After having a few days to recover in Airlie Beach, I managed to walk like a normal person again. I met a nice couple. Mike, the British, and Marta, the Spanish. We shared a few beers at the bar inside the hostel. With the best bar man ever, named Tom. He provided us with loads of entertainment in the form of stories, jokes and quizzes.
I decided to annoy Mike and Marta for a bit and travel down with them to Agnes Water to see the historic town of 1770. This meant that we had to take the overnight bus. So after annoying Tom the bar man for a while, at 11 in the evening we headed down to the bus stop. A whole bunch of backpackers was already waiting for the bus.
At 11:45 the bus, with the biggest dick of a bus driver I’ve ever met, arrived. So far all the Kiwis and Aussies I’ve met, are well laid back and very easy going. This bus driver was probably european, cause he thought he was running a school trip. He was warning us that if there was ‘drama’ about the seating, he would pull over in the middle of nowhere and reallocate seats. After having a few good laughs with Mike about this bus driver on a power trip, I’ve had an alright night which consisted of waking up every 30-60 minutes.
A good eleven hours later we arrived at Agnes Water. A small town on the east coast. We got picked up by a van which brought us to Cool Bananas. The hostel we were staying at the next two nights. The manager was a giant douche, again an unfriendly Aussie. Not sure if that’s the trend lately. But after checking in and getting my bed in the 8 room dorm, I headed out for some adventure.
There is a so called ‘Scooteroo’ tour available. Which doesn’t sound awesome, but trust me, it is! You get on these small motorcycles and get to drive towards the old town of 1770. Not just that, you get to wear a leather jacket with flames on them and a cool helmet. My first test run wasn’t the best, they actually made me do the test track again. Once I got the hang of it, it was all good. Cruised in a big convoy, like a proper motor gang, towards the harbor of 1770.
It was all good fun, these things even went quite fast. On a flat piece of road I managed to take it to 75 km/h. which is quite alright for not even needing a motorcycle license, your ordinary license will do. Even though they only asked me while I was booking if I had one, I never had to show it to anyone.
After riding those bikes I felt macho enough to sign up for my first surfing lesson. The next morning we headed over to the local surf shop. In true Aussie fashion we had to wait for 45 mins before we’d actually make our way down to the beach. We got our surfboards and surfing shirts on. These shirts are against ripping your skin on the board and getting a severe sunburn.
A good half an hour tutorial was next, this was all quite hard to follow due to the heat. I just wanted to get into the water, to cool down a bit. Before we could do that, we had to practice getting up on our boards in the sand. This was exhausting in this heat. As soon as we’ve done 20 of those, we could get into the water, I figured after 4 tries I was ready and hit the ocean.
So down here, in Agnes Water, it’s the first place where you can swim in the ocean without a stinger suit. Which. Is. Awesome! So done with all the nets, suits and horror stories. Just get in there and enjoy the sea. With my surf board I headed into the ocean and made my way to the spot the instructor told us to go.
I was quite psyched for surfing, so the first good wave I saw, I was on it. Paddling like a shark was chasing me I managed to get onto the wave. But the nose of the surfing board was going under which meant I got a nice nose dive into the sea and my first mouth full of salt water. Not a nice experience. After three more of those I managed to do it a bit better and at least get up a bit.
After two hours of intense surfing I managed to get up on the board around 6-7 times, fully standing. Even did some posing for the photographer. With enough salt water in my lungs and feeling quite manly, I went to have a quick lunch. To compensate for this badass morning we went on a electric bike tour to 1770.
First off we got to make a test ride on the bikes. The expectations were really low, the guide basically told me I was doing amazing after one circle around the car park. It’s a normal bike with a battery, basically for lazy people. He then started bragging about doing 40 km/h with the battery on. I told him I was dutch, so that wasn’t an impressive figure. Also one lady didn’t join the tour, she couldn’t even cycle for 4 meters without falling off.
We set out to see some kangaroos. I did see three in the end, unfortunately I wasn’t able to take a good photo without them hopping off. Also a lot of tasting fruits and information about the location plants was provided. It definitely balanced out my bad ass surfing morning and biker tour before, but at least I learned some stuff about the history of Australia.
To celebrate our surfing adventure we headed to the local sport bar. It was pissing down with rain, fortunately we got a drop off by the hostel to the bar. Had a few pints and walked back through the rain. The next morning we were supposed to take the 9:45am bus from Agnes Water to Harvey Bay, but it was delayed. In the end it showed up 2,5 hours late cause of some flooded roads a long the way.
The weather isn’t the best at the moment. Loads of rain which results in flooded roads. My backpack got quite wet in the loading bay of the coach today. But it’s all sorted now. Currently staying in a 6 bed dorm in Harvey Bay.
Later today I will have my briefing for the Fraser Island camping trip. It will involve some 4x4 jeeps and seeing some amazing lake. After Fraser I will head down to Brisbane, see if I can get to experience the local music scene there.
Eleven hours on a bus, not one of my favorite things. After a very long day I managed to get to Airlie Beach. A small town at the sea which is the gateway to Whitsunday islands. On thursday we got to meet the Condor. Which is a sailing ship with a history. Apparently it has won every big sailing competition at least twice. Now it’s retired and only does trips to the Whitsunday Islands.
So, you hand in your shoes once you get on board. There were only 16 guests on board, it can hold 29 guests. And there were 4 crew members. Then you throw your bag downstairs and start off with a safety briefing and more boring stuff. First half hour we used the motor to get out of the harbor, then we set sail. I’ve never been sailing before, so that was quite an adventure.
I didn’t really put that much thought into it, I only heard from people it was an amazing trip. So to actually get sailing, the sail has to be hoisted. That wasn’t just the crew’s job, we were to participate in this event. Which involved tugging a rope with three guys at the same time. Thank god there was a strong Canadian guy involved, so I could just act like I was helping out.
The boat got to a nice angle and we had to sit on the safe side. The high side is the safe side, the low side is the suicide. So, legs out, receiving an occasional refreshing bit of sea water. The weather wasn’t the best at the harbor once we left, but it’s still a good 30 degrees. Just some clouds.
After a good amount of sailing we lowered the anchor. A nice dinner was cooked for us and we enjoyed it on the deck. It was now time for a party, and there was plenty of booze on board. It get’s dark quite early here, like 7:30 I think, made it a cozy scenery. After a few beers and cheap wine everyone was enjoying themselves. We had a nice mixture of nationalities. From Canada to Denmark and Turkish to Finnish. I was the only flying dutch man on board. But to be fair, I think I’ve met about two dutch guys so far during my trip.
A good amount of alcohol helped to get us to sleep in the cozy lower deck. It was quite warm and not as comfy, but I didn’t have that much trouble falling a sleep. Just to be rudely awoken at 6:30 cause the crew was preparing breakfast. I’m not a morning person, so I didn’t enjoy that. But once you’ve made your way upstairs and see the beautiful islands around you, the insane blue water and blue sky, then not even I can complain.
Spent a good hour hanging on the deck, then we got in the dingy. (that’s the small rubber boat). We got dropped off at the beach and made our way to a lookout post overviewing the Whitehaven beach. It was high tide, but still very impressive. We made our way down to the beach and got into our sexy stinger suits. Went for a swim, bit of sun bathing on the beach. The sand is amazing, really fine sand. We got warned a couple of times about our electronic devices, drop it in the sand and it will be destroyed. The sand is so fine, it will get everywhere. So I decided not to drop my camera.
We got back onto the Condor and had some nice lunch on the deck and set sail to our snorkeling spot. Now when we arrived, the front sail had to come down, so again volunteers were required. I didn’t mind helping out. While getting the sail down there was a lot of wind and I got pulled forward about half a meter and managed to hit my toe on a roof. The deck of the boat is filled with stuff you can hurt yourself on. Didn’t hurt as bad at the start, but after 20 mins I couldn’t walk anymore. As some of you remember, I went frisbeeing at the park last summer. I didn’t wear any shoes and managed to badly bruise a toe. This time I bruised the toe on my left foot, next to my big toe.
So we got some ice on it. The skipper told me not to and just walk. Good thing there were two nurses on board who took care of me. It turned purple pretty quickly. I still went snorkeling, which was beautiful. Saw a lot of fish, way more fish around than at the reef. But the coral was more impressive at the Great Barrier Reef. And I didn’t see any turtles, I did see some jellyfish which I stayed away from.
After a good snorkel we got back on the boat, me limping around. We made our way to our next overnight spot. I didn’t have to volunteer anymore, since I got injured on duty. As soon as one of the nurses did a diagnose on me, that it wasn’t broken, the sympathy stopped from the nurses. They weren’t impressed by my war injury. Good thing the rest of the girls made up for that and kept asking me if I was alright.
Another dinner on the deck, and it was time for a party again. Music on, alcohol was flowing. Which definitely helped my toe out a lot. After hearing the same playlist of (bad) music for the third time, I decided to stumble downstairs and find my phone to take over the deejay booth. A lot of appreciation was given once we got some classics like the Who and the Kinks blasting through the speakers of this great sailing boat.
The next morning I was awoken again by the preparation of breakfast. After breakfast we headed to a second snorkeling spot. The tide was high, and I just showered. I didn’t want to put on the stinger suit again and get in, but I did join the crew on the dingy. I even got to drive it. Which was a lot of fun.
Back in the harbor we got our flip flops, or as the locals say ‘thongs’, back on. Mario, my new German friend, was nice enough to drop me off at my hostel. Really enjoying the amount of space I got again. Weird experience, being stuck on a boat with 20 people. But it was very good, met a lot of cool people on the boat. At night we went to a bar on the strip. The whole crew was there, and almost all of the guests as well. We abused happy hour and got clubbing. Crowded, bad music, overpriced alcohol but a lot of fun regardless.
Today I’m recovering. My toe is already much better, I can walk in flip flops with it, so that’s all good. Just have to give it a few more days. Big thanks to my two private nurses on the boat, Nicola and Ruth, who put up with my whining and complaining. Today I’m going to figure out what my next stop is going to be. I have to be in Hervey Bay at the 27th of january for my camping trip to Fraser Island.
This weekend we headed out to the rainforest. My host Rob had another couch surfer coming over. Bekran is a Turkish doctor who is traveling to an amazing amount of places in 8 months. He is keeping a blog which even won some awards back in Turkey. I’d recommend having a peak at his blog over here: http://bekransarsilmaz.com/
So after about a 2 hour drive we came across a river we could only cross by ferry. This is where the actual rain forest begins. We headed in and soon found our first place to go for a swim. A nice cold river with really clear water. After that refreshment we were ready for some ice cream.
A local family makes their own ice cream. There are many different flavors, but there are never any queues since you don’t get to pick a flavor. You may say “one ice cream please” and get the 4 flavors of that day, easy as that. I don’t remember the flavors, but they were exotic. One fruit tasted like chocolate (but it wasn’t!).
The next stop was a sacred place for native women to bath in. We only went down for a quick look (there were no women bathing there). It was called the blue hole, cause the water is really that blue. And about a hundred yards from there, there was the green hole. That’s the sacred place for men. You may only go in once you get invited by the natives who live there. Apparently the mayor got invited to swim in the blue hole, and did. This inside knowledge is provided by my host, he’s working as the right hand of mayor of cairns. I’ve had some great insights into local government these last two weeks.
After all this sight seeing, we got hungry. We went to Mason’s cafe, a small place run by a family. They had a nice place to swim in their back yard. Which involved a rope hanging from a tree. After some encouragement from Bekran and Rob I went for it. Great fun, definitely should have done that more as a kid. The water again was cold (which is a welcome surprise in this heat) and very clear. Very refreshing to swim in, and no danger of deadly jellyfish.
Next up, was a great beach. Very tempting to go in the water, but again, way too dangerous. There was just one local swimming there, we’ve established that he must be mad. There was enough entertainment, Rob caught a small sand crab with his bare hands.
On the way back we stopped at Port Douglas for some dinner at the pub which also featured some live music. A long day, which exhausted me and made me feel like the proper excuse to sleep in the next day.
Bekran was only staying for two nights, so I felt like we needed to head for a bar the second night. We ended up in the local bar in Trinity Beach on a Sunday night. Barely anyone there, but the pints were good and the chat got better as we finished each one.
Another surfer arrived. Stephan from Austria. We decided that getting some beers and drinking them in the pool (which is part of the apartment complex) was a good way to spend our day. After I had to pack my bag. Tomorrow morning I will have to get up at 5:30 to get into Cairns on time. Getting the Greyhound bus towards Airlie Beach. There I will sleep for one night, then I get on this sail ship.
The ship will set sail towards the Whitsundays Islands, which are supposed to be amazing. We will sleep on the ship for two nights, should be fun. If there is no update in about a week, I stranded on a tropical island. Bit like Lost.
It has been exactly a week since Rob picked me up from the airport. I’ve had a chance to get rid of that jetlag/sleep deprivation and explore Australia a bit. It has been a good week.
Last weekend on Sunday we headed for Port Douglas. To get there, you have this amazing drive along the sea, very beautiful road. Port Douglas is a vacation resort, especially for older people. We wanted to see the beach, but apparently I was missing one crucial piece of equipment, thongs. And no, that’s not underwear, well at least not here, those are flip flops. So for an astonishing amount of 3 euros, I got myself a pair of size kano.
With my new footwear, we headed off to the beach. A beautiful beach, with palm trees all over the place. There was this weird big white thing in the sea though, Rob is a trained life guard so he could explain to me what it was. It’s a net. You’re only allowed to swim in the net this time of year, due to the large (deathly) jellyfish that are out here. I’ve heard some horror stories about some tourists just walking in the sea, ankle deep and get stung by them and die. So the net is to keep the big ones out.
Had a dip into the ocean (don’t worry mom, inside the net!) and what can I say, wow it’s warm in the sea. Almost a bit gross, don’t expect this big cool off, especially cause you can’t go that far into the ocean, so it’s all shallow water. But still, compared to the burning sun, it’s a nice cool off in a way.
There are also small jellyfish, like half a centimeter big. The net can’t keep them out. Life guards do perform checks on them every two hours. If they find them in any of the beaches in Queensland (which is the province/state Cairns is also in.) they close down all the beaches for 48 hours. They will keep checking the water, and if they find any again, extend that time with 24 hours until it’s safe to go in again. Despite all that, Rob told me yesterday (friday the 13th of all days) that a woman was stung inside the net by these little ones. Those little ones don’t have to be deadly (unless you’re a child, old or sick.) They do hurt though, all your muscles contract so you can’t breathe and will feel sick all the way, really bad apparently. If you do get stung, they will bring you to a hospital and get you hooked on morphine for 3-4 days, then the venom will wear off. Did I mention they are half a centimeter big?!
So the rest of the week I’ve spent in and around Cairns. Did some shopping, lay on the grass at the Lagoon and walked around a bit in my brand new foot wear. Hello blisters! These days also involved sleeping late, whenever I could cause the heat it just relentless. But enough about me being lazy, I had an early morning on Thursday.
6:30am, making my way to the pick up point in Trinity Beach. Made our way to Cairns, to the harbor. It was quite cloudy in Cairns though. Got on a nice boat that set sail to the Great Barrier Reef. Out on the sea, I couldn’t see a single cloud, nothing but sunshine. After a nice two hour boat ride, we arrived at the barrier and I could pick up my diving gear. First you get a sexy anti stinger suit, to protect you from the jellyfish. Then the flippers, goggles and large air tank on your back. In a group of 4 we went in.
First 2 mins were kinda scary, breathing normally under water. But as soon as you realize that it’s working, you’ll be fine. So we set off, going to a depth of about 5-6 meters, which was just a meter above the coral. Very colorful, loads of exotic fish, a real treat. Seen like 4 turtles, came very close to one, about half a meter. He was just chilling in between the coral. Just loads of colors and beautiful stuff. After about 30 minutes, we made our way back up. That was a bit of a relief, salty water in my mouth and goggles. But for a first time scuba dive, not so bad.
After the scuba diving we could go snorkeling. I had a go at it, the breathing was more difficult than with your regulator from scuba diving, but it was alright. Even though I probably should have done it the other way around, since the snorkeling was definitely less impressive.
A good lunch on board was provided after which we set sail back. I had a good 2 hours of sun bathing and managed not to get sunburned, but the tanning isn’t really working yet. Also the fact that all the locals here are ridiculously tanned doesn’t help, not a fair comparison. But I’d say at least I managed to get a healthy color now. Let’s give it another two months.
Tomorrow we will head to the rain forest and probably go on a crocodile hunt. I don’t think there’s actual hunting involved, but hopefully I’ll be able to see some crocs though. Sunday it’s supposed to be bad weather. The forecast is showing it, but you can also feel it getting more hut and humid already. Apparently it’s not a small shower here, when it rains, but a proper tropical amount. Hopefully it will cool down a bit, even though I’ve been told it won’t really.
With the knowledge of Rob, my couch surfing host, I managed to sort the rest of my trip out. After the weekend I will head down to Airlie Beach, see the Whitsundays islands. After that I will head for Hervey Bay to see Frasier island. For now, I’m enjoying a nice cold one before heading off to bed.
