Australia

Just a quickie so all my avid readers can keep track of exactly where I have been and what I did.

After our fantastic Uluru safari we arrived back in Sydney for a week so that Emma could get her Chinese visa sorted.

It was cold in Sydney. It was cold in the backpakers hostel too. So cold that we nearly checked out and went elsewhere. I asked for the heating to be turned on but they didn't have any so they said that they would turn the air-con off instead and that might help. It did and we stayed as we really couldn't afford to leave as they didn't offer refunds and we are poor.

We spent the week meeting up with various people, friends that Emma had made whilst working there and people that we'd met on our travels who were also back in Sydney.

It was a good week and nice to be back somewhere we knew.

Next stop Christchurch

We flew to Alice Springs from Cairns as the 2hour flight seemed more appealing than the 3 day drive through the desert.

It was nice and warm when we arrived. We checked into the hostel, sorted our stuff for our trip the next day and then went out to get some dinner. We went back inside immediately to get our jackets cos it was sooooooooo cold. At this point we worried that the campaing safari might have been a bad choice!

We had to get up at 5.30am the next day (shock, horror!) as the bus picked us up at 6am. There were 17 of us on the tour plus our guide Keith. Most of us were Europeans apart from 3 lovely Canadian girls.

We drove for about 5 hours to reach the Ayres Rock Resort (just outside the Ayres Rock National Park). We got there just before lunch so ate there, chicken burgers, not good. Emma was obviously worried that the food was going to be a bit crap but we'd seen a shop at the resort so if things turned bad, there was always Pringles and Mars Bars.

The guide checked that the rock was open to climb and then we went off to climb it or walk around it.

It really is big!! Apparently 2 thirds of it is underground! Biggest rock in the world! Emma and I had already decided that we wouldn't climb it as the Aboriginal people regard it as sacred and so ask you not to climb it. Also, it looked very steep and very high and the rcokis quite smooth and slippery so not sure I would have been able to climb it anyway, too high and no safety harness!!!! So we did the 9km base walk which was really quite tiring as it was soooo hot. God knows how people do it in the summer when the temp can be around 45 degrees.... There were also loads of flies but luckily I had purchased a fly net to go over my head so I was happy, the others were very jealous!!! Then we met back up with everyone and watched sunset with the other 1000 tourists and had champagne, very nice!!

That night we cooked our food (pasta, salad and steak, much better, Emma was happy) and then sat around the campfire chatting and drinking goon (wine box, $15 for 4 litres, awesome!). It was really cold at night, as soon as the sun goes down the temp really drops. We slept in swags though, to experience the outdoors experience. Swags are big canvas sleeping bags with a mattress in that you put your normal sleeping bag into and then get in and sleep. It was surprisingly warm but I think the few glasses of wine that we had helped us sleep!!!

Up at 5.15am the next day to watch sunrise, another cold morning until the sun came out to warm things up. We then went off to walk the Olgas, a set of domed rocks that are also very sacred so you can only walk around a few. We did a nice walk through and took some pictures, then we went to the Cultural Centre to learn about about Aboriginal history.

In the afternoon we drove over to Kings Canyon, another fairly long drive as you have to go the long way around as there is a big Salt Lake between Uluru and Kings Canyon. We spent the night at Kings Canyon resort and this time Em and I stayed in the little tents that they have there as the swags were a bit dirty and a bit thin and there were big thick matresses in the tents. One night of outdoor sleeping was quite enough for us!

Another early morning, 5.30am, a quick breakfast and then off to do the big walk thru Kings Canyon. It was really amazing, lovely views all around and very high, just a really spectacular place, and I'd not heard about it before I went so glad it was on the tour.

Then it was another 5 hour drive back to Alice Springs. A great trip, tiring but well worth it. We all met up in the evening for dinner and drinks and didn't get to bed until 2am, not sure how we managed that!!

Next stop Sydney, again.

A 5 hour bus journey up the coast and we were in Cairns. We had the weirdest bus driver ever who kept talking in different voices and perving over all the girls. It was like he had some sort of split personality but I suppose if you spend your days driving backpackers up and down the East coast, your bound to suffer some side affects. The ride was 5 hours too long and we were all very happy to get off the bus!! We did get to see some hurrican damage too, massive trees uprooted and flung over the roads, it all looked really ravaged.

We liked the look of Cairns from the bus, there were people about and shops and restaurants were open, which is always a good sign.

We checked into our hostel and Emma was a bit upset to notice that the All You Can Eat mexican buffet had finished, so we just had to drink beer and cook pasta.

The next day, Saturday, we went out to explore Cairns a little. Again, not a massive city, I think there's about 250,000 people living here and it survives mainly on tourism. But, it had a nice big shopping centre and there were lots of nice bars and restaurants. The weather was a bit cloudy but still tropically hot. We spent the day window shopping and wandering around.

In the evening, much to Emma's insistance of course, we had the All You Can Eat BBQ buffet at out hostel. All You Can Eat is definitely the way forward and for $8 it was a bargain!!! Emma was very pleased and this time had 2nds and 3rds!!!!

We got chatting to some local Ozzie men who told us that we should rent a car and go inland and up to Cape Tribulation - great idea! We ended up going out clubbing with them and they seemed to 'know people' as we never had to queue at the club door and we even got into the VIP area. Yep, we were cool!

The rest of the week was spent organising the rest of the trip, doing a little window shopping, buying jumpers in preparation for our trip to NZ, eating out and just dossing around really. We swapped hostels to the lovely YHA (just to get Emma away from the All You Can Eat buffet really!!).

We did hire a car for a couple of days. A bright yellow Hyundai Getz! We drove up to Port Douglas and had a look around there and then on up to Cape Tribulation, through lots of lovely luscious rain forest. It was a really nice drive and it was nice to get behind a wheel and not be sat in a bus. Good practice for when we hire a campervan in NZ too. We got to the end of the road at Cape Trib (you can only go so far in a normal car, after a certain point the road turns to gravel and you need a 4 wheel drive). We decided that Cape Trib was a bit too jungly for us so drove back to the more respectable Port Douglas and stayed at the YHA.

Next day our plan was to have a massage and facial seen as we weren't doing any white water rafting or sky diving. Unfortunately we realised that we are poor travellers and so had to abandon this idea, and it had seemed such a nice idea over our 2nd bottle of wine the evening before!

Instead, we drove inland to some towns that were not really towns, but just streets with a couple of buildings on them. We stopped off at Coffee Works and did a tasting tour of the little factory there. Not great for me seen as I don't drink coffee but the promise of the chocolate shop at the end sold it!!

We then drove around some more and saw some waterfalls. It was all very nice apart from the fact that it chucked it down, ALL DAY!

We got back into Cairns that evening and dropped the car off and then got absolutely soaked walking back to the hostel. Queensland is meant to get 300 days of sunshine a year, we obviously visited during the 65 days of cloud and rain because we hardly saw the sun at all!

We liked Cairns though, we met some nice people and everyone was very friendly but it's very much geared towards diving and other water sports, which we don't do (yet, maybe in Hawaii, where hopefully it will be warmer!). We met a nice Irish man who did say that the diving tour he went on was amazing, much better than snorkelling but at the moment, snorkelling is enough for me. Especially here where there's so many things in the water that can kill you, even swimming in the ocean is a dangerous sport and you have to be properly kitted out for it.

Anyway, next stop Alice Springs for an Uluru camping adventure, gulp!

My rucksack now weighs 18kg. It was 11kg when I left England in January and I still have more stuff to fit in it that I left in Sydney. Pesky shopping gene.

We arrived in Townsville at lunch time and headed straight for the ferry to Magnetic Island.

We'd booked to stay at Base Backpacker hostel which was right on the beach in Nelly Bay. It was a nice place, very open planned as usually it is sunny all the time. Unfortunately, for the whole week we were there it was cloudy...

So, to be truthful, we didn't do much. Our first day we hired bikes and decided to head over to Horse Shoe Bay on the other side of the island. We were chatting to the guy and he said the island was only small and we could easily get round on a bike. Annoyingly, he forgot to mention that between Nelly Bay and Horse Shoe Bay there is a rather large mountain....

Now, we wanted to do a bit of exercise but to climb this big bloody hill on a bike you'd have to have the fitness of Lance Armstrong, and we cleary don't. We tried riding our bikes for the first 10 metres but then as soon as the gradient turned from 10% to 80% (well it felt like 80%!) we had to get off and push. And it was really hot too so we were really sweaty - you get the picture! It was so bad that at one point Emma stopped and said she couldn't go any further. I was a bit ahead and so lied and said that the summit was just around the corner and then it was all downhill. She was slightly miffed when it wasn't!

It was torture but we did it and the ride downhill to Horse Shoe Bay was nice! Unfortunately there wasn't much to do on this side of the island either so we had lunch and headed back. Another climb and then a nice free ride down. Pushing the bikes up took over an hour, riding down took about 6 minutes...

The bike hire bloke thought it was very funny that we had cycled all the way there and back but he was impressed too and we were pretty pleased with ourselves too. Sometimes it's just the small things which make you happy!!

The rest of the week was pretty uneventful. We met up with Sian and Fiona from our sailing trip, we did a lot of walking, we read, we ate a LOT. The cafe at the hostel was really good and did $10 meals. The lasagne was Emma's favourite, she had it 3 times (not in one day, although I'm sure she would if I'd have let her, ha ha ha!!!).

We went to the docs for Emma's 3rd injection and he had a look at my bed bug bites. He said it was the worst he'd ever seen and wished that he'd had a camera to take a picture and put it in some medical journal!!! He gave me some steroid cream and a sympathetic smile and then washed his hands thouroughly!

We had a trip into Townsville (on the mainland) and immediately wished we hadn't. It's like a town that time forgot. There's hardly anyone about and there's not much to do unless you get there before 12pm because after that time, everything closes.
Emma made me sit in a cafe and eat cake to pass the time - the things I do for her. We got the early ferry back to Magnetic Island and had Lasagne to make ourselves feel better.

Next stop Cairns.

We arrived in Airlie Beach on Tuesday morning after an overnight bus trip from Hervey Bay. We'd both managed to sleep on the bus so didn't feel the need for an afternoon snooze which was just as well as the places we were staying in, Koala's, was a dump.

We spent the afternoon wandering the streets, I bought a new bikini and we ate pies. In the evening we were going to cook but the kitchen was just too awful so we went out for dinner instead (any excuse!).

The next morning we were up early and straight down to the jetty to catch our boat, the Waltzing Matilda, for our 3 day/3 night tour around the Whitsundays.

We all climbed aboard, 2 crew and 13 guests and I sussed out the other travellers. Mostly girls, 2 of them, Fiona and Sian, we had met briefly on the bus in Noosa. Only 3 boys and 2 of them were in couples. We set off and all got chatting and I was pleased to find out that all the other travellers were really nice, we all gelled immediately which was lucky seen as we were not on the biggest of boats and therefore couldn't excape each other easily!!

About 10 minutes of easy sailing it suddenly got a bit rougher and we sailed right into a rain storm. Waterproof jackets were put on and we all secretly prayed that this weather wouldn't last for the whole 3 days. The captain explained the rules which included flushing the toilet many times to make sure it all went through the tubes in the boat and not to shower for more than 3 minutes... Most of us retired below to escape the rain and play cards. Emma and I learnt 2 new card games.

Luckily after about an hour or so the rain stopped and the sun came out so bikinis and shorts were put on and we all sat out on deck.

The first day was spent cruising around the many islands. We stopped to snorkel but captain Wayne decided that the swell was too rough so aborted the plan. That evening we anchored in a quiet spot just off Whitehaven Beach. Emma and I were sharing a tiny 4 berth room at the front of the boat with Sian and Fiona. It was so small that only one of us could be in the room at one time, unless we were all in bed, there was just no room to stand!! I took the top bunk again (I am soooooooo kind, I've taken the top bunk most of the time so Emma doesn't have to climb up and risk hurting her back - take note of what a great friend I am!!). I was a little worried that I would fall out of bed in the middle of the night and break my neck so spent most of the night awake. This was to be the least of my worries.

The next day we all woke quite early. I went to the bathroom to put my bikini on and noticed that I had some bites coming up, on my stomach and on my thighs. I assumed, due to the special relationship I have with mosquitos, that they were all mozzie bites. Some more to add to my 29 bites from Fraser Island - nice!

We spent the day sunbathing on the beaches and snorkelling along the reef. Saw some amazing fish and reef life but have to say the water wasn't as clear as I was expecting, in fact it was pretty murky. It was an enjoyable day though. I kept an eye on my bites too and noticed that they were growing in number and size and spreading all over my body. Somebody quietly suggested it could be bed bugs but as none of the other girls in my room had any bites I assumed that they were mozzie bites.

We mored up again in the evening, this time it was much calmer, and we spotted some pilot whales and a big turtle. The evening was spent chatting away to everyone whilst deck hand Karsten russled up another lovely dinner. Fiona and Sian guessed Emma and I were 24 - I love hanging out with young people!!!

Emma says - "The food was amazing, lots of fruit and veg and lovely dinners of roast chicken and pasta. I had seconds a lot"

The last day we all woke up early and set off for some more snorkelling. I noticed a small brown insect in my bed which I would later look up on the internet and see that it was a bed bug, eurgh!!By this time my bites were really numerous and itching a lot. Emma counted 100 on my right leg, and that was the leg with the least bites.... I kept out of the sun as much as I could and applied itch cream liberally all over.

We arrived back in Airlie Beach around 4pm after a great 2 days. It was a nice experience to cruise around the Whitsundays on a boat and everyone had really enjoyed themselves. We had a nice group of people on our boat and we saw some great coral and fish on the Great Barrier Reef.

Emma and I headed straight to the pharmacy and the pharmacist confirmed that my bites were bed bug bites, apparently it happens a lot on the boats.... I bought some super strength itch cream and went back to Koala's (our room this night was even grimmer than the one before and smelt of dirty wet dog) to wash all out clothes to make sure we'd not bought any of the little critters with us.

We went for dinner and then met the others for drinks in a bar. I told Karsten that they were bed bugs but he wasn't too interested so not sure whether they will fumigate the boat before the next guests!! Will have to write and complain!

That night Emma was a true friend and smeared itch cream all over my back and bum!!!! We estimated that I have more than 500 bites all over my body - looking really good!

Next stop, Magnetic Island