Hey everyone,
We know it’s been a while since our last update and we’d like to be able to say it’s because we’ve been so busy (which is partially true) but mostly it’s because we’ve been being lazy. So here you go, here’s the latest update of the last two weeks.
Whitsundays
Our boat was scheduled to leave at 2:30pm. We checked out of our hostel at 10 and put our bags into storage for the weekend, we then went back to our rooms where our lovely Irish room-mates let us back in and we were able to go back to sleep in our old beds. We finally got up and went to the pre-departure meeting to meet all the people who’d be on our boat.
South Molle Island
They included two guys Kate had chatted up the night before when she’d gone out with the afore-mentioned room mates. Matt and Adam were from Southampton and Bath. After the meeting where we got our Gucci masks and snorkels we ran down to McDonalds for our lunch (Kate’s third McD’s in 2days (we are eating well, honest…)) and ran back to the boat (15mins down the road) where we boarded while suffering from a mild case of indigestion. We were served free champagne on the trip over to our private island – South Molle. The ride was fine, a little windy but not too bumpy. South Molle was a great little island, really looked a lot like the resort from Dirty Dancing. We had our own bar for the boat where we had our steak dinner and played some interesting drinking games. Gemma maintains that she downed two pints of beer – but we’re not so sure. The games did include Gemma feeding our 50 year old German roommate half a pint of beer.
We had some very interesting characters on our boat – possibly the most interesting of which was Captain America, also known as Matt Adams from the O.C (he actually lives in Newport beach – for the O.C fans) and his buddy Tim, whose hair never moves. The Captain America nickname was given to him by Scotland (a guy from Scotland) due to his costume consisting of a red cowboy hat, red Speedos and an Australian flag towel tied around his neck as a cape.
After the bar had died down, we went for a midnight dip in the pool but we were tucked up in bed by 12:30 ready to get up for our 7am breakfast the next day. As we were eating in the morning, a pretty little parrot hopped onto our table. We all thought it was very cute, until another one hopped onto the other side. Suddenly they swarmed onto the table from all directions, biting at our toast and drinking our orange juice. After ransacking our table, they moved onto another, even hacking into unopened packets of jam!
Parrots at Breakfast
We went back out on the boat for our day of snorkelling and visiting beaches. However, due to bad weather, the sea was really choppy. Kate and Sarah had great time sitting at the front of the boat feeling like we were on a roller coaster as it dipped up and down. Gem had a less fun time becoming violently sea sick, to the extent of passing out in the toilet. Captain America and Tim were also ill but they deserve no sympathy as it was all their fault for having Margaritas for breakfast on the boat. We stopped at Whitehaven beach, ranked in the top 5 beaches in the world. Unfortunately it was raining while we were there – it all felt a little English. Still, Ty our Irish deckhand was resiliently trying to sunbathe while it was raining. After getting back on the boat we were given lunch before sailing to the point where we were going to snorkel. Kate and Sarah got suited up, while, needless to say, Gemma was out the back of the boat, in their stinger suits – very fetching skin-tight lycra suits, that according to Adam make us look like something out of Star Trek. The idea is that they’re supposed to stop you getting stung by jellyfish, except they don’t cover your neck, face, hands or feet. Also, Sarah’s had holes in it. The snorkelling was fun except that Matt kept making us giggle which meant we kept filling our snorkels up with water. Not funny when you can’t put your feet down and aren’t wearing fins and can’t stop giggling.
We headed back to South Molle for dinner where Gem had three bites before heading to bed at 7pm, although, people kept coming in every 5minutes to check on her. The rest of us stayed out drinking ridiculous amounts and being very silly. We all went for another midnight swim where this time, Kate jumped into the pool, forgetting she still had her glasses on. Tim finally retrieved them by diving right down to the bottom of the deep end in the dark (we still have no idea how he found them). Once again we got into bed with the knowledge that we had to be up at 6:30 again for breakfast. The parrots came again the second morning but this time we were ready for them. Armed with flip-flops we wolfed down our food so they couldn’t get it, all the while having to kick them away. Gemma and Captain America chickened out and got the ferry home while the rest of us went for some more snorkelling before heading back to Airlie beach.
The sailing people had booked us a table at Morocco’s, the party bar next door to our hostel. (The most disgustingly dirty hostel we’ve had yet). We had a tiny dinner as no-one felt like eating much. We spent the night with all the people from the boat and ended up at a foam party! We spent the next day by the lagoon with Captain America, except for Kate who slept most of the morning and then joined us with presents of chocolate, and became our best friend… oh wait, she already was. That night we went out with the intent of using up all our free drinks vouchers, which of course we did but we were aware we had to be up early for the Greyhound in the morning. (Have you noticed quite how many early mornings we had to have?)
Sunset on Fitzroy Island
We ran to our bus, stopping briefly at McDonalds once again for breakfast. Apparently the blame for us having so much McDonalds lies with everyone but us. We slept pretty much all the way to Townsville but we weren’t sure what we were going to do when we got there. We were staying with Gemma’s sister’s godfather’s friend, whom we’d never met. But she was in Brisbane the day we arrived and so she’d said she’s send the nanny to pick us up. Our bus was an hour late getting in and there was no nanny when we got there. We got a cab, asking for 10 Queen Street but we were taken to 10 Queen Road. We had no way of knowing if it was the right house. Eventually, we asked the cab driver to check and see if there was a Queen street in his map book, which much to his embarrassment, there was. Of course once we got to Queen Street we had the embarrassing task of knocking on the door, introducing ourselves and asking if Debbie lived there. Luckily this one was the right house and once more we had a gorgeous house at our disposal, complete with pool and ‘help yourself’ drinks fridge – plus, an important one for Kate and Gem, Sky TV. We didn’t do a lot in Townsville, aside from enjoy the luxuries and make up for 4 weeks without vegetables. Deb and Sean were both really great it was just a shame we couldn’t have spent more time with them.
On the Friday, we went over to magnetic island for the day. With nothing planned for the day, and with it becoming increasingly obvious that there was very little to do on the island we decided to hire mopeds. We hiked to this out of the way warehouse with a tiny temporary building outside which claimed to be for scooter hire. After checking everything out it seemed fine and we were allowed to hire them at 18 with Gem only having a provisional license if she stayed with us. We were given a quick guide lesson and then were let off to drive around the Island as we pleased. After an initial near miss between Sarah and Kate(they nearly drove into each other getting off the drive) everything seemed to go fine.
Mopeds on Magnetic Island
We started over to Horseshoe Bay on the other side of the Island. The roads were great as they wound their way up and down the hills and the views out to the sea were amazing. We got to Horseshoe Bay in one piece. It was then all the fun started! Gem doesn’t really remember much of what happened next except for flying through the air and landing on the ground. She drove the bike into two posts, being thrown over the front of the bike, luckily flying through the posts rather than into them otherwise injuries could have much more serious. Luckily there was no major damage to Gem, just a few nasty bruises. The bike was a different matter. The front panel was smashed and pushed down over the wheel so that it couldn’t turn. All in all there was $400 worth of damage. There is however a silver lining to this story. Gem got a ride back to the other side of the Island on the back of a brand new $22,000 Harley (shame she was in no state to really appreciate it)
Moped crash war wound
The last few days in Townsville were quiet and restful mostly due to Gemma’s inability to move. On Sunday we boarded our last greyhound to Cairns. We spent two nights in Cairns at the Serpent hostel (for free as part of our Peter Pan package). Although the hostel itself was really nice it was a long way from town with a free shuttle bus that didn’t run particularly regularly and so we ended up spending quite a bit on cabs. Despite being told a lot of negative things about Cairns we really liked the feel of the place. We also ran into Matt and Adam our roommates from the Whitsundays. We’ve started to get used to these sort of coincidences seeing as we bumped into Gavin from the Whitsundays trip sitting next to a girl we shared dorm room with in Rainbow Beach (can’t remember her name) when we got off the Greyhound in Townsville. They had only met that day. It’s such a small world!
Anyway we went out that night with Matt and Adam to the Woolshed (a very popular backpackers party bar). Since we had our Snorkelling day on the Reef booked for the next morning requiring a 6.30am start it was of course by complete accident we found ourselves eating pizza at 4.30am by the lagoon. We eventually crawled into bed at about 5.30am. Gemma decided not to go out on the boat having heard that it was going to be really choppy at sea that day and already suffering from bruises that would have limited her snorkelling ability. Sarah and Kate set an alarm for 6.30am and dragged themselves out of bed (Sarah did briefly fall asleep on her backpack) and headed out for what turned out to be a pretty miserable day at sea. They headed down to the Marina got on the boat and promptly fell asleep. That really describes the whole day, we woke up a couple of times to snorkel and look out at the pretty reef but apart from that we slept. There was some drama however, when Kate managed to get stung by a jellyfish on her hand. The tentacles were still attached and the woman stung herself as she was trying to get them off Kate. While Gemma having made the sensible decision slept until 11am then spent the day wandering round Cairns and sitting by the Lagoon. We’ll fill you in on the rest of our time in cairns and our week in Sydney next time. We fly back down to Sydney on Monday and we’re looking forward to seeing Maralyn and Robin again as well as getting to meet up with Sarah and Hannah and Captain America.
Love
Gem, Kate and Sarah
xxx
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