Oct 31 - Rain, Cold and Summer Heights High

Woke up for church this morning and it was cold and pouring rain. I considered the factors in attending mass, which included walking for 50 minutes to and from the church in this inclement weather and decided that mass will have to wait for better weather. Back to bed and slept until 1:30! That's just over 12 hours of sleep. I was even surprised. I've been incredibly tired since arriving in Melbourne, and I'm not sure if it's from the weather or what, but there's been less activity than other cities and yet I'm sleepier. So, got up and had some eggs and toast and surfed the internet awhile, especially researching the "ice house" hockey place here. It's a ways away from the hostel and you need to have your own helmet and stick (they rent skates) so we'll probably hit that up once we return from New Zealand and it's worth buying that stuff. So with that off the agenda for today, we hopped on a train and transferred to another down to the area of Brighton. Then we walked 2.7 KMs to the Brighton Secondary College. Why? Because this run-down little school in a suburb of Melbourne was the location that the hit Australian TV show Summer Heights High was filmed. Summer Heights High was an 8 episode TV comedy series where one actor plays 3 characters in a high school. It's hilarious and we got some photos of a couple notable places from the show. Well, there goes a couple of hours for 3 photos. We walked back to the train station area, had some Subway then rode back to our 'hood. It was uncomfortably cold outside, so we hung out in the hostel and watched Knocked Up and Juno (there was a coincidental pregnancy theme in the movies tonight) then took advantage of much needed sleep after such a long day (sarcasm). Though, to be fair, we did walk about 6 KM today, so at least there was some exercise. We considered going to a bar for Halloween, but all the good bars are downtown, which is far, and the trains don't run all night and it's cold and rainy out. So whatevs, finding occasion to drink is never an issue so I'm sure we'll make up for it soon enough. Tomorrow we actually plan to go to the Ice House and rent skates to just skate around. We'll play hockey after New Zealand and show the Aussies how Canadians roll on the rink.

Oct 30 - Rain and Laundry

Today accounted for a whole lot of nothing. Just one of those throw-away days (Not a great sales pitch for reading today's blog, I know). Woke up to rain after it had poured through the night and headed down to the TV room to watch (surprisingly) NBA basketball. I don't even remotely enjoy basketball, but it was so nice to see a real sport for once. Then the intensive coverage on the first day of the Melbourne Cup began and I watched the first of 8 races. Glad I didn't fork over $70 to watch that in the rain. It's horses. They run. Couple minutes and it's over and some old fat white guys are happy that their animal won them some more money. The races happening today are spaced out something like every 45 minutes. Each race has its own name and more importantly, its own sponsor. The 6th race is the Victoria Derby, AKA the most important race of day one and apparently considered by some to be the best race of the 4 days of racing. I say a horse race is a horse race, but maybe that's just me. At this point, B was still sleeping and there wasn't much happening around the hostel, so I decided to venture out to browse the shops on Smith Street. Smith Street would be the Collingwood equivalent to Broadway Avenue in Saskatoon; trendy, artsy, etc. It wasn't raining, but was a bit chilly. But being a true Canadian I threw on my Riders t-shirt, a pair of shorts and some shoes and headed out into the damp streets.

I brought along my disposable camera that had photos from snorkeling in the Whitsundays and the Great Barrier Reef trip out of Port Douglas, and I shortly located a one-hour photo place and dropped my disposable off with some very nice Asian folks to process the film. Then I headed in the opposite direction on Smith and checked out some of the surf shops and outlet stores that are oddly enough in this area of town. Since it was cold out and we are heading to New Zealand on Tuesday, I bought a Nike zip-up hoodie. With my new purchase keeping me warm, I headed back towards the photo shop, but the hour wasn't up yet, so I picked up a pizza bun type thing from a bakery and as I enjoyed it with some juice, it started to rain. Waited it out awhile, but it didn't let up, so I hustled over to the photo place, got my pictures, then jogged back to the hostel (which was several blocks away). By the time I returned, it was pouring rain, and from this point on, it rained all day and well into the night. I checked out my photos and I'd say about half turned out decently, though most looked similar. I did get a couple clear ones of clownfish though, so all in all the camera was a success. Now the issue is finding a scanner to scan the images so I can upload them onto Facebook.

B was up now and apparently I had just missed a free BBQ at the hostel, but I was full from my pizza bun, so everyone wins in the end. Decided to take a nap (I was up at like 10 AM today, thank you very much!) and afterwards headed to the laundromat under the train tracks (it looked like a cliche big city laundry place) to do some much needed laundry. After washing and drying and catching up on all the Hollywood gossip via the magazines in the laundromat, we booked it back to the hostel through the rain, shielding our dry laundry under rain jackets. Dropped off the clothes and walked to Woolworth's for much needed groceries. Shopped like grown-ups for 3 days worth of meals and walked back to the hostel for a meal of steak and potatoes, fried in a fresh garlic puree/butter mix. Yeah, serious chef skills. Then just relaxed after dinner. Had a good convo with two German girls, then with a Taiwanese guy (who showed me a bunch of Powerpoint slides on Taiwan that he was so proud of). Then I enjoyed the treat of watching an American movie - Mr. and Mrs. Smith (shown on Aussie TV, imagine!), while B caught up on South Park on the netbook. Tomorrow morning I might try and check out mass in a huge Catholic Church in West Melbourne. See how they do things over here. If I can wake up that early. If Jesus wants me attending mass, He'll make sure I'm awake in time. Ball's in His court now, as they say. (That was a pretty long blog post for a nothing day...and you read the whole thing. Shouldn't you be working or something?)

Oct 29 - St. Kilda and the Beach

Today we wanted to go to the trendy district of St. Kilda in Melbourne, which is easier said than done. So after the usual toast and eggs brekky, we walked to the train, got our tickets, and headed downtown. Then we wandered for awhile in search of a train or tram that would take us south into St. Kilda. We stopped and went inside the Melbourne Museum, which had a Titanic exhibition on display, but admission was ridiculous and there was admission for even the regular gallery so we continued on past the original federal parliament house, from when Melbourne was the capital of Australia. But you had to pay for and book tours to enter. Anything to make a buck over here. Onward we walked and along the way we came across the building we were at yesterday that houses the Aus. Centre for the Moving Image, but we came upon it from the side this time, where there is an entirely different museum called the National Gallery of Victoria. This one was free (imagine that, a free museum!) and we wandered through the three floors of galleries. An unfortunate consequence of most free museums is that they are boring a hell, and that was the case with the NGV. So we exited the building and went in search of a Krispy Kreme donut shop, which sounded delightful at the moment. After a lengthy fruitless search, we stopped in at the Melbourne Visitors Centre and looked at their information on the city for a bit. That got boring in a hurry so we said adios to that place and walked across the street to the enormous St. Paul's Cathedral. Went inside and marveled at the opulence of the marble and pipe organ and stained glass windows (and that churchy smell that is in every church I've ever been into) before returning to the street and locating a train into St. Kilda.

It turned out to not be overly far and once we got off it was only a couple of blocks to the ocean and beach. This area of St. Kilda feels like Venice Beach in California and also has Luna Park right near it. We had seen and taken photos at Luna Park in Sydney, and this one has the same idea, only the face on the outside of the gate is more demonic than the childish smile of the Sydney park. Snapped the necessary photos and walked the boardwalk at the beach end to end, then went out onto the pier where there are supposed to be mini penguins. About halfway out we were looking at the rocks to try and find penguins when a local engaged us in conversation. "Where are you guys from" etc. turned into over an hour of chit chat that was decently interesting but was one of those conversations you are continually trying to think of a way to excuse yourself from. After three mentions of needing to go for dinner, and over an hour of chat, we finally broke free of the man and walked back into the streets of St. Kilda (without seeing a single penguin).

We found a decently priced kabob place for supper then hopped on a random tram to hopefully get back to the city center. Out of sheer luck, the tram stopped right by the visitors centre we were at earlier in the day, so we got off and were walking to the train station when we saw a Krispy Kreme. Hallelujah! Three delicious donuts (that put Tim Horton's to shame, although the ones at the American Krispy Kreme were better) and a latte later, we went back into the central train station and took a train back to the hostel. Tomorrow is some sort of preliminary race for the Melbourne Cup....The Victoria Cup perhaps? It's supposed to have the best races of the week, so despite the heavy rain forecast, we'll probably check that out tomorrow.

Oct 28 - Museum, Arena and Movie

To start off, I don't think I mentioned that we booked flights to Auckland (New Zealand) for the morning of November 2. It turns out that Tues. Nov. 2 is also the day of the Melbourne Cup, AKA the horse race that is the biggest sporting event in the country and is a national holiday in Australia. And it's the 150th anniversary of the race. And we're going to go to New Zealand hours before it happens. Oh well, horse races are boring anyways. Okay, with that out of the way I'll move on to today's events.

Slept until noon with the best sleep in ages, due probably to the huge duvet and 2 pillows (versus the one thin pillow and sheet that most other hostels offer). So breakfast...errr lunch, I suppose, was eggs and toast, then the day truly began. We walked over to the train station and got some day tickets then took a train into downtown. We had no real idea of what there was to do or where anything was, so we wandered around until we came across a cool looking building and went inside. Besides offices, there was a funky museum called the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. We headed in (free admission!) and went downstairs to the exhibits. There are 3 exhibits, but one had just ended its tenure, so it was closed. We entered the second one called The Raft, which was a video on the wall of people being drenched with high-powered fire hoses in slow motion. Ohhh, I see, it's going to be another weird modern art museum, that sucks. We exited the room and popped into the third gallery. This turned out to be a pleasant surprise. In this massive room were several exhibits. First, you could interact with a board that displayed the history and development of film and effects. Then we read a little comic book with special goggles that allowed augmented reality to occur. Augmented reality is when some part of the image on the page triggers a 3d image to pop up and play like a video. Not like magic eye, like the page has a comic drawn on it, you look through the glasses, the page goes white and a little scene pops up with 3D characters and a scene plays out. Difficult to explain, easier if you check that phenomenon out on Youtube. Then we moved on to several stations that displayed the development of video games through the years, with a game you could play from each generation, ranging from Atari to old PC to Nintendo, to Playstation to Wii, etc. There was a room past this that you had to go past 2 black curtains to access. The room was completely dark, with a smoke machine slowly releasing fake smoke with one projector in the room that projected only a thin pattern of light across the room onto the wall. So what you could see was the light shape all the way through the room (because of the smoke) and you could fan the hazy air to see the smoke patterns alter. You could also stand on the far wall (where the image was projected onto) and watch as the other person walked towards the projector and it would look like they slowly disappeared under water. Very cool illusions. Popped back out into the gallery and in front of another screen that altered your shadow to look like crazy creatures or monsters, meant to imitate what we would do as kids with shadows. It was accompanied with sound also to make a really interesting display. After this was a room with a spinning ferris wheel sort of display, then a strobe light went on making the thing look like a movie. Bizarre and cool. Then came the sweetest part. A bullettime film chamber. Bullettime is a film technique used by movies like the Matrix to film super slow, rotating sequences (like when Neo slowly leans back as bullets fire at him). This place had a round room with a ton of cameras in a circle that filmed a short clip of you and turned it into a bullettime clip that got emailed to you if you wanted. See Brennan and my interpretation of the Matrix scene here: http://www.acmi.net.au/timeslice/Timeslice.htm?file=ts-20101028-ed7de87487c6c8f4e7cde532a7c6e202.flv (might have to copy/paste into your address bar and hit enter). Then we saw some clips of famous Aussie films and tv shows (or ones that had some Aussie involved in some way...they are pretty loose with the term Australian production). Walked quickly past the boring examples of media involving Aboriginees (they always have to mention them it seems) and headed back out to the streets.

From here we saw something I have wanted to stand in front of for years. Rod Laver Arena. The dome where the Australian Open of tennis is held each year. We walked over a bridge and down the riverbank for awhile to get to it. The river is brown and gross looking here, but there were loads of people rowing on it. We arrived shortly at the Arena, which was closed, but got some good photos (soon to be on FB) and walked past loads of tennis courts (they have a ton of little ones there, like more than 20!) and 2 other huge stadiums, one of which is for cricket and not sure what the other is for. Then we headed up the river and across again and located a Subway restaurant (which we've been searching for since we've got to Melbourne) and enjoyed a delicious (and healthy) meal. Today is the opening day for the movie The Social Network in Australia so we walked over to the Melbourne Central mall (huge and 3 stories tall with an enormous glass cone atrium roof) and got a ticket (20 dollars, what a scam!). Waited around for the doors to open and then enjoyed what Hollywood had to offer. Good movie and after it ended I fully expected to walk out the doors into the cold night air of Saskatoon until I heard a Aussie bloke start chatting. I guess because I've seen so many movies in Saskatoon that I am almost transported there whenever I see a movie elsewhere. Took the train back to our 'hood and walked back to hostel without coming across any sketchy characters (success!). Spent some time online, had a late supper then back to sleep.

Oct 27 - Two Flights and Chilly Temps

3 AM came waaaay too early, but we dragged ourselves down to reception, checked out and hopped in a taxi to the airport. Taxis are so pricey here, and the 5 minute ride to the airport cracked the 20 dollar mark. We flew with Virgin Blue airline from Cairns to Sydney. This is a no-frills airline even more than Westjet, etc. with no TVs, no snacks and no drinks. But it's cheap. We landed and took awhile to get off the plane due to delays on the tarmac and had 5 minutes to get to the next gate to catch our next flight before check-in closed. Made it just in time. The Sydney to Melbourne flight was shorter than the Cairns to Sydney flight. Before we knew it we were stepping off the plane into chilly air (15 Celsius) of Melbourne (or Melbin as the locals pronounce it). Less than 4 hours to cover the same distance that had taken us the last 44 days to cover on the way up.

We took the "Skybus" from the airport to the city center then a train from there to the area of Collingwood (sounds like LA), where our hostel is. We had the name and address of the hostel, but had no idea where the street was. We tried to find maps in gas stations, but there were none, so we walked until we found a McDonald's and used their wifi to look it up. 2 KM away. Sigh. Off we walked with our very heavy backpacks and eventually arrived at Johnson Street. Wait a minute, the hostel is on Johnston Street, with a T! Awwwww, seriously?? Yep. No clue where that is... Back to McDonald's we went, grabbed a meal to boost the spirits and then had them dashed when we saw it was 1.5 KM more to get to the proper Johnston street. But we had lots of time, so we walked slowly over and finally arrived. The area around is a bit sketchy, as hostel neighbourhoods tend to be, but the hostel seems nice and is of the small variety, so you get a good homey feel, instead of the large, corporate feel of some other hostels like Base or Gilligan's. Picked up some pasta and garlic bread for supper then chilled out and watched terrible Australian tv til bed.

Oct 26 - Crocs and Creeks

This morning we were up nice and early again (third day in a row!) for our trip to the rainforest, the Daintree River and Cape Tribulation. The tour bus picked us and some others up from the hostel and we stopped at a couple other places to get other people booked onto the trip. After a couple hours driving and a short stop for a muffin and drink, we arrived a the Daintree River and were greeted with some biscuits and fresh Daintree tea. Tasted like red rose to me, but I'm not a tea connoisseur. We all boarded a metal u-boat and it putted down the river a ways until the driver saw a baby croc on a log and pulled over to it to show us. It looked like a little lizard, but apparently it was only a couple months old. He turned the boat around and headed back up the river to where another boat was stopped and spotted the dominant male of that area, Scarface, named for his battle wounds from fights for dominance. The boat got plenty close and we all got good photos until something spooked the croc and it thrashed underwater and sped away. We saw another big croc named Nelson, who was challenging Scarface for his territory this Spring, which is supposed to lead to some magnificent fights in the water. The boat dropped us on the other side of the river where our tour bus had just gotten off the cable ferry. We all boarded the bus again and drove up a winding road through the rainforest past tea fields being harvested with a tractor. We crossed over a problematic creek that often floods the road and causes tour groups to become stranded on the other side often during the wet season (which has just begun). The creek was only about a foot deep, but the road was only maybe a foot above it and the guide told us that it can sometimes be under 10 or 12 feet of water. We crossed over another creek on a sketchy wooden bridge made of railway ties that had been closed the previous week for structural repairs. It set in that this was a pretty remote area. Soon after we came to the Maja boardwalk which looped through the rainforest. We followed our guide through as he explained various types of vegetation. After our walk we went up to a place called PK's in Cape Tribulation for lunch, which was as far north as we got. We got some free time to go explore the empty, beautiful, tropical beach and then had a tasty lunch of chicken wraps with fries. We loaded back on the bus and it departed south back down the road. We stopped at an orchard for fresh, natural ice cream that was made with the fruits, seeds, nuts and roots of the surrounding trees in the orchards. We each got a sample bowl of 4 flavors; raspberry, mango, soursop (which was like a lemony flavor), and wattleseed (which tasted like a mild mocha). The bus went straight over to the Alexandria Bay lookout for us to enjoy the view with our cold treats and then drove back to the ferry and crossed back over the croc-infested Daintree. Shortly after, we stopped at the Mossman Gorge, where we walked a trail to a swinging metal bridge and then swam in the cold (freezing cold!) river that was 100% crocodile free. After drying off, we drove to Port Douglas and browsed the shops while the bus refueled then drove back to Cairns. As we were leaving Port Douglas we saw hundreds of big bats (probably flying foxes) in the air over the trees of the fringing forest. Super creepy, like an Alfred Hitchcock film.

Back at Gilligan's we had supper with the Irish gals and it was a traditional Irish meal or mashed potatoes with mincemeat, carrots and onions. A little bland, but not bad. Certainly was nice to eat a homecooked-style meal after so many meals at restaurants. Watched some tv, then said our goodbyes and tried to get a few hours of sleep before we had to get up at 3 AM to go to the airport for a flight to Melbourne. These early mornings are getting old really fast...

Oct 25 - Nemo and Almost Scuba

Today is the big snorkel/scuba trip to the Great Barrier Reef, so just like yesterday, we were up at 6 AM to get ready and get out front of the hostel for 6:45 to catch the shuttle. We assumed it would be a quick rip to the Cairns harbour then off to sea, but first we took another 30 minutes picking up people at other hostels and resorts then drove to Port Douglas for the boat. The drive was a winding road between the ocean on one side and cliffs/forest on the other. When we pulled up to the harbour in Port Douglas it was nearly 2 hours from the pickup time this morning, but the day was bright, sunny and hot; a perfect day to be on (and in) the water. Everyone hopped aboard the Haba boat which was stabilized with 2 pontoons as well as a v-hull and off we went. The ship cruised along pretty fast for 30 or 45 minutes to the Opal reef. This is one of the 2900 individual reef systems that are known collectively as the Great Barrier Reef.

We had both signed up for the free introductory scuba dive (which in reality was built into the price) so Brennan suited up with some others for the first dive group and I slapped on my snorkel mask and flippers and got to exploring. Before scuba diving, the instructor makes each student take out the regulator and put it back in underwater, drop the regulator and find it and put it back in underwater and get water inside the mask and use a technique to clear the water out. Brennan soon came back up and said the losing the regulator and not having oxygen underwater while you look for it was too much and didn't want that to possibly happen deeper where it could mean serious trouble. So he joined me snorkelling and I showed him the clown fish (NEMO!!!) I had discovered while he was doing his scuba intro. They're so tiny in real life, and after I took a bunch of pictures, it was my group's turn to scuba dive. I suited up and aced the 3 tests and then our group began our descent down the rope diagonally into the water. Every few feet we were supposed to equalize the pressure by plugging the nose and blowing lightly. I tried this a few times on the way down, but couldn't get anything to happen. But we were moving slow enough that it wasn't an issue...yet. Got to a certain point when my right ear started to feel some significant pressure and I still couldn't equalize. So the instructor brought me back up the rope a bit then back down. Same problem. Up again and back down. No change. So he brought me back to the surface and said "you're done, go to the boat." And that was the end of my introduction to scuba diving. The group went for about 15 minutes after I left and said it was pretty awesome. Stupid ear. Did snorkeling for another hour or so then everyone got back on the boat. For lunch we were served cold meats with bread and cheese which wasn't overly delicious but it filled the void. As we ate, the skipper navigated the boat to another section of the Opal Reef. We all suited up and got to snorkelling again. This reef section was even nicer (although both today were much better for colour and visibility than the reef in the Whitsundays) and we saw some anenemone fish (like clown fish but bigger, paler orange and with only one stripe on the head) that we dove down to inspect closely, a giant clam that I poked with a pool noodle and watched snap shut, and several electric blue starfish. As we swam through the water there were noticeable warm and cold sections of water that changed with the different currents and reef patterns. After snorkeling until our legs were tired, we returned to the boat and everyone got fresh fruit to nibble as the certified divers finished up and got back into the boat. Motored back to Port Douglas and so ended a fantastic day on the water.

Took the shuttle bus back the twisting road to Cairns and fought for the shower as soon as we got to the room. There's nothing as refreshing as a shower to get off salty ocean residue after a day in the water. We ate the mediocre free meal as an appy again then had some Subway for the main course. Afterwards we met up with the Irish and a guy from New Jersey who was on our trip today and played cards until late.

Oct 24 - Rafting and New Room

6 AM came early today. Earlier than 6 AM normally seems. Could be to the noisy/late entrances/exits of roommates in the room. Regardless, we packed our stuff away and lugged our bags down to reception to check out. Because we extended our stay until Wednesday rather than book the 7 days straight off the start, we are incoveniently being forced to switch rooms. But check-in time isn't until 2, so we have to check out, store our luggage, go on the raft trip, return, check in again, collect luggage, and move to a new room. So we went down around 6:30 (shuttle picking us up at 6:40) with our stuff and attempted to check out. But we weren't listed on the check-out list. And we weren't listed in a room either. So after a struggle of a conversation with a difficult front desk employee, we finally were allowed to store our bags and figure out the mess later.

We were driven on a bus about an hour and a half south to the town of Tully, which has a gorge and river running through it. We stopped at a backpacker place where there was tea and coffee ready for us and we grabbed some food for breakfast. Watched a very dull safety video (are they ever interesting?) and hopped back on the bus. From town, we were driven up to the top of the river system in the mountains and hopped out to put on lifejackets and helmets. We selected a paddle and walked down a trail to the river in our newly formed groups. Brennan and I were with a small British gal, a Chinese girl and her older mother and aunt. Super group is an understatement (sarcasm). We set off and paddled 4 KM of river with a few rapid sections and did some floating out of the boat in the water, getting pushed along the stream. At the 4 KM mark, we tied up the rafts and hopped on shore for a hot lunch that was prepared for us by the crew. Burgers, hot dogs, real mustard (not the mustard seed spread that is so common here), juice and water. Next to the table we saw easily the biggest spider we've come across anywhere on its web. Including the long legs, it was a bit bigger than the size of a hand, with a thick body and big fangs to go with it. Creepy. Everyone finished lunch and it was back into the rafts for 8 KM more river. We hit several more rapids along the way. Each rapid seems to have a crazier name than the last like alarm clock, corkscrew, shark's tooth, etc. But they aren't very intense to deserve such bad ass names. The river and rapids on the Tully River are grade 4 (with grade 6 being the highest grade of difficulty) but I was a bit underwhelmed to be honest. The river and rapids are essentially all rideable without doing any paddling at all and going down the rapids is often slow. And the rafts are super sturdy and stable, so in order to fall out (like what happens in all their promo videos) you have to really try to push yourself out. There were 2 or 3 sections in the trip that bounced the raft up and down a bunch and a drop that we rode down backwards, which were all fun, but the majority were pretty meh. It didn't help the speed that we had to stop and wait for all the rafts to do each section before moving on and that we often had to wait and go one at a time so the photographers could take pictures of each group individually either. One cool part was when we came to a big rock that was almost worn into steps on the one side that we all climbed up and cliff jumped off, down about 20 feet into a deep water section below.

After the 8 KM after lunch, we hauled the rafts out of the water and dropped them onto a trailer, towelled off, and were driven back to the hostel where we had tea in the morning. They had a plate of potato wedges for each group and little digital picture frames with all the photos taken of each group. Because Brennan and I were in the front of the raft (so there would be some muscle steering to counter the guide paddling in the back) almost every shot was just a mint photo of us two with the faces of the rest of the group either obscured or not showing at all. Luck of the draw on seating for that as it turns out. We split the cost of a USB flash drive with the photos on it with the Chinese ladies. The bus ride back provided some time to catch up on sleep missed the night before. Back at the hostel we loaded the pictures onto the computer and then I ran it over to the Chinese ladies at their hotel. We changed and then went for the free nightly meal (which never changes, so of the 3 options of tomato soup, spaghetti, and curry sausage with rice, we opted for the sausage/rice combo) as an appetizer (the portion is small) and a lamb gyros wrap from a Greek restaurant down the street from the hostel for the main course. Watched some X Factor (like a terrible yet hugely popular version of American Idol) with horrendously karaoke performances and song choices and played some cards with the Irish before another early end to the night. Up at 6 AM again tomorrow to go snorkeling and scuba diving on the Great Barrier Reef. I hope we see Nemo!

Oz Observations # 3

There are less and less observations each edition I write, I suppose because I've covered most stuff. Often there will be really weird ones that I'll forget simply because I don't have anything to write it down on when I notice it. But anyways, here are a few more:

Oz Observations # 3

1. McDonalds and Australians refer to the restaurant as Macca's. Even in advertisements and websites, Macca's is used instead of McDonalds.

2. Burger King is known as Hungry Jack's but has the same logo and font.

3. Cheddar (the orange cheese) is known as red cheddar here.

4. Most roads and higways have reflectors built into the centerline that stick up about an inch and look like a little square box about 3 inches x 3 inches and one inch tall.

5. Attractions and important landmarks have signs like street signs on the same posts as street signs. So it'll be a sign that says Main St. then underneath that a blue sign that says police or museum, etc.

6. Bars and clubs all have outside security instead of in-house bouncers.

7. There is a lot of coffee flavored things, especially drinks. There are often 3 types of coffee-flavored milks in convenience stores, coffee chocolate bars, and coffee Boost Juices.

8. Lots of people (especially the backpackers) roll their own cigarettes instead of buying packs. Apparently it's significantly cheaper, but it's still weird to see people rolling smokes on tables in bars and restaurants.

9. Yield signs all have GIVE WAY written in black text inside the red triangle

Oct 23 - Footy Players and Movie

Slept until noon (yes, again..but we have to be up early from now on in Cairns, so give us a break) and chilled on the patio for a while. Today is very bright, but overcast, however there isn't any rain presently (knock on wood) so that's a bonus. After a tasty lunch of eggs and roast beef sandwiches, B went for a nap (what else is there to do here!?) and I wandered around town and the mall. After a short while I was thirsty, which tends to happen often in high heat and humidity and SUN (yes, I said sun, as in there is sun in the sky today. Mind boggling!). So I had a Boost Juice. That wasn't a typo, just boost, not booster. Almost like a booster juice in flavor/texture but tastes more home-made. Decent way to supress the thirst and get some fruit intake anyways. When I got back we went down to reception and extended our stay til Wednesday (originally only booked 4 nights because we weren't sure if we would be staying over in Port Douglas or Cape Tribulation) but the catch is we have to check out tomorrow (before we leave to rafting at 6:40 AM and check back into a new room when we get back from rafting. We then attempted to watch some TV shows on the laptop via the internet, but all the places where the internet was strong enough were filled with ridiculously loud and obnoxious rugby players. I think there's 3 teams staying here at the moment and every last one of them are out of control all hours of the day and night. Hopefully they'll check out tomorrow (Monday) so we can get some peace and quiet around here.

To pass some time, we hit up the movie theatre for a cinematic adventure. $16 dollar admission later, we watched The Town with Ben Affleck, etc. He is starting to sound more and more like Adam Sandler as Billy Madison or the Waterboy, especially when Ben turns on his Boston (baahstan) accent. However, it was a pretty good flick, but the ending was a bit cheese. Slice of 'za back at the hostel, some TV and early to bed because we have to catch a 6:40 AM bus to go rafting at the Tully River, which is a couple hours away. Finally a good reason to get up before noon!

Oct 22 - Trips and Lagoon

Slept until noon again today, because, well, it was rainy and there's not much to do in Cairns. But today we got to start the day off awesomely with toast, eggs and chocolate milk then split a fresh mango. Breakfast (or lunch if you go by the time we ate) of champions. After surfing the internet until it became boring, we headed out and got quotes from a couple places for the 3 trips we want to do while we're in Cairns. Everyone was basically the same price, so we went with Peter Pan's, who we had booked Fraser Island and the Whitsundays through. So on Sunday we will be doing a day on the Tully river's grade 3 and 4 rapids in a whitewater rafting adventure. Monday we will take a boat out to the Great Barrier Reef and get our fill of snorkeling and do an introductory scuba dive. Tuesday we take a bus up to Cape Tribulation to walk through the rain forest and cruise the croc-infested Daintree river on a (big) boat. So fun is coming up soon and our bank accounts became lighter a few hundred dollars in a matter of minutes. But it's the only time we'll be here, so may as well do it right. The one thing that sucks is the pickup times for the 3 days are 6:40, 6:45 and 7:25 (all AM) then a flight at 5:20 AM on Wednesday that we need to leave for the airport by 4 for. So our days of sleeping til noon will come to an abrupt end beginning Sunday morning. That being said, it's a lot easier to get up and be motivated for the day when there's fun and adventure ahead instead of having to kill a day in Cairns.

B needs some new shirts, so we browsed several shops for something and went through the mall here, but nothing tickled his fancy. I was tired of my shirt though (all stretched out), so I picked up a new tee and threw mine away. We walked to the big public lagoon (sand-fringed swimming pool) and went along the oceanfront boardwalk (AKA the Esplanade) but the ocean here and the "beach" are nasty - all muddy and the water is murky brown, and there's no swimming due to crocodiles regularly in the ocean water here.

Back at the hostel we had our crappy free dinners of tiny proportion but were plesantly surprised with 2 for 1 drinks, so we enjoyed 2 schooners of beer at a time for $5 (schooners here are smaller than pints) and chatted with our roomies and some other folks. There was a live band playing 90s rock that were quite enjoyable then a DJ afterwards and some dancing may have ensued. Then a nice hot slice of pizza (the perfect finish to a night) and sleep.

Oct 21 - Quotes and Chats

Woke up this morning when two people in the room were leaving, then again when the last roomie was leaving, then again when the maids came in to loudly clean the freshly vacated beds. At least we had the room to ourselves now. But it was pouring rain outside, so we ended up sleeping until noon. Got up and ready for the day and one of the Irish popped by for a chat. Then we got a new roomie, a gal from Melbourne and the 4 of us talked for a while then were joined by the other Irish girl. Us and the Irish headed over to Peter Pan's to check out prices on activities in the Cairns area; namely whitewater rafting, scuba diving/snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, and rainforest walk/Daintree River crocodile cruise. We got a quote (after a long wait in line) at Peter Pan's and then got another quote at a place attached to Gilligan's. Decided we'd wait til tomorrow to book and check into the forecast further first. Cape Tribulation is accessible by one road that is often flooded by a creek in wet season (now) and today the road was closed due to water, so we will probably wait until early next week to venture up there, once it has some time to dry up a bit.

Back at the hostel there were new Brits in our dorm so we chatted a bit then headed out for some wings at a brewery here. We used our 5 free wings coupon and added on 20 more for a decent little meal. We went to another place that was supposed to give free pizza with a drink purchase, but discovered that they went bankrupt sometime between when the vouchers we had were printed and tonight when we went to use them. So we walked back to Gilligan's and I enjoyed a nice (and surprisingly spicy) bowl of spicy tomato soup to complete my meal. Then we headed over to Woolworth's and got groceries (first time we've gotten legit groceries in quite some time) for breakfast and lunch tomorrow. Eggs and toast for breakfast, then roast beef and cheese sandwiches for lunch are on the menu for us now. After groceries we were sitting in the kitchen enjoying some frozen yoghurt bars when we were engaged in conversation by an older guy eating his meal. It turned out to be about an hour long nod session (one way conversation where the most we said was yep) and he apparently was a publicist for big Australian actors including Heath Ledger and now is a producer and director for soap operas and has a big project in the works. Apparently he had to stay at a hostel because his wallet was stolen while he was scuba diving. The whole story sounded very questionable and it's more likely that he's a crazy schizophrenic than a big time TV producer, but the story he told was strangely detailed. Regardless an interesting conversation, followed by an awkward conversation with two Dutch girls. A frustrating time trying to find good feeds to watch tv episodes we've missed from back home ensued afterwards. It's always a struggle to get internet that's strong enough to stream TV shows then finding a good enough source to stream them from. Still a work in process. It's been pouring rain here all night, which seems to be the trend thus far. Wet season during the summer apparently. And we get to spend a week in it.

Oct 20 - Cassowary and Cairns

Today we checked out and began the day with a big British brekky - basted eggs, toast, ham, bacon, 1/2 tomato grilled, and baked beans. With a full belly, we took the shuttle to the ferry and the ferry back to Townsville. Hopped on the Greyhound to Cairns and enjoyed 2 stellar in-bus movies (The Proposal and Confession of a Shopaholic). Watched the first movie, then popped in the iPod and ignored the 2nd film. Around the Mission Beach area we saw a cassowary in the ditch and there were lots of cassowary signs, just like our deer signs. Cassowaries are creepy looking tall birds that are the same size as an ostrich, but have a blue neck/face and a red head with a mohawk-shaped bone growth on top of their head.

When we arived into Cairns we took a shuttle over to Gilligan's hostel and checked in. Simply saying checked in is a very big understatement, because this was the longest check-in experience I have ever been privy to, even after working in a hotel for 10 months. A good 25 minute struggle later, we had keys to two different rooms, becaue they couldn't get us into the same room, even though we had booked like a week ago. That point aside, Gilligan's is like a big resort. The place is huge, with a nightclub, restaurant and massive swimming pool (complete with waterfall) in the complex. We went down to eat our free evening meal of spaghetti (paid $3 to upgrade to a "large portion" which looked like a regular sized portion, so I'd hate to see the regular portion). The meal was sufficient, but certainly not overly filling, and then we went for a walk around the area in Cairns. Picked up a new SIM card for our phone, which gets us 5 cents/minute international calling, which is a wee bit better than the $1.80/minute with Vodaphone. Did a couple blocks of walking around the fairly sketchy city (like a larger PA, everywhere you go kind of has a slightly uneasy feel). We headed back to the hostel and checked to see if we could move to the same room, which was possible, because apparently the person had made the booking incorrectly. So we both moved to a 6-bed dorm and set up our stuff, then went to the common area and watched some TV for a couple hours online (getting so far behind in our shows!). When we got back to the room, there were 3 roommates present and the one had stolen my pillow to use between his legs. I dropped a little wtf in my head and grabbed a new pillow off an empty bed. Then enjoyed a hot, humid sleep.

Oct 19 - Barbie and Bingo

Today we weren't sure what to do, since we had basically covered the island fully yesterday. So we headed over to town with the Irish lasses and split the rental of a mini topless car for the day. The car was tiny and looked like a Barbie car with pink wheels and no roof. Easily the coolest vehicle I have ever driven. First we went over to the rock wallabies to show the Irish the little fellas, but they were all sleeping or hiding or whatever. So we zipped over to the Forts walk (in like five minutes versus like 2 hours yesterday) and went until we saw a koala passed out in a tree. But it was hot and we were thirsty, so we returned to the car and drove up to the tip of the island called Horseshoe Bay and stopped for a drink and a popsicle (or ice lolly as the Irish would say). We also picked up a pack of three carrots and went over to the rock wallabies again and they were out! We spent a good hour feeding and petting the wallabies and other people came by to feed them pellets (our carrots were tastier I'd say) and after a while there was about ten hopping around, begging for food. After pictures, we hopped back in the car and drove to the furthest southwest end of the island (Picnic Bay, which we saw our first day in Magnetic) and walked out onto boulders on the point and snapped some photos. Before we returned the car, we stopped at the grocery store and I picked up a 4 pack of assorted cheeses and some rice crackers. We dropped the stuff off at the hostel, then drove back and dropped off the car, then walked back to the hostel. Then I had a cheese and cracker binge (haven't had any cheese since I got to Australia) and chugged a litre of milk (starting to get used to the taste of Aussie milk). We utilized the giant jenga set for some entertainment then pretty much the whole hostel played drinking Bingo for four rounds.

Oct 18 - Rock Wallabies and Tree Possums

Up and at 'em early this morning to watch the Riders/Stamps game, which went well for a while but ended poorly. We had our complementary breakfast of bacon, eggs, toast and tea to get fueled up for a long day of hiking in the sun. We walked to the center of town by where the ferry comes in then took the road towards the hiking trails. The first beach bay we came across was empty but there were people out on the rocky point, so we followed the road over there to discover tons of huge boulders and a bunch of tiny rock wallabies! Wallabies look like a cross between a rat and a kangaroo, live in the crevaces of the rocks and are just about the cutest things ever. We got some carrot slices off a family that was there and hand-fed the little guys. We just need to see Nemo now and our wildlife goals for Australia will be complete.

A buddy back home recommended the Forts walk here, so we continued along the road and up a lot of hills until we finally arrived at the entrance to the Forts trail loop (about 12 KM later!). There was a sign warning not to stray off the trail due to the presence of Death Adders, which are one of the most venomous snakes in the world. So although the whole trail was very wide and groomed, we were stepping very warily. Didn't end up seeing or hearing any snakes, so that was a relief. Along the walk were old lookouts, gun emplacements and bunkers from WWII used for naval surveillance and command back then. Also got to see a couple koalas napping in the trees, which are always a welcome sight. We got to the beginning of the trail again and waited for the bus that comes by and took it back to town. Lunch was my new favourite thing I order everywhere; the works burger (with pineapple, bacon, ham, carrots, etc) which was nearly as good as the one in Rainbow Beach.

After lunch back at the hostel we ran into our Irish friends and caught up on the Whitsundays trips then went in search of some dinner. Both the restaurants we knew of were closed (one closed at 6 and the other wasn't open Mondays) so we asked the guy at the bottle shop (the only place open) and he directed us to a Mexican place around the corner. The place had a cool vibe with patio laterns, Spanish music, etc. making for good ambiance. Hanging around in the trees (pun intended) were possums, which were nearly as cute as the wallabies and ate nacho chips given to them by the owner. There were also long-legged hissing birds that freaked us out a bit, but they got shooed away. The food was pricey, but the ribs and nachos were tasty and filling. After dinner we chilled on the beach while the majority of the hostel was going wild at the bar.

Oct 17 - Magnetic Island Walking

This morning we checked out of the Foreign Exchange hostel; the nicest place we've stayed at in a while, if not ever. We walked to the closest Subway around (about 2 KM away) for breakfast, then back to the hostel to catch a shuttle to the ferry terminal. Got our tickets that we had pre-purchased as part of our Base hostel Magnetic Island package and hopped on the ferry across to Magnetic. The ferry rode like a dream, which was a nice change from the rocking and rolling on the New Horizon through the Whitsundays. Got off the ferry without an exact idea of where the hostel was (we had it's name and address this time at least) and after asking around we were pointed in a direction and told it's just a ways down that road. A ways turned out to be 2 KM (seems to be a common number in our travels) to Base hostel. The place is quite nice, with an amazing view of the ocean, beachfront, nice pool, etc, although our room looks like a prison cell, but you can't win them all. We tossed the stuff in the barracks and went on a hike to Picnic Bay and checked out the jetty (also known as a dock) with people fishing off of it. We've seen people fishing off piers in lots of places in LA and Australia now and have never seen someone actually catch anything. We had supper included with our package which equated to a burger and fries (with tomato sauce...sort of ketchup) and we got some chips for dessert. The bar had a weak battle of the sexes thing tonight, which we participated in the first round of (throwing a hula hoop over a post) and then were annoyed by for the subsequent rounds with the very loud Aussie announcer. Tomorrow we might rent a mini moke, which look like little dune buggys, and use it to cruise around the island and then do some hikes (because walking is what we need more of). But first we will get up nice and early to watch the Riders game (as long as the illegal internet feed is back on - didn't work last week due to a TSN lawsuit against the site...but hopefully someone else will stream it. Otherwise we'll be listening to it online).

Oct 16 - Walking Through Townsville

Woke up this morning to sunshine and heat. Hallelujah! Tossed on shorts, sunblock, hat and sunglasses and hit the road. Our hostel is a ways from the center of town and so we had to walk a couple KMs to get to the area with attractions in it. There is a museum and aquarium, but both had outrageous admission prices, so we went further up the road to the beach. It's bizarre to see a 30 degree sunny Saturday with beaches nearly empty. It's getting close to stinger season, plus there are only a couple designated swim areas along the several sections of the Townsville beach, so there weren't many swimmers. Along the route we passed a dance/martial arts hybrid display, a volleyball game and little black kids doing roundoff twisting back layouts into the ocean. The area looks and feels like Venice beach, both from the interesting and sketchy people, the people fishing off the piers, the hot sand and murky water and the palms and vegetation surrounding the area. In the hot sun and humid air it's easy to become thirsty quickly, and then thirsty within minutes of finishing that drink until you're full but still really wanting water. The heat does strange things to the mind for sure. We headed back to the hostel, picking up pasta and sausages for what turned out to be a delicious and overly filling dinner. It's much nicer at night here, and more bearable - with the temperature still in the 20s, but with a breeze and without the baking rays of the sun. Tomorrow we venture across to Magnetic Island on the ferry to stay at the resort-esque Base hostel there for 3 nights of relaxation.

Oct 15 - Solid Ground and Townsville

7 AM was the starting time again this morning, and with the same breakfast spread as yesterday, I opted to skip breakfast. We got to snorkel again in this new bay, but the water was much murkier, there were less fish and the coral was pretty dull-looking. So after about an hour, everyone in the group was sitting on the beach (which was made up of different pieces of worn-down coral that had broken off over time and washed up to shore. A whole beach of a variety of coral; so weird. So the deck hand came and picked us all up and boated us back to New Horizon in his little outboard 8-man boat. Then we got lunch (hooray!) of hotdogs (yum) and they even tasted like normal Canadian hotdogs (usually taste like dog food over here) so that was a treat. Then we sailed (literally - all sails open) back to Airlie and were dropped back onto solid ground (I've never been so happy to set foot on a dock). Everyone said their goodbyes and we hustled into town.

Since we arrived back earlier than planned (due to the short snorkel session this morning) me and B headed over to the lagoon for a swim. The lagoon is just a huge public pool, with sand entrances and completely free! It was perfect to cool off from the wicked hot sun (today was the first sunny day of the sailing trip) and to wash off the ocean salt accumulated on the skin. The quick, refreshing dip was much needed, then we headed over to the bank and tossed some money into our NAB accounts (debit cards worked fine this time). With the bus departure time quickly approaching, we went over to Peter Pan's to pick up our luggage, then walked to the bus terminal and played frisbee while we waited for the Greyhound coach to arrive.

The bus ride to Townsville included pouring rain, lightning and bumpy, twisting roads. But we did get to watch a movie (which seems to be rare on even long bus rides) and although my expectations for The Astronaut Farmer (with the crazy Billy Bob Thornton) were low, I was pleasantly surprised with a pretty decent film. When we arrived to Townsville is when the trouble began. I hadn't written down the name of the hostel we were booked into and there were no courtesy hostel vans waiting at the bus station (like there almost always is). It was dark and Townsville turned out to be a deceiving name, as it's actually a city of about 200,000 so it's not just a matter of wandering a couple streets to find the hostel. Brilliant. So we ventured into the CBD to try and find a McDonalds (they all have free wifi here) so we could check our booking and see where the place was that we were booked in at. But for whatever reason, in dozens of blocks in the downtown that we searched, there were no McDonalds restaurants to be found. Sooooo we flagged down a cab and said take us to Macca's please and along the way explained our predicament. He suggested a hostel that matched our description of where we booked, so we stopped there first to check, but it wasn't the right one. So he dropped us at Mcdicks and we hopped on the internet and found the name and address of our hostel - which was 4 km from where we were presently sitting. Soooooo we found another taxi anf flagged him down and said please take us to the most difficult hostel to find in all of Australia (sarcasm...sort of). We pulled up to the hostel about quarter past eight and I yelled to the cabbie "go home, smell ya later" I looked at my kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel-Air. (The taxis are wicked expensive here also - the first cost $12 and the 2nd cost $14 for short rides) Jokes aside, this place was MASSIVE and had an old colonial feel to it. But in keeping with the theme of the night, the front door was locked and reception was closed at 6. So we headed around the side and upstairs, where people sat playing cards around a table. "Are there any employees around who could check us in?" Oh yeah, the guy with dreadlocks outside is who you need. So we went back downstairs and into the backyard patio looking for a guy with dreads, who was nowhere to be found. So I asked another guy who I needed to talk to in order to check in and he went off and found a girl to help us. She checked us in (finally! hooray! success!), gave us our keys and sold us 2 hours of internet for $6 (Internet is a ripoff in this country). We tossed our stuff in the room and headed out to find food.

KFC was the closest, so it won and was delicious. But in the midst of eating our tasty meals, it began to pour rain (par for the course). We waited for a while, but it didn't slow down at all, so we walked out into it in search of a convenience store for some Aloe Vera (got a bit burned on the boat today). The rain is so weird - it was absolutely pouring, but we were barely getting wet, perhaps because the drops are really small or something... Hard to explain but the rain was odd (and warm, which is a nice change). Since it was after 8 pm, nothing was open (at least not in the area) and so we walked back to the hostel. The rain came down even harder on the way and we did get good and drenched. Hung up the clothes to dry when we got back and got to shower for the first time in 3 days. Then internet, TV and bed. What a day.

Oct 14 - Beach and Snorkel

We started the day early - 7 AM, which was fine for me (and B who was in bed last night at 7:30 due to partying even harder than me in Airlie) but a lot of my shipmates were hurting pretty hard, having been pounding back beer and goon til late in the night. Regardless, Bluey (the captain) was full steam ahead and breakfast was on the table. Tea, toast, cereal and fruit salad was a nice start to the day, though something didn't sit well with me. I headed down under the deck to throw on my shorts and sunblock and the smell under there combined with the ocean got to me and I made a mad rush upstairs to the bathroom to relieve myself of breakfast. Stupid ocean, all wavy and such...

Feeling much better, we shortly arrived at Whitsunday Island (what the whole group of islands are named after) and were boated ashore by the deck hand in a little open Marines-style boat, a few people at a time. The Whitsunday Islands don't look as I expected (tropical vegetation with white beaches) and instead look basically like BC, with spruce trees, rocky cliff sides and brown sand beaches. Whitsunday Island is the expection, because after we walked through a forest area we came to Whitsunday beach (or more specifically the section known as Betty's Beach named for some old lady that used to take care of it) which looks like the postcards with miles of white sand. Unfortunately for us, it was cloudy and grey out. Alas, we all laid out our towels, some went swimming (we had to wear wetsuit though to protect from jellyfish which may be around there this time of year) and many went exploring the vast beach. We shortly came across the weirdest thing I've ever seen - thousands of little spider-like "soldier" crabs (with a round head/body and legs beneath) moving across the sand like a wave. Looking around, we saw there were dozens of clusters of crabs, all moving together creating an eerie wind-like noise. We started snapping pictures like we worked for National Geographic and witnessed that once you got close enough, the crabs would burrow themselves under the sand. It would take about 3 seconds for them to fully disappear under the surface as the crabs further ahead continued to scuttle along. The beach was also full of millions of tiny balls of sand, created by the crabs as they ate bits of food from the ground. Once we had a sufficient amount of crab photos, we walked back to the main beach area and played catch with a new toy I picked up in Airlie called a SkimBall. It's a ball a little smaller than a racquetball that's squishy and can bounce off the surface of the water. So we lined up maybe 20 feet apart, whipped the ball at the water somewhere between us, and it would skip off the water over to the other person. Very cool and very fun. We headed back to the boat for lunch (sandwiches and wraps, yum!) then sailed over to a reef in a bay for snorkeling.

Suited up in our stinger suits, we were dropped off at a beach where the reef began. We got to snorkel for a couple hours and saw loads of bright fish, colorful coral and even a turtle. Very enjoyable and probably the best snorkelling I've done before (take that Mexico and Cuba!). After we finished and were all back on the boat, Bluey grabbed some hotdogs and lured in the hawks and eagles that were circling the reef. He'd whistle and wave the meat while standing on the roof of the control room then hurl the hotdog into the air and the eagles (then later the hawks) would swoop down and catch it with their talons then soar off back to their nest to enjoy the snack. He also tossed bread into the water that was gobled up viciously by bat fish, which look like a sideways frisbee. So creepy and entertaining.

Dinner tonight was delicious spaghetti and meat sauce and afterwards there was noticeably less drinking by most, although a few went hard again. I still felt borderline queasy, so I didn't touch my goon tonight either, allowing the others to enjoy it for me. Buying goon and not drinking it is the best $15 wasted ever. After reading the ingredients of this so-called wine that includes eggs and traces of fish, I don't think I'll ever be drinking it. Once it got dark, the crew flipped on a spotlight into the water where we watched massive shark-looking fish swim around and try to eat little finger-sized silver fish on the surface. But the silver fish were so wicked fast and would jump out of the water, skipping around like a fishing lure skipping over the water when you reel it in really fast. So there would be 4 or 5 of the huge fish that would thrash around trying to catch the little ones that would be flipping around on the surface lightning fast and rarely did the little ones get caught. The ocean in this bay tonight is calmer than last night, so the boat isn't rocking as much and sleeping is easier.

Oct 13 - I'm on a Boat

We checked out of the dazzling resort this morning (sarcasm) and hiked over to ABC travel to check-in for the cruise. Read through their stuff, signed some stuff and we were good to go. The meeting time was 2 pm at the marina so we had a couple hours to spare, so we walked over to Peter Pan's Travel (who we booked our trip through - they have branches everywhere) and stored our luggage (can only bring one small bag onto the boat) and use the internet for a while. The time came to head over to the marina, and conveniently it began to rain. Not ideal conditions to be leaving on a sailing trip for... We walked over to Abel Point Marina and met up with the other cruise patrons. The boat staff showed up and led us to our home for the next couple days - the New Horizon ship. The crew introduced themselves once we were aboard and gave us a rundown of the agenda, rules, procedures, etc. and then we embarked on our journey. Once out of the harbour, the boat cruised along until dark, and we anchored in a bay where hammerhead sharks commonly reside. Most of the guests got to drinking but I held off; still not feeling great from the night before and the motion of the ocean was bothering me a touch. Dinner was fish. Surprise, surprise. With some salad and fresh rolls to go with it. After dinner since I wasn't drinking, meeting people and chatting was the order of the night and then off to bed early in the cramped, hot, smelly quarters beneath the deck.

Oct 12 - Rain, Rain, Rain

I thought Australia was supposed to be hot and dry? Not the northeast, evidently. It rained today. A lot. Got started late after sleeping off a little hangover, then some comfort food - Subway to lift the spirits. We went to check in for our sailing trip, but we didn't have the printout and even though I knew the booking numbers and such, the lady was a hag and told us tomorrow we had to come back in the morning. At this point it began lashing rain (as our Irish friends would say) and we hustled over to the NAB bank branch to take out some money from our Canadian accounts to deposit in our Aussie accounts, but the ATM wouldn't accept either of our cards. Tried another ATM and it gave us different error messages about funds not being available. Hmmmm. Tried a third ATM and got another different error message to do with the exchange rate. Not impressed. Called RBC, which is a hassle on Aussie payphones, finally got through and he said it was because I hit my limit for the day because it's based on Sask time. Even though I only took out 250 and my limit is 1000. As per usual useless RBC retards, but the card should work once midnight Sask time hits.

We booked our next bus journey, from here to Townsville on Friday after our cruise returns. Then we booked our flight from Cairns down to Melbourne on October 27th, then hopefully (if I can convince Brennan) we'll do the Indian Pacific train from Adelaide to Perth (2.5 days of outback!)

We headed back to the room, changed into dry clothes and joined our Irish travel pals for some card games. Shithead I think was what we played mostly. It seems all their card games have some sort of expletive in them; bullshit, shithead, asshole, etc. Drinks were drank, then we headed to a pub through the torrential downpour. The outdoor pub was almost empty, but we got a pint before they closed (they had a tent roof over the seating area) then went over to the Irish pub (indoors) next to it for live music, lots of beer, singing and dancing (you know I've had a few when I'm dancing). Then the perfect end to the night; a place across the street sells poutine!! They spell it putine for some reason and the lady wasn't happy that we mentioned this several times. Then a long walk through pouring rain for another smelly, hot sleep. The whitsundays sailing trip could be interesting if it's poor weather like this. But we both bought our first boxes of goon (white wine in a box - 4 litres for 15 bucks) so that should liven things up ahaha.

Oct 11 - Resorts and Drinks

Arrived bright and early in Airlie Beach off the overnight Greyhound bus feeling very tired, which is the norm with the off and on cramped sleep common on bus rides. We walked up a massive hill and what seemed like an endless maze of stairs and walkways until we finally found the office of our resort. Buuuuut we couldn't check in. So we dropped our bags in the back and walked over to the shopping center which is sort of in the next town or suburb of Airlie. Or there is a gap of a couple KMs between Airlie and the Cannonvale area. Regardless, it was a long ass walk to a pretty hurting mini mall. Alas, we killed some time and checked out views of the harbour with hundreds of very expensive looking yachts bobbing around in it. Once it was past the designated acceptable noon check-in time, we walked back up the mini mountain to our hostel and checked in. The rooms are like regular hotel rooms that have had 3 single cots added to become dorm rooms. The place has a really nice pool looking over the ocean and a hot tub. But the whole place and especially the rooms are run down really badly. It's the sort of place that would have been nice ten or fifteen years ago, but hasn't seen a bit of reno or upkeep since then and now it's sort of a dive with vague reminders of what once was. The view was wicked though, with the ocean and boats in sight.

There's a Welsh fella in our room also that we got along with, so the 3 of us headed out for some $10 steak and chips dinner then several pints at 3 different drinking establishments over the next few hours. There was live music at each place, and it seemed they all had the same styles. We heard Johnny Cash played at all 3. Stumbled back up to our room up the mega hill and passed out in the hot, musty, damp room.

Oct 10 - Riders and Laundry

Today was another one of those nothing days. We got up early and tried to watch the Riders game streaming online, only to find that all the illegal providers we used had been sued by TSN for violating the DCMA and were thus no longer showing the CFL games. So we listened to it on CKRM webcast, which sufficed, but wasn't ideal. Updated the blog and Facebook pictures after this then checked out of the hostel. Then came a delightful couple of hours of laundry, some lunch and then the beach for a few hours. Our bus leaves at 9 PM tonight going to Airlie Beach (the starting point for the Whitsunday Islands tours) and it's a 10 hour overnight bus ride. I never wanted to do an overnighter again, but that's the only option with Greyhound from Agnes Water. Oh well, at least we'll save $ on hostels tonight.

Oct 9 - Town Tour and Choppers

Got up early (relatively) for a van tour of Agnes Water and 1770. It's actually 2 separate towns, but they're always named together and are only a couple minutes apart. One is the old town and one is the new town, or something along those lines. The tour was alright, it showed us all the parts to town (the red building, the green building and the bar). But mainly it was just a sales pitch for the various tour companies and activities in the two towns. After it wrapped up, we grabbed some Worx burgers (Agnes Water style) that were decent but didn't live up to the ones in Rainbow. Then came the moment we'd been waiting for over the whole past week; Scooter Roo. We took the shuttle to the compound where we were fitted into some leather jackets and helmets and got to choose our motorbikes. The bikes are actually 50cc scooters but are built to look like motorbikes with low, mid, or high handlebars. So obviously we both took the high-handlebar chopper style bikes. After a brief safety message, we were off, looking lean and mean on our hogs. The guides led the group through the two towns and on some back roads where we got the bikes ripping up to about 75 km/hr. Stopped at one point to watch some kangaroos, then wrapped up with a box of chips on the 1770 beach to watch the sunset. Amazing 3 hours and made me want to buy a motorbike more than any movie or piece of media ever has.

Oct 8 - Phone Issues and Bus to 1770

We checked out early this morning and had breakfast at the cafe. I went with a BLT with avacado, which was an interesting twist on an old classic. Then we had hours to kill, so I tried to call home on a payphone with my calling card several times, getting through twice and getting cut off both times. Tried until my change was all gone then gave up. Browsed the shops for a while then hopped on the bus to Agnes Water (with a garbage bag filled with beer that the driver was none too impressed about). We drove through the decently big Bundaberg (that looked like PA) with it's numerous food joints and instead stopped an hour further at a Caltex gas station for food. The driver must be making comission. They did make a mean box of fries and gravy though. The scenery up to 1770 reminded me of small town Sask or maybe rural USA in the southern states. Checked into Cool Bananas, had a bite to eat and that was it for today.

Oct 7 - Lake Wabby and Best Burger Ever

We got the gourmet breakfast today, with poached eggs and toast with PB&J before cleaning up, taking down the tents and heading to our last point of interest, Lake Wabby. We parked on a beach and had to hike in 2 KMs to this little gem. After a couple KMs of forest, we trekked across some very hot sand dunes that led down to the lake. If you can call it that. Not sure what the qualifications for lakes are, because by my definition this was a pond. A slew at best. Alas, we were all boiling hot and it was cold water, so we all enjoyed it thoroughly. I was the first of only 4 people to swim across it to the tiny spit of sand on the other side (winner!). We hiked back to the jeeps and our one guide told us about all the things potentially lurking in the underbrush that could kill us and then we walked a wee bit faster back to the trucks. We drove back to the ferry and made it on with about 30 seconds to spare before it headed off back to the mainland (the last 4 trucks were stranded and had to wait for the ferry to return). We filled up the beast with diesel then took it back to the compound where they made us empty everything out and clean the trucks and all the equipment (not sure what they were getting paid for...) then dropped us back at the hostel. We all got to shower finially, which was much needed, even with all the swimming.

6 of our group headed to a restaurant (Or the restaurant, perhaps. I'm not sure if there was more than one) and here I had the best burger I've ever eaten. It was called the Works burger and had a thick beef patty, lettuce, carrots, cucumber, ham, bacon, egg and pineapple. When I read the ingredients at first I thought hmm, I don't know about the pineapple, but it adds a perfect flavor to complete the burger. Then the 6 of us played several different card games back at the hostel until it was really late and we were all nearly delirious from lack of sleep the past 2 nights.

Oct 6 - Hangover and Champagne (Pools)

Needless to say, everyone was feeling pretty rough this morning due to the late night of alcohol consumption, so we had some cereal, very slowly, before setting out for the day's activities. Surprisingly, once we arrived at the first stop, everyone was feeling much better and ready for some excercise. Eli Creek was our first stop, which is really hyped up by every tour operator and our guides as well. It was...a creek. Nothing too exciting or spectacular. We walked up a boardwalk to the start of it, then walked down the knee-deep creek to the start. The highlight of Eli Creek was getting to use the nice washrooms after having only the bush at our campsite all night.

From here we headed to where we had lunch then walked to the Champagne Pools, which are little pockets of ocean water surrounded by rocks. When a wave crashes into the rocks, it trickles down and bubbles into the pools, creating a champagne-like effect. We spent a couple hours floating in the pools, enjoying the sun and I ventured over to an empty beach past rock cliffs while the rest napped by the pools.

After the pools, we drove to the other end of the cliff-enclosed beach and walked up the cliff peninsula known as Indian Head. From up here we saw a manta ray, and some saw sharks and turtles, but we were pretty high up (maybe 200 feet) from the water, so it was tough to see much marine life. We had to leave in a hurry to be able to utilize the beach for driving before the tide came back in and gunned it down the sand over to the shipwreck. This rusty old wreck was being towed to Japan for scrap metal many years ago when the line broke in a storm and it washed ashore. It was too expensive to retrieve, so they let it sit on the beach and made it a tourist attraction. It's about as exciting as a few tonnes of rusty metal could be I suppose.

Then it was back to the campsite for a delicious chicken stirfry with rice and plenty of veggies and significantly less alcohol consumption (but still a little). Our group played cards for a couple hours and everyone went to bed pretty early. This didn't alleviate the brutal sleep once again, however, as the sand was just as terrible a mattress as the previous night.

Oct 5 - Fraser, Swimming and Beers

Today we met at the 4WD vehicles at 7 AM for a final safety meeting and to pack them. This lasted three and a half hours. Longest morning of my life. We fiiiiiinally get on the road and drive over to the ferry, which takes us across the gap to the island. Thought it would be a long ferry ride but it only lasted about 5 minutes. The ferry hits the shore and the ramp goes down then we drive off like we're storming the beaches of Normandy. There are 8 vehicles, 8 people in each, and 2 had the guides driving. We ended up splitting into 2 groups of 4 because it's easier to manage the roads and the campsites could only accomodate 30-ish each. We drove on the beach for several KMs, then through a tiny town's paved streets, then through some rank rugged sand trails up to Lake McKenzie. We stopped here for lunch and then got to beach it and swim for a couple hours. This is a pretty tiny lake by my standards, seeing as how I could swim across this in about 10 minutes, but it was beautiful and refreshing after all that time in the truck.

We finished up there and drove over to a National park rain forest (they seem to be everywhere in Australia) and walked the boardwalk around what's known as the "invisible creek" due to it's super clear, shallow water. As we were leaving the tour guides informed us that nearly every deadly snake and spider in the country can be found around that creek. Thanks for the heads up, guys.

From here we headed to our camp site, which had some tarps strung up over a cooking area already. We set up our tents and cooked up some tasty steak and potatoes for dinner. Then came the drinking. We had stocked up heavily for the 3 days with beer and after supper we got into it in a big way, as did everyone with their respective booze. Sociables were played in a circle of about 35 (with the most confusing rules ever) and good times were had by all. The night finished with easily the most uncomfortable sleep I have ever had. Sand is in no way a soft substance when it's acting as the floor of your tent.

Oct 4 - Skim Heaven and Fraser Groups

Today I got up at 7 AM for the free pancake breakfast. I was excited because I hadn't had pancakes since IHOP in Anaheim. This was a bit of a let down. We were allowed 2 pancakes each and the spread choices were: peanut butter, strawberry jam, coarse brown sugar and lemon juice. No syrup? What's the deal!? So I choked down my dry pancakes with a glob of jam and some crunchy sugar with a spoon (the forks were all taken) then went back to bed.

After a longer snooze, me and B headed to the beach this town is named after for some sun and waves. The beach is beautiful in Rainbow and we spent a couple hours jumping waves and soaking up some rays. But the best part was the skimboarding. This is without question, hands down, the best skim spot I've ever been at. The water would come up really thin on the shore for like 25 feet, then kind of hang there for 10 or 15 seconds. I spent at least an hour skimming to my heart's content, then it was back to the hostel for the Fraser safety briefing.

The safety briefing was mandatory before going to Fraser Island and consisted of a chessy video from 10 years ago and a lecture from one of the staff. Then they broke us up into our groups that we would be driving/camping with on the island. We landed a cool crew consisting of me and Brennan, 2 irish girls, a guy and girl from Holland and a guy and girl from Toronto. We hit it off with our fellow Canucks straight away and went back to the sand dunes with them for more dune jumping. For supper, we did the hostel $5 BBQ, which included 2 sausages, bread and 2 kinds of salad. I was actually full after it! A rare feeling with hostel meals. I checked with some staff about getting a new camera in town but they said no one sold cameras, just my luck. I pulled out my camera to pull apart to see if I could fix it and low and behold, the sucker was working! The focus doesn't quite work the same, but every scene focuses (just not specific objects/people) and it turns on and off fine. What a relief, it would have been brutal to be without a camera for the whole Fraser trip.

Oct 3 - Riders and Sand

Got up at 4:45 AM today and set up the laptop for the Rider game. That is commitment to a team. Watched the green and white defeat the Argos, then had some victory Subway breakfast before checking out. There was a while to kill before our bus to Rainbow, so we chilled at the beach and napped on the grass for a while. Then came the always exciting staring out the window of the bus for a few hours until we reached the bubbling metropolis of Rainbow Beach. The town has 2 gas stations and maybe 10 shops, all located on one street. We checked in at Dingo's Hostel (this was part of our Fraser Island package) and were told we should take the shuttle to the sand dunes that was leaving shortly. Might as well, not much else to do in Rainbow, so we hopped in the sketchy van with some other people and they drove us up a couple big hills to the national park. From here we trekked up a trail a ways through a forest which opened up into the Carlo sandblow. Very impressive sight. It was a huge sweeping valley shaped something like the bottom half of a tube, framed by a forest on one end and the ocean on the other, with high cliff-like hills on each side. We kicked off the sandals and ran around, snapping photos and running up and down the steep hills. Somewhere along the line I went to take another picture and my camera screen just said "Lens Error." The lens would extend and then go back in and it'd say the error again, everytime I tried to turn it on. I was not impressed. Somehow some sand must have gotten into the lens mechanism, preventing it from extending fully, but I have no idea how, as I was extra careful and kept it away from the sand. Alas, it didn't work now, so not much I could do. I found a piece of plastic-cardboard stuff laying around and tried to toboggan down a steep sand hill, but failed and faceplanted. I did succeed at sand-dune jumping though. On one end of the dunes, by the forest, they dropped off sharply, so I would run, jump as high and far as I could, drop like 10-15 feet and land in deep sand up past my knees. Amazingly fun, and I did this for quite a while, until I was exhausted from climbing back up the hill.

For dinner, we had the $5 meal from the hostel, which was fresh, hot and included salad as well, so a decent meal for a cheap price. Back at the room we chatted with new German roommates for a while then turned in early, tired from the travel and walking/jumping at the dunes.

Oz Observations Part 2

1. At Subway, instead of asking what veggies you want on it, they ask "what salad would you like?" I responded, no salad for me, just the sub, which confused them.

2. Employees at shops ask you what debit account you want to use and push the button for you, then hand you the keypad.

3. Red peppers are simply called peppers.

4. Green peppers are called capsicum.

5. Some words in store titles are spelled like the Aussies pronounce them. For instance, Frank's Super IGA is spelled Frank's Supa IGA. Supa isn't a word Australia. Look it up.

6. Prices advertised include tax, and since there are no pennies, prices are rounded down on the first 2 cents (.01 and .02) and for 0.3 and 0.4 they're rounded up. Despite this, prices are still advertised at amounts not divisible by 5. So they're sneaky with a 3.68 price that rounds to 3.70 or are dumb with a 3.42 price that rounds down to 3.40. Usually it rounds up though.

7. Garbage is called rubbish and garbage cans and called bins. "Bin your rubbish" is a common phrase here.

8. Most cities and even small towns have a lot of roundabouts.

9. There are wild turkeys in every place we've been so far, usually kicking leaves around to make a nest, which makes an awful mess.

10. Lots of people (especially in beach towns) walk around with no shoes/sandals. And not just like between home and the beach, like shopping in the supermarket and in restaurants and such.

11. Most shops close at 5. Some late places are open until 8. The latest we've seen in a while was the Subway in Noosa that was open until 9:30.

12. Bathrooms/Restrooms/Washrooms are all referred to as toilets.

13. A tinny is a can of beer. An esky is a cooler.

14. License plates have no consistency. In Queensland, we've seen plates of different sizes (like Euro size and North American size) with different colours of text, and one even had a picture of a sunset printed behind the letters/numbers.

15. Mullets, curly mohawk mullets, rat tails and buzzed heads with a little patch of hair left in the back are all popular here for some reason. Like every single young guy has hair like this.

16. Scooters (like the Razor ones that were popular when I was in grade 5) are super popular with kids here, way more than skateboards for sure.

Oct 2 - New Threads and Catching up on TV

Woke up today to cloudy skies and mildly warm temperature. So after sleeping in long enough for the people leaving today to clear out of the room, I went browsing for some new shorts and a hat. I had brought one hat with me to Australia and when I went to get it the other day, it was nowhere to be found. I have no idea in what city I lost it, but it's surely long gone by now. This isn't the ideal country to be hatless, or shorts-less and seeing as how my one pair of swim trunks are coming apart on the velcro seams, it is time for a new set of them as well. So I went into "town" and grabbed a Subway smoothie (they have smoothies at Subway here, that taste just like Booster Juice!) and perused the local surf shops. I found two pairs of trunks and a flexfit hat at one shop. Successful shopping trip! One pair is soft and turquoise, while the other is more water resistant and bright/loud. A black hat to go with any outfit, and I'm set.

Shortly after, it started raining, so besides getting Kraft "Macaroni Cheese" and imitation hot dogs (almost the real thing) for supper, today didn't have much for excitement. Back at the hostel I finally watched the season 3 True Blood finale, and me and B watched the 3 episodes of Weeds we have missed during our travels. Just need to catch up on Sons of Anarchy and we'll be up to par with all our shows. Tomorrow is the Roughrider game at 5 AM our time, so it's early to bed, early to rise to cheer on (quietly) the green and white. Oh! Then we'll take the Greyhound up to Rainbow beach.

Oct 1 - Long Walk and Nude Beach

Today was hot and sunny from the start, so we headed for the beach. Sunshine, heat and beaches in October is something I could certainly get used to. We walked over to Noosa main beach only to find it swamped with people and without a spot for a towel in sight. So from there, we followed the Coastal walk trail through the National Park that we had done a couple days ago. There is a beautiful beach nestled amongst rock cliffs a couple KMs down the trail, so we went there, but just like the main beach, this one was at capacity. So we ventured on down the trail further, waaay further, until we came to the end of the peninsula, several clicks further along the trail. The point is named Hell's Gate, and it's a magnificent rock cliff bay that looks like it could be the gate to hell. Unfortunately, we didn't bring a camera, because the original plan was to go to the main beach, not hike for ten KMs. Luckily, on the other side of the peninsula, there was a huge, empty beach with pounding waves and perfect sand. Threw the towels down here and got to skimboarding on the perfect shoreline. After all this time, the sun had been covered by dark clouds, so we picked up and continued the trail that would eventually take us back to town. At the end of the beach, however, we were greeted by an unexpected and unwelcome surprise of a bunch of old fat dudes wearing nothing but smiles. UHHHH what the hell!? Hurried past that nasty sight and walked the Coastal trail a few more KMs until we arrived at Sunshine beach, ironically shaded by clouds. This had huge mansions on the cliffs and a Malibu vibe to it, but the ocean was really rough and wavy here. After a while we cut up into the streets and walked through some very rich and very uphill neighbourhoods back to Noosa.

Groceries were the first order of business and we headed to the IGA in the mall for some corn, rice, buns and KANGAROO meat! Cooked everything up in the hostel kitchen. One girl smelled the meat simmering in the pan and said "wow, that smells amazing." I told her it's kangaroo. "Ew, gross, nevermind then," she said. Kangaroo is a really dark meat, looking dark brown before it's cooked, but after it looks basically the same as beef. It tasted delicious I thought, with a sort of beef jerky flavour and a chewy consistency. Brennan wasn't a big fan of it, but mainly due to the psychological effect of eating something today that we were petting yesterday. I think they're delicious and cute, plus these were probably huge, ugly ones in the desert. Something different anyways and something I had to try in Australia.