Fraser Island

Hello Again!!

Alright so I know that it has been a quite a few posts in the last little while but now we are almost up to date. From Airley beach we took an overnight bus with Greyhound to Hervey bay. It was an exhausting night and thankfully we only have one more trip like this in the future. Hervey bay is one of the gateways to Fraser Island. We stayed two days there and then caught this freight like ferry across the ocean to begin our adventure on the largest sand island in the world.

We met our tour guide, Kirsty, and the other 12 people on our bus. We headed off right away on the off road (well on a road but it sure felt like an off road experience) tour of the island. We got to walk through some of the forest areas, which altered significantly as you walked, from bush type areas, to rain forests to deserts. It was amazing.

(Picture of the giant tree)

We got to hug one of the biggest trees on the island, it took seven of us to link arms around it. After that we headed to Mackenzie lake where the sand, much like Whithaven but not quite as good, will exfoliate your skin. The Cool Dingo experience that we were on was great because we could spend lots of time in one place. So at Lake Mackenzie we hung out for a couple of hours swimming, exfoliating, playing in the water. Afterwards we had tea and cookies. The cookies were sooooo good. Devon and I on the first day over did it with over half a dozen cookies eaten by the afternoon. I might have been channelling the cookie monster...

This is our group, or most of them however we lost more than half of them on the third day because they were only on a two day trip.

(picture of the group)

On our second day we got to see how there were dessert zones around the island in the midst of so much forest. It turns out the winds blow the day up from the beach then the foliage tries to take the area back over and then this is repeated over and over again in a contsant struggle for the land. Below is a picture of this, with me being blown away by the knowledge....

Later that night we headed back to the Kingfisher resort where we were staying and play jumbo jenga. It was awesome, we beat the old record of 31 levels by two!! In the end it was as tall as I am!!!

The next day we drove on the 75 mile beach. up to the Champagne Pools. these are pools that are like giant tidal pools where the ocean washes in. Below is a picture of me in it. It is very neat as you are swimming with the fishes while waves crash around you!

<----- Here is a picture of the beach that we drove on it is pristine sand with beautiful waves. you can see that point out in the distance it is called Indian head, and from there it is a beautiful view of the ocean all the way until South Africa!!!! Below is a picture of me at the top!

We also got to see the ship wreak that is along the beach called the Mahalo. It was wreaked there in 1935.

(picture of the ship)

The tide was high so the waves were crashing upon it, which was a very impressive view.

Here is me in the driver seat of the truck that drove us around. As you can see it was very large and ready for the rough and tumble roads we encountered! The road conditions below are an example of what we drove through!!!!!

All around the island, especially on the beaches, there were tons of butterflies. Below is a picture of one that took a rest on the sand.

On our third day we visited two lakes one was Lake Wabby. This lake was green and had a desert on one side and a forest on the other. It was also filled with catfish. I really enjoyed this place as the water was a perfect temperature for swimming. The other lake we visited was lake Birabeen. It was a yellow lake due to the trees that were on the edge of the lake. It is supposed to heal wounds and injuries when you swim in it, maybe that is why my cut on corral didn't get infected.... :) This lake is seen below, I loved how it was yellow then green then blue then green then blue in this picture, it was very peaceful.

We left the island and all of it's beauty behind and headed out for Brisbane the next day. That is where I am now and we have been able to visit some friends that we met along the Australian road. I will tell you all about it in my next blog.

I am super excited about the coming weeks as we finish up our trip of Australia and Fiji, not only because we still have lots of fun things to see and do, but so I can see Victoria again with my friends and family! See you all sooner than I think :)

Magnetic Island and Whitsundays

So to continue the story of my travels. Devon and I had to fly out of the wet weather of Cairns to Townsville where were hopped a ferry to Magnetic Island and a crazy bus ride to our hostel. Finally arriving and the YHA Bungalow Bay hostel we were greeted by many nocturnal animals including Possums, insects, Wallabies by the pack, and snakes.

This particular snake is a tree snake and greeted us at the window from our bungalow. It was a noisy sleep with all of the wildlife about us but it was a very unique experience. This YHA is actually built upon a wildlife sanctuary which is the reason we encountered so many living things.

Going to the washroom was the insect exhibit where there were all different kinds of moths and bugs, here is a particular specimen that was very interesting, it appears to look like a autumn leaf but upon closer inspection I found out it was living.

There were many like this and made the trip to the washroom and whole new experience.

Our Hostel was particularly interesting because instead of the usual one building we were put into bungalows, hut like structures, that were all individually built around the property. The place kind of reminded me of summer camp.

You can see one of the bungalows at the end of this pathway.

I really enjoyed this place as it was very interesting, however due to the rain we weren't able to explore it very much and many of the animals weren't around. It had a good atmosphere and a friendly staff, I recommend the place if you are an animal lover.



After a couple nights there with no end of the rain in sight we decided to head off early to Airley Beach to start our Whitsunday adventures. We stayed at the YHA Airley beach before we left for our tour of the islands. This hostel had a good kitchen, en suites and a pool. It is a good place for all ages and a clean place to rest your head. We booked our Whitsunday islands tour and our Fraser Island tour through Peter Pans where we got a discount and cheep Internet!

We left the next day for our tour. We chose Tongarra as our boat which was a catamaran with two crew and seventeen passengers. The weather slowly cleared up throughout our trip. The boat didn't have enough beds indoors for us to sleep so we generally slept on the deck, however the first night was a rainy one so it wasn't the best night sleep for me as the tarp did drip and the sides (where I slept) was particularly wet. The second night was gorgeous and was a fantastic night (so check the weather forecast).

We went to many places in the Whitsunday islands and I won't go into it all but we had a blast. I have photographed our itinerary on a map so you can kind of see where we went.

Along the way we snorkeled twice seeing many fish and a turtle. It was great I really enjoyed it. The fish at one place were so thick they would touch you and there was one species of fish that was as big as my torso.

Below is a picture of our boat anchored out off the Whithaven beach.

At Whithaven beach we put on our stinger suits (suits that prevent jelly fish from stinging you and potentially really hurting you). These were to be worn everywhere in the Whitsundays and along the beaches they had seperated areas with nets to protect swimmers from jellys. Below you can see me in my stinger suit on the beach of Whitheaven. The rain was so bad while were were there it stung to have it hit your face directly. We enjoyed the high silica sand though (it can even exfoliate you) and saw sting rays and lemon sharks! It was great.

Here is a pic of Whitsunday beach from the look out spot. It is a beach that is over 7 km long with the most pure silica sand found on earth. It is like walking in silk.

We got the sails up a couple times and watched the sun set over the islands. I enjoyed the experience as we all got along well and the crew were very fun and friendly. It was a great boat for people ages 18 to early 30s.

I was excited to take the helm one morning too!!

In the end we had a great time and headed back to Airley Beach for another relaxing day and a over night trip to Hervey Bay (one of the main ports to Fraser Island). After we got back we decided to try a different hostel, we headed to Magnums. This place had a good atmosphere and free wireless Internet that we took shameless advantage of. The place offered a private room for $25 that also had it's own fridge too. The two downsides were that the dorm rooms didn't have lockers and the kitchen was small and had only hot plates that were slow to heat up. It was good for the couple of nights we stayed there.

As we work our way down the coast I am amazed that we are coming home for Easter within the month! I am excited to see my family and the bulk department at Thrifty Foods! Our Australian adventure is slowing coming to a close. I am sad but also looking forward to our tour of Western Europe that follows our visit home.

The next blog will be about our off road adventures on the biggest sand island in the world, Fraser Island, stay tuned!!!!

Cairns and the Daintree Rainforest

Hello all!

I am a bit behind on the blogs since I had trouble with my Ayers Rock photos. I am going to be posting a couple in the next week to try to catch up.

So we flew to Cairns through a thunderstorm. The foreshadowing of our flight should have been obvious but I didn't clue in. Rain has pursued us for two weeks. Rain in Cairns was so harsh that it hurt to be in it and would soak you within seconds. Thankfully it occurred at night for the most part. Unfortunately it hindered us from participating in some of the activities that we planned. So instead of being trapped in our hostel we headed out to the Port Douglas to travel to the Daintree rain forest. Arriving in Port Douglas we explored the one street town and all it had to offer (which seemed to be o

(picture of Allen Rachel and I)

nly shops and cafes) then headed home and got caught in a torrential rain storm; our belongings took days to dry out. We met a Canadian (Alan) and an Irish girl (Rachel) at our hostel and we travelled with them on the tour of the rain forest the next day. The tour we took was with Tropic Explorer. We had a good time, our tour guide was knowledgeable and fun and we saw many very interesting places. We went to the Daintree river where we went up and down looking for wild life including crocodiles, snakes and birds. We saw some baby crocs and a tree snake there. After that our bus broke down so we spend a while waiting for another bus to get us and take us to an extra long lunch at Cape Tribulation while they fixed it. I checked out the beach while we were here. Though this could have dampened our spirits we had a good time and our tour guide was very good at keeping us happy and making the best of things. On our way back down from Cape Tribulation we walked through a beautiful rain forest and learned about the local plants an animals, some of which ate us alive as seen in the picture below.

We also wen to Mossman Gorge where we could have gone swimming if the rain hadn't swollen the river. Again mosquitoes snacked on us while we had a stroll along the rushing water. Alan, Rachel, Devon and I returned to Port Douglas for the night where we encountered a large dinosaur.

(picture of the Dinosaur)

The next day we returned to Cairns to discover we were still trapped in the city due to the highway flooding so we booked the earliest flight out of there to Townsville, unfortunately it cost us an arm and a leg.

From Townsville we hopped the ferry to Magnetic Island. I will save that wildlife filled story for another blog post! I hope you all stayed dryer than I did!

Central Australia

Hello Everyone!

I have no pictures to post here, because they were lost on another computer :( I am sad about this though Devon has taken some of the same shots and there were many people there that took photos so I should be able to salvage some. So this post will have to have no pictures I am so sorry.

I am back from my adventure from the central Australia! It was an amazing trip to a place that has a completely different atmosphere than anywhere I have been before! We went on a tour with Adventure Tours for three days. Our tour guide Jimmy was great he had lots of great information and took care of us really well. We woke up at the early hour of 5 am to catch the bus at 6am. We got to take the five hour drive to the Ulga rocks. We went for a walk around part of the Ulgas. The views were great though they were obscurred by the overzealous flies that wanted to enter our mouths, ears or eyes. So it was distracting a bit to have flies up your nose and unnattentionally eating them as well. Despite these over friendly flies we stayed out to see the sunset over Ayers Rock. This unfortunately was not amazing because of the clouds. So we headed to camp and we got to eat not only kangaroo and beef but also camel!! I enjoyed all of it. The only down side of this trip was the early mornings, each morning we got up at 5 or earlier. The next morning we headed out to catch the sun rise on Ayers Rock, this was much better than the sunset. Afterwards we walked around Ayers Rock. You can walk up the rock but it due to weather we couldn't and the aboriginal peoples there don't want people to because it is against their culture. Fun fact: Ayers rock is actually one rock that was pushed up over time from underground! We then travelled to Kings Canyon (4 long hours) where we made camp and went swimming!! If you ever travel to Australia I highly recommend sleeping in the outback in a swag. This made my night. The stars here are amazing as they are completely different from home, you can see the milky way and Orion is upsidedown. The final day of our trip started with another early early morning to walk Kings Canyon. This was one of my favourite places on the tour it was a semi arid desert. The walk was a mixture of desert and fauna with a waterfall at the end. The rest of the day was another long drive (another 5 hours) back to Alice Springs. So that are the events of this tour which I highly recommend. The YHA here in Alice is alright though it might be an idea to check out other hostels as some of them have free breakfasts an other perks. We are headed for Cairns today where it is supposed to be rainy and stormy all week... Well we aer hoping for the best. So I will update you again as we work our way down the coast.