Alice’s Gap Year Travels

The drive was an absolute killer but Beaver kept us entertained by pitching each side of the bus against each other and making us guess the theme tunes he played on the ipod haha, it was tense stuff and after 10 hours things were getting a bit out of hand.

Anyway, we arrived late afternoon – checked into our hostel, Magnums, showered and then realised that our Fraser boys were right next door – YAY! That evening we hit ‘Morroccos’ for an Oz Bus party – there were lots of party games and Beaver got us free alcohol all night which was sweeeeeet! Later on the boys came to meet us and we went to ‘Mama Africas’ which is the main club in the town. Such a laugh, had a wicked night.

Had a very rude wake-up call next morning from Josh and Paul sneeking into our room and folded our matresses on top of us – charming.

Airlie Beach is where everyone gets boat trips from to go and see the famous Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef but on our way there we were aware that there was a big cyclone heading straight for the area and when we arrived found that all trips had been cancelled. So our second day was spent in Peter Pans Travell agencey re-arranging all our accommodations etc. so that we could afford to stay longer in Airlie as we wanted to hang about until the boats were back on. Originally we were booked onto the Clipper – a big party boat with 50 people but if we wanted to go on that we would have to wait over a week to rebook back onto it so instead we decided to go on a smaller boat called the Boomerang which had 28 people plus crew and is an ex-racing sail boat. Once everything was booked and sorted we headed down to the lagoon for a swim and went out for our last night with the boys before they moved on.

Saturday was cyclone day. Rumours were flying about all day and notices had been stuck on the doors of all our huts telling us to stay in that night. It was just girls in our hut that night, us 3 plus a french and a german – we were all in bed by 8 having a proper girlie gossip which was fun…

It hit around midnight. The wind was soooo loud we thought we were literally going to take-off, we all woke-up and were scared so thought ‘lets put the lights on’ – power cut.

It was pretty freaky but everyone was fine, in the morning we went to look round the town and whole trees had been up-rooted and boats had been completely smashed against the rocks which was pretty sad.. had NO power/electrics/signal for 2 days which was horrendous! Everywhere was closed the first day, everyones food in the fridges had gone off so dinner was salad and ricecakes, great.

Day two and places were starting to get generators to get things up and running. Down by the Lagoon a charity was giving out free hotdogs and bottles of water as ‘CYCLONE RELIEF’ which was cool. We got the bus to the supermarket to get some provisions where everyone was panic buying and the queue went on forever! That night three other girls moved in and we put the matresses on the floor, ate junk and playedcards in the torch light until suddenly around 9ish the lights flickered back on. We were OVERJOYED. What an experience!

Next day we chilled around the hostel and 4 guys moved into Number 72… we decided to go out as a ‘room’ which made for a right random group yet having started drinking games on our veranda – we hardly made it passed McDonalds before deciding to head home again haha! Next morning we all went for breakfast together then the guys helped us carry our stuff to baggage storage as we were finally getting on our boat that afternoon (we also went bikini shopping much to thier delight!)

We boarded the Boomerang around 2ish and soon realised for once we as brits were actually the minority, it was full of germans and swiss germans… ‘dass ist nichts so gut ja?!’ But no, everyone was really nice and the whole trip was really laid-back which was cool. Spoke most with the crew who were real characters, there was Danny Diamond who was the chef and a brit – Dale who was a proper aussie lad covered in tatoos and then Captain Kane, also australian, sunnys on, cap backwards, ciggie in one hand wheel in the other.

The Whitsundays are beautiful, the ocean is perfect to begin with – bright terquoise waters and whilst on the boat we went snorkelling twice giving us our first taste of the Great Barrier Reef which was good but due to the cyclone visability wasn’t the best, we did sea loads of cool fish though and even spotted some sea turtles whixch was wicked. Also because of jelly fish and stingrays you can’t swim in the sea unless wearing a ‘stinger suit’ which is basically the ultimate in attractive swimwear, all in one full-length wet-suit. Sexy. We also went to White Haven Beach on the trip which does what it says on the tin. Pure white beach. Stunning, although very windy meaning sand absolutely EVERYWHERE. Being a racing boat, once the sails were raised everyone had to hang thier legs off one side of the boat as it leans right over the other way into the water which was pretty exciting 🙂

Most of our time on the boat was spent jamming up on deck with reggae blaring and bikinis on and in the evenings we’d chill out watching the stars – I think i’d like to own a boat one day…

We returned to dry land after 3 days and basically jumped straight in the shower, sleeping that night was interesting though as as soon as I lay down it was like I was back on the boat, swaying about. Not good.

Got up this morning to find a brightly coloured little parrot on out bench outside, so naturally we shared our cereal with it and after a couple more days relaxing in Airlie beach we’ll be off to Magnetic Island on Sunday 🙂

Speak sooon XXXX

Our next stop was to be another special Oz Experience over-night stop like the Surf Camp we did back in Spot X. Our driver for the next couple days was Beaver who was so fun and a proper Aussie country boy so he was the perfect driver to take us to the cattle station!

We arrived at Kroombit just in time for a lunch of steak and salad. Whilst eating one of the cowboys Jonathon gave us a demo of how to ride the horses as most of us were going riding after. Once we’d checked into our room and perchased our neckachiefs/cowboy hats we headed down to the paddocks where the horses were, all the horses were different – my one Buttons needed a big kick but once she got going we got on very well!

We rode the horses up through the hills over to where the goat fields were, here it was our job to ‘muster’/round all the goats up and get them into thier pens at the bottom. It was mental – we had to shout ‘AAAYYYY UP UP UP’ to get them moving but after a while we were properly in control and it was wicked. It was a good achievement when the team had got them all in and the gates were finally shut. Afterwards we went for a horse ride then headed back to the ranch.

With time for a quick change we then headed back up in the bus to where the goats were, some people did some clay pigeon shooting and we all attempted lasooing things which is a lot harder than it looks! After this we got into teams of four and all sat around a ring by the goats pen… in was time for the Rodeo! Each team had to take it in turns to jump into the ring, Jonathon would then tell one member which goat they had to catch – Holly was the catcher in our team so when the clock started she had to run into the goat pen and try to catch the one he’d picked for her. The best way is to grab them by the horns or one back leg. At first we thought it seemed a bit cruel but for the guys that work there this is their livelyhood so we just sucked it up and got on with it! haha Anyway, once Hol got the goat she had to drag it into the ring – then it was my job to tip the goat which ment grabbiong it by a front and back leg and tipping it onto its side and holding it down whilst Laura branded it (fake branding don’t worry!) and then finally Mikaela had to drag it out of the ring to freedom. It was such a laugh and everyone got really into it.

After this we all got in the ring and held hands in a circle where Jnathon then proceeded to send an electric shock around us with a cattle rod. OUCHHHHH, but funny.

That night we had a full on roast beef dinner (obviously being on a cattle farm) which was delicious and then the owner of the ranch, and old bloke called Al chatted top us about the history of the area and of cowboys and then we all had a go at cracking a whip! Then the drinking began and everyone tried thier luck on the mechanical bull…Nutcracker, poor boys. We went to bed quite early as we were knackerd and then after a quick brekky the next morning we were off on the longest stretch of our journey so far. The 10 hour bus ride to Airlie Beach….

XXXX 

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