade to have a look around.

When we got back we booked a trip to Fraser Island with the hostel for the next day. It was with a company called 'Unique Fraser' and lets say it was very unique indeed. We were staying for 2 nights and 3 days.

In the morning we waited to be picked up to be taken to where the trucks were. While we were waiting we met another English couple who were staying in the hostel and going on the same trip as us.

A woman came and picked us up in a car, when we got there she took all of our details and info.

We then had to watch a video on health and safety on the island and stuff, bit boring but had to be watched.

We were put into a group of seven, James and Erica were in our group, 2 girls from the Netherlands and a couple from Israel.

We were off to the ferry then which took about half an hour to get to the island.

Once we arrived we went for a fair bit of a drive (crazy as the whole island is thick sand) until we reached a little campsite area where we went for a walk on a boardwalk through a rainforest and then had lunch.

We had a bit of a drive to get to the campsite we were staying at that night and had to go through a resort. Once we had driven through the resort we came to the beach which we had to drive across to get to the campsite.

We set our tents up and had some goon (bad, cheap wine in a bag) and had a look around the place and some of us went on the beach chatting and taking photos.

Soon it was dinner, once again I was the only vegetarian in the group (more fish). It was starting to get dark and since we weren't too far from the resort which had a bar we all took a walk down the beach.

Some people had a few to many drinks such as Matt and James who were doing stupid dances and trying to sing to the songs, me and Erica just looked at each other it was usual for both of us.

It started to rain a bit and it was getting late so we all went back to the campsite, it seemed a lot further on the way back. This time it was also pitch back, we couldn't see anything without the torches. Unfortuantly the boys had the torches and since they were in their funny mood decided to turn them off and run away. The main reason for us being so scared was of the dingoes!

Erica manged to find a little lego man torch in her bag and we had to use that.

We kept hearing the boys running around use and making weird noises, we knew it was them but it was still terrifying – we legged it.

We finally got back to the campsite which had light! We stayed up for some more cups of goon and crashed ourselves into our tents, the lads stayed up a bit longer talking to Chris the tour guide.

We were up early in the morning to have breakfast and visit some of the places of the island.

On the island they have these safety patrol officers who regularly check on the vehicles to make sure they are road worthy and can handle the sandy roads.

They pulled us over on our way further up the beach and checked the trucks over.

We were a bit worried since 2 of the trucks, one of them we were driving, were quite old and looked not to great, the other truck was fairly new.

They checked them all over and ours had passed, then they got to the newer of the vehicles and before we new it they stuck a sticker on it saying 'defective vehicle'!

So we couldn't go anywhere apart from the resort where we parked up while Chris had to sort something out. There wasn't a mechanic on the island so we would have to get another truck from the main land over on the ferry for us to be able to go and that wouldn't be for another couple of hours.

Chris took our group and the other group with a working truck to Lake McKenzie where we would have to hang out for a while, it was about an hour drive to get there. We just sunbathed and had a swim at the lake, the water was lovely. It is one of the most famous and cleanest lakes in the world so it was quite popular and a fair amount of people there.

Chris had to then go back and get the others whos truck was clamped and brought them to the Lake, he then took us to the campsite we were staying for the evening. You can only have 8 people maximum in the truck so we couldn't take any more people. He then went back to get the others from the lake and bring them to the campsite, what a palaver.

We had a bit of a late dinner because Chris had to wait until the other truck arrived at the ferry terminal. While we waited we kept drinking our goon, it never seemed to end (but that was because it was a 4l carton!).

We played cards and had a good laugh after dinner chatting about what everyone's plans were and where they were off to next.

We had to be up even earlier the next morning since we missed a whole day and needed to see the other sights on the island.

We had pancakes for breakfast (my favourite) and cereal. We were a bit rushed so we had to quickly get our tents down and packed away and get going.

We first went to a lake called when we got there we saw 2 dingoes sitting in the shade next to a toilet block, but when we started walking up there they ran off.

The walk to the lake was long, we had to walk through a rainforest for a while and it was hot! Eventually we got to some sand dunes we had to walk across, we ran a lot since the sand was boiling. At the bottom of one of the dunes was the lake, we got down and went for a swim.

Chris told us that this lake killed more people than car accidents on the island, because people would run from the top of the dune not realising the lake is shallow and break their necks when they got to the bottom, so we didn't do that.

After a good hour chilling at the lake, we headed back to the 4x4s for what would be an action packed day trying to cram everything in from the day we lost. We went to Indian head for amazing views of 75 mile beach (the M1 of the island) then we headed to the champagne pools for a dip and finally to the Maheno shipwreck, which was blown ashore when the cable being used to tow it to Japan snapped in bad weather, little did they know that the Japanese were taking it there for scrap metal to make tanks and bombs for the war. The Australian Air Force kept the boat where it was and used it for target practice, unlucky Japan.

Then we started the long drive back over the island to the ferry point and ended what was an amazing but slightly hectic trip to the largest sand island in the world. The Germans who had been inconvenienced by the defectiveness of their van were not too happy and attempted to get a refund, let's just say that 'Unique Fraser' were not the type of company to oblige their request, and Fraser island does not seem to have been too kind to the Germans or the Japanese, surely nothing more than a coincidence........... :)

Agnus Waters – Town of 1770

laurieandmatt — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 20:23:00 GMT

After our 10 hour overnight journey we arrived in Agnus Waters, Town of 1770, the first place Captain Cook fist set foot on Australia. We were in the middle of nowhere again. We were picked up by an older guy who runs the hostel we were staying at, he was a bit of a funny chap.

When he was checking us in we soon found out that we didn't need a key for our room, not something you want to be hearing when you have all your important stuff on you, what made it worse was that the front part to the hostel was wide open so anyone could easily walk in without anyone batting an eyelid.

We went upstairs to check out the room and put our stuff down, it was a 10 bed dorm but we were the only ones in it so far. The room was pretty gross, it hadn't been cleaned yet and there was dirty plates and rubbish about the place, it was even more gross when we saw the pillows and duvets were mouldy, yuk!

We needed to get out of the place so we went for a walk down the road where the shops were, we found a tour booking office and booked Scooteroo, our main reason for visiting 1770.

It was booked for the next day in the late afternoon, we were going to be in a bike gang!

We went back to the hostel and chilled out and watched a film. After dinner we stayed up talking to some other people staying at the hostel for a while before heading back to our room to sleep.

But since the doors didn't have locks on them, we had some drunken Aussie lads come into the room in the middle of the middle, twice, turning the light on and giggling and shouting for some girl, we told them to leave and they didn't come back again, until the next night!

Anyway morning came and we got up and had breakfast, we saw a surfing school futher up the road the day before which was super cheap, so we thought we would head over there and give it a go.

When we arrived there there were loads of other people there too seeing how cheap it was, we waited for a while and we were waiting for ages, it ended up being to late and if we did the surfing we would miss our Scooteroo trip so we had to sadly give it a miss.

We decided to go for a walk to the beach ourselves and went for a half hour walk there, it was hot!

We walked through a little forest and eventually came out at the beach, we had a bit of a paddle and took some photos before heading back. We just chilled out at the hostel for a bit until we were picked up for Scooteroo!

We were picked up in a little van and taken up the road to where the site was. We got to wear fake tattoos and leather biker jackets, it was hilarious. We got an introduction about using the bikes and stuff, I got a pink one haha.

There were about 30 of us in our gang and we rode off down the road. It was awesome having the wind in your hair and just riding around these deserted roads, it was a good adrenaline rush.

We were driving for about an hour and a half and we reached a beach where we were going to have a break and some chips to watch the sun start to set, it was lovely.

Then we had to drive back again, we even saw some huge grey kangaroos just in the fields that we were driving past.

When finally reached back to base and got to see some of the photos that were taken of us when we were riding the bikes.

It was a really good day and we were taken back to the hostel where we had dinner which Matt made which was lovely, one of his specials – Fish with chopped salad and fried slices of potato, yummy.

The next day we were catching the bus to Hervey Bay where we would then go from to get to Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world.

Photos: Whitsundays

laurieandmatt — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 09:54:00 GMT

Whitsunday Islands....

laurieandmatt — Tue, 26 Oct 2010 09:50:00 GMT

We got off our bus from Townsville and arrived at Airlie beach the place to be to get to the Whitsunday Islands. We hadn't booked anywhere so went to the first hostel we saw which was a YHA. We booked to stay in a dorm and chucked our stuff in the room, had a shower and went with Gem to try and get some standby rates. We found a travel agent and got a trip for the next morning on a sailing boat with 14 people on it for $300 each, we booked it and we were staving so went to a place which the hostel had given us free pizza vouchers for, we couldn't say no to free pizza and headed over there.

When we were walking over to the place we bumped into our friend Kristen who we thought was on her boat trip already, apparently she was a day early and she had a free pizza voucher too from her hostel. So we all went for pizza and had to wait about 2 hours for it, their way for us to keep buying more drinks while we waited for the pizza.

We went back to the hostel as we still had to pack our bag, we were given a small blue bag which we could only take on. We got an early night as we had to get up early to get to the boat.

When we got up in the morning we chucked our stuff in the storage and checked out. It was a gorgeous day and we had to walk about 20 mins to get to the harbour, perfect start.

When we finally got to the terminal, there were a few other people who were waiting to go on the same boat as us, of course with their goon the same as ourselves.

The owner of the boat then came over and introduced herself and took us to the boat, she wasn't coming on the boat. She introduced us to our crew which was two young Aussie lads.

We got chatting and made some friends with the people we were on the boat with and we sailed over towards White Haven Beach which took a while to get to.

Went we arrived we saw a big boat with a helicopter flying above it taking stuff over to the island, it looked like they were installing a toilet.

We also saw some logger head turtles pop their heads up for air every now and again, eventually we got onto a smaller boat to be taken over to the island.

We walked through a little forest to get to the other side and my we were being attacked by horse flies – another insect added to the annoying insect list.

But then we came out to White Haven Beach and it was breathe taking – it was beautiful. The sand was very hot though so we had to leg it over to the wet sand.

Most of us were straight in the water, it was like bath water, lovely and warm.

We were on our own until some day tour boats came over to see the beach. It didn't bother us, but the mad tourist guide did. There were baby sharks in the water which would swim past you now an again, but then this tour guide came running in shouting towards his tourists to come and see them and scared them all away!

There were also some sea eagles flying ahead too, the tour guide went over to them and started chucking some kind of meat up to them. But the birds had no interest in him, it was quite funny, serves him right for being cocky.

Soon after they all left and we all had the beach to ourselves again, we had a radio which we had to us to call one of the lads from the boat from, then they come over and took us for a little walk to a platform where we got some amazing pictures of the Whitsundays.

We went back on the boat and had some lunch and drinks, we then sailed to where we were sleeping for the evening. It was amazing seeing the sunset, we even saw some dolphins too.

We were all chatting about our trips and drinking our goon and soon it was dinner. After that we all went back on deck and watched the stars, it was amazing to see without any light pollution and there were hardly any clouds either, you could see millions of stars.

That night when we went to bed and I struggled to sleep that night since the boat was rocking a little to much and I felt like I might fall out of my little cabin bed. I could also see the stars through the window above me so made it more difficult as I couldn't stop looking at them. Eventually the rocking did help and the lapping of the water soon made me doze off.

We were up early for breakfast as we were going snorkelling in the area where we stayed the night.

We got our gear on and had to wear stinger suits as it was then the beginning of the season and had to wear them for precautions.

It was amazing, there were so many fish around and they were very curious of us so came right up to us and the camera, we got some really good photos.

We got back onto the boat and had some tea and coffee and sailed over to another place where we could go snorkelling which was just a strip of sand, it does connect an island but since the tide came in it covered the walk way to get there.

We took some stuff to play with too which was a frisbee and a cricket set, we put our snorkelling stuff on when we got over to the little sand island. There wasn't many fish there but something even better, turtles!

They were hard to spot at first because they were right near the coral and blended in really well. They were going under bits of reef to stop floating up so they could sleep. They came up every now and again for again so we got to swim with them then.

We then played a bit of frisbee on the beach before realising it wasn't working out to well as the frisbee went flying right over into the water, we weren't really suppose to go into the water without our stingers suits.

Then we all played cricket, most of the boys joined in but I was the only girl to play, we all had a really good laugh, I don't think they thought I was going to be as good as I was haha.

Soon enough we were back on the boat again and had a buffet lunch, we were then sailing back to land as we said goodbye to the Whitsunday Islands.

We said goodbye to the crew and to some of the people we were on the boat with who where carrying on with their travels. The rest of us were meeting up for drinks later that evening.

After we had our well deserved shower we headed down to the bar to meet up and have some drinks, some of the guys were leaving that night to catch the overnight bus (which we would be doing the night after). Me, Matt and Gem were shattered but had a quick drink at the hostel before going to bed.

The next day we were expecting Kristen to be coming back, she was now coming with me and Matt to our next stop Agnus Water – Town of 1770. She came later in the afternoon and told us about her trip. We just had a chilled out day and headed down to Airlie's man made beach for a look.

We had to put our stuff in Gems room because we already checked out that morning and our bus wasn't until midnight. We had a couple of drinks as we wouldn't see Gem again and watched tv in her room. Eventually it was time for us to go so we grabbed our stuff and said our goodbyes to Gem.

The bus did turn up late, all we wanted to do was sleep. We then left Airlie Beach and down to Agnus waters – Town of 1770.

Maggie I think I've got something to say to yoooouu...

laurieandmatt — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 14:31:00 GMT

We arrived in Townsville and again the weather was a bit iffy, it had rained a fair amount of our bus journey down. Booking our hostel was last minute and we struggled as there was a Full Moon party happening on the Island. But Matt managed to find us a place to stay which was at Arcadia Beach House and we got to stay in a safari tent which was lovely with a double bed, it was luxury camping.

We had to catch a ferry over to the island and when going over and getting onto Magnetic Island the sun came out and there wasn't a cloud in the sky! What was funny was that Matt told me that Renee, the lady who runs the hostel with her partner Mac, had e-mailed him saying that she would bring the sun out for us when we arrived, and she wasn't joking!

We were picked up in a Rolls Royce by Mac and were taken to our hostel, they checked us in and told us of places to visit and where to go.

We got free bike hire and took the bikes out to this little market which was just down the road, it was a magical little market too so we stayed there for a drink and a bite to eat and then headed over to where the rock wallabies were. The timing was great as loads of them come out when the sun is about to set, it was so strange to see so many little wallabies hopping around. We didn't bring any food with us but they still came right up to us practically sat on our laps!

We bumped into a girl we saw in Cape Tribulation who was on our tour and later has drinks with some of the other people staying at the hostel. Some were suppose to be going to the Full Moon Party that was happening on the Island, but decided to stay with the little group we made up, we were all chatting away drinking wine.

Kristen (This is the lovely girl from Canada who we saw up at Cape Tribulation), Gemma (a lovely girl from the UK) and Travis (a lovely American guy) who we met at the hostel on Maggie decided that they were going to rent out a little 4x4 to see some of the beaches. We were going to rent a Moke, which is like a big go-kart, they were awesome fun.

Me and Matt went out in the moke and the others in the 4x4 and explored the whole of the island, our Moke did break down a couple of times. But Mac from the hostel came to our rescue and fixed her up for us, he was great.

On the evening we went to where the rock wallabies live to go and pet and feed them, we did have food this time and they all came over and actually sat on our laps this time! They were so funny to watch hopping around, they did hiss at each other, but no fighting. At one point I was surrounded because I had carrot sticks.

That night we also decided to watch Wolfe Creek, not sure who good idea that was! Really not the best film to be watching when you are backpacking in Australia. Some of us didn't get that much sleep.

The next day Travis and Kristen were leaving, Travis going up the coast and Kristen going down to the Whitsundays' where we were off to next. We said our goodbyes to them and since we had the moke for a couple more hours we all went for a spin around the island again, Gem also brought some carrot sticks so we could feed the rock wallabies. We went just before the sun set and we were surrounded by the wallabies, they were sitting on our laps.

We were leaving early morning the next day, we said our goodbyes to Mac and Renee, they really made us feel at home during our stay, a great couple. Mac dropped us off at the Ferry Terminal in the Rolls Royce. Watching the island as we were going back to mainland was a really sad for all of us, we had an amazing time, another adventure we will never forget.

Photos: Mission Beach and Maggie Island

laurieandmatt — Fri, 22 Oct 2010 12:34:00 GMT

Our trip down the sunshine state – maybe not so much sunny though.

laurieandmatt — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:30:00 GMT

We are travelling down the coast by coach and we have a jump on jump off pass all the way from Cairns to Melbourne. Our next stop from Cairns is Mission Beach which is meant to be a great place to skydive and lay around on the beach, also it is the main place you can get over to Dunk Island. But our timing with the weather wasn't that great, apart from the day we arrived we managed to get down to the beach and have a walk around, Matt also (after many attempts) got a coconut out of a tree which we cracked open later (also after many attempts).

There isn't much to Mission Beach, but there was a nice walk about an hour down the beach we wanted to do the next day. But that evening we had a thunder storm which then lasted into the whole of the next day to. I really didn't want to get soaked to do this walk since not having a raincoat (we weren't really expecting we would need them yet), but Matt was determined to go. So packing him some lunch, booting him up and giving him the cheapest umbrella we had to go out with, he went off on his way.

About half an hour later a knock on the bedroom door came and a soaked Matt came slugging through the door – he wasn't a happy bunny. After this our day was resorted to staying in the hostel reading and watching films, there really wasn't anything we could do as there was no town to have a look around.

The day after did not look promising either so we decided it would be best to book our ticket on the bus and go to our next destination – Magnetic Island!

Photos: Swimming in 'Paradise'

laurieandmatt — Thu, 21 Oct 2010 12:03:00 GMT

Swimming with Nemo and Friends

laurieandmatt — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 11:57:00 GMT

After our trip to Cape Trib we were back down to Cairns to do our Great Barrier Reef Tour, we were a bit sceptical because the weather was a bit on and off and if its cloudy you don't see the colours of the reef as brightly. We kept our fingers crossed and hoped for the best. We were very lucky that day, when we were on the mainland the clouds came over and out to sea was looking little promising either.

But since the journey to get to a small sand island was nearly 3 hours long we managed to beat the clouds and the sun came out!

When we were snorkelling just of the sand island where we saw absolutely loads of fish, huge parrot fish, sting rays and just managed to get a glance of a white tipped reef shark swimming past, it was very impressive.

After this we had our lunch and sailed to a reef called 'Paradise Reef' which the boat we were on was the only boat allowed to go there, it was bliss.

We got a bit carried away looking at all the fish and had to get called by the staff to say we were the last to get on the boat.

We then were on our way back to shore, we then had some more snacks to eat and drink to get our energy back. It was very rough on the way back to land and there were many people running to the back of boat, which of course included me (Laurie) – who promised she was fine at the time then five minutes later running to the back on the boat.

All in all it was a fantastic day and an experience of a life time we will never forget!

Photos: Cape Tribulation and Cairns

laurieandmatt — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 11:24:00 GMT

Cape Trib

laurieandmatt — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 22:38:00 GMT

Great Barrier Reef – Check and Oldest Rainforest in the world – Check!

We went on our trip up to Cape Tribulation for 3 days – we got picked up from our hostel and the coach took us two hours up the coast. We did a bit of a small rainforest tour and learnt about different plant species and animals that lived there and we also got to go on a crocodile cruise, we only saw a couple of crocs, not as many as we saw in Darwin, but we did get to see a tiny baby crocodile which was as small as a water dragon lizard. After this we were taken to out accommodation which was 50km from the nearest town. We were about a minute from the beach, which was gorgeous, especially when it wasn't raining as you could see the colours of the reef when the sun was shining which was turquoise blue. On our second day was a day we could do what we wanted, so we for a long walk over the beach and into the rainforest to find a water hole. There were two creeks near to where we were staying which sometimes had crocodiles coming down them during mating season, which it was, so we had to be extra careful. We eventually found the water hole where we had a swim and Matt had a go on the rope swing too, the water was so clear so you would see all the fish, which kept following us around trying to work out what we were.

We started to walk back towards the hostel and went on the Dubuji Board walk through the rainforest, which we thought we would have a look at. Dubuji is an aboriginal word meaning 'Place of Spirits'. We saw lots of different types of trees and mangroves, we saw some Scrub Fowl which look a bit like hens, you always see them in pairs because they are partners for life, if you don't see them together you will always hear them calling out to each other when they are going out to find food, we know this as our tour guide on the journey up to Cape Tribulation was an animal expert (Hippy) She also told us about the regions most famous resident, the elusive and endangered Cassowary, It is the size of a grown man and resembles an ostrich, has claws that can literally rip a humans chest open if it needs to defend itself and is scared of nothing. Our guide said to be submissive if we were fortunate enough to see one, of course nobody on the return journey to Cairns on our bus reported any confrontations with a Cassowary, apart from, you guessed it, us.

After seeing the scrub fowl, which was nice enough, Laurie went round a tree and froze (not a rare occurrence as she has the tendency to set fire works off and evacuate at the sight of a green ant) however this time she had good cause, it was a Cassowary, about the same height as me (Matt) and walking towards us feeding, so of course I put the guides advise into action and stayed still, It came closer and I turned to make sure Laurie was OK and guess what, Gone, yep she gently and calmly left me there to negotiate with a Cassowary, to make matters worse who should come round the corner, it's chick, the one thing that can make it even more unpredictable, to cut a long story short it came right up to me and eye balled me, yes I was terrified, and then after a few moments it declared me a top geezer and carried on about it's business, of course we now know that as well as being quite aggressive and intimidating, the Cassowary is a cracking judge of character. Oh and I did eventually get Laurie to return and apprehensively watch this amazing animal, whilst shaking of course.

Off We Go!

laurieandmatt — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 00:03:00 GMT

OK, OK – The delay of the update has been long one!

But we are now back on our travels after living and working in Brisbane for 8 months, Matt working for Virgin Blue and myself as a Silk Flower delivery girl.

We have made great friends over our short time living in the city and they will be ones we will now know for the rest of our lives. Going through one door does definitely lead to many others.

We are now up the coast in Cairns, it's a lot warmer than Brisbane especially at the moment with the weather that was going on there.

Since the weather being tropical here in Cairns it can go from one extreme to the other, being lovely and sunny one day then pouring down with rain the next.

We are staying in a nice little hostel which is quiet too, we got an upgrade when we arrived because the dorms were fully booked up, which was great news for us as we now have a twin room for ourselves for the same price.

We have now booked some tours to go to Cape Tribulation which is around 2 hours North of Cairns where we will be staying for 2 nights in the oldest rainforest in the world which will be great fun!

Then when we get back to Cairns where we will do the Great Barrier Reef, which we are the most excited about! Keeping fingers crossed for a Sea Turtle!

Our plans from then on are not to clear, we are working our way down the East Coast until we get to Melbourne (thousands of miles away) but for now time will only tell :)

Will update more very soon!

Love Laurie and Matt xx

Stradbrooke Island

laurieandmatt — Fri, 21 May 2010 17:52:00 GMT

What an amazing weekend we had!

Stradbrooke Island is like paradise with its wildlife, sights and small population. We went with our friends we met at the hostel and drove to Cleveland to catch the ferry. We were staying at North Stradbrooke part of the Island at Amity Point; we had booked a wooden bungalow with two bedrooms for us to stay in. There were only four bungalows altogether and we had a swimming pool and a jetty for residents of the site to use, our bungalow was called 'Kookaburra'.

Shortly after unpacking our things from the car we saw a wild Koala in the tree near to one of the other bungalows, a couple was staying there and the guy said that he had only seen one wild koala in 30 years! We saw 3 in 3 days, must have been our lucky weekend! The koalas don't do much apart from looking very cute and just sleep in the tree for the whole day. Also learned an interesting fact about koalas from the couple who were staying in one of the bungalows that apparently the koalas on Straddie are more protected that the ones that live on the main land because they main land ones are being killed off by Chlamydia where as the Island ones don't have it. Never knew koalas could get STI's, but we all do know, interesting little fact for you there though ;).

Anyway, we had our lunch and headed down to a beach not far from where we staying and along the way we saw our 2nd Koala, but he was harder to see as the tree was much taller and all we could see was its bum, charming! When we finally got to the beach there were signs saying not to swim on this beach as there was a danger of sharks in this area, this was pretty scary to see, we did go in the water but not far in, were still pretty terrifying and we weren't going to risk it! We saw a hermit crab though crawling across the sand bed, the boys tried to pick it up but were being to girlish about it and it got away. I also saw a stingray, which I did not see until I was right beside it and moved, so basically I was too freaked out and ran out of the water (well I am a girl J). But later on we saw a pod of dolphins not too far out and that time we tried to swim out to them, at first we had to try and figure out if they were sharks or dolphins though, but they kept going too far out for us to get to. We stayed for the sunset and headed back to the bungalow, but on the way we saw a group of people near the edge of the water further up and saw that they were hand feeding the dolphins! We went up to see and the dolphins can very close, but not close enough for us to touch them sadly.

We headed back and went up to the jetty, where there was another family who were staying in one of the bungalows also, who were fishing for their dinner to take back. We also got chatting to the couple who own the site who were the most friendly and welcoming people ever, they told us to come back later to come and see the dolphins which usually come every night, and he had fish to feed them with. We headed back down to the jetty later to meet them and the other family were there also to see the dolphins, the dolphins never showed us but we got chatting to the family and the owners who were all really nice and were giving out beers. We went back to have our BBQ dinner which was very tasty and later that night we decided to go back to the jetty, there were fishing rods there so the boys were having a fish and soon afterwards the dolphins came swimming along, which was a mother and baby, we went under the jetty so we could feed them and managed to touch them! They were really friendly and showing off a lot too, we also had competition with the jetty further down from us and the dolphins kept coming back and forth between us. We didn’t have anything left to fed them apart from some old prawns left from fishing before; the dolphins weren’t stupid and went to the other jetty where they had fresh fishL, so we didn’t see them again that night.

The next day we went snorkeling and kayaking at Amity Point jetty, we went kayaking first through the mangroves which was really interesting, looked like there should have been crocodiles living there but they don’t get any around those parts, thankfully! They sometimes get Dugong’s around that part also, but can be really rare to see them which was ashame. After we had been kayaking we headed back to the beach and got our snorkeling gear and swam around the rocks where we saw hundreds of fish, sea cucumbers, star fish, someone saw an eel but they were further out and saw a small dead shark, the nearest we have come to one, not in a horrible way for the shark but I’m glad it was. It was a very good first experience for snorkelingJ.

We then drove up to the Blue Lake which is near the middle of the island, we had to walk about half an hour after parking the car through the rainforest part to get to the lake, we hoped to see another koala but was a lot more difficult as they were a lot more trees there. When we finally got there the lake was very nice and weren’t many people about either so seemed very secluded, the lake was very dark also there were only certain parts where it was sandy but the water was very clean, the place altogether was very peaceful. After we had our lunch some of us went swimming again then we headed back to the car before it got dark as we wanted to go to the other lake ‘Brown Lake’ before the end of the day. This lake was very nice too, it had beaches here where as the Blue Lake hadn’t, this is where we also saw our third koala which was also sleeping high up a tree. The reason the lake was brown was because it was surrounded by tea tree trees which made the water look like tea.

Before getting back to our accommodation we went to buy some fish for the dolphins to try and bride them to coming over to our jetty this time, but to be honest they weren’t the best of fish for them as they were frozen. We had our 2^nd BBQ which again was very nice and we went down to our jetty to try and see if the dolphins might be around, we waited a long while and had a go at fishing again. The family we had been taking to before came over and we were fishing with them, they brought some bread and throwing it in the water for the fish, soon enough we had a swarm of fish under where we were fishing and as soon as the hook went in the water we hooked a fish, Matt was helping us beginners learn how to cast the line out and the basics. The boys went back to get some beers and while they were away we caught a squid, who wasn’t the most clever of squids around, he was a bit difficult to catch and kept coming off the hook and spraying ink at us, but soon enough he would be back on the hook and fourth time lucky we finally caught the squid. The guys put it back in the water after we had a look at it, but they were keeping some of the fish they had earlier for their dinner, I and Anais put ours back which we had caught. Well the dolphins stood us up, they must have heard that we had frozen fish; it would have been nice to see them again before we had to go.

On our last day we went to Point Lookout which had very nice beaches and we went to a beach called Cylinder Beach and went for a swim and sunbathe down there for a couple of hours. Then before it got dark and before we had to go we went on a board walk around some cliffs nearby and saw a sea turtle and a porcupine, you get some really nice views from there of the sea and beaches too. Unfortunately we had to go and catch the ferry home and head back to Brisbane, but had a fantastic weekend one we won’t forget for a very long while.

Photos: Our Australian Home

laurieandmatt — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 17:25:00 GMT

Our house in Auchenflower

Photos: Noosa

laurieandmatt — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:11:00 GMT

Weekend in Noosa

Our New Home and Noosa

laurieandmatt — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 16:07:00 GMT

Sorry for the delay!

We have moved into our new house now and have been living here for nearly a month. Have really settled in nicely now with our 5 other ozzies house mates. We have the en-suite room as we are the only couple in the house which is a luxury for us as being used to sharing the bathroom with many other people when living the in hostel. The house is a big old queenslander house which is all wooden, we have a nice back garden and get many visits from Bush Turkeys and Possums as we live near a lot of bush, I have also encountered many spiders also, but most of them just hang in the trees.

It is great living in our own house now being able to have a washing machine which we don't have to put coins into, a freezer and an oven are a massive bonus! You really know what you miss when you have been living in a hostel for a long while.

We went to a place called Noosa 2 hours up coast from Brisbane with our friends that we met with at the hostel. We booked an apartment for all of us to stay in, the place for so nice for the money we paid, the place was really big, had a nice kitchen, living room and balcony.

On the first day we arrived it was pouring down with rain which wasn't ideally what we were hoping for but meant that it was good weather for surfing. We rented out two surf boards as out friends had been surfing before and were going to show us the basics. We had a really good time practicing, we took the boards to this beach called 'Little Cove' which was right beside our apartment. We then had to find the supermarket to get our food for the weekend and took a trek in the rain to find it. We made a vegetable lasagna that night which was very very nice. Later the boys started playing a beer bottle game which ended up leading them to taking the surfboards to the swimming pool, Anais and myself just left them to it.

On Sunday the sun came out yay! Perfect day to go to the beach, we trekked through the National Rain Forest whch was amazing with its big trees and was on the look out for koalas but sadly did not see any :(
When we got to the other side of the forest it took us to an amazing beach that was not as touristic. I tried surfing again, but the currents of the waves was all over the place and I lost my confidence not being able to balance the board. We decided to go to another beach as the sea wasn't really suitable for surfing in. So we took another trek along the outskirt of the national rain forest and went to a cliff called 'Hell's Gate's' we got a really good view of the beach and looking down we saw some Sea Turtles which was amazing, it made up for us not seeing any Koalas.

We found another beach further down which was extremely nice also, we had our lunch down there and tried surfing again too. Matt was picking up surfing alot easier than I was, I am still really wanting to do it but think next time I will try with a surfing instructor. Matt is now thinking of buying a surf board, that will be fun to carry around when we move around alot more. We stayed there until the sun set then walked back to the apartment for a shower and our dinner, we went out for a couple of drinks that night but not to many as Noosa is a fairly expensive place as a lot of the shops we saw we designer, it was very posh.

On our last day which was also another fantastic day we rented out a small boat which also meant Matt had to rent out some fishing gear aswell ;) I think that was his plan all along with renting a boat. We went around Noosa River and saw some amazing places and very amazing (very expensive) houses that had their own boat piers. We all took turn about driving the boat and was really nice that every other boat driver would all wave to us and other boaters when they went by. We set anchor and Matt had a little go at trying to catch some fish, but wasn't having any luck. So we carried on further down the river and we found a small island paradise. I took off and went exploring and Matt carried on with his attempt at fishing but all the little fish were eating his bait.
We also took a drive down to Noosa Spit and think we saw a Ray in the water but could not get a clear view or picture of it. Altogether Noosa was a great place to go and we both had a fantastic weekend there. We eneded our day sun bathing on the beach and then took our two hour road trip back to Brisbane.

This weekend coming we are going away again to Stradbrooke island and hopefully the weather will be as nice as the weather we had in Noosa. We are hoping to do a bit of snorkeling this time and hopefully will not see any sharks or if we do from a very long distance away.

Will update again about our weekend in Stradbrooke soon.

We hope all is well back in England.

Love Laurie and Matt

Our First Month!

laurieandmatt — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 19:49:00 GMT

G'day!

Our first month in Brisbane now, have done a lot of sight seeing but only around Brisbane at the moment and have met some really great characters too, especially in the hostel we were staying at.

On our first day it was very hot! Coming from Gatwick wearing jeans, jumpers and anything warm to coming to Brisbane Airport in 38 degree heat wearing that was not such a good idea then, we were very grateful when we finally got to our hostel and was able to change into shorts and t-shirt :D.

We had an explore around the West End the area that we were staying in which is very cultural, jazzy, unsual and unique. We started looking for jobs more or less straight away since hearing off some people that we met at the hostel told us that work was pretty hard to find arond at the moment.
We handed out alot of c.v's out and I mean a lot, we handed loads out at shops in the City and jobs off the internet but did not hear for a long while.

One of Matt's friend from uni is currently living in Brisbane too and met up with him on Saturday night in the city for some drinks and he told us that it is really hard to find work in the city being so competative with backpackers, students and australians and that we were more likely to get work in the suburbs. He has a car too and said he would take us out to where he works and hopefully we could have a better chance of finding work there!

We printed off about 10 c.v's each to take with us to Jindalee to hand out and once we handed them out we hoped for the best. Matt got in very well in one of the shops after the manager there found out that she has the same surname as him. We then went to the next suburb's shopping centre in Mt Ommeney and handed out c.v's there and we also then tried another shopping centre in Indooroopilly too. I applied to this pet shop in Mt Ommeney which I am keeping my fingers crossed for!
Matt had an interview working in an office but was not sure what the job entailed until he got there, which was selling vaccum cleaners and sounded a bit dodgy so turned the job down, he had another interview for working for a company with different charities but it envolved travelling to different cities which was not really our intentions, he then had another interview for working in a finacial company in the city which he got! It is not the most exciting job in the world ringing people all day but it was money and Friday was something to look forward to having dominoes pizza and beer which made me very jealous when I was probably having pasta or noodles at the hostel :(.

A couple of days later Matt had heard from the JeanWest shop in Jindalee which was good news since that was a better preference for him and he then had an interview for, Matt at the minute is getting all the work where as I had heard from nowhere, which was rubbish. Matt's friend from uni, Alex had been doing some labouring on this house and asked Matt if he wanted a day's work as they needed an extra hand which was also the same day as his interview but he said that they did'nt mind if he left for the interview, they were very laid back. So basically Matt had a day's labouring and interview the same day and started his new job in the City the next day, so Matt was being the working man which to be honest I did not mind so much but was getting slightly inpatience in not hearing off any jobs, I think Matt needed to share some of the work he had been getting!

I still have not heard off anywhere yet, so Matt says that my full time job should be looking for a job, which I did when he was at work and had not much to do on my own and stayed down the library for hours, they have free internet so have been taking advantage of it! I rang the pet shop again hoping that I would have a better chance if I aimed for Animal Care jobs instead and rand hoping they may have work going, one of the pet shops I rang said they didn't have anything going at the minute but advised me about another pet shop of theirs in a different shopping centre had were hiring, which by luck was one of the pet shops that I went into and handed my c.v to. I spoke to a girl on the phone there who was very nice and she took my name too tell her manager, I then rang rang a couple days later when she said the manager would be in to make sure she recieved it and asked again to make sure that they were hiring and hopefully I managed to get into her good books since working in a pet shop before too. So I am praying so hard that I will hear off them very soon, I'm getting a little fed up of looking for work and would love to be working somewhere which I liked and new I was good at and had a good knowledge for!

I am being house wife at the moment instead while Matt is working, making sure he has his dinner on the table when he gets home haha, it is never anything much special with my expertise in cooking, it is usually omelettes or pasta with vegetables :D.

We have met some really cool people here and also some strange people too, there are a lot of French people especially in our hostel. And surprise surprise most of the English people we have met are usually just here to drink, but we did meet a really nice English couple who were staying in our room for a couple of night and stayed up late one night drinking wine when they had to be up early to go to Fiji the next day, oopps!

At the moment we have made really good friends with a French couple that we met at 'The Music Kafe' down the road from the hostel where they do free food on a Sunday, which we could not refuse! Then we found out that they were staying at the same hostel as us and from then we have dinner with them nearly every night since at the hostel. They had some French friends coming up from Sydney for the Easter weekend which took them over 14 hours to drive :S, we had a good time with them taking them to places in the West End, but some of them wanted to go into the City and others did not so half of them disappeared to the city while the rest of us stayed to watch a band at 'The Music Kafe', it was a good night, also a good night for seeing some cute possums which I have taken photos of.

Not to far from the hostel about a 20-30 minute walk we can go to the lagoon, or we can catch the hostel bus down to South Bank. The man made beach is so nice and very well kept being free, the whole parkland is amazing where you can also use there BBQ's, we took a picnic down there with our new French friend Anais and Thibault and watched the fruit bats come out at dusk and there were hundreds of them going out to find their meals. We also here them alot near the hostel swimming-pool fighting in the palm trees trying to be the first to get to the fruit.

The weather has been really good here at the moment too, we have had a fair few terencial down pours though and it is cloudy most of the days now since going into Autumn, but it is still very warm. I think the only time we have worn jeans since we arrived was one night when we went out and it was a bit chilly.

Brisane city is very cool, with lots of different shops to go too and restaurants, they have markets on at the weekend next to the very big casino. The city itself is modern but has a fair few historical building which we have visited. Near south bank is apparently the cheapest cinema in Queensland, there is also Brisbane AirShow down at South Bank at the moment where they show films on a big blown up television where you sit outside on deck chairs or towels, but it is a little bit expensive for us.

One day me and Matt also visited a place called Mt Coot-Tha which was amazing for views of the city, there was also some different walks which you could go on. We went on a walk called Aboriginal Art Trail and past a water fall called Slaughter Falls us thinking it was going to be a huge waterfall but when arriving to it, there was only a trickle of water coming from it. But the walk itself was a good hike, not a very good dicisions on wearing sandles for it though. We had seen a lot of spiders and then got told that there are also snakes which hang in the trees and jump onto you, when we were told this I was then very happy once we managed to get out of the forest.

We have found a house share to live in not to far from the city about 10 minutes from it which is good for Matt get to work, it is in a place called Auchenflower. It is very in the bush, so there a lot of spiders maybe we will see a lot of possums visting too at night. It is also very hilly around that area so we will be getting very fit having to walk to the house.

Tonight is our last night in the hostel as we will be moving into our new flat share on Tuesday morning. We have been sitting down by the pool for most of the day and later on the boys are going to play football so Anais and me are going to go an watch. We are also having a BBQ with them tonight so needing to go to the supermarket to prepare!

The barbie was yummy! Looking forward to our next one!
We have moved in our new house share now, really nice big house. We have our own bathroom and large bedroom. It is a bit strange having out own room and bathroom now and not having to share with four other people. The people are cool who live here, they are around the same age as us which is a bonus. There are also 3 pet rats here called Caramel, Snowy and Ninja!

That's rounded up about what we have done, but will have missed our a few things more than likely and if we have will put it in next post,

Will update you guys soon!

Love Laurie and Matt

Photos: Brissy

laurieandmatt — Thu, 8 Apr 2010 19:31:00 GMT

Our trip so far...