He's having a whaley good time!
Finally! Here is the video of my humpback friend!! :)
Sunday, 25 August 2013
Wednesday, 21 August 2013
Airlie Beach to Long Island
After two days of long drives we eventually arrived in Airlie Beach, which is the launching off point to the Whitsundays. We stayed on Long Island because they have an amazing resort that also has some cheap hostel accommodation, where we could still use the resorts facilities. It was great! A swim up bar, free kayaks, loungers, hammocks... Heaven!
There was also a lot of cool wildlife. We saw our first (and second) snake! Some huge lizard type thing, wallabies and lots and lots of different birds.
We landed back on the mainland with a thump - our next stop was Townsville, which is a little rough around the edges and our accommodation wasn't great. We have now arrived in Cairns in time for free pizza night! The heat is INSANE but hopefully some bready cheesy goodness will get us through ;)
Picture spam:
There was also a lot of cool wildlife. We saw our first (and second) snake! Some huge lizard type thing, wallabies and lots and lots of different birds.
We landed back on the mainland with a thump - our next stop was Townsville, which is a little rough around the edges and our accommodation wasn't great. We have now arrived in Cairns in time for free pizza night! The heat is INSANE but hopefully some bready cheesy goodness will get us through ;)
Picture spam:
Airlie Beach
A cockatoo joined us for breakfast
 |
| Welcome to Long Island! |
Beating me at crazy golf
Baby wallaby!
Pelican Island at low tide
Pelican Island at high tide
I genuinely thought these were statues for the first day
One of the bays we found on the hikes
Our first snake!
Not even sure what this thing is?!
Huge bird footprints
That is one relaxed Frenchman
(check out the swim up bar! Making drinking even more fun!!)
Tuesday, 20 August 2013
Recipe Time
Hobo Rice
Ingredients
Ingredients can be changed around as necessary. The most important thing is that it is all left over from previous hostel guests and labelled "help yourself".
Rice
An onion, chopped
Garlic, chopped
Half a jar of leftover tomato and basil pasta sauce
Method
Boil rice then drain and put to one side. Fry onions and garlic until soft, add pasta sauce. After a few minutes add rice to sauce and coat well. Serve with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese after sifting out the ants.
It was actually a really good meal as we've been eating only peanut butter sandwiches and instant noodles so something fresh was great! And totally free as it had all been left by others. Cooking facilities on the island are basic so it was a bit of a challenge but it was fun. Enjoy!
Saturday, 17 August 2013
Whale watching!
But first... here is the promised picture of the sunset:
The bat shots are a bit dark and I'm on macca (Australian for McDonalds) wifi so uploading is a ballache.
For mine and Mathias' birthday presents my ma and pa paid for us to go on a whale watching trip at Hervey Bay. The pick up time was 7:40am, which we thought would be painful, however the plus side of jetlag is the ability to get up at 6am without an alarm. We even managed to go for an early morning stroll on the beach before the shuttle bus arrived.
Side note - there are so many birds here! They start calling at dawn and they don't stop all morning. There must be a lot of different varieties as there are many different calls. I was lying in bed on my first morning here enjoying listening to them when in entered the most annoying bird ever! You know when someone is testing all the different ring tones on their phone? Well this was the bird equivalent of that, except all its different calls sounded like different car alarms. He drowned out all the other birds and did a cycle through all this different WAAAAAAAHWAAAAAAAHWAAAAAAAAHs.
Anyway...
At about 8:30am we set off on the boat - the Spirit of Hervey Bay - and headed up the Fraser Island coast. We quickly came across a pod of whales, one of whom was slapping his pectoral fins on the water to attract females. He was obviously super horny because he was thrashing around in the water a lot. I have a video but, again, the wifi is too poor here to upload it. Here's a photo instead:
We moved off and found other pods later, and eventually came across 3 teenage whales that were quite interested in the boat. They were circling around us and diving under us, it was amazing! I waited around the front of the boat and eventually one of the whales came out of the water right by me! I have a video but the internet is too shit. I'll upload later.
Here it is showing us its belly and tail:
Just at the end we saw a fully grown female - she was HUGE - and her baby! It was funny that we thought it was so cute and small when, in reality, it was 2 tonne when it was born and it only seemed small because we had been watching these giant creatures all day.
Fun fact for you: Human milk is 2% fat, whereas whales milk is 42% fat. It is so thick it is almost solid, and the mother excretes it into the water and the baby then swims into it, drinking it up. Enjoy your cereal, folks!
(I've added a feature at the bottom of the page so you can enter your email address and get a notification whenever there is an update, instead of having to keep checking. Hopefully it works).
For mine and Mathias' birthday presents my ma and pa paid for us to go on a whale watching trip at Hervey Bay. The pick up time was 7:40am, which we thought would be painful, however the plus side of jetlag is the ability to get up at 6am without an alarm. We even managed to go for an early morning stroll on the beach before the shuttle bus arrived.
Side note - there are so many birds here! They start calling at dawn and they don't stop all morning. There must be a lot of different varieties as there are many different calls. I was lying in bed on my first morning here enjoying listening to them when in entered the most annoying bird ever! You know when someone is testing all the different ring tones on their phone? Well this was the bird equivalent of that, except all its different calls sounded like different car alarms. He drowned out all the other birds and did a cycle through all this different WAAAAAAAHWAAAAAAAHWAAAAAAAAHs.
Anyway...
At about 8:30am we set off on the boat - the Spirit of Hervey Bay - and headed up the Fraser Island coast. We quickly came across a pod of whales, one of whom was slapping his pectoral fins on the water to attract females. He was obviously super horny because he was thrashing around in the water a lot. I have a video but, again, the wifi is too poor here to upload it. Here's a photo instead:
Just at the end we saw a fully grown female - she was HUGE - and her baby! It was funny that we thought it was so cute and small when, in reality, it was 2 tonne when it was born and it only seemed small because we had been watching these giant creatures all day.
Fun fact for you: Human milk is 2% fat, whereas whales milk is 42% fat. It is so thick it is almost solid, and the mother excretes it into the water and the baby then swims into it, drinking it up. Enjoy your cereal, folks!
(I've added a feature at the bottom of the page so you can enter your email address and get a notification whenever there is an update, instead of having to keep checking. Hopefully it works).
Friday, 16 August 2013
We're here!
We finally made it to the southern hemisphere! Im so tired I can barely speak, so dont expect too much from me right now.
After 20something hours of flying we arrived in Brisbane, headed to the nearest phone shop for Australian sim cards then jumped into a hire car.
Of course, I made a wrong turn exiting the hire car place and almost immediately crashed. Perfect! The rest of the 3ish hour journey went quite well. The car is... a big silver beast (not sure if thats the actual brand name, but it should be). They didnt have the car we booked so they upgraded us for free to a monster truck. Gee, thanks! Looking forward to trying to park it.
Eventually we arrived at Hervey Bay where we're staying 5 minutes from the beach. We got down there just in time to catch the sun set and then we saw hundreds of bats heading out for dinner. Brilliant start to the trip.
Pictures to come, once I can lift my head off this table.
Wednesday, 14 August 2013
Meltdown time
Just an hour until we set off to the airport and Mathias sent my boarding pass to the wrong email address!
At least he's keeping things exciting! Fingers crossed it's smooth sailing (flying) all the way to Brisbane now. Looking forward to making the next post, which will hopefully include a picture of me on a sunny beach and/or having a well deserved vodka.
At least he's keeping things exciting! Fingers crossed it's smooth sailing (flying) all the way to Brisbane now. Looking forward to making the next post, which will hopefully include a picture of me on a sunny beach and/or having a well deserved vodka.
Wednesday, 7 August 2013
One week to go!
Finally I am starting to feel excited rather than anxious! We watched Bondi Rescue last night - a docu tv show about the lifeguards on Bondi Beach. The episode was set on Christmas Day and involved lots of surfing Santas and a group of drunk, naked girls being rescued from the sea. I'm not sure what it says about me that this is what has finally started to get me excited about Australia :/
This final week is set to fly by in a whirl of train rides, beers, birthday parties, beer and beer. Then, this time next week, we will be emptying out our backpacks and repacking them several times; double and triple checking that we have our passports; and I'll be saying goodbye to my family (and, most importantly, my cat):
This final week is set to fly by in a whirl of train rides, beers, birthday parties, beer and beer. Then, this time next week, we will be emptying out our backpacks and repacking them several times; double and triple checking that we have our passports; and I'll be saying goodbye to my family (and, most importantly, my cat):
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