Thursday 24 April 2008

part two.......

So frasers Island amazed us more than we could image and was as a proper tropical island. After getting back to the campsite and more importantly the van we decided to partake in a spot of tennis, 
to our surprise we had not completely forgotten how to play and if you started early enough it wasn't too hot so we had sucessfully found a new sport that could take over as the main pas-time as the surf has well and truely dried up and the beachs are tropical from now on up, not crashing 10ft waves that we like ;-).

Up very early the next morning for a long long drive, Aiming at getting to Airlie beach and more importantly the whitsundays island. This is also pretty much in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef. What a long drive it was, about 800km in one hit, we eventually got there in the evening. Learnt one major thing about driving at night in Australia unless you can drive with your head lights off dont bother. The front of the van was like a bug grave yard. Every type of bug had smashed against the front of the van at 100kph and let us tell you it make a mess. Subsequently with the carnage on the front of the van we just then attracted more bugs, the nice little buggers they are they like to eat there dead relatives!! So we had a problem. Nothing a couple of night of heavy rain didnt sort out though.
So with a huge pile of leaflets and a budget in mind we planned our trip out to the reef and around the whitsundays. We were up bright and early for the transfer coach to pick us up to be met by a man saying the trip had been cancelled that day, AWESOME. Apparently they couldn't get hold of us as we had no signal on our phone! So we re-arranged for the next day. We were up bright and early for the transfer coach to pick us up to be met by rain. Gutted, we decided to go for it though and see what it brings................ We snorkelled on the reef for about an hour, as you will have seen from the pics, due to a little thing called a marine jellyfish we had to wear these amazing suits, very telly tubbies!! Brightly couloured all in one. Sweet as if the fear of sharks wasn't bad enough! As the woman descirbed in the trip booking shop "Oh they are not so bad, first of all you dont know you have been stung for about half and hour, untill the infection starts to semi paralyse your arms, then you feel you chest caveing in and start to have convoltions, all whilst trying to swim" she laughed, we look pale (even with our tans) So we have to also look out for these as well (although you cant see them as they are see through). But in we went to the Great Barrier Reef. The coral was cool as ever but when we were clearly out of earshot of any patriotic aussies we both agreed egypt was better. Maybe because Egypt was the first coral we had seen or maybe because we were rained out of the water, kinda take the shine off it!! So on to the islands, que rain and swell................. Lots of rain falls and we hide from it, then as if the man in charge of the weather saw how unhappy we all were and cleared up the sky for perfect blue couple of hours on the beach. Bliss! The whitsundays just got a lot more appealing. Back on the boat, more swells from the random weather and a rough old boat trip back in to the harbour!! Great Barrier Reef - Tick

Moving further up the coast again we head towards Misson Beach, Yet another epic drive, It was becoming apparent to us that the nice little short drives of New South Wales days were 
long gone Queensland offers lots of amazing attractions but they are so far apart and the is literally a kangeroo and a tumble weed between them, Oh and very ocassionally a petrol station.
Mission beach was a very very quite little place, the campsite, town convience store, restaurant, petrol station, mechanic and single resident was all in the same building, Scary!! Still the 
campsite was nice and although you couldn't get in the sea the beach was huge and deserted! We relaxed for a couple of days and enjoyed the sunshine!

Next stop Cairns

We arrive at what looks like a trophey cabinet. It is actually the reception for the "best campsite in Australia" (Six years in a row) It was amazing, bouncing pillows, two tennis courts (suited us),
crazy golf, two pools, parks, basketball, garden chess, outdoor cinema, table tennis and our spot even came with a pub stly bench. We are home at what is officially a 5 star campsite! What to do in cairns, having seen so much country side on the way up we skipped the rainforest walks and sky cable car rides for what any young traveller would do - A BUNGY JUMP!
Arriving early we thought we would suss it out and watch a few. We decided to go up on at a time so we could A - watch from the bottom. B - video it (mainly to avoid having to by the extortionately 
priced videos and photos) I went first, I thought i was pretty calm, I could actually see the guy in front of me's t-shirt pounding with his heart, the video afterward actually showed me lokoing pretty nervous and taking what seemed like the worlds biggest breath.........5-4-3-2-1 and jump, was all you got then a plumet to the lake at the bottom, "small" shreak, i went in pretty deep and got soaked! Glad that wasn't the ground though. Big adreanaline kick and lea is straight up after me
Lets just say the girl before her must have felt like a right wimp, as lea's perfect swan dive crashed down the 60m with only a small scream (sounded like a ghost train sound effect) but both completely buzzing from it.
Well worth the money and we were both so glad we did it!

So.................................................

6006kms (boob we now call it) distance actual number!!!!

3072 baked beans (matt)

2189 m&m's (lea)

756 bites

379 backward grafton ozzies

18 tanks of petrol

17 campsites

5 flipflops

4 4gb full memory cards (geeeeks)

3 states

2 vans (rip shazam)

1 surfboard

0 moneys!

we are finally leaving Australia heading to sydney again for the next stop!! the adventure continues!!!

hope everyone is ok back in rainy england (it rains all the time here too!!!) missing you lots

love matt and lea

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

hello matt and leanne, 2 months into your trip and i have been told by mum that i had better let you know that i am still around? i have been thinking about you and did send a message last month but i do not know where it went. any way i hope your both well and you seem to be having a great time, won't be long untill your home and back to work. but keep enjoying yourselves and keep safe. lots of love dad. now i had better go back to work. xxxxx

mumble said...

Hi there brave ones!!!!
Bungee jumping?!! I'm glad you told us AFTER the event!!! Another masterpiece Matthew!!!! Well done,these Blogs should be published, well done Leanne for keeping the notes aswell! By the time you get this you'll be on your Travels in New Zealand, hope you have as much fun exploring the Kiwi land! Take care of each other, love always, Mum xxxxxxx

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