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.
