Week 6 - In which we meet a stranger and get on his boat!

Day 35

A little bit of backtracking:

While we were in Sydney in December, we found an ad from a gentleman who owns a boating company in Cairns.  He does half of his year offering tours up there, and the other half down in Sydney.  He needed someone to come help him sail from Cairns to Sydney in 3 weeks (so slightly rushed) and help pay for fuel and food.  Of course, we jumped at this opportunity, quickly giving him a call to confirm that he had availability still. He did. And he wanted to leave in two days, meaning we had to book a flight for tomorrow, fly to Cairns, and immediately set sail. This is when things got overwhelming.

Our first issue was that we didn’t know the guy, or his boat, and that always adds an element of fear.  The second issue was the money, he was asking for $60 a day, plus the cost for the flights.  We just didn’t have that kind of cash.  The last problem was how last minute it was.  It was overwhelmingly rushed, and set us into an instant panic.  We weren’t ready to leave Sydney, we didn’t have everything organized.  So after long discussion, we stayed. We turned down the offer.  We didn’t sail the east coast.

It was the right decision to make, I got a job right after, and we started raising funds for our future travels.  Still, a part of me always wished we could have gotten onto that boat, as the adventure would have been epic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fast forward to last night, I was in Mcdonalds browsing the various Facebook backpacker sites, when I noticed an ad requesting crew. I clicked.  It was from a guy named Ian, offering two spots on his boat in exchange for assistance sailing from Brunswick Heads (Byron Bay Area) to Airlie Beach, with no fuel costs only food.  I messaged him.  I texted him.  I called him.  I left a message.

When he finally called me back, he confirmed that no one had taken the spots, and that he would love to have us on board.  He wanted to leave within the next two days just like the last guy, however this time we didn’t have to pack or fly.  Brunswick heads is a 5 hour drive from Rainbow Beach, so we didn’t feel as rushed or as nervous.  Plus, since we were driving, we had the ability to check out the boat, and if we didn’t like it, simply drive away.  Everything clicked into place.  We were going to sail the East Coast of Australia, or at least part of it!

Now back to today:

We wanted to stretch out the drive down south as much as we could, taking it slowly over the next two days so we had plenty of energy for our boat ride.  This meant sleeping in this morning, slowly making our way south stopping wherever we felt, and taking lots of breaks along the way.  Nothing interested happened along that drive, however we took it so slowly that by the time we made it to Brisbane the sun had already started to set.  We were determined to find an Ikea in Brisbane for supper, so we pushed onwards, attempting to get into a tunnel allowing us to completely bypass the city and pop out right by the Ikea on the south end. And everything seemed to be going as planned, until we noticed that the tunnel was a toll road.  I don’t do toll roads.

In an attempt to avoid toll roads, we ended up adding approximately 1.5 hours of driving time to our evening, and navigated our way through an incredibly complicated city in the dark.  On the plus side, being back in a city in the dark felt so good, as I am such a city boy.  On the negative side, we almost died as we passed right through the heart of Brisbane, making wrong turns and getting onto cramped, rushhour-packed overpassess.  Finally, we made it to Ikea and enjoyed delicious dollar hotdogs!  From there, we headed to our campsite and passed out.  

Day 36

Only 2 hours from our destination now, we planned on making a day of it, our last day on dry land, and headed slowly down the coast, once more making a couple stops along the way that aren’t noteworthy.  Finally, we decided to go to Mcdonald's one last time to use wifi to download movies and music before heading out on a boat with no hope of wifi.

After spending our afternoon in Mcdonalds, we said bye to the internet and completed our trip to Brunswick Heads in the dying light.  We made it just after dark, and promptly informed Ian of our arrival.  He gave instructions to his boat, and after searching for a while we finally found Kristy Lee, our home for the next few weeks.

We clambered aboard, and met Ian, an 18 year old Aussie from Perth, who had flown over to buy Kristy Lee and sail up to Airlie Beach, where he hoped to find work.  That evening we discussed the details of our upcoming voyage of some burnt chicken and potatoes, and got to know each other a little better.  We left after a couple hours excited for the voyage, and while the fears of being kidnapped and murdered on a boat were still there, I think they lost some of their strength that first night.

Day 37

We woke up incredibly early today, and made our way to where the boat was beached so we could begin the process of readying her for a voyage.  The first task: cleaning the hull (bottom) of the the boat.  We went down with brushes and began scrubbing the built up algae off. As Ian explained, this build up along the bottom of a boat can slow down  boat considerably, so it was important to remove it all.

Several hours of hard work later, we were finished and moved onto phase two of our morning: learning some basic boating skills and safety. This went smoothly for a while, until it became time to learn how to steer and use the dingy (a small boat that we tow behind us as we sail, and us to go to shore from an anchored position, or as a lifeboat in an emergency).  Caroline went first, leaving me to watch the boat as they zoomed off to practice using the motor.  10 long minutes later, they came back and it was my turn.  I climbed into the dingy, and twisted the throttle so we began to speed up the river.  After exploring upriver for some time, we headed back to the boat to discover that we had a guest.

It turns out that scraping your hull in rivers is illegal, and someone had phoned the maritime police.  So Caroline and I stood by while Ian received a lecture from the officer, managing to squirm himself out of a $7000 ticket for polluting the water.  An uncomfortable amount of time later, the maritime officer was satisfied that Ian would follow rules in the future, and were cleared for phase 3 of preparation:  Shopping and Laundry.

Phase 3 took most of the afternoon, as we drove into nearby Byron Bay and picked up some last minute supplies/food and did our laundry. 4-5 hours later we left Byron and headed back to Brunswick Heads to pack a few things into a bag and head onto the boat.  We said goodbye to Ol’ Bessie and headed onboard.

Days 38 - ?

The next several weeks will be written in a slightly different style, and features our boating adventures as we make our way up the coast.  Over the next couple weeks we get to see incredible islands, feed wild dolphins (and sorta swim with them), and have a generally cool time floating on the ocean.  Check back here for those adventures, I’ll have them up as soon as I can!!

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Week 5 - Agnus Waters to Rainbow Beach

Day 28

We woke up incredibly early this morning, heading into the town of Agnus Waters at around 6 am to sign ourselves up for some early morning surfing.  Agnus Waters is renowned for it’s beginner surfing, with several local stores offering incredibly cheap lessons.  We went with a company offering $17 surfing lessons, which seemed like an incredible deal considering you get 3 hours on the water with all equipment included! We arrived at the store nice and early, and were the first people signed up for the day’s lesson.  After the usual waivers and safety lectures (blah, blah, blah) we were finally on the beach ready to head into the water.

The surf shop/lesson are run by 3 men named Grom, JD, and Rory, so basically exactly what you would expect from an Australian surf shop.  And just as cliche as their names are, they were typical surfing dudes, with long flowing blonde hair, and heavy accents.  I always assumed some of these cliches were over-exaggerated, but after what seemed like the thousandth “Duuuuuude” and “Go, mate! Go, mate!”, I realized that these stereotypes exist for a very good reason.  I was just waiting for a “Righteoussss” to finish off the set.

After briefly practicing the process of standing up on a board, we were thrown into the water with gusto, and we began to ride the waves into shore, attempting to stand whenever possible, and falling more than I care to admit. Still, we had amazing weather for it, and the waves were ideal for us, coming in slowly and gently, carefully lifting us up, and then pushing us forward while we flopped on top of the board.  Of the two of us, Caroline stood up first as she balanced precariously on her board before tumbling back into the water.  I stood up right after, riding quite successfully for some time, before colliding with another surfer and taking us both down.  After roughly an hour in the first location, we moved up the beach towards the more “advanced” waves.

The first waves we rode were dumping waves; waves coming directly into the shore before crashing over. These waves I found to be incredibly easy to catch, however because they dump so quickly you can only stand up for a couple seconds before they come crashing down, taking out both you and your board.  The waves we moved to were spilling waves; waves coming in at an angle that you can actually ride for quite some time, as they push you down the beach instead of onto the beach. These are bloody hard to catch, nigh impossible, and look like the more typical surfer wave.

Turns out surfing is incredibly exhausting, and after several hours trying to catch the spilling waves, our lesson was over and we laboriously dragged our boards back to shore.  Carrying the boards back to the shop, we received dinky little certificates of completion (Yay, I graduated!) and then went to nap.  

Surfing is exhausting.

After we had recuperated slightly, we bought some supplies for a delicious brunch, and headed to 1770 for a cook-up (Ha, “Cook”-up).  1770 was the date that Captain Cook did some pretty cool things, and they named this peninsula after the date he arrived.  1770. Cool stuff.  It is also (and more importantly) just a really really beautiful place, with stunning parks, beautiful hikes, and stellar (correction, STELLAR) sunsets and sunrise, being one of the only places where you can actually see the sun rise and fall over the same ocean.  Cool stuff.

After a delicious brunch, beachside hangout time, and an amazing sunset, we headed back to Agnus Waters to find caming.  Camping in Australia has been an interesting experience, as unlike New Zealand it isn’t nearly as well established and maintained, but there are sooo many more free places.  Until now, we had only paid once for a campsite, which is great! However, a lot of the free campsites are pretty horrid, often just a patch of concrete by the road.  Near Agnus Waters there are no such campsites to be found.  We hadn’t planned ahead, and were now frantically trying to find a campsite, even a paid one, that still had room for us.  After several rejections, I found an advertisement for “Off the Grid Camping”, and gave them a call.  They had room!

We pulled into the campground only to discover that it was actually someone’s house.  They decided to rent out a portion of their land to campers looking for a spot to park a campervan overnight.  The kicker: they had the most amazing facilities we have seen yet.  From hot showers, two fridges, entire stove with cutlery, and even an actual hostel-style room with 4 beds, this place was unreal! Best of all, all water used was rainwater, and all power used was solar.  Such an amazing find! We finally had light and power, so we took advantage by staying up late for the first time in ages and watching movies.

Day 29

Having so clearly mastered (lolz) surfing the day before, we decided to head back and take another shot at riding the waves.  Waking up nice and and early, we grabbed a couple boards (“Have a chill day, bruuh”) and hit the waves. Repeatedly.  With our faces.  Surfing is painful.

Also exhausting.

I really don’t have a lot to say about today.  Like any sport, surfing takes time to master, and we spent all day attempting just that.  I have no stories of crazy waves or tricks that we performed.  We just surfed!

Getting back into the van, we decided to make the drive all the way to Bundaberg.  So in the dying light, we wound our way down the road south towards Bundy.  We found a beautiful campsite by a river walk, and hid from all of the loud, obnoxious backpackers having way too much fun on the other side of the park.

Day 30

This morning started off with a dose of work, so we pulled up to our trusty Maccas for some free wifi.  Fast-forward 3 hours, we hit the road to figure out what there was to do in town!  As usual, we were there in the wrong season and couldn't do half of the epic stuff around Bundaberg. Still, we picked a handful of cool things to do, and set out.

Not all travel days are as successful as others, and this day was about as bad as they come.  First we attempted to climb a mountain, only to find out that we couldn't access the trail.  Then we went to explore lilac fields, only to find that they weren’t in flower.  From there, we travelled to Bargara which is a beautiful retirement village frequented by gorgeous turtles.  However, there were no turtles present while we were there, so we headed back to the campsite early.

At the campsite we met some lovely travelers from Western Australia, who were busy travelling their country.  The coolest part, however, is that while travelling south of Sydney, they fell in love with, and subsequently bought, an adorable dog! The concept of raising a dog on the road is a little mind-boggling to me, however it brought us so much joy to snuggle this tiny creature, and watch as it ran around pouncing on leaves and finding bits of food everywhere.  I don’t know if I could do it, but that backpacker couple were rocking the whole dog thing!

After an evening as part of the rambunctious backpacker circle, spent chatting and telling stories, it was time for us to retire and prep for another day of Bundaberg Exploration.

Day 31

Our second Bundy day, we started with a quick hike to the Sharon Gorge (not to exciting), then drove into town.   We visited “The Barrel” first, the barrel shaped factory that produces Bundaberg Ginger Beer, a delicious local product that is bought and sold nationwide.  The barrel shaped building is pretty cool, but other than that there wasn’t much to see.  So we headed to our next stop: Bundaberg Rum Factory.  We spent most of the day exploring the museum, learning interesting facts about the rum making process, and watching movies about rum-tasters and polar bears.  The highlight of the afternoon, however, was definitely the two free drinks that came with the tour.  Now since Caroline was driving, that ended up being 4 free drinks for me.  It was a good afternoon.

First we sipped on 100 year old rum, which we then added coke to because it was nasty. Then we tried Bundaberg Black, the “Black” portion signifying the expensiveness of the rum. We also added coke to this one.  We then got to try their liqueurs, both the chocolate and coffee liqueurs, and the banana toffee one.  We sipped each on their own, before trying them in various concoctions.  To the chocolate and coffee liqueur we added cream and ginger beer, otherwise known as a Whale Tail for obvious reasons (I don’t understand it either).  To the banana and toffee liqueur we added cream and Lift, a combination invented by the bartender that ended up being the best thing ever. So good!

Now I don’t think I have written about this yet (if I have, please forgive me), but Ol’ Bessie is an old, creaky, manual van.  Before we bought it, either Caroline or I had ever driven stick before, resulting in me teaching myself via Youtube videos while driving on the wrong side of the road.  Up to this point, I had done all the driving.  Now, I was slightly intoxicated, and it was Caroline’s turn to learn. And to be entirely honest, she wasn’t half bad! (She made me write that; it was actually awful…)  So, after numerous stalls (and being stuck on a hill for about 10 minutes while she struggled to put it in gear), we were on our way south towards our next campsite.

Day 33

Waking up ridiculously early, we headed into the town of Childers without any expectations or intention of stopping, but after seeing how amazingly cute the town was, we couldn’t help but to stop.

Childers is an adorable vintage town with beautiful old buildings, and a ton of history.  Because it was so early, everything was still closed, so we ended up just walking up and down the streets peering through windows.  Finally, towards the end of our exploration, things started opening and we were able to actually enter the shops for a change.  Our first stop was a stunning vintage movie theater, where the chairs were made out of canvas and the walls were covered with cracks letting light into the otherwise dark theatre.  Simply stepping into this building was enough to strike anyone with awe, as the history is so clearly present in every plank and nail of the structure.

From there we went to the information center, an old converted hotel in which 15 backpackers died in a deliberately set fire.  A sad memorial, the building now serves an amazing purpose, bringing life, information, and art from the ashes of the old hotel.

From Childers we headed into Hervey Bay, the gateway to Fraser Island.  Fraser Island is the world's largest sand island, and is supposed to be an absolutely stunning spot to spend a couple days.  Unfortunately, we didn’t have the money required to spend time on the island, so we decided to skip it.  Instead, we went to the nearby Discovery Sphere to learn about the island and surrounding waters.  

After absorbing the information in the sphere, we drove along the Hervey Bay esplanade until we reached the jetty.  The Hervey Bay jetty is insanely long, taking us approx 20 minutes to walk one way.  As we walked along the jetty, we saw fish teeming in the water below, being scooped up by a couple cormorants from time to time.  All of the sudden, the fish scattered and we saw a small shark thrashing through the water, grabbing at fish left and right a they flew from his jaws.  Even though this shark was tiny, watching it hunt was incredibly terrifying, as there was so much power and speed in it’s actions.

From the jetty we went to the marina to hug a giant whale sculpture, and then headed out of Hervey Bay to Maryborough, home of Mary Poppins.  Or at least, home of the lady who wrote Mary Poppins. Arriving in town around supper time, we decided to pick up some groceries from Woolies before finding the statue of Mary Poppins.  We headed into the store, grabbed some food, and then got back into the van.  Turning left after exiting the parking lot, we were immediately stopped by a red light.  As we waited for it to turn green, the engine stalled.  And would not start.

“A fuel intake problem” said the gentleman who helped us push the van out of harm’s way “I know a guy.”.  15 minutes later, we had a mobile mechanic come to look at the van.  As usual, this “fuel intake problem” magically disappeared once the mechanic arrived, and we payed the man for simply showing up despite the fact that he barely looked at the car as the problem wasn’t replicating itself.  Grrr…

We made it to the Mary Poppins’ statue, took some awesome photos, and then headed to our campsite.  Looking back on the day, we had a massive day and did so much.  You really do have good travel days and bad travel days.  I’m just not sure which one this one was.

Day 34

From a campsite south of Maryborough we headed over to Rainbow Beach, the southernmost tip of Fraser Island and a place I had heard ton of amazing stuff about.  We pulled into town to find a small, quiet town center very reminiscent of Agnus Waters.  I fell in love instantly, despite the fact that the town didn’t have a lot going on.  It was just one of those places that had a compelling charm about it, and I really enjoyed the atmosphere.

The first thing we did in town was head to the beach, where we confronted with massive rolling waves.  Though by local standards, these waves were actually tiny, to us they were huge.  Averaging around 8ft tall, they would come crashing in, giving you a hearty smack if you didn’t duck dive fast enough. We spent a couple hours simply hanging out in these waves, enjoying the thrill of wrestling with the ocean, often losing.  At long last we pulled ourselves away and went to see what else the town had to offer.

Our next stop was known as “The Sandblow”, which seemed vague and non-descript until we arrived.  And arriving itself was a challenge, with the drive being mostly steep hills with tight curves making it impossible to build momentum in our chunky van.  At one point we even had locals laughing at us as poor Ol’ Bessie struggled so much to make it up a particular stretch of hill that we had to reverse and try again with a running start.

We eventually made it, and it was definitely worth the effort.  The Sandblow is a huge valley of sand leading in from the ocean and coming at least 700m inland before dropping off into tree again.  There is no lead-up to it, as you will be walking through forest before it suddenly drops into sand.  Clearly the sand has blown in from the ocean, however it seems nearly impossible when consider the sheer amount of sand in the valley; with it’s steep ridges and deep curves.  The Sandblow is one of those places where you just have to take a step back and marvel at how crazy the world is.  

From the Sandblow we decided we didn’t have enough time (or energy) to visit any other Rainbow beach attractions, so we continued down the road southwards. We decided to stop at a Mcdonalds to charge up our devices and reconnect with the world.  So stop we did, and we spent the dying hours of the day enjoying air conditioned paradise and 50 cent ice creams.  That’s when Ian called about the boat.

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Review - Cruise Whitsundays Outer Reef Trip

For any fellow travellers trying to decide what trips to do in the Whitsundays, I thought I would share my experience on the Cruise Whitsundays Outer Reef trip. Feel free to comment if you enjoyed/hated the trip! Enjoy!

The day started with an early morning check-in onto a large catamaran.  The reef gets farther away from the coast the further south you travel, so we had roughly a 3 hour ride to endure before we would finally arrive at Hardy Reef.  To the credit of the tour company, that 3 hours felt incredibly short, as they filled it with hilarious commentary and emergency instruction.  Seriously, the staff managed to make me bust a gut simply through their “how to scuba” instructions, and even the speaker could barely get through her presentation she was laughing so hard at the antics of the crew.  Altogether a fun and fast ride out, with stops at Hamilton Island to pick up additional passengers before heading out to the reef.

Fast-forward 3 hours, we were pleasantly full from our morning tea (featuring delicious biscuits and fruit at no cost) and ready to hit the reef.  The snorkelling itself is done from a small pontoon, which was great for the more novice snorkellers among us (ahem Caroline) as it gave a sense of security and a solid base to swim back to if anything goes wrong.  The pontoon had an underwater observatory that was covered with thousands of little herrings, and one large Queensland Groper that swam with them until he felt hungry, in which case he still swam with them, just with his mouth open to catch the less fortunate herring.  As well, the pontoon had a large deck area to sunbathe in, if that is really what you spent your money coming out to the reef to do.  The pontoon also comes loaded with snorkel and dive equipment, though we brought our own.

The first thing we did (after a quick visit to the observatory) was to get straight into the water!  They have semi-submerged platforms to snorkel off of, which was quite convenient for both entering and exiting the water.  They also offer a fantastic mask de-fogging spray that legitimately worked, and I recommend always getting a good spray before entering the water.  From the platforms it is a quick swim to the Hardy Reef; a stunning coral wall full of colour and life.  Unlike other snorkelling we had done, this reef wall was exactly like the pictures suggest, and was absolutely covered with points of interest.  From the Giant Clams, to the enormous Humphead Wrasse, to the incredibly coloured Parrot Fish, the reef was so full of life swimming around it is truly remarkable. But the truly indescribable part was the coral.  It is amazing how much there is, and how varying each piece can be.  They say that there are no two snowflakes alike, and I am convinced the same hold true for coral, as each section was entirely different than the last in shape, color, size, and texture.  Hardy Reef doesn't have a lot of soft coral in comparison to other sites we visited, but the display of hard coral was just incredible.

After our first snorkel trip, we headed back to the boat for lunch.  This is something that I find most tours don’t do right, and I wasn’t disappointed here.  The lunch was incredibly average, consisting of cold chicken, prawns, and salad.  But hey, no one attends these things for the lunches!

After lunch we went on a short tour on the semi-submersible offered in your ticket price.  Honestly, I was very pleasantly surprised with this tour, as it brought you out farther than you could swim, and really showed you the reef from a different perspective.  I just think that there are elements you lose when you are in the reef itself, that you can gain from taking a step back and looking through the window.  I would always choose to snorkel if I had to pick one, but the tour was definitely worth doing.  The guide was knowledgeable and friendly, and was amazing at pointing out little things that I would have never seen on my own.  We even saw a turtle!

We then went back into the water for our afternoon snorkel.  This was equally as amazing as the last, showcasing the wide scale of vibrant colors glistening on and around the reef.  Endless numbers fish floating by, matched by the endless pillars of coral to support and sustain them.  Here I have to mention probably the biggest problem I had with the tour: The company restricts experienced snorkellers.  Now I wouldn't call ourselves “advanced” by any means, but we've gone on our fair share of snorkelling adventures on this trip, and we are pretty good at manoeuvring our way out to the best spots and finding amazing chunks of reef “off the beaten path”.  Doing that we are able to snorkel for hours and hours, losing track of time and just getting lost in the beautiful surroundings.  As amazing as the reef was around the pontoon, they limited exactly how far out you could go with big boundary ropes, regardless of your experience.  I understand why they might have guidelines in place for those who aren't the most confident, however there should be options to leave the provided snorkel zone “at your own peril”; I’d even be fine signing a waiver if that makes things easier legally. But getting yelled at every time I was chasing a fish and happened to cross the boundary got old really fast, and because you could only snorkel a limited section, it was harder to spend hours and hours as things got slightly boring as you lapped sections you've already seen for the third or fourth time. I should note: they have a large area sectioned off, and I think most people were happy inside of it.  But if you are slightly more experienced, know you will be restricted (and yelled at).

Back to the happy stuff: we had a magnificent afternoon snorkel as we perused the section of the reef multiple times, and then headed back to the boat.  I will say that despite the restrictions placed on snorkelling, I felt that there was a very good amount of time out on the reef.  Any shorter, and we would have felt gypped. Any longer, and we would have been way too tired/bored.   They had us out there for a good amount of time!

We got pulled out of the water at around 3:30, and had 30 minutes to shuffle off the pontoon and back to the boat.  We had left all of our stuff on the sun-deck for the day, so it was nice to not feel rushed and take a couple last photos of the gorgeous reef before we headed off.  Finally (sadly) we pulled away from the pontoon and waved goodbye to the Great Barrier Reef.  This should be our last snorkel on the reef, and as awesome as I am sure other reefs will be, nothing will the the Great Barrier Reef, if only because of the way it has been built up in my heart and mind.  With all of the environmental concerns surrounding the future of the reef, I am extra thankful we had the opportunity we did to travel out there for a really amazing day.  And while all experiences are slightly different, I think the trip as something for everyone, and while I wish they would allow experienced snorkellers leave the safe zone, it was altogether a fantastic day and an amazing trip out to the reef.

I would definitely recommend this trip to absolutely anyone, especially anyone who was slightly underwhelmed by other reef trips. I thought that the colours and life were astounding, and the snorkelling/semi-sub were exciting and fun. Despite an average lunch, the morning/afternoon teas made-up for it, and the fun crew made the experience worthwhile. We loved it!

*This is not a paid review!

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Week 4 - Airlie Beach to Rockhampton

Day 21

Our last day sailing, we started the day snorkelling a massive soft coral field with a cute little green turtle.  From there, we slowly headed back to Airlie while admiring the incredible views of various Whitsunday Islands.  It really was an amazing trip, and such a joyful group of people to experience this with.

Back on dry land, we were utterly exhausted.  The late night conversations and early morning snorkelling really knocked the stuffing out of us! We had so many plans for the afternoon, but postponed them in favor of sleep.  Sailing is exhausting!

Day 22

All of our time in Airlie Beach so far has been spent either booking trips or sailing. Now that everything serious had been dealt with, it was time to actually relax and enjoy the town! Airlie beach is full of shops and bars, so there is plenty to do and see.   We spent the morning walking through town and window shopping all the creative and nifty stores. From there we made a delicious homemade coffee, and headed to the lagoon.

Having spent several months in Australia, I have begun to realize that having a lagoon is what really seperates a city from a town, and Aussies take their lagoons incredibly seriously.  Airlie Beach has neither raised or lowered the bar with their spacious and deep lagoon. Not as lovely as Cairns certainly, but definitely a place made for spending an afternoon reading and cooking delicious grub.  So, in an effort to fit in with the locals, we spent the afternoon doing just that!  One delicious meal of Coconut Cream and Veal pasta later (mmmhhhhh), we had just enough sunlight for one last chapter before heading back to our campsite for the night.  

Day 23

Today was a work day.  Not the most glamourous thing, but hey, I got bills to pay.  

We went to Happy Travels to spend the day working and charging up devices.  If there is one thing I have experience with after 8 months, it is taking advantage of the various points where you can get a free charge and some wifi.  Pro Tip: Happy Travels offer both unlimited plug-ins and fast wifi.  Take advantage of it!

We spent all day in that little electronic paradise, editing photos and finishing up work that needed to get done.  From there, we got ready for our big next day!  Outer Reef time!

Day 24

Cairns is considered the best spot to access the Great Barrier Reef, which at the time we had every intention of doing.  We did go to Green Island which is technically on the reef, and were surrounded by beautiful fish and turtles there.  Green Island got us incredibly excited for our trip to the outer reef… until we went to Fitzroy island a couple weeks later.

Another island on the reef, Fitzroy is known to have some of the absolute best island snorkelling on the reef.  Except.... It wasn’t.  It was dead.  Walking Fitzroy was one of the most disheartening things I have ever experienced, an snorkelling it was even worse.  Everything was just white.  

Maybe saying it was dead was a slight exaggeration.  After talking to several locals on the matter, apparently coral can go white without dying, and it does during intense hot/dry spells.  Cairns had been through an incredibly long and hot summer, and as such there was rumoured to be a lot of color loss in that region of the Reef.  We decided not to snorkel around there, but rather saved our Outer Reef trip for farther south.

Which brings us to today; Outer Reef trip day!  We were incredibly pumped to finally get to visit the magnificent corals, colours, and fish!

I wrote way too much about this, so I decided to make it it's own post.  Check out my in-depth review of the Outer Reef trip here!

Day 25

Back in Airlie beach, we abused Happy Travels one more time to get some work done, then headed to our campsite for a nice, well deserved rest.  Snorkelling really knocks the stuffing out of you!

I should let you know, the next week or so gets pretty boring, but it’s not my fault! You see, Australia is a weird country. They have these beautiful, lush coastlines that are rich with forests and people, while the middle of the country is barren desert.  So travellers tend to stick to the coastlines.  Moreover, they tend to stick to the East Coast for some unknown reason (ahem, extensive marketing). Because of this, most of the East Coast has been built up as a tourist destination, with tons of hostels and town esplenades.  But these tourist areas are like any business, and they typically form in one area due to market forces.   So you have patches of beautiful tourist area with long stretches of emptiness in between. I tell you this because for the next week we will be in an empty patch.  But don’t worry! I’ll find some stories...  

Day 26

We camped last night just north of a city named Mckay, so we spent today in the city exploring.  The Mckay itself was nothing too exciting or special, but I still had a lovely and friendly vibe to it. They have a massive arts a cultural centre that was unfortunately closed, but we spent some time at the library next door admiring the architecture, enjoying the air conditioning, and napping on cushy chair.  From there we went to the Mckay lagoon.  Of all the lagoons we have seen so far, I think this one was the most beautiful, with three levels, a slide, and a freaking waterfall.  All provided for free. Seriously.

We then headed to the information center to see what else there was to do in the area.  Turns out there wasn’t much. So we decided to drive straight through to Rockhampton, a drive that ended up being very long and difficult.  

It is roughly 347 kilometers between Rockhampton and Mckay, with no gas stations enroute.  Our van has a 40 litre tank with the capacity to go roughly 320 kms on one tank.  Basically we couldn’t make it straight to Rockhampton using the theoretical limits of our tank. We had no clue that there wasn’t gas enroute between Rockie and Mckay, as there was no warning or anything.  So it was only by chance that we decided to top up the tank in Mckay, and then we headed out on what should have been an absolutely horrible and dangerous trip.

As we drove along, we started to leave the lush rainforest area of Northern Quensland, and entered the dry-er and redder southern portion. The transistion was realy apparent the farther we drove, and it was cool to be able to see how abruptly it changed. It was a very pleasant drive.  And then the sun set.  And we realized we had a problem.  

The fuel guage was showing a quarter of a tank, but the signs were showing Rockhampton to be 200 kms out, it was pitch black, and we were beginning to freak out.  Instantly I started doing the math that I should have done earlier, and I came to the conclusion that we just weren’t making it.  Hands clutching the steering wheel, knuckles turning white, I watched as the fuel guage went from a quarter tank, to a 16th, to empty.  The light went on, but we were still 20 kms out; essentially doomed.  Yet we continued plugged along, attempting to preserve gas as best as possible.  Finally, despite all odds, we saw the lights of Rockhampton at the bottom of the hill, just as I could feel the engine puttering out of gas.  Clutch in, we rolled down that hill before perfectly sliding into a stop at a Caltex Gas Station.  Despite all odds (and basic math), we made it.  The van has a 40 litre tank, and at that gas station we put 39.8 litres in.  Running dry, but we made it.

Day 27

We woke up in a campground just north of Rockhampton, and started the day off with a walk near Edna caves.  Unfortunately you weren’t allowed to actually go into the caves, so instead we walked outside before driving to the capricorn caves.  Here you were allowed to go into the caves, just for a significant fee.  Being the broke backpackers we are, we decided to skip this particular attraction and head into the city itself to see what there was to see.  

Rockie(hampton) is the Cow capital of Australia, kind of the Alberta to Australia’s Canada.  So most of the attractions in town were cow related, and honestly I felt like I could get all of that back home. So we chose to skip all cow attractions, and tried to find some other things to do for the day.  We finally settled on the Rockhampton zoo, which turned out to be an amazing decision.  

First off, the Rockhampton Zoo is 100% free. Which is amazing for a zoo. Secondly it has an amzaing layout, set right beside the beautiful Botanic Gardens, and showcasing the animals in a way that felt spacious, freindly, and natural.  The zoo features stunning birds (including a brightly coloured Cassowary), adorable locals (Roos, Koalas, Wombats, Emus, Crocs, the lot.), and monkeys that unfortunately were packed away for the day.  And oh yeah, we saw our first dingos which was so cool!  So I highly reccomend that zoo to absolutely everyone, as it was so amazing!

From the zoo we explored more of Rockhampton, but there was ultimately nothing of note in the city so I won’t describe them here.  Late that afternoon we pressed on to our campsite in the town of Calliope, just south of Rockhampton.  We stopped at a beautiful site overhanging a river, and had a pleasant evening eavesdropping on the beautiful music made by some nearby hippies.  I miss playing music!

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Week 3: Magnetic Island - Airlie Beach

**My apologies, but I don't currently have sufficient wifi to upload pictures! Will put them up ASAP.  Check back soon!

Day 15

I wish I could start this week off with some incredible story of grandiose adventure, but in reality we had finally succumbed to the beast that is Magnetic Island. On the 7th (technically 15th) day, we rested. And we rested hard. We’re talking naps in the hammock, naps by the pool, naps in the pool, and naps at the bar by the pool. We rested freaking hard.

Day 16

The night before we had been playing cards with a couple backpackers, when we had the brilliant idea to wake up at 5 am to watch the sunrise in a secluded bay. It’s incredible how good ideas can seem the night before, but the reality of a 5 am wakeup after a night of laughter and cards is much different from the jovial walk pictured the night before. Still, with plenty of yawns and grouchy mutterings, we walked off to find our secluded sunrise bay. The walk itself was an incredibly lengthy climb over steep terrain with zero natural lighting, resulting in plenty of stubbed toes and scraped shins. As we walked along, we were actually fortunate enough to see a beautiful Echidna half burrowed into a hole in a rock. The aussie in our group began to tell us about ways to pick up an Echidna, however we decided to leave it in piece and simply take photos and memories.

Eventually we arrived at our sunrise destination, and witnessed the arrival of the glorious Sun King on His blazing throne. It was a sobering reminder of what exactly travelling is about: the journey itself. Because as beautiful as that sunrise was, no rational person could ever equate it with the effort it took to walk the several miles in the dark. The highlight of that experience was definitely not the sunrise, but rather the walk, the discoveries, the getting lost, and the finding our way again.

Upon arrival back to the hostel, I felt quite ill and decided to rest in bed for a couple hours while Caroline went off for a second walk. She did the Forts walk, and managed to spot herself a wild Koala! Lucky duck! After she returned, we both began to feel the spell of the island start to work it’s magic again, and decided it was time to move on from that place. We hopped the next ferry, and travelled back to Townsville. (Fun Fact: we have used wifi all across both this country, and New Zealand, and the fastest wifi BY FAR as on the darn ferry. Funny, huh?)

After arriving in Townsville, we were driving back to our campsite when we heard a ruckus by the side of the road. We stopped to check out what it was, and came across a massive drum circle. So, at 10:00 PM we did the only logical thing, grabbed one of the drums, and started pounding away. We stayed for a couple hours partying with the Townsville drum circle group, and had such an amazing time in support of Ecuador Earthquake Relief.

Day 17

The magical spell of the Island now lifted, we realised how much time we had lost and immediately began preparations for the next leg of our journey: Airlie Beach. This involved over-priced laundromats and coffee shops, as we refuelled, cleaned, and reconnected to the world through the magical internet for the first time in a long while. I have never been a huge fan of social media, but I have to say travelling without it would be incredibly lonely and difficult.

After leaving Townsville, we headed south to Airlie Beach, passing through the town of Home Hill. We knew there was a campsite here, but had no intention of stopping; that is until we saw the free campsite offered by the town. Most free campsites in Australia are dingy and dirty, with toilets covered in spiders and undrinkable tap water. Home Hill offered a pristine, beautiful campsite with clean bbqs, plenty of space, and free (yes, free) hot showers. Basically paradise on earth. We stopped here for the night, watched some tv, cooked hotdogs, and had a peaceful/relaxing night.

Day 18

We woke up and immediately went into driving. I have to warn you, we are working with some pretty serious time restraints here, and as such can’t stop everywhere. Also, unlike NZ where all of the exciting stuff is minutes apart, there is a lot of driving in Oz. Basically, this boils down to the simply fact that the next few weeks might contain a lot of sitting around and a lot of driving. Because Townsville to Hervey Bay isn’t jam-packed with things to do. But I’ll get to that a little later.

Anyways, we drove for several hours before arriving in Airlie Beach in the mid-afternoon. The only exciting thing that happened on this particular drive was that we passed a giant mango. It’s gonna get a little bit boring, okay?

Arriving in Airlie Beach, I was immediately struck by how backpacker-y everything was. Kind of like Queenstown, NZ, this place struck me as a town set up purely to make money off of backpackers and tourists. I think there is a huge difference between a tourist town (like Banff and Cairns, where tourism is a very large part of their profit, but the town exists for other things as well) and a backpacker town, where everything is designed to give the impression of perfection, but is really all just fake to entice poor backpackers into over-drinking at bars and spending thousands on tours. I noticed all this rather quickly, and yet we still managed to fall into the trap!

Airlie beach is the gateway to the Whitsundays; beautiful, tropical islands with flowing sands and gorgeous coral. And we couldn’t not go, right? After several hours pestering a tour guide for better deals, we finally bought a couple tours and caved into the backpacker trap. Satisfied with our purchases, we headed to a far off truckstop/campsite.

Day 19

In the blink of an eye, we were on a boat.

It’s funny how over-used that expression is, and yet when you wake up at 5 am to catch an early morning boat, it really does feel like the blink of a half-asleep, bleary eye. Why were we so suddenly thrust upon a boat, you ask? Let me explain.

Throughout our trip I feel like we have been slaves to the poor weather; always getting the timing wrong, or having to wait for sunnier skies. When we rolled into Airlie, we did a quick weather check only to realise that weather was once again not in our favour. The next few days were a mixture of heavy rain, and even heavier rain. Except we noticed that tomorrow (today) was sunny, and despite not making a decision until 7 the night before, we booked for first thing in the morning.

So that is why we were driving to the Marina at a ridiculous hour in the morning, and boarding before we even knew what was happening. The stinking weather.

The boat was called the Mandrake, and I have decided to dedicate an entire post to this trip, so I won’t go into every gory detail here (nor show many pictures). However, I will give you a general overview of what we did. On this day, we simply sailed to our first anchorage in Hook Island. The sailing itself was epic. Amazing. Exhilarating. It reminded me that I freaking love sailing. There was a storm brewing to one side, and the winds were so strong the boat almost keeled over. It was epic. We slept that night in a calm anchorage point under the stars, protected on all sides by the steep mountain slopes of Hook Island.

Day 20

We woke up incredibly early, and immediately set sail (I drove the boat. No big deal. (TOTALLY A BIG DEAL IT WAS AWESOME)). We sailed to the beautiful, world famous Whitehaven Beach. It was incredible, and exactly like all of the photos (which is rare). We saw massive stingrays and a couple sneaky sharks.

From Whitehaven we sailed up to the northernmost island: Hayman Island. Here we went snorkelling twice, and it was the best snorkelling yet! We saw so many giant fish, and I even saw a cuttlefish/squid/IDontKnowWhatItWas. We anchored where we snorkelled, and spent another evening on the boat.

Day 21

Our last day sailing, we started the day snorkelling a massive soft coral field with a cute little green turtle. From there, we started heading back to Airlie slowly while admiring the incredible views and islands. It really was an amazing trip, and such a joyful group of people to experience this with.

Back on dry land, we were utterly exhausted. The late night conversations and early morning snorkelling really knocked the stuffing out of us! We had so many plans for the afternoon, but postponed them in favour of sleep. Sailing is exhausting!

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Top 7 free things to do in Cairns

Way up in the far reaches of North Queensland, there lies a tiny slice of paradise named Cairns, surrounded by lush, tropical forest and stunning reef.  We spent almost two months living in Cairns, and after we left I immediately wanted to go back.  Yeah, it's that good!

Cairns is home to roughly 60,000 people, and is equipped with amazing free activities for any interest!  Honestly, everyone in the city is incredibly friendly, and the vibe is that of total relaxation and chill. The following is a list of things, in no particular order, that I absolutely loved to do during our time in Cairns.


1. Night Markets

Located right in the heart of the esplanade shopping area, the night markets are just as they sound: touristy shops bustling with sales and cheap t-shirts.  Typically I am not a fan of more touristy areas, however you can forgive the tourist nature when it comes to the Markets, because the selection and range of merch you can buy is amazing.  There is your typical Australian souvienirs (boomerangs, T-shirts, jewellery, etc.) but also some really cool things like hand-spun turkish towels and gorgeous glass artwork blown right in front of your eyes.  The Night Markets are definitely a Cairns must-see, if only to get a quick massage ;).

2. The Lagoon

Another touristy area, the lagoon is a beautiful man-made beach complete with lifeguards and giant fish sculptures.  It's incredibly easy to avoid the crowds here, simply wake up a little early or come when it's a little cloudy (it's tropical Cairns people! It's literally never cold, a couple clouds never hurt nobody). When I lived in Cairns, the Lagoon ended up being a daily activity. It's simply a short walk to and from just about anywhere, and so refreshing!

3. Sunset (or sunrise) 'Barbie' (BBQ) on the Esplanade

This seems like one of the most basic and obvious things on this list, which is why for the first month I avoided doing it.  I didn't want to seem like "that kind of backpacker".  Except, when I actually did it I realized how crazy fun it was.  Having a sunset barbie is a great way to meet people and have an incredibly relaxing and fun  evening as you watch the sun go down over the water.  The barbies are free and easy to use and clean.  (Pro Tip: if you go first thing in the morning for a spot of brekkie, the bbqs will be perfectly clean and ready for use with no drama. The fairies clean them every night!)

4. Free Fitness Activities on the Esplanade

A diet of ramen noodles can start to take its toll after 2 months. Luckily, the Cairns Esplanade offers free fitness classes throughout the week! We discovered this by accidentally stumbling across (and joining in) an Aqua Zumba class taking place in the Lagoon. These activities are fine for beginners, a great way to meet people, and actually tons of fun! Also did I mention free.

5. Float down a Creek

The family we stayed with in Cairns recommended this one, and it was honestly so much fun.  Head out to a rainforest creek (Goomburra was our choice) with either just your bodies or a tube, and enjoy floating down the lazy length of the river. This gives you a totally unique perspective of the rainforest, and makes for an amazingly fun afternoon. Swimming in the rainforest offers an entirely different feeling than simply doing a forest walk, and to get a complete picture of the region you have to do both!

6.  Crystal Cascades

This is one of those secret-but-not-actually-secret places that supposedly only the locals know of (despite the clearly marked signs pointing you in the right direction.  The walk is short and beautiful, and the river offers a couple calm swimming holes and minor falls that you can shower under.  The falls themselves are definitely worth the short trek, and if you are lucky you can spot tons of turtles and fish moseying along.

Directions Here

7.  Rusty's Markets

If you are like me and almost died when you saw the price of an avocado here (highest I have seen is $5.50 EACH), rest assured that Rusty's Markets has you covered.  With avocados going for $0.50 a pop, and various other local produce going for just as cheap, Rusty's offers a slightly more authentic market experience than the Night Markets, and you can buy everything from food to flowers, even pots and pans. You can even catch a bit of a show watching stalky men hacking at coconuts with foot-long machetes, occasionally lobbing off a finger or two in the process. Stock up here, and you'll definitely thank yourself later!

8.  Drive to the Daintree

This one isn't quite free unless you have a car to get there (hey, hitch-hiking is a valid option, just don't watch Wolf Creek first), but I highly recommend you attempt to make your way up to the Daintree region.  Trust me, you'll regret not going. If you can't afford it, don't even do the paid activities like croc cruises or the Cassowary world, just do the free walks.  You will never experience rainforest quite like the one in Daintree, and the walks alone are equal parts incredibly beautiful and terrifying.  We saw a Cassowary on one of our walks (the free walk that is right beside the pricey Daintree Discovery Center, if you're tight for cash, don't waste your money on the center itself), as well as several mudcrabs and gigantic spiders. Absolutely amazing!

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Week 2 - Mission Beach to Magnetic Island

Day 8

Scratch what I said about a lovely spot: I woke up early this morning to the blaring of truck horns. Note to self: don’t camp by highways.

We drove towards mission beach, stopping along the way to see the sights.  We were told that Cape Tribulation was this amazing place where “Rainforest meets the Reef!”, but honestly I got more of that feeling around Mission beach area. We stopped to go for a beautiful rainforest walk, and then headed to a lovely information center right on the beach.  There is one important detail I should add: the weather was horrible.  If you feel like I have said that a lot lately, that’s probably because the past couple weeks have been awful.  I mean great for Australia and the drought and all that, but comeon! We wanted sunny beaches!

We spent a good chunk of the day simply hanging with backpackers from Denmark in the Information center (drinking free coffee!) and waiting for the rain to clear up.  Finally, we simply accepted the bad weather, drove to a couple more beaches, and then climbed a mountain.  I should mention: we didn’t know we were going to be climbing a mountain.  I was actually wearing thongs (flip-flops) and had a mug of tea in my hand for what we thought was short, 500 meter trek up a small hill.  It ended up being 4 kilometers of pain.  I am so out of shape…

That evening we drove up to Tully Gorge to camp out in the wilderness.  While we drove, countless frogs sat on the road watching as we ran over  them with Old Bessie. Some even inte tionally jumped into our path.  Moral of the story: Australian frogs are tragically suicidal.  It was actually kinda depressing.  Also morbidly satisfying; Squish.

Day 9

Waking up to the pounding of rain on the roof of the car, I decided to head down to the river for a quick look about.  Tully gorge is famous for it’s amazing rafting and kayaking, and it truly does look like it would be stunning.  Unfortunately, however, neither of those two sports were in our budget, so we had to simply look at the beautiful river.  

Adjacent to the campsite there was a short walk dubbed “the butterfly walk”.  We decided to walk the walk, and ended up reading about all the butterflies in this region.  As cool as it was to read about them, however, we didn’t actually end up seeing very many of them, so that was kind of depressing.  I guess it was just too rainy for the tiny things to fly around.  

From there we drive into the town of tully hoping to find a spot to charge our dying phones and cameras.  It may have just been a bad day, but Tully seemed horribly… horrible.  The people were unfriendly, the roads cramped and nonsensical.  We decided to give up on our search for wifi and continued down the road, stopping in Cardwell.

Cardwell was an incredibly quaint town, filled with cute bakeries and rumors of dugongs in the channel.  Not being able to afford the bakery, we thought that dugong spotting might have been a pleasant afternoon’s activity.  However, after 10 minutes of waiting for a sea cow to appear, we were soaked to the bones from the torrential rain, and headed back to the car in despair.  I wish we had more time to spend, but unfortunately we had no margin to spend chasing those lovely fat mermaids, so we kept heading down.

We arrived that evening in Ingham, home of the famous Tyto Wetlands.  The wetlands were a giant bird sanctuary with free entry.  It was getting dark at that stage, so we decided to leave the wetlands for tomorrow, and instead spend the evening with some local wallabies and mozzies.

Day 10

This morning I woke up next to a frog.  Now I should make this clear: I did not invite the frog into my bed.  This was not consensual. However, after the initial shock wore off, I began to appreciate the amount of effort the frog must have gone through to get inside of the van and hop his way over to my bed. Kudos, Mr Frogger.

We woke up incredibly early in the morning to visit the Tyto Wetlands, assuming that if we got up early enough we would see more birds, which ended up being a brilliant decision. Within the first ten minutes of the walk I was fortunate to see a Masked Owl, which is definitely super special.  While none of the other birds were quite as epic, the rest of the walk was beautiful and Tyto was definitely very worth it!

From Tyto we decided to visit Wallamans Falls, Australias tallest waterfall coming in at nearly 300 metres (or for the americans reading: 300 metres.  Learn the metric system.).  Unfortunately, to get to this waterfall we had to drive up one of the steepest roads I have ever seen.  In Old Bessie: our $300 beauty.  I have to admit, I was fairly nervous.  I wasn’t sure the old cow could make it all the way up there, however with only a little struggle (and the smell of burning, we should get this thing checked out…) we managed to climb that mountain and emerged victorious at the summit.  And what a view it was: 268 meters of plunging water framed by the stark cliff-face of the deep gorge.  This waterfall is so tall that the water barely touches the bottom so much of it simply evaporates on the way down.  This waterfall is huge.  

Naturally, after a slow and laborious drive up to the waterfall, we decided to walk all the way down to the bottom despite our current state of fitness (or lack thereof). Let me explain something:

For those of you that are hiking novices, there are really only two types of hikes: mountain (uphill) hikes and gorge hikes.  Well technically there is a third type, the pancake (flat ) hike.  Except if it is flat, it’s a walk not a hike.  Anyways, two types of hikes.  

Numero Uno: the mountain hike.  This any form of hike that has you walking uphill to your destination.  Your goal is at the top, so all of your focus and adrenalin is directed at scaling that peak.   This means that you can climb with determination to reach the top with relative ease.  Once you are at the top, your goal has been reached and your adrenalin fades away.  You take in the beautiful sights, and then begin your descent.  At this stage, without the adrenalin and determination you previously had, you have lost a significant level of “freshness”. That’s okay, because the rest is downhill and you can simply skip down the mountain singing pleasant tunes.  Beautiful.

Numero Douce: the gorge hike a.k.a. Hell.  This is the hike you don’t want, the one where you walk downhill to your final goal.  This isn’t good, because your drive is wasted on the relative ase of descent.  You get to the bottom, your adrenalin goes away, then you have to climb. With no energy or enthusiasm, this climb is brutal. Moral of the story, always choose mountain hikes.

Anyways, we walked down the hill, saw the waterfall, and laboured slowly back up.  It ws brutal. Pretty though.

Back at the top, we headed back down the hill (please don’t die Bessie!!) and drove back into town.  After much deliberation, we decided to drive straight to our campsite by Townsville. Saunders beach provided an incredibly beautiful free campsite right on the beach, so we braved the mozzies and ended up staying for four nights in a row.  But more on that later.

Day 11

We had a lazy morning on the beach before heading into Townsville.  Townsville has a local market on Sundays, so we headed to that before stopping at a cafe to charge devices and complete some work.  

A couple notes on Australian customer service: it’s terrible.  I have seen a lot of people complaining about the tipping culture of Canada and the States, and I agree that mandatory tipping is ridiculous.  However, staff at a lot of establishments down under (not all, but a lot) just do not care about the service aspect of dining and drinking.  At this particular cafe, we watched in horror as employees didn’t offer water, sat at the tables for their breaks, and took extensive conversation breaks in the middle of the cafe.  Say what you will about the tipping culture, but the mindset of customer service is something I definitely miss about back home.

Anyways, after a solid day browsing markets and working in a cafe, we headed back to Saunders for another beach evening under the stars.

Day 12

Today was the day we dedicated to exploring Townsville.  So we piled into the van and headed into town.  First stop as the Strand, a lovely road running adjacent to the coastline.  Similar to the Cairns Esplenade, the Strand was full of walks, free barbies (bbqs) , and  unlike Cairns: beaches.  This was one of our first times swimming in the ocean since our time spent up north with all of the stingers. Finally, a lovely stinger net to keep us safe as we floated in the warm sea water.

From the Strand, we walked down the main shopping street, visited several boutique shops, and then drove up Castle Hill.  After Old Bessie survived her encounter with Wallaman Falls, we weren’t too worried about driving up Castle Hill.  However, what we weren’t expecting was the shame that came with driving.  Our excuse was our lack of time, however as we drove past the legions of walkers and running taking advantage of a beautiful day to get a spot of exercise, it became harder to justify our drive.  Finally we arrived at the top, and we embraced by the beautiful views of Townsville and Magnetic Island.  Amazing.

We ended the evening with a movie (The Jungle Book, phenomonal.) and headed back to Saunders beach for a 3rd night in a row.

Day 13

After a couple weeks of hard travelling (lolz) we decided it was time to chillax, so we headed to magnetic island for a couple nights.  After talking our way into discounted ferry rides (thank goodness im beautiful), and repacking our van, we were on the open ocean headed to the island. Magnetic Island is a populate island just off the coast from Townsville, with a couple hostels and camping sites for us to stay at cheaply.  After the ferry over, we caught a bus to our hostel and chilled at the hostel for a bit.  We then decided to walk to a nearby bay.

Balding bay was the destination of choice, and it was supposedly a short walk from the hostel.  What wasn’t mentioned was that this short walk was entirely up a mountain.  We are terrible at estimating hikes apparently, because we really struggled on this one.  Finally, after a sweaty, painful while we ended up on the beach!.. alongside a bunch of naked old men.  Without realizing it we had walked into a nude beach.  Oops.

Walking back to the hostel, we went for a swim on the beach and then ended up playing pictionary at our hostel.  It’s nice to be around other people for a change!

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