Upon waking up we were most surprised to see it was a gorgeous looking day, and headed down to the harbour with our day bags (clothes, wash bag, etc) for 8:30am ready to get on board the boat. I'm not sure what we were all xpecting, but I was somehow expecting something a bit...bigger. There was to be 14 of us, plus 3 staff. and a small 3 person hot tub on the back. The boat itself was lovely, all wood, which gave that lovely slippery when wet feeling everytime anyone nearly stacked it. and down stairs were alot of bunks all neatly packed in together, it was quite and old boat, I must admit that a week or so on, I've totally forgotten how old. I took the bottom bunk, which barely had enough room for me to turn onto my side, but at least it was long enough and wide enough, I just had to go in sideways. lol. It was better than the other option, Rob and Becky shared the wider bed above me. We were introduced to the crew first, Flo, (Florian) our dive master for the trip, (At this point I didn't know it was going to be a dive boat. doh) Amber, our hostess and cook, who provided top tucker throuhout the trip and kept us all fairly entertained, and Fernando, (Think Teves without the scars) who was the skipper. Over the next few days we'd get to learn who our fellow Passengers were, but just for you lucky lucky people, I'll give you a run down now...how considerate of me.
First, the British contingent:
Me
Rob
Becky
Mike
& Liz
Rachel
Laura
and rather questionably Nigel. (Now, Nigel is a bit of a sticking point and an anomalie, as he's originally British, but has lived in the States for 25 years (Half his life) has a bit of a US accent, and his appearance ttally belies his personality. Tattoos, a Flame emblazoned bandana, loving rock music, the little bushy tattoo, all lead us to think one thing. But he was really a very nice friendly and personable guy!)
Which brings us on to Team America!
Jess
Anna
Emily
Then Our Kiwi:
Caroline
And finally our Spanish lovebirds
Marc
& Stefanie
Over the next couple of days there would be lots of mocking of Team America, but obviously only in jest. "Team America, Have you seen a turtle?" was the cry from the other side of one of the bays when snorkelling. Randomly, Laura worked as a nurse out here and back home, and when I asked where she said, "oh a little place, you'll never have heard of it in Lanark, 'Law.'" Funnily and randomly enough, this was where I got signed off to work on my own at Adastra, so we had some fun but slightly odd little chats about Hairmyres Hospital and Law, and a bit of Monkton, she worked days in surgery back there, but it was a cool point of reference. She kind of ended up joining myself rob and becks most of the time, but the boat was very frinedly in genreal, I think most people took the time to wander around and chat to everyone, there was the usual chat about the english language with the yanks and the spanish, and Mike & Liz to some extent, the yanks brought up the subject of the V-sign and this then had to be explained to the Spanish, but all in all everyone seemed to get along, though Rachel and Caroline were maybe a little more apart from everyone else. The first day we motor-sailed (as the sails aren't up to the weight of the boat these days) to Tongue Bay, where we hoped into "Little Summertime" (A Dinghy) and headed to the island, we had a wander and went to a lookout overlooking Whitehaven bay and some cool sights, and then we trekked across the island to said beach, and stayed for an hour or so, chillin' having a laugh, taking some silly silly pictures and generally loving the almost white 98% silica sand which squeaked under foot. then back to the boat for dinner and sleep.
On day 2 we woke up and Flo took us all out Sea Kayaking around the bay, Everyone paired up, and we headed out, and saw loads and loads of turtles and cool stuff, whilst getting a bit of excercise, we must've been out for a good 2 hours and it was awesome. After that, we headed off to Luncheon Bay, where there was some diving to be had, but due to monetary situtations we 3 passed on this occasion, we went snorkelling instead, Rob felt rather ill almost as soon as he entered the water and made his way to the beach and had a sit down. Becks, Laura and I carried on after checking he was ok, and had a good ol time and saw absolutely loads of stuff, I even saw a cleaner wrasse doing his thang. and some large Angel Fish, easily the size of my laptop screen. and plenty other colourful specimens, the water was alot cloudier than the reef, but it was still good viewing. in the end the boat came to pick us all up, and Laura, Mike and myself decided it'd be much more fun to snorkel/swim back to the boat. So we did. It didnt take half as long as I expected and we saw many cool things, not least of which were the HUGE batfish by our boat! well over half a dozen of them, it was very very cool. We then moved round to Langford Bay, where it was dark (Oh yeah, it gets dark bloody early round here! ie by 6pm without fail, it's rather annoying.) we had dinner and bit of a laugh, Team America's token Blonde Anna, got very drunk and was a bit silly through the slideshow of all the pictures taken during the day, which we found mildly amusing :) then sleep!
Our final day Rob and I were up nice and early for the dive, (we had to do at least one really, and it was only £30) and we had a cool little guided tour round the reef with Flo, held a sea cucumber (slimey little buggers) and generally had a bit of a laugh. Then we got back to the boat, with Fernando shoving Flo off of little summertime when he was trying to take his fin off. Which added more amusement to the day, on the way back. We all chilled and wondered where Laura and Nigel had got to, they'd gone on a bit of a snorkelling trek, Marc went for a few more dives with Flo, and eventually Nigel and Laura re-appeared. Sadly it was then lunch, a bit of business and time to go home. But there was a promise that for every 4 people that turned up to our hostel bar at 7:30 on our reserved table, there would be a free jug of beer or wine, we figured this would get a fair few of us together again. Turns out we were wrong, it was only us 3 and team america, so we enlisted the help of a dude called chris (who had appeared with Big Rob who randomly seems to be stalking us back along the coast! Bless him.) who was a football mad geordie (are there any other types of geordie?) and a sound lad to boot, and some random that team america snared. We then all got wasted :)
Our last day in Airlie consisted of chilling out, shopping, checking out the surf shops and generally recovering from the alcohol, followed by a late night bus from Airlie to Hervey Bay. 13 hours overnight, and with a "meal break" at 11pm. seriously? who's gonna eat then? we were all falling asleep nicely and were then told we had to vacate the bus for 40 minutes! swines!
We arrived at the sister hostel to our airlie beach one at 9am, only to be to be told the rooms weren't ready yet (I'd kind of expected this as check out wasn't til 10.) and that their ATM wasn't working, so we'd have to walk down the road for 15 minutes to find a working one, by the time we got back, they still had no rooms ready for us, so we dossed in the closed bar until 12 when we finally got a room, and proceeded to get on with our washing and packing ready for our Fraser Island trip tomorrow, a little apprehensive after seeing all the walking wounded (4 of them) in the hostel from the big accident that had happened 3 days earlier, when one of the 4x4's had rolled at 100kph on the beach trying to swerve a wave, (1, the limit is 80, 2, you shouldn't be near the wave, and 3, these are nearly 4 ton fully laden top heavy (roof storage) old toyota land crusier troop carriers. With 11 people on board, a sharp turn is never going to result anything other than a dramatic roll. Sadly their one lasted several hundred yards and the loss of 2 people's lives as I'm sure you've all read by now, hence I feel it's ok to include here and not scare anyone unneccessarily. We also saw some young lads at the kitchen that looked like they'd be a pain in the arse to be with in our group tomorrow and hoped we weren't with them! Then we slept.
Fraser Island to come later....
Sunday 26 April 2009
Sunday 19 April 2009
Maggies
So, what's new? Well, since the last update, we spent a couple of days on Magnetic, and were joined by Big Rob, the weather wasn't great though, so we spent alot of time chilling and haiding from the rain, we did have one nice day, and Big Rob had hired a Mini Moke, so we went round the island having a butchers and relaxing, at Horseshoe bay the the starter motor gave out so we bumped it, and took it back to where he rented it from, sadly all that was left ready to go without a roof was a pink one, so myself Big Rob and Rob manfully jumped on in to the Pink Moke, named Tinkerbell, according to the bonnet, and proceeded to be fully confident in our sexuality all the way back. lol. It was a cool day, and we finished off eating at Big Rob's hostel, Base. Mammoth servings for $10!
Then next stop was a Greyhound trip to Airlie Beach, ready for our Summetime (the name of the boat) trip, we had to check in hte day before hand so had to get a mid-day bus. It rained the whole way down! all did not bode well for tomorrow's trip.
Then next stop was a Greyhound trip to Airlie Beach, ready for our Summetime (the name of the boat) trip, we had to check in hte day before hand so had to get a mid-day bus. It rained the whole way down! all did not bode well for tomorrow's trip.
Wednesday 15 April 2009
Doss and Move
11th
Sleep. There was sleep. Then we headed into town about 1 to attack the MaccyD's for a milkshake and some free internet. We met up with Big Rob there, wandered around, got some shopping and headed back to the hostel about 3. well, the bus was due at 3, it arrived at 3:45. The credit on my phone was running low after a call at 3am to england when I got to the hostel, as I wasn't tired. so I went online to buy a top up only to fins that vodafone Australia weren't offering it online anymore! Swines! We then had to scramble to try and find a hostel with room at magnetic island for the next three days, but eventually managed to get one booked. Then Big Rob turned up after dinner, and him, me and Becky (now recovered from feeling ill, and wanting to make up for missing last night) headed out to meet Charlotte and then off to where we went for dinner last night (Rattle n' Hum) to Join Dave and a few pro dive people for drinks, (All arranged via the magic of facebook im between me dave and charlotte) Eventually Dave moved on, and we decided to hit Gilligans, which was cool, there were a couple of guys break dancing in the corner which was impressive, we all had a nice chat and swayed home about 2am again!
12th
Greyhound to Townsville. Worst driver ever, no hands on the wheel scramblingon the floor for a folder he just dropped as he was driving. Swaying all over the place, asking other passengers if there was a train coming as he "can't see that way" eventually he pulled up for a driver change and broke the bus. So we stood in the sweltering heat for 30 mins whilst they tried to fix it. Eventually we made it tow Townsville, 5 minutes before the ferry to Magnetic left, we hopped on and came across. Once we got to our hostel we found out nothing had been booked, but eventually we managed to blag a double room with a bunk bed in for 3 nights so all's good. though it's fairly basic (which is nice) it does have a tv you can't change the channel on, (I'd rather not have the tv!) we settled in and fell asleep. As an aside, between starting the Pro Dive course and arriving in Townsville, I read Carra, Jamie Carragher's Autobiography. It's good. you should read it. :)
Sleep. There was sleep. Then we headed into town about 1 to attack the MaccyD's for a milkshake and some free internet. We met up with Big Rob there, wandered around, got some shopping and headed back to the hostel about 3. well, the bus was due at 3, it arrived at 3:45. The credit on my phone was running low after a call at 3am to england when I got to the hostel, as I wasn't tired. so I went online to buy a top up only to fins that vodafone Australia weren't offering it online anymore! Swines! We then had to scramble to try and find a hostel with room at magnetic island for the next three days, but eventually managed to get one booked. Then Big Rob turned up after dinner, and him, me and Becky (now recovered from feeling ill, and wanting to make up for missing last night) headed out to meet Charlotte and then off to where we went for dinner last night (Rattle n' Hum) to Join Dave and a few pro dive people for drinks, (All arranged via the magic of facebook im between me dave and charlotte) Eventually Dave moved on, and we decided to hit Gilligans, which was cool, there were a couple of guys break dancing in the corner which was impressive, we all had a nice chat and swayed home about 2am again!
12th
Greyhound to Townsville. Worst driver ever, no hands on the wheel scramblingon the floor for a folder he just dropped as he was driving. Swaying all over the place, asking other passengers if there was a train coming as he "can't see that way" eventually he pulled up for a driver change and broke the bus. So we stood in the sweltering heat for 30 mins whilst they tried to fix it. Eventually we made it tow Townsville, 5 minutes before the ferry to Magnetic left, we hopped on and came across. Once we got to our hostel we found out nothing had been booked, but eventually we managed to blag a double room with a bunk bed in for 3 nights so all's good. though it's fairly basic (which is nice) it does have a tv you can't change the channel on, (I'd rather not have the tv!) we settled in and fell asleep. As an aside, between starting the Pro Dive course and arriving in Townsville, I read Carra, Jamie Carragher's Autobiography. It's good. you should read it. :)
Pro Dive
6th
Day one of our Pro Dive Cairns PADI Open Water course (mouthful) started off fairly early, and we spent the morning in the classroom watching dvd's and learning about the equipment and pressures and principles/theories of diving, with our instructor Dave, 'the most qualified instructor in the country' he told us. We have no reason to not believe him. He did rremind me a little of the dad from My Parent's are Aliens though. In the afternoon we got in the pool and had a go. After assembling and dis-assembling our equpiment a few times we headed in to swim 200m (though I didn't like the idea of finishing before everyone and did a couple more lengths - it wasn't a big pool) then had to treadwater for 10 minutes whilst introducing ourseleves again as a re-cap and learnign everyone else's names. Then, time to put on the SCUBA gear and get initiated. No matter how many times you are told, "if you start to panic, just take a big long deep breath in and then out" you never do, and I cocked up my breathing in a panic quite a few times to start with, which inevitably ended up in me resurfacing each time and feeling like a tool, knowing that all i had to do was breathe. But I still wasn't trusting the dive gear. I did have a few moments where i contemplated whether I'd ever be able to and to do the course, I also thought 'Mum, don't ever try and do this, not only will you get your hair wet, you'll panic about the breathing like me!' at the end of the first day we'd done a few skills, like flooding our masks underwater and clearing them with exhaled air, and breathing off of each other regulators whilst under water, and all that scary emergency stuff you need to do, just in case ;) I still didn't feel overly comfortable with it and had a bit of thinking to do of how I was gonna approach it the next day whilst feeling a bit nervy. We did our washing, ate and fell asleep, as the next day started even earlier.)
7th
Day 2 of the course (less of a mouthful) started with a session in the pool, after a quick chat from Christian from the shop about finding mask that fit and fins that work better etc etc. To point out, yesterday, we used the rental equipment, and my mask pushe dinto the bridge of my nose and came away at the bottom a bit and this did nothing to ease my mind. we spent the rest of the morning trying all the various pieces of equipment they had assembled for us to try and started off with some snorkeling, the first breath underwater was the hardest to get round, once the first cycle was done the rest we ok, this was going to be how it went with the regulator on the SCUBA gear too. By the end of the morning I felt much better about using the equipment and thought, well all I have to do is pas the exam and then deal with being in the sea, and depths down to 18m as opposed to a tiny 4m pool! We then headed off for lunch in town and then to shop. After using the rental mask and playing with proper ones, I ended up buying a mask/snorkel for my own peace fo mind, also, I figured it's not something that's too hard to get the use out of, I'll go to plenty of cool places over time. Then back to the classroom for more learing and the final exam, which was easy to pass, and a bit about the Adventure course which is the next step in the qualifications. So it was all back to the hostel (Calypso) for food and packing ready for out next 3 days on the boat, another early start the next day!
8th
Day 3 (or Day 1 on the boat) was yet another early start, after 3 hours travelling out to the reef we finally dropped anchor off of Milln Reef, and had our first briefing about what we were going to do for our first training dive. Minimal skills on this one, only some on the surface, then heading down to 12m, before going for a bit of a swim, then coming up with a safety stop at the decompression bar. THe sea at the Great Barrier Reef is very salty. I can vouch for this. I drank half of it! but as we started diving all my apprehension disappeared.it was awesome, it should also be moted that 12m down doesn't look that much further than 4m when you're at the bottom! We saw lots of col stuff on our first dive, including Chocolate Dipped Damsels, (everythign has a silly name out here) giant clams, a couple of sting rays, parrotfish and even a turtle! then back up for lunch and a breifing for dive 2. It should be pointed out here a few things about the boat. There were 39 people aboard, 16 on our course, plus some friends/family, plus people doing their advanced course, some already certified divers on a jolly and some more doing the same course as us. We already had kinda started getting on with the people we knew:
Anna from Bolton, a season ticket holder no less. (to the Reebok)
The Ozzie Family, from Victoria. A dad and his two daughters, one dropped out on day 1, for a full refund, but joined us on the boat with her mum to do snorkelling.
The newlyweds, Ness and Robdog. Ness who was bornin Scotland and lived in Perth, and Rob from NZ who went travelling and met Ness on the first stop and neve left!
Philip, the German who couldn't see without his glasses and didn't have contacts.
And the guy to be his diving buddy, Mile Steinbacher of New York, a traditional stereotypical New Yorker!
Anna-Kehala (known as Kiki to avoid confusion) Born in Melbourne, but lives in Germany.
and Team Denmark. Kristine and Kathryn, (who kinda came as a pair,) and Charlotte who was to be buddied up with Kiki.
These people were joined by some crazy moustachioed Americans, Anna from Bolton's friend Anna (yes, that's now 3 Annas.) A 3rd Rob from England, Blind Philip's girlfriend Patti, (the last 3 were all doing their Advanced course) and some other certified divers, Fitz and Rebecca (yes another Rebecca) from england, along with Berwyn (from Wales) and his pregnant missus. Berwyn had the joy of sharing a birthday with me and Rob. And there were a few other bit part players. Also on board were instructors, Daven(UK), Masa (Masao - Japan) and Jeff (Oz) our Dive supervisor Arek (Poland) The Skipper Dave (Oz) and the chef Khinda (Fra) Khinda made sure there was always something fresh and tasty ready for us between dives, made all the more impressive by the fact she was diving too. The chocolate cake was a particular highlight, along with lasagne and garlic topped bread. And there was always enough for seconds. Rob and I were in cabin 14, Becky shared a cabin with Charlotte, but spent most of the time feeling ill and sleeping upstairs in the saloon.
The second dive was there to be one of the worst on the course, just to get it over with and then we could enjoy the rest, it was more skills including mask floods and the like. It wasn't a bad dive though, just a bit more teaching like than fun. An early night was had by all due to the ridiculously early start the next day to get all 4 dives in.
9th.
Awake before 6 to go diving at 10 past! today we started going deeper, the first dive went down to 18m, my knees made it down, but I didn't get the dive computer down that far, as it didn't bother me too much. so that went to 17.8m we had a good time and did a few more skills and saw more fish. The second dive therre was a challenge. e all had to get our dive computers to 16.0m 15.9 was fine, 16.0 got you a free chocolate bar or soft drink, and if you went over you had to do a vegemite forfeit. As we got there we noticed a shark, so, we did the 16m depth challenge whilst keeping one eye on the white tipped reef shark about 1.5/2m below us! Just to make it a little more difficult! However, all of us that managed to descend without having equalization problems and having to cancel their dive hit 16.0 exactly. Apparently a first for Dave's groups, shown by the fact that Arek called out 16.1 at one point to wind him up, and Dave was instantly a bit defensive about it! Also, we finished this dive with a full face mask removal, replace and flush at depth, Rob and I went first, and after this got bored waiting for everyone else, as happens and so we arsed about a bit again, doing windmill hi-5s, making gestures (I need a wee! my eyes sting! and one finger out of the pockets etc) and pulling faces, Dave then showed everyone a slate saying we had passed our course and were now certified divers! Rob and i bumped regulators as if kissing, we found this highly amusing, so did Dave and we ascended to the surface. At this point we had a choice to make, there were 5 fun dives left, 2 today (1 at night) and 3 tomorrow, or we could choose to take the Adventure course, losing one dive tomorrow, but meaning we would be certified to dive down 30m as opposed to 18m, and therefore could pretty much do any dive we ever want to. it was going to cost $175AU (works out in the region of £80) which was a bargain compared to the $600 odd it will cost at any other time! So I had to go for it! We all got to do the first fun dive, where Rob and I proceeded to get a little mis-placed, but always came up looking at the boat. then the first dive of the adventure course was the night dive, and now i was buddied with Mike, and diving with Masa, diving at night was awesome, we saw loads and loads of stuff, bigger sharks, a massive turtle (called Brian) crayfish, and so on. It was brilliant. when we headed up, we had dinner and Charlotte and I chatted for a few hours about the course and denmark and england and jobs and travelling etc etc. Then time to sleep as we had 3 dives to do (as a boat,) before noon the next day!
10th
We woke up and did our first dive before breakfast again. this was the big one, down to 26+m where we saw how objects were affected, like a bottle of water, a can holder, how a green torch is drained of colour at depth, and how you can crack open an egg and it will remain intact until the bloody fish have at it. we also did a timekeeping count to 30 seconds in our head as a check for nitrogen narcosis, which essentially is you, pissed, underwater and clears as soon as you start to come to lesser depths. Robdog was most affected, taking 60 seconds to count out 30! I was more accurate underwater than on the boat. It was a very cool dive, but meant that we had passed off the limits on out dive planner (which is fine as we were using a dive computer which kept us under the no decompression limits) but meant we had to have a 3 hour break before diving again, this is why we only had the two dives on the last day, and we were warned this would happen.) The second dive was a speciality dive so Mike and I took a camera for the underwater photographer speciality, and took some pics to pass our course. We nearly got lost but managed to surface right next to our boat, just as we were low on air, with impeccable timing, mostly because we both had a fair grasp on the compasses and could navigate to a point!
We then got to the top, finished our papaerwork and came back to land. where we got ready to go out on the lash with the guys!
Sadly on good friday, you can't buy a beer without a meal, stupid bloody Ozzies, imposing religion on everyone! but as we had a wristband as we were a group booking, once we'd ordered would buy beer all night til we left at about 12, which meant it was a new day and the Woolshed (read meat market dive pub/club where people can dance on the long wooden bench type chairs and tables) beckoned. We'd spend most of our time on the boat talking with Big Rob and the Anna's and the night out was fairly similar expcept the anna's went home early and i spent more time chatting with a member of team denmark. Big Rob, Rob and I swayed home about 2:30am. :)
Day one of our Pro Dive Cairns PADI Open Water course (mouthful) started off fairly early, and we spent the morning in the classroom watching dvd's and learning about the equipment and pressures and principles/theories of diving, with our instructor Dave, 'the most qualified instructor in the country' he told us. We have no reason to not believe him. He did rremind me a little of the dad from My Parent's are Aliens though. In the afternoon we got in the pool and had a go. After assembling and dis-assembling our equpiment a few times we headed in to swim 200m (though I didn't like the idea of finishing before everyone and did a couple more lengths - it wasn't a big pool) then had to treadwater for 10 minutes whilst introducing ourseleves again as a re-cap and learnign everyone else's names. Then, time to put on the SCUBA gear and get initiated. No matter how many times you are told, "if you start to panic, just take a big long deep breath in and then out" you never do, and I cocked up my breathing in a panic quite a few times to start with, which inevitably ended up in me resurfacing each time and feeling like a tool, knowing that all i had to do was breathe. But I still wasn't trusting the dive gear. I did have a few moments where i contemplated whether I'd ever be able to and to do the course, I also thought 'Mum, don't ever try and do this, not only will you get your hair wet, you'll panic about the breathing like me!' at the end of the first day we'd done a few skills, like flooding our masks underwater and clearing them with exhaled air, and breathing off of each other regulators whilst under water, and all that scary emergency stuff you need to do, just in case ;) I still didn't feel overly comfortable with it and had a bit of thinking to do of how I was gonna approach it the next day whilst feeling a bit nervy. We did our washing, ate and fell asleep, as the next day started even earlier.)
7th
Day 2 of the course (less of a mouthful) started with a session in the pool, after a quick chat from Christian from the shop about finding mask that fit and fins that work better etc etc. To point out, yesterday, we used the rental equipment, and my mask pushe dinto the bridge of my nose and came away at the bottom a bit and this did nothing to ease my mind. we spent the rest of the morning trying all the various pieces of equipment they had assembled for us to try and started off with some snorkeling, the first breath underwater was the hardest to get round, once the first cycle was done the rest we ok, this was going to be how it went with the regulator on the SCUBA gear too. By the end of the morning I felt much better about using the equipment and thought, well all I have to do is pas the exam and then deal with being in the sea, and depths down to 18m as opposed to a tiny 4m pool! We then headed off for lunch in town and then to shop. After using the rental mask and playing with proper ones, I ended up buying a mask/snorkel for my own peace fo mind, also, I figured it's not something that's too hard to get the use out of, I'll go to plenty of cool places over time. Then back to the classroom for more learing and the final exam, which was easy to pass, and a bit about the Adventure course which is the next step in the qualifications. So it was all back to the hostel (Calypso) for food and packing ready for out next 3 days on the boat, another early start the next day!
8th
Day 3 (or Day 1 on the boat) was yet another early start, after 3 hours travelling out to the reef we finally dropped anchor off of Milln Reef, and had our first briefing about what we were going to do for our first training dive. Minimal skills on this one, only some on the surface, then heading down to 12m, before going for a bit of a swim, then coming up with a safety stop at the decompression bar. THe sea at the Great Barrier Reef is very salty. I can vouch for this. I drank half of it! but as we started diving all my apprehension disappeared.it was awesome, it should also be moted that 12m down doesn't look that much further than 4m when you're at the bottom! We saw lots of col stuff on our first dive, including Chocolate Dipped Damsels, (everythign has a silly name out here) giant clams, a couple of sting rays, parrotfish and even a turtle! then back up for lunch and a breifing for dive 2. It should be pointed out here a few things about the boat. There were 39 people aboard, 16 on our course, plus some friends/family, plus people doing their advanced course, some already certified divers on a jolly and some more doing the same course as us. We already had kinda started getting on with the people we knew:
Anna from Bolton, a season ticket holder no less. (to the Reebok)
The Ozzie Family, from Victoria. A dad and his two daughters, one dropped out on day 1, for a full refund, but joined us on the boat with her mum to do snorkelling.
The newlyweds, Ness and Robdog. Ness who was bornin Scotland and lived in Perth, and Rob from NZ who went travelling and met Ness on the first stop and neve left!
Philip, the German who couldn't see without his glasses and didn't have contacts.
And the guy to be his diving buddy, Mile Steinbacher of New York, a traditional stereotypical New Yorker!
Anna-Kehala (known as Kiki to avoid confusion) Born in Melbourne, but lives in Germany.
and Team Denmark. Kristine and Kathryn, (who kinda came as a pair,) and Charlotte who was to be buddied up with Kiki.
These people were joined by some crazy moustachioed Americans, Anna from Bolton's friend Anna (yes, that's now 3 Annas.) A 3rd Rob from England, Blind Philip's girlfriend Patti, (the last 3 were all doing their Advanced course) and some other certified divers, Fitz and Rebecca (yes another Rebecca) from england, along with Berwyn (from Wales) and his pregnant missus. Berwyn had the joy of sharing a birthday with me and Rob. And there were a few other bit part players. Also on board were instructors, Daven(UK), Masa (Masao - Japan) and Jeff (Oz) our Dive supervisor Arek (Poland) The Skipper Dave (Oz) and the chef Khinda (Fra) Khinda made sure there was always something fresh and tasty ready for us between dives, made all the more impressive by the fact she was diving too. The chocolate cake was a particular highlight, along with lasagne and garlic topped bread. And there was always enough for seconds. Rob and I were in cabin 14, Becky shared a cabin with Charlotte, but spent most of the time feeling ill and sleeping upstairs in the saloon.
The second dive was there to be one of the worst on the course, just to get it over with and then we could enjoy the rest, it was more skills including mask floods and the like. It wasn't a bad dive though, just a bit more teaching like than fun. An early night was had by all due to the ridiculously early start the next day to get all 4 dives in.
9th.
Awake before 6 to go diving at 10 past! today we started going deeper, the first dive went down to 18m, my knees made it down, but I didn't get the dive computer down that far, as it didn't bother me too much. so that went to 17.8m we had a good time and did a few more skills and saw more fish. The second dive therre was a challenge. e all had to get our dive computers to 16.0m 15.9 was fine, 16.0 got you a free chocolate bar or soft drink, and if you went over you had to do a vegemite forfeit. As we got there we noticed a shark, so, we did the 16m depth challenge whilst keeping one eye on the white tipped reef shark about 1.5/2m below us! Just to make it a little more difficult! However, all of us that managed to descend without having equalization problems and having to cancel their dive hit 16.0 exactly. Apparently a first for Dave's groups, shown by the fact that Arek called out 16.1 at one point to wind him up, and Dave was instantly a bit defensive about it! Also, we finished this dive with a full face mask removal, replace and flush at depth, Rob and I went first, and after this got bored waiting for everyone else, as happens and so we arsed about a bit again, doing windmill hi-5s, making gestures (I need a wee! my eyes sting! and one finger out of the pockets etc) and pulling faces, Dave then showed everyone a slate saying we had passed our course and were now certified divers! Rob and i bumped regulators as if kissing, we found this highly amusing, so did Dave and we ascended to the surface. At this point we had a choice to make, there were 5 fun dives left, 2 today (1 at night) and 3 tomorrow, or we could choose to take the Adventure course, losing one dive tomorrow, but meaning we would be certified to dive down 30m as opposed to 18m, and therefore could pretty much do any dive we ever want to. it was going to cost $175AU (works out in the region of £80) which was a bargain compared to the $600 odd it will cost at any other time! So I had to go for it! We all got to do the first fun dive, where Rob and I proceeded to get a little mis-placed, but always came up looking at the boat. then the first dive of the adventure course was the night dive, and now i was buddied with Mike, and diving with Masa, diving at night was awesome, we saw loads and loads of stuff, bigger sharks, a massive turtle (called Brian) crayfish, and so on. It was brilliant. when we headed up, we had dinner and Charlotte and I chatted for a few hours about the course and denmark and england and jobs and travelling etc etc. Then time to sleep as we had 3 dives to do (as a boat,) before noon the next day!
10th
We woke up and did our first dive before breakfast again. this was the big one, down to 26+m where we saw how objects were affected, like a bottle of water, a can holder, how a green torch is drained of colour at depth, and how you can crack open an egg and it will remain intact until the bloody fish have at it. we also did a timekeeping count to 30 seconds in our head as a check for nitrogen narcosis, which essentially is you, pissed, underwater and clears as soon as you start to come to lesser depths. Robdog was most affected, taking 60 seconds to count out 30! I was more accurate underwater than on the boat. It was a very cool dive, but meant that we had passed off the limits on out dive planner (which is fine as we were using a dive computer which kept us under the no decompression limits) but meant we had to have a 3 hour break before diving again, this is why we only had the two dives on the last day, and we were warned this would happen.) The second dive was a speciality dive so Mike and I took a camera for the underwater photographer speciality, and took some pics to pass our course. We nearly got lost but managed to surface right next to our boat, just as we were low on air, with impeccable timing, mostly because we both had a fair grasp on the compasses and could navigate to a point!
We then got to the top, finished our papaerwork and came back to land. where we got ready to go out on the lash with the guys!
Sadly on good friday, you can't buy a beer without a meal, stupid bloody Ozzies, imposing religion on everyone! but as we had a wristband as we were a group booking, once we'd ordered would buy beer all night til we left at about 12, which meant it was a new day and the Woolshed (read meat market dive pub/club where people can dance on the long wooden bench type chairs and tables) beckoned. We'd spend most of our time on the boat talking with Big Rob and the Anna's and the night out was fairly similar expcept the anna's went home early and i spent more time chatting with a member of team denmark. Big Rob, Rob and I swayed home about 2:30am. :)
Inbetweeners
5th
Today we mostly chilled, after waking up and saying farewell to Gavin for this leg of the trip, we headed to MaccyD's for some free internet, crossing their palms with some silver for a breakfast meal ;) then we got back to the hostel, chilled a bit more and proceeded to make our way to the airport, and out Flight to Cairns. Arriving in Cairns at night, we realised it's bloody hot and humid here! As we're now in the Tropics. This week could be an incredibly muggy one. We found some grub and hit the hay, knowing a fairly early start for the first day of our 5 day dive training.
Today we mostly chilled, after waking up and saying farewell to Gavin for this leg of the trip, we headed to MaccyD's for some free internet, crossing their palms with some silver for a breakfast meal ;) then we got back to the hostel, chilled a bit more and proceeded to make our way to the airport, and out Flight to Cairns. Arriving in Cairns at night, we realised it's bloody hot and humid here! As we're now in the Tropics. This week could be an incredibly muggy one. We found some grub and hit the hay, knowing a fairly early start for the first day of our 5 day dive training.
End of the Red Centre Trip
3rd
killer day!
We were up at 5am this morning, for another early breakfast and shower before cracking on with the day at 6am. We drove off to King's Canyon, where we embarked on a 6km walk starting with an ascent names Heartattack Hill, and it wasn't impossible to see why, I'd have loved to have bounded my way up it like it wasn't even a task, but my legs and body told me early on, just walk up at a steady/moderatly quick pace. By the time we finally got to the top I was definately breathing just a touch heavy! But, I was the first to the top and felt rather proud of myself :) Once I'd caught my breath, the views were awesome, as we continued to walk around the top of the walls round the canyon and throguh the 'Garden of Eden' which looked abit naff and somewhat of a letdown given the name, there were thousands fo bloody flies too, but our fly nets were coming into play beautifully. THen it was on the bus and off to Kata-Tjuta (Carter Jootah) via the Cultural Centre at Uluru (aka Ayres Rock) the walk at Kata-Tjuta was the first half of the Valley of the Winds walk, which our tour guide Aly told us was the best bit so we weren't missing anything. Infact, it turns out we were gaining, as our time keeping had been rater impeccable so far and we'd been fairly quick so we got to do the valley walk as normanlly there is only time for the not so impressive gorge walk, so go us! Aly informed us it would be a 2 hour walk, and we had 1:45 to do it in, so we went for it, not everyone made it, as there were some silly steep parts in it, and general meandering, but for those of us that made it, the view was pretty awesome, the rocks opened up to a grand vew of the valley and country ahead, with it's vegtation, it was a pretty special moment. Rob an I both made it, had a bit of a look, cooled off a bit, fought the flies and had a drink, and headed back, we'd had a fairly cool chat with Aly and that had made the trek easier, we tanked it back too, and did the whole walk in 1:15. Which meant we got back to the bus intime to drive back to the rock for sunset and a glass of champagne. Turns out sunset was cloudy and we didn't see much, but we got the plonk, and some of our group met one of the writers for the Doctor Who tv show, which was pretty cool. (I can't remember if it was a Bill or Steve.) Then back to camp (a different one) for dinner and sleep.
As a side note, there was plenty of thinking time on the bus, and as i heard a random selection of music from the radio and my mp3 I got to thinking...When you travel, there's alot of the same questions when you meet new people, The where have you been? and where are you going questions to name the most obvious... but it was making me think about how lucky i've been in the past and some of the holidays I've had in the past, and with the music in my ears, what music reminds me of which holiday, Moby (Play) had just presented itself through the magic of the "Random Album" button. (Yes that is possibly the single most greatest butotn in the world on an mp3 player ever.) Play always reminds me of the time I was in Toronto and Niagara, a totally top holiday, with their whole city under the city subway system, and getting to see the Leafs Vs Devils NHL game at the time was awesome, and something ticked off my life's to do list. (#32 see a real NHL game.) The track Southside especially reminds me of the coach trip from Toronto to Niagara, I must've had that track on constant play (which with a tape player was quite an achievement!) I was also reminded that whenever I hear Red Plastic Bag, I think back to being in Barbados, a place I definately intend to go back to, Taking Back Sunday (Tell All Your Friends) now reminds me of lying on Bondi, and now Sublime (Sublime) will always remind me of a) this trip and b) the person that introduced me to the band's music.
4th
Today was the last day of our trip, starting with my legs being rather bitten, an incident I feel rather aggreaved about but that's for my personal log rather than here. Today we went to Sunrise at Ayres Rock, then proceeded to walk the 9.3km walk all around the base of the thing. (Climbing up it is incredibly offensive to the Aborginal people's (-who own the land) beliefs and quite often seems to incur bad luck.) It was a bit of a trek, and Becky, Gavin and I all needed a wee as we got around halfway through, Sadly for Gavin he was too under thte thumb to be allowed to go behind a bush, if she couldn't. I on the other hand, was far too british and polite to do such a thing! we got some kick ass pictures, from the bits that weren't deemd 'Sacred sites' and we were therefore allowed to photograph. (The aboriginal people seemed to have deemed most of the bits you'd want to take pictures of as sacred rather convienently.) Then we cracked on with the 5 1/2 hour bus ride back to Alice Springs and Haven again. Where we slept rather well. Well, I did.
killer day!
We were up at 5am this morning, for another early breakfast and shower before cracking on with the day at 6am. We drove off to King's Canyon, where we embarked on a 6km walk starting with an ascent names Heartattack Hill, and it wasn't impossible to see why, I'd have loved to have bounded my way up it like it wasn't even a task, but my legs and body told me early on, just walk up at a steady/moderatly quick pace. By the time we finally got to the top I was definately breathing just a touch heavy! But, I was the first to the top and felt rather proud of myself :) Once I'd caught my breath, the views were awesome, as we continued to walk around the top of the walls round the canyon and throguh the 'Garden of Eden' which looked abit naff and somewhat of a letdown given the name, there were thousands fo bloody flies too, but our fly nets were coming into play beautifully. THen it was on the bus and off to Kata-Tjuta (Carter Jootah) via the Cultural Centre at Uluru (aka Ayres Rock) the walk at Kata-Tjuta was the first half of the Valley of the Winds walk, which our tour guide Aly told us was the best bit so we weren't missing anything. Infact, it turns out we were gaining, as our time keeping had been rater impeccable so far and we'd been fairly quick so we got to do the valley walk as normanlly there is only time for the not so impressive gorge walk, so go us! Aly informed us it would be a 2 hour walk, and we had 1:45 to do it in, so we went for it, not everyone made it, as there were some silly steep parts in it, and general meandering, but for those of us that made it, the view was pretty awesome, the rocks opened up to a grand vew of the valley and country ahead, with it's vegtation, it was a pretty special moment. Rob an I both made it, had a bit of a look, cooled off a bit, fought the flies and had a drink, and headed back, we'd had a fairly cool chat with Aly and that had made the trek easier, we tanked it back too, and did the whole walk in 1:15. Which meant we got back to the bus intime to drive back to the rock for sunset and a glass of champagne. Turns out sunset was cloudy and we didn't see much, but we got the plonk, and some of our group met one of the writers for the Doctor Who tv show, which was pretty cool. (I can't remember if it was a Bill or Steve.) Then back to camp (a different one) for dinner and sleep.
As a side note, there was plenty of thinking time on the bus, and as i heard a random selection of music from the radio and my mp3 I got to thinking...When you travel, there's alot of the same questions when you meet new people, The where have you been? and where are you going questions to name the most obvious... but it was making me think about how lucky i've been in the past and some of the holidays I've had in the past, and with the music in my ears, what music reminds me of which holiday, Moby (Play) had just presented itself through the magic of the "Random Album" button. (Yes that is possibly the single most greatest butotn in the world on an mp3 player ever.) Play always reminds me of the time I was in Toronto and Niagara, a totally top holiday, with their whole city under the city subway system, and getting to see the Leafs Vs Devils NHL game at the time was awesome, and something ticked off my life's to do list. (#32 see a real NHL game.) The track Southside especially reminds me of the coach trip from Toronto to Niagara, I must've had that track on constant play (which with a tape player was quite an achievement!) I was also reminded that whenever I hear Red Plastic Bag, I think back to being in Barbados, a place I definately intend to go back to, Taking Back Sunday (Tell All Your Friends) now reminds me of lying on Bondi, and now Sublime (Sublime) will always remind me of a) this trip and b) the person that introduced me to the band's music.
4th
Today was the last day of our trip, starting with my legs being rather bitten, an incident I feel rather aggreaved about but that's for my personal log rather than here. Today we went to Sunrise at Ayres Rock, then proceeded to walk the 9.3km walk all around the base of the thing. (Climbing up it is incredibly offensive to the Aborginal people's (-who own the land) beliefs and quite often seems to incur bad luck.) It was a bit of a trek, and Becky, Gavin and I all needed a wee as we got around halfway through, Sadly for Gavin he was too under thte thumb to be allowed to go behind a bush, if she couldn't. I on the other hand, was far too british and polite to do such a thing! we got some kick ass pictures, from the bits that weren't deemd 'Sacred sites' and we were therefore allowed to photograph. (The aboriginal people seemed to have deemed most of the bits you'd want to take pictures of as sacred rather convienently.) Then we cracked on with the 5 1/2 hour bus ride back to Alice Springs and Haven again. Where we slept rather well. Well, I did.
Sunday 5 April 2009
Update number 2
28th
after breakfast we moved on toward's Melbourne, and drove straight through/under it, their M1 goes through the city, with no M25 style ring road, odd, but made for a couple of cool pictures. Once out the otherside, we headed on to the Great Ocean road, down past Geelong (pronounced juhlong) where they make the Ford Falcon, (mhmm beasty - Remember we used to have xr2s,3s and 4s? well they have xr4 is a fiesta, xr5 is a focus and falconas and folcon utes can be xr6 or xr8. shiny) We past through Torquay, and stopped at Anglesey Beach for a bit, driving past the clouds from the bushires, again, more goo pics, but I was driving, so couldn't take any, to the beach where the sandflies attacked me! :( then, back in the van for some of the most awesome roads, the view was incredible for most of the time, (when I could take my eyes off the road for long enough to see it, and the roads were twisty and cambered and with inclines and declines and hairpins, would've been great fun to drive in a big Ozzie v8) We finally stoped off in Lavers Hill Roadhouse, a pretty barren place, bt it was nice enough, we went to the bar and had a few beers and got chatting to one of the very drunk locals who was one of only two fern exporters from Australia years ago, and has won some prize at the chelsea flower show 8 times. He was cool, if drunk. We were generally a little weary of him, but it was really good to get chatting to a proper self procliamed Ozzie 'Redneck' and it was nice that he just kinda rolled up and started chatting, (though secretly we're sure he just wanted to steal our chips!)
Also, Rob went through a spate f hitting his head on the back door of the van as when it opened it wasn't quite high enough for me or him to avoid, and we both had days where we clouted it a fair few times, I think Rob managed 5 on that day!
29th
So we decided not to have breakfast at the campsite, and head down the road and have breakfast at the site of the 12 Apostles. It's quite nicely set up there, with a nice walk, some really great lookouts and a few information boards around the place to explain what you're seeing. They had helicopter rides there too, but not on our budget, we weren't even interested. hehe. We continued down the coastline for the rest of the day, loads more sights and pictures, like Port Campbell, which looked nice as we drove through it, and even nicer from up on the clff top, (there will be pics on the ol bookface as the Irish call it.
Was quite a thoughtful day really, seeing all of the coastline and the features, like the Bay of Matyrs and Bay of islands, and thinking about how all this came about, I'm quite logical and scientific I like to think, but as I've said before I have my own types of beliefs, so it did get me thinking alot about religion and different thoughts on creation etc, I do believe in God. But at the same time, the big bang theory seems most agreeable to me. So my theory would be that God created the big bang, and all the elements contained within to make everything we see now. Think about it, we come from just a couple of simple cells when we start, and grow into these large beings, so why not the universe? We also had a good bit of rocking out going on on the bus, which was great. The only downside was the phone signal is shocking out here, even the Aus Vodafone's a bit cack in places, so I've got no chance of the regional '3' network yet, hopefully I'll get some in Cairns and can use the ol mobile.
The road was immense and it kinda dawned on me a bit more just how much we're trying to do in a short space of time, it would've been great to have more time and space to have done the great ocean road. Eventually, we got to the end, and had a McDonalds, and met up with Gobo and Matt too which was cool. We drove back to Melbourne along the Princes Highway which was just long and straight, tried to get in a campsite near the city which turned out to be full, so we drove down to Dandenong (dandy-nong) passing St Kilda and all the people leaving the Grand Prix, and set up ourselves at Big4 Tourist Park Dandenong. Where we met John and Shaun. John's an ol Brummie who's been in Oz for about 24 years, recently divorced and now touring round working as a nurse, Nicest guy in the world, but too soft with people, Shaun on the other hand is a proper Ozzie, drinking Bundi (Bundi-somethings Rum, which comes in a can.) He was pissed as a fart and couldn't walk in straight line, it was brilliant, we had dinner and chatted and took the mick out of each other for a few hours, learnt a few things, and he gave Becky his Union t-shirt, with the Eureka flag on it, which was made illegal to fly when working, it was a very entertaining, enlightening and engrossing evening. Joh let some Irish guys use his $50 000 land cruiser (v8 supercharged) to go buy some beers, (they had their own camper, this is why he's too soft.) and eventually we headed back to the van and slept. :)
30th
We went back to Melbourne to check into Base, our hostel for the next few days, and then dropped ol Bumble bee off. we kinda faffed and ran about for the afternoon, before getting ready and heading off for Neighbours night. Our cast members were Dr Karl Kennedy, Steve Parker and Carmella Camminiti. We were in the front row table and as the Doc ran out I hi-5d him, which was awesome. lol. the night conisists of questions to cast, general chat, a 3 round quiz (which we did not win, and rob was wasted halfway through the second round) and then Dr Karl's band to finish off. Who were actually very good, they did some good covers and some of their own stuff. I had a cool chat with Carmella, about coming out for mine and rob's birthday and being out to travel, she asked if I had a legal visa, lol, then asked about our plans, and finally wished me happy birthday for last month, and the same to Rob when he saw her. Hehe. We met some class people too, A scots lass called Hayley, an Ozzie called trent and a sheffield couple, Lucy and umm, I forget his name, he was very quiet though. All in all a top top night! :)
31st
Pretty much the whole day was taken up by going on a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) which is run by the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) which is essentially a unch of old bloke sin blue red and white blazers all seemingly named Ian (3 out of 3!) then we went to Federation square and Flinders street, has a quick look at the shops and then caught up with Sarah from Wake Up! when I was last out, which was nice. Then back to Base, preparing for the flight to Alice Springs tomorrow, which meant waking up at 5am!
1st
up at 5, bus transfer to airport at 6:10, flight at 8:20, to adelaide (which is like 30mins behinf Melbourne, which is weird as) then on to Alice which was a fair old trek. Got in mid afternoon, checked into Haven, our hostel, and basically got ourselves ready for our Just the centre tour to begin tomorrow, taking us to Ayres Rock. :)
2nd
we woke up, checked out of the hostel leaving our luggage in the secure container, then got on to the bus. the travel time from Alice to where we camped for the night (Kings Canyon) was about 5 and a half/6 hours by bus at about 100kmh all the way, with a few stops for refreshments and fuel. It was a mega trek but still good. we got to the campsite, had spag bol, met our fellow travellers (6 Irish, 4 swiss, 2 american, 1 japanese, 1 german, 1 Ozzie and 1 Dutch.) then we got our Ozzie 'Swags' and slept out under the stars, it was nice and warm and the sky was incredible, actually awesome, I can't explain, and the pictures didn't come out properly but I'll always remember the channel of stars, starlight and lack of clouds!
after breakfast we moved on toward's Melbourne, and drove straight through/under it, their M1 goes through the city, with no M25 style ring road, odd, but made for a couple of cool pictures. Once out the otherside, we headed on to the Great Ocean road, down past Geelong (pronounced juhlong) where they make the Ford Falcon, (mhmm beasty - Remember we used to have xr2s,3s and 4s? well they have xr4 is a fiesta, xr5 is a focus and falconas and folcon utes can be xr6 or xr8. shiny) We past through Torquay, and stopped at Anglesey Beach for a bit, driving past the clouds from the bushires, again, more goo pics, but I was driving, so couldn't take any, to the beach where the sandflies attacked me! :( then, back in the van for some of the most awesome roads, the view was incredible for most of the time, (when I could take my eyes off the road for long enough to see it, and the roads were twisty and cambered and with inclines and declines and hairpins, would've been great fun to drive in a big Ozzie v8) We finally stoped off in Lavers Hill Roadhouse, a pretty barren place, bt it was nice enough, we went to the bar and had a few beers and got chatting to one of the very drunk locals who was one of only two fern exporters from Australia years ago, and has won some prize at the chelsea flower show 8 times. He was cool, if drunk. We were generally a little weary of him, but it was really good to get chatting to a proper self procliamed Ozzie 'Redneck' and it was nice that he just kinda rolled up and started chatting, (though secretly we're sure he just wanted to steal our chips!)
Also, Rob went through a spate f hitting his head on the back door of the van as when it opened it wasn't quite high enough for me or him to avoid, and we both had days where we clouted it a fair few times, I think Rob managed 5 on that day!
29th
So we decided not to have breakfast at the campsite, and head down the road and have breakfast at the site of the 12 Apostles. It's quite nicely set up there, with a nice walk, some really great lookouts and a few information boards around the place to explain what you're seeing. They had helicopter rides there too, but not on our budget, we weren't even interested. hehe. We continued down the coastline for the rest of the day, loads more sights and pictures, like Port Campbell, which looked nice as we drove through it, and even nicer from up on the clff top, (there will be pics on the ol bookface as the Irish call it.
Was quite a thoughtful day really, seeing all of the coastline and the features, like the Bay of Matyrs and Bay of islands, and thinking about how all this came about, I'm quite logical and scientific I like to think, but as I've said before I have my own types of beliefs, so it did get me thinking alot about religion and different thoughts on creation etc, I do believe in God. But at the same time, the big bang theory seems most agreeable to me. So my theory would be that God created the big bang, and all the elements contained within to make everything we see now. Think about it, we come from just a couple of simple cells when we start, and grow into these large beings, so why not the universe? We also had a good bit of rocking out going on on the bus, which was great. The only downside was the phone signal is shocking out here, even the Aus Vodafone's a bit cack in places, so I've got no chance of the regional '3' network yet, hopefully I'll get some in Cairns and can use the ol mobile.
The road was immense and it kinda dawned on me a bit more just how much we're trying to do in a short space of time, it would've been great to have more time and space to have done the great ocean road. Eventually, we got to the end, and had a McDonalds, and met up with Gobo and Matt too which was cool. We drove back to Melbourne along the Princes Highway which was just long and straight, tried to get in a campsite near the city which turned out to be full, so we drove down to Dandenong (dandy-nong) passing St Kilda and all the people leaving the Grand Prix, and set up ourselves at Big4 Tourist Park Dandenong. Where we met John and Shaun. John's an ol Brummie who's been in Oz for about 24 years, recently divorced and now touring round working as a nurse, Nicest guy in the world, but too soft with people, Shaun on the other hand is a proper Ozzie, drinking Bundi (Bundi-somethings Rum, which comes in a can.) He was pissed as a fart and couldn't walk in straight line, it was brilliant, we had dinner and chatted and took the mick out of each other for a few hours, learnt a few things, and he gave Becky his Union t-shirt, with the Eureka flag on it, which was made illegal to fly when working, it was a very entertaining, enlightening and engrossing evening. Joh let some Irish guys use his $50 000 land cruiser (v8 supercharged) to go buy some beers, (they had their own camper, this is why he's too soft.) and eventually we headed back to the van and slept. :)
30th
We went back to Melbourne to check into Base, our hostel for the next few days, and then dropped ol Bumble bee off. we kinda faffed and ran about for the afternoon, before getting ready and heading off for Neighbours night. Our cast members were Dr Karl Kennedy, Steve Parker and Carmella Camminiti. We were in the front row table and as the Doc ran out I hi-5d him, which was awesome. lol. the night conisists of questions to cast, general chat, a 3 round quiz (which we did not win, and rob was wasted halfway through the second round) and then Dr Karl's band to finish off. Who were actually very good, they did some good covers and some of their own stuff. I had a cool chat with Carmella, about coming out for mine and rob's birthday and being out to travel, she asked if I had a legal visa, lol, then asked about our plans, and finally wished me happy birthday for last month, and the same to Rob when he saw her. Hehe. We met some class people too, A scots lass called Hayley, an Ozzie called trent and a sheffield couple, Lucy and umm, I forget his name, he was very quiet though. All in all a top top night! :)
31st
Pretty much the whole day was taken up by going on a tour of the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG) which is run by the Melbourne Cricket Club (MCC) which is essentially a unch of old bloke sin blue red and white blazers all seemingly named Ian (3 out of 3!) then we went to Federation square and Flinders street, has a quick look at the shops and then caught up with Sarah from Wake Up! when I was last out, which was nice. Then back to Base, preparing for the flight to Alice Springs tomorrow, which meant waking up at 5am!
1st
up at 5, bus transfer to airport at 6:10, flight at 8:20, to adelaide (which is like 30mins behinf Melbourne, which is weird as) then on to Alice which was a fair old trek. Got in mid afternoon, checked into Haven, our hostel, and basically got ourselves ready for our Just the centre tour to begin tomorrow, taking us to Ayres Rock. :)
2nd
we woke up, checked out of the hostel leaving our luggage in the secure container, then got on to the bus. the travel time from Alice to where we camped for the night (Kings Canyon) was about 5 and a half/6 hours by bus at about 100kmh all the way, with a few stops for refreshments and fuel. It was a mega trek but still good. we got to the campsite, had spag bol, met our fellow travellers (6 Irish, 4 swiss, 2 american, 1 japanese, 1 german, 1 Ozzie and 1 Dutch.) then we got our Ozzie 'Swags' and slept out under the stars, it was nice and warm and the sky was incredible, actually awesome, I can't explain, and the pictures didn't come out properly but I'll always remember the channel of stars, starlight and lack of clouds!
Filler...
Umm, so since last time I posted, we've been down the great ocean road, (where I got bitten by sand flies) then in Melbourne, where we went to the top Neighbours Trivia night, then Alice Springs, which is the second largest town in the territory, and is tiny and a bit of a hole. we've just got back from Ayres Rock, Kings Canyon and Kata Tjuta, which were awesome, and this evening we fly out to Cairns for the week. Been having a good time, taken stupid amounts of photos, and once I get chance to write up my journal properly, I'll put it all on here for you all to read, stories and all. But, once again, at the moment it's stealing internet from the MaccyD's. lol.
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