to my dearest and most loyal fans, again, i am so sorry to have kept you all waiting for this next post. im sure you all have been on the seat of your pants with anticipation and if not, im still going to pretend that you have been.
when i last left you i had just avoided a cyclone and monsoon and by the skin of my teeth made a bus out of airlie beach. as the overnight bus headed into hervey bay i have never been more excited to have been woken up by the bright bright sunshine. direct quote: "i have never been happier to put sunglasses on". seeing the sun immediately brightened my spirits and the nasty and irritable ruthie from airlie beach was gone. we headed for our hostel, woolshed backpackers and i could tell it was going to be a good day.
woolshed was quaint with lots of personality and was just what we needed to recharge our drained batteries. not wanting to miss out on sacred sunshine, we headed to the beach to explore our new stomping ground. hervey bay is very cute and is truly just a simple beach town with little shops and restaurants and beach houses. i wonder who vacations in hervey bay because pretty much all of australia is sun soaked at one time or another. i suppose when its cold in melbourne people need a place to retreat to? hervey bay reminded me a lot of northshore which is where we used to be beach bums in rehoboth. clearly, rehoboth has nothing to worry about but just a comparison for those of you out there who know what im talking about. the beach was very pretty and gave sarah and i a bit of a workout as we walked in the heat to continue exploring and walk the expanse of the sand. clearly after such a long day we needed a nap and amazingly we woke up 3 hours later just in time for, you guessed it, dinner!
our second day in hervey bay pretty much mimicked the first - beach, sun, strolling. i had a great session with my ipod on shuffle songs and i felt an ease which i hadnt felt in days. an interesting fact about hervey bay: while walking along the running path, yes walked, we encountered various circuit training stops along the way. people here must really take fitness seriously because it was quite the genius idea. sarah and i scoffed a bit at first because it would appear to be ineffective for particular people (a 200 lb man versus a 120 lb woman) but these people are smart - the machines are all weight based so you gotta do the work! we had quite a bit of fun and believed that if we had known about this little path and circuit stations we would have taken a nice long run in the morning (believe what you wish).
side note: i write these blogs as i follow my journal entries (i am behind in blogging because clearly i was behind in keeping up with my journal). be thankful for these things because writing in the journal, while worth it in the end, is such a chore. so here is my side note of thought about internal australian flights - they are asking to be bombed. shoes stay on, liquids are fine and do not need to be under 3 ounces or removed for screening, passports are barely looked at and your boarding pass is not checked at security. reassuring? not really, but then again heathrow, jfk, and lax missed sarahs mysterious scissors in her carry on. it would be the fijians who have airport security down.
we left hervey bay and headed for rainbow beach which is where we were to depart for our fraser island camping trip. sad to see rain clouds and not sun (sunshine coast really needs to live up to its name) we checked into pippies. we then had our info session on fraser island and got acquainted with our fellow group members. we watched an informational video about camping safety. i learned that if a dingo (australian wild dog) approaches you, you will be safe if you cross your arms over your chest and back away with caution. the video, however, does not inform you of what to do if while backing away you happen to bump into another dingo! similar to moose procedure at camp, if i see a dingo i am getting the heck out of wherever i am and running like hell.
our group seemed to mesh very nicely and sarah and i used our tripp lake camping skills to discuss food purchasing and of course initiated the idea of making smores while on our trip. clearly, only the canadians knew what we were talking about but everyone was a smore supporter by the trips end. sarah and i went grocery shopping with a few other girls from the group and as we checked out and received our $50 in change (started with $220) the check out woman told us that we were being so frugal and smart with our purchasing decisions. apparently, a group came before us and for the same amount of people and before buying hamburger meat, they had already spent $500!!! i was so happy, never in my life have i been told that i make good purchasing decisions!! a good walk in the pouring rain later we were back and ready to leave the next morning.
we woke up to rain and turmoil. that night, two girls had their passports stolen. of course, it was the night before they were meant to fly home to belgium. the police were on their way and it was being debated whether or not we were going to get out on time. luckilly we were fine and we packed up the car, went over our itinerary and were off. the 4wd is a massive vehicle with 3 people in the front and 8 people on bench seats facing each other in the back. lets just say as the driving became bumpy, which is often did, our group became quite close haha. just looking at the car made my stomach turn.
fraser island is basically a sand island full of dunes, beach, freshwater lakes, rainforests and multitudes of vegetation. its amazing that such lush plant life can grow right out of sand. besides from being gorgeous vegetation wise, fraser island, and australia in general is a dangerous place. more things in australia than anywhere else in the world can kill you. so in addition to being on dingo watch you must also be aware of strong currents, rapidly crashing waves, sharks, jellyfish, spiders and snakes (the spiders and snakes are usually undetectable which makes life even more fun and exciting). basically - safety first!
the freshwater lakes were gorgeous and the water was so clear that you could barely tell you werent on dry land. in addition to being gorgeous it was so nice not to feel salty for once. we set up camp and were ready for our bbq (sarah and i were of course in charge of trash bag salad, caro would have been so proud) which was really fun and gave us all a chance to know one another better. sarah and i taught everyone the infamous slap bag and game of 21 which is always a hit. but the biggest hit of all was mad libs - which of course, sarah and i had zero doubt about.
we packed up and headed to the site of a shipwreck which is basically just stuck in the wide expanse of beach. i wish i could have seen the wreck years ago because the rust and erosion only continues to get worse but regardless, it was amazing to see and illegally touch for the sake of pictures. then we set out for our second campsite, the aboriginal camp, but stopped first at the pinnacles which are mountains and peaks formed from colored sand, and then went to indian head which is a gorgeous little hike up to the top of a huge hill where the views of the ocean and beyond are incredible. usually, shark and sting ray sitings occur but of course not when we went! we went back to camp, made dinner and a fire and got to know daniel, the aboriginal as he taught us the didgeridoo and regaled us of stories about aboriginal life.
one of the biggest disappointments is that we learned of the fact that women are not allowed to touch the didge. they may ask permission to touch it only if they are going to be domestic and decorate it. if they play it, they are speared. sarah and i instantly reverted back to our fijian knowledge of cannibalism and asked daniel if the aboriginals and fijian villagers were at all friends in the past. of course they were. so while the boys got to play the real thing, sarah and i were blowing unsuccesfully into a rubber pipe.
we woke up and were up at out of the camp by 7 am in order to make it on the beach before the tide came up too far and do a rainforest walk. well god had other plans for us. of course it was friday the 13th and that did not go unnoticed. we were on our way when the car began to slide and eventually, we got stuck as the tide continued to come higher and higher. after zero luck using our own man power, some nice guys came and helped tow us out before the tide could wash our car away. of course it was too late for the rainforest walk and we had to change plans a bit. did i mention this was all before 9 am? we went to another lake and after the worst drive of my life i had never been so happy to be outside in the rain as the world stopped spinning and my stomach slowed its churning down. then we were back home to pippies where our exhaustion and lack of sleep and goon hangovers took us to bed quite early.
we headed out the next morning and made our way to noosa. we checked into koalas and made our way to what has been the most disgusting room of the entire trip. we met our roommates who all worked at the hostel for accommodation and after a few months of living there, the room showed and smelled it. we explored the town as the rain drizzles came down. noosa is full of cute stores and restaurants and the beach is gorgeous. after a bit of exploring we headed back to rest before getting ready for our valentines evening. we enjoyed koalas happy hour and made our way to a great dinner in town before heading to rolling rock for a night of fun and dancing. slight problem, we were turned away for improper dress code. apparently shoes matter in australia and rubber thongs are not permitted regardless of how nice your apparel is. we had to run back up a huge hill to koalas to change and then ran back down. hey, we burned off dinner! we got our dance on before treading back up the hill to hit the bed.
our second day in noosa pretty much mimicked the first. we walked around, got some sun and then decided to see hes just not that into you over a dinner of popcorn. i think we stayed the perfect amount of time in noosa. i think any longer and boredom would have kicked in.
we ate an early breakfast and prepared for our long day of bus travel to byron bay. unfortunately, there was no night bus so our journey took up most of this day. a long nap later we were in byron bay and guess what? the rain followed us yet again. we got to our hostel, the arts factory lodge, which has been by far my favorite place to stay thus far. the arts factory used to be a place where musicians and bands would congregate and just play together and put on ridiculous shows. the place now maintains that original vibe and is very chill and inviting. everyone sits outside together and just hangs out, listens to music and lays in hammocks all day long. byron bay is a great town as well. more than just another beach town, it possesses the artsy and funky vibe of a surfer town combined with hippie music appreciation. its a great place. our first night we hung around the factory, ate dinner and watched our fellow hostel goers play in a talent show. we hung out that night and for the first time all trip, i met a fellow american!!! even more exciting, more than just being american, i found a jew! after a month of missing it, it was quite fun to be able to play jewish geography. laugh if you wish.
our days in byron bay have basically all consisted of strolling around, hanging on the beach, reading and making iced green teas. i cannot wait until sydney when i can walk into a starbucks and have a venti iced green tea just handed to me instead of dealing with tea pots, melting ice and spilling everywhere. for those of you who remember my hat finding issue at the beginning of this trip, my hat ripped. the seams just fell apart while we were at pippies. luckilly, i found the byron bay hat company and have replaced the original with a much cooler and cheaper hat.
our one day of zero beach was our third day in byron when we put ourselves into the hands of alternative jim and took a day trip to nimbin which is basically the amsterdam of australia. think of hippies, tye dye, and lush rain forest type roads to travel on. i was quite pleased with my purchase of a tye dyed headband which looks phenomenal.
tonight we head to sydney where i will be reconnecting with the world when i get my new phone. while i have loved not being in contact with any of you (just kidding, kind of) it will be nice to know that i can if i want to. be on the lookout for bbm requests left and right. hope this post did my lack of timeliness justice.
when i last left you i had just avoided a cyclone and monsoon and by the skin of my teeth made a bus out of airlie beach. as the overnight bus headed into hervey bay i have never been more excited to have been woken up by the bright bright sunshine. direct quote: "i have never been happier to put sunglasses on". seeing the sun immediately brightened my spirits and the nasty and irritable ruthie from airlie beach was gone. we headed for our hostel, woolshed backpackers and i could tell it was going to be a good day.
woolshed was quaint with lots of personality and was just what we needed to recharge our drained batteries. not wanting to miss out on sacred sunshine, we headed to the beach to explore our new stomping ground. hervey bay is very cute and is truly just a simple beach town with little shops and restaurants and beach houses. i wonder who vacations in hervey bay because pretty much all of australia is sun soaked at one time or another. i suppose when its cold in melbourne people need a place to retreat to? hervey bay reminded me a lot of northshore which is where we used to be beach bums in rehoboth. clearly, rehoboth has nothing to worry about but just a comparison for those of you out there who know what im talking about. the beach was very pretty and gave sarah and i a bit of a workout as we walked in the heat to continue exploring and walk the expanse of the sand. clearly after such a long day we needed a nap and amazingly we woke up 3 hours later just in time for, you guessed it, dinner!
our second day in hervey bay pretty much mimicked the first - beach, sun, strolling. i had a great session with my ipod on shuffle songs and i felt an ease which i hadnt felt in days. an interesting fact about hervey bay: while walking along the running path, yes walked, we encountered various circuit training stops along the way. people here must really take fitness seriously because it was quite the genius idea. sarah and i scoffed a bit at first because it would appear to be ineffective for particular people (a 200 lb man versus a 120 lb woman) but these people are smart - the machines are all weight based so you gotta do the work! we had quite a bit of fun and believed that if we had known about this little path and circuit stations we would have taken a nice long run in the morning (believe what you wish).
side note: i write these blogs as i follow my journal entries (i am behind in blogging because clearly i was behind in keeping up with my journal). be thankful for these things because writing in the journal, while worth it in the end, is such a chore. so here is my side note of thought about internal australian flights - they are asking to be bombed. shoes stay on, liquids are fine and do not need to be under 3 ounces or removed for screening, passports are barely looked at and your boarding pass is not checked at security. reassuring? not really, but then again heathrow, jfk, and lax missed sarahs mysterious scissors in her carry on. it would be the fijians who have airport security down.
we left hervey bay and headed for rainbow beach which is where we were to depart for our fraser island camping trip. sad to see rain clouds and not sun (sunshine coast really needs to live up to its name) we checked into pippies. we then had our info session on fraser island and got acquainted with our fellow group members. we watched an informational video about camping safety. i learned that if a dingo (australian wild dog) approaches you, you will be safe if you cross your arms over your chest and back away with caution. the video, however, does not inform you of what to do if while backing away you happen to bump into another dingo! similar to moose procedure at camp, if i see a dingo i am getting the heck out of wherever i am and running like hell.
our group seemed to mesh very nicely and sarah and i used our tripp lake camping skills to discuss food purchasing and of course initiated the idea of making smores while on our trip. clearly, only the canadians knew what we were talking about but everyone was a smore supporter by the trips end. sarah and i went grocery shopping with a few other girls from the group and as we checked out and received our $50 in change (started with $220) the check out woman told us that we were being so frugal and smart with our purchasing decisions. apparently, a group came before us and for the same amount of people and before buying hamburger meat, they had already spent $500!!! i was so happy, never in my life have i been told that i make good purchasing decisions!! a good walk in the pouring rain later we were back and ready to leave the next morning.
we woke up to rain and turmoil. that night, two girls had their passports stolen. of course, it was the night before they were meant to fly home to belgium. the police were on their way and it was being debated whether or not we were going to get out on time. luckilly we were fine and we packed up the car, went over our itinerary and were off. the 4wd is a massive vehicle with 3 people in the front and 8 people on bench seats facing each other in the back. lets just say as the driving became bumpy, which is often did, our group became quite close haha. just looking at the car made my stomach turn.
fraser island is basically a sand island full of dunes, beach, freshwater lakes, rainforests and multitudes of vegetation. its amazing that such lush plant life can grow right out of sand. besides from being gorgeous vegetation wise, fraser island, and australia in general is a dangerous place. more things in australia than anywhere else in the world can kill you. so in addition to being on dingo watch you must also be aware of strong currents, rapidly crashing waves, sharks, jellyfish, spiders and snakes (the spiders and snakes are usually undetectable which makes life even more fun and exciting). basically - safety first!
the freshwater lakes were gorgeous and the water was so clear that you could barely tell you werent on dry land. in addition to being gorgeous it was so nice not to feel salty for once. we set up camp and were ready for our bbq (sarah and i were of course in charge of trash bag salad, caro would have been so proud) which was really fun and gave us all a chance to know one another better. sarah and i taught everyone the infamous slap bag and game of 21 which is always a hit. but the biggest hit of all was mad libs - which of course, sarah and i had zero doubt about.
we packed up and headed to the site of a shipwreck which is basically just stuck in the wide expanse of beach. i wish i could have seen the wreck years ago because the rust and erosion only continues to get worse but regardless, it was amazing to see and illegally touch for the sake of pictures. then we set out for our second campsite, the aboriginal camp, but stopped first at the pinnacles which are mountains and peaks formed from colored sand, and then went to indian head which is a gorgeous little hike up to the top of a huge hill where the views of the ocean and beyond are incredible. usually, shark and sting ray sitings occur but of course not when we went! we went back to camp, made dinner and a fire and got to know daniel, the aboriginal as he taught us the didgeridoo and regaled us of stories about aboriginal life.
one of the biggest disappointments is that we learned of the fact that women are not allowed to touch the didge. they may ask permission to touch it only if they are going to be domestic and decorate it. if they play it, they are speared. sarah and i instantly reverted back to our fijian knowledge of cannibalism and asked daniel if the aboriginals and fijian villagers were at all friends in the past. of course they were. so while the boys got to play the real thing, sarah and i were blowing unsuccesfully into a rubber pipe.
we woke up and were up at out of the camp by 7 am in order to make it on the beach before the tide came up too far and do a rainforest walk. well god had other plans for us. of course it was friday the 13th and that did not go unnoticed. we were on our way when the car began to slide and eventually, we got stuck as the tide continued to come higher and higher. after zero luck using our own man power, some nice guys came and helped tow us out before the tide could wash our car away. of course it was too late for the rainforest walk and we had to change plans a bit. did i mention this was all before 9 am? we went to another lake and after the worst drive of my life i had never been so happy to be outside in the rain as the world stopped spinning and my stomach slowed its churning down. then we were back home to pippies where our exhaustion and lack of sleep and goon hangovers took us to bed quite early.
we headed out the next morning and made our way to noosa. we checked into koalas and made our way to what has been the most disgusting room of the entire trip. we met our roommates who all worked at the hostel for accommodation and after a few months of living there, the room showed and smelled it. we explored the town as the rain drizzles came down. noosa is full of cute stores and restaurants and the beach is gorgeous. after a bit of exploring we headed back to rest before getting ready for our valentines evening. we enjoyed koalas happy hour and made our way to a great dinner in town before heading to rolling rock for a night of fun and dancing. slight problem, we were turned away for improper dress code. apparently shoes matter in australia and rubber thongs are not permitted regardless of how nice your apparel is. we had to run back up a huge hill to koalas to change and then ran back down. hey, we burned off dinner! we got our dance on before treading back up the hill to hit the bed.
our second day in noosa pretty much mimicked the first. we walked around, got some sun and then decided to see hes just not that into you over a dinner of popcorn. i think we stayed the perfect amount of time in noosa. i think any longer and boredom would have kicked in.
we ate an early breakfast and prepared for our long day of bus travel to byron bay. unfortunately, there was no night bus so our journey took up most of this day. a long nap later we were in byron bay and guess what? the rain followed us yet again. we got to our hostel, the arts factory lodge, which has been by far my favorite place to stay thus far. the arts factory used to be a place where musicians and bands would congregate and just play together and put on ridiculous shows. the place now maintains that original vibe and is very chill and inviting. everyone sits outside together and just hangs out, listens to music and lays in hammocks all day long. byron bay is a great town as well. more than just another beach town, it possesses the artsy and funky vibe of a surfer town combined with hippie music appreciation. its a great place. our first night we hung around the factory, ate dinner and watched our fellow hostel goers play in a talent show. we hung out that night and for the first time all trip, i met a fellow american!!! even more exciting, more than just being american, i found a jew! after a month of missing it, it was quite fun to be able to play jewish geography. laugh if you wish.
our days in byron bay have basically all consisted of strolling around, hanging on the beach, reading and making iced green teas. i cannot wait until sydney when i can walk into a starbucks and have a venti iced green tea just handed to me instead of dealing with tea pots, melting ice and spilling everywhere. for those of you who remember my hat finding issue at the beginning of this trip, my hat ripped. the seams just fell apart while we were at pippies. luckilly, i found the byron bay hat company and have replaced the original with a much cooler and cheaper hat.
our one day of zero beach was our third day in byron when we put ourselves into the hands of alternative jim and took a day trip to nimbin which is basically the amsterdam of australia. think of hippies, tye dye, and lush rain forest type roads to travel on. i was quite pleased with my purchase of a tye dyed headband which looks phenomenal.
tonight we head to sydney where i will be reconnecting with the world when i get my new phone. while i have loved not being in contact with any of you (just kidding, kind of) it will be nice to know that i can if i want to. be on the lookout for bbm requests left and right. hope this post did my lack of timeliness justice.
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