Hello to Everyone!!!!
It has been a long while since we last had a bit of a chat via the blog. Apologies again, we have been busy...you know...having the trip of a life time and all. And I'm not even kidding, this trip has been absolutely incredible!! Especially the last few weeks.
I believe we left the last entry off at surfers paradise? Hope so, cause I'll start the update from there. After Surfer's we headed up to Cooran to stay with lisa's lovely cousin Vicky and her wicked family. They live in the most beautiful place which I doubt I can explain in words, but I'll try. Basically they live in this super long one level house up on this hill surrounded by a vast array of green hills and trees. In the evening the sun sits just above the hills and it casts this incredible glow across the whole valley. You can see cows, trees, sometimes kangaroos, a little creek at the bottom of the hill and way too many cane toads. At night, if it's clear, you can see millions of stars. You could easliy just stand out there and stare at the sky forever, it's an incredible feeling.
We stayed with Vicky, Richard, Aston, Laura and Nathan for about a week, and what a good week it was. It was a home away from home, not to mention we ate like queens the whole time. Vicky and Laura are outstanding cooks. Aston will agree with us on that one. I didn't know such a little person could eat so much, and he was sick most the time we were there (trust me, neither a sore throat or lack of taste buds could stop this little eating machine). Laura and Lisa and I actually got a chance to put our cooking skills to the test. lisa lou bought a Veggie cook book so we picked out a few things to make and we made a scrumptious dinner of Potato leek soup, spinach and riccotta gnocchi, lemon/orange salad and laura made an incredible pavlova to polish it off. It was tasteyyyyyy!
During our stay in Cooran Vicky took us to the Australian zoo which was a bit surreal. After seeing it on TV and with the massive amounts of steve irwin memorabeilia around, it was like whoa, we are at the Australia zoo, we are actually here...in Australia, at steves zoo. Wholy CRAP. It was awesome, we fed some roos, which are SOOOOO cute and saw lots of other animals. We saw a show which invloved snakes, birds, and a massive crock. It was really really cool. The Australian zoo kicks the shizen out of any other zoo I've ever been too, even Singapore's.
After the zoo trip and seeing a few art galleries in Cooroy (i think),and copius amounts of white wine and m&m's.... we finally arranged a hostel in Noosa and Vicky agreed to drive us up there(Thanks Vicky!! we miss all of you!). With that we were off continuing our journey up the East coast.
Finally in Noosa, we found ourselves at the Halse lodge in yet another 14 share dorm, with folks across the globe. Finally met a few americans, and of course about a zillion canadians and germans, and a handful from the UK. Once we got ourselves settled we decided we need to regroup and replan the trip a bit. We had about 2 weeks to do a lot of things we wanted to get done, and we had a long way to travel in that small amount of time. So we actually begun, planning!!! First things first, go surfing!!! And that we did. We took a two hour lesson and had one hell of a time I's say. We both stood several times and even caught our own waves. That's all it really takes to get you hooked. The next day we took a day to relax our sore muscles and buy a rash gaurd to do some more surfing the next day. The next morning we got up early to buy some food for a picnic and then we rented ourselves some boards and headed down to tea tree bay. I was a tad intimidated when i got there, and wiped out pretty good, lisa caught a few waves. I mostly just got in the way of the surfers. There is a lot more than learning how to stand on the board that you need to learn, you also have to learn the logistics, like who has the right of way and what not. Lisa tryed to get me up to speed as we headed to another beach with some easier waves. Once we got there I had a blast, and lisa lou did too. After all that surfing we were both pretty dang sore the next day.
Next thing on our list was the infamous Fraser island. The largest sand Island in the world, and according to fellow travellers...paradise. So we booked a bus to hervey bay, and then booked a 2 day camping tour to the island. After a good 4 hour bus ride we arrived in Hervey bay, had enough time to get some fish and chips attempt to sleep despite the loudest most horrific singing coming from the drunken people right outside our dorm room. It was actually pretty funny, would have been funnier if we didn't have to get up at 6am the next day. On a good 2 or 3 hours of sleep we were off the Fraser the next morning. We took a farey over the the island and watched the water turn from green to vibrant blue. The first day of the tour was jam packed, we travelled along 75 miles of pure beach, walked in virgin rain forest, walked in Elli creek a fresh water creek crystal clear and beded with white sand. Headed to Indian heads and the Champagne pools. All of which were so beautiful, the view from indian heads was unexplainable. We saw the pinnacle (coloured sands) which were sacred aboriginal grounds, where the women would do ceremonies. We also had a chance to see Maneho a ship wreck on the beach. Just a massive rusting old boat. It was really cool. After all that we went to our campsite and more or less just went to bed. The next day we travelled to two lakes, one which we had to walk across a mini dessert to get too. The other was perched lake surrounded by trees that secrete tea tree oil into it, making it look like you are swimming in a cup of tea, because the color is yellow, then red, then brown as you go deeper. It was really nice and made our skin so soft. After that we started the long drive back to the farey and back to hervey bay where we were scheduled to catch our 24 hour long bus ride to cairns.
I was sad to leave Fraser, because it was absolutely paradise, the most beautiful place I have ever been in my entire life. We will try to put some photos up really soon to share with you. When we got back to Hervey bay we had some pizza and were off on the long long journey to cairns. Not much is to be said about the bus ride, it was long, we got about an hour of sleep maybe, and the toilet stopped working...but people kept using it....enough said. The scenery was again breathtaking, as we make our way up the coast everything is super green and more lush, more like a rainforest, also more hilly as well. Last night we finally got here in Cairns thank goodness. And here we are staying at a hostel called calypso, which is dead right now. I think everyone is either skydiving or sleeping....not sure what we are to do next. Most likely book a snorkelling tour of the reef for tomorrow. So hopefully that will work out and we can tell you all about it. On the 23rd we are off to NZ!! Stoked about that!!! We plan to do some bungi jumping out there, and black water rafting. We will keep you posted as much as we can.
LOVE YOU ALL, and happy easter coming up.....
Hope everyone is happy and healthy!! (Except Tasha's mom who has pink eye, hope you feel better and get healthy!!!)
SENDING LOTS OF LOVE FROM CAIRNS,
Tasha and Lisa.
