Alice’s Gap Year Travels

After going a bit wild we arrived in Sydney feeling pretty ill as we checked into Westend Backpackers.. we are currently staying on level 2 in ‘The Church’ – it’s a 32 bed dorm, all of us share 4 toilets and 3 showers, it’s a good laugh and a compleeete mess haha! (our fraser boys stay here now and recommended it!)

We’ve been out the past few nights with some of our Aussie friends which was a good laugh and it has been a long weekend here as it was Anzacs day on Sunday so everyone is in really good spirits. On Sunday we went to watch the parade and i have honsetly never seen so many people in Uniform, sailors, army, police etc,etc. Everyone was wearing thier medals and there were drums and bagpipes as they marched through the main streets. Anzacs day is the only day of the year where you can gamble legally outside of the casinos and so that evening we headed over to the Sugar Mill at Kings Cross where we got involved with a game of Two-Up. It is the traditional game played and all the pubs were packed out, basically theres a guy with a paddle that holds two coins then everyone places thier bets -while we were going for ‘$5 on tails!’ many people were going for $150 plus which was pretty exciting! You guess if it’s going to be 2 tails or two heads when the coins are tossed, guys go around finding people to match each others bets and then whoever wins keeps the money. I came back $5 up and that was good enough for me!

Last night we went to The Sydney Opera House to see a Ballet called The Silver Rose! We really wanted to try and see something there as it’s such a once in a lifetime thing and when the guy on the desk told us that if we’re under 26 and free on a monday then they offer cut-price tickets we couldn’t resist – $47 instead of $101 and worth every cent 🙂 What an experience.

We have exactly one week left in Australia so i’ll let you know how it goes soon, XXX

We spent the next couple of days sleeping in, eating, drinking, going to the shopping mall and hanging out with mates in our hostel. On the Wednesday we did a tour where they take you around the ‘table-lands’ to see and swim in different waterfalls. The tour was called ‘Uncle Brians’ and our guide with Cousin Rohan who drove Gus the Bus, it was such a wicked day and honestly the most random thing I can’t even begin to right down all the banter that was had and wierd stuff that happened. But anyway, the scenery was beautiful and the highlight was visiting the Mila Mila falls which is where Peter Andre filmed his infamous ‘Mysterious Girl’ video and also the setting for ‘Herbal Essences’ and other shampoo brand adverts. We all swam under the waterfall and had pictures flicking our hair about like we were models in a L’oreal advert haha! Again the food was excellent and we ended the day with hot chocolate and muffins before driving home doing crazy dance routines to ‘Gus FM’ – such a random funny day. 

We moved back to Global Palace hostel for our last 2 nights as it was much more central than our other one and had two brilliant nights out, having made the most of our final time in Cairns we got a taxi to the Airport on Friday morning to catch our flight back down to Sydney, putting an end to our east-caost tour – what a mental few months 🙂

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Have been back in Cairns for a few days now staying at Nomads – Beach House which is good fun. Had a couple of big nights out and have basically been hanging out at the hostel with friends or going around the shops in the mall 🙂 There is a large Night Market here where they sell all kinds of things from jewellery and clothes to massages and chinese food! We’ve been a few times now and theres always something a bit different – men walk around with snakes sometimes, draping them on people and letting them go along the floor. We are not big fans of this! haha

Anyway, the best thing we’ve done in Cairns by far definately happened yesterday. Yesterday, was when we had our Ocean Freedom boat trip and scuba diving out on the Great Barrier Reef! We had to get down to the marina for 7.30am where we boarded the Ocean Freedom boat, met the wonderful crew and were asked to fill in some forms for health and safety etc. There were around 36 passengers in total, all different ages, from our age to probably around 60. We had a delicious breakfast of danish pastries and fresh fruit as the boat set off towards the reef and the crew did our safety and welcome talk.

On the way out to the reef it was very rocky and lots of people got really sea-sick (including holly!) and nobody was feeling great but that soon changed when they started our dive breifing 🙂 … some people went off on a glass bottom boat tour and some people went for a snorkle whilst the people who wanted to dive got ready. So, a stinger suit, mask, weights, tank and a pair of flippers later we’re pretty much ready to go.. they took us out in small groups and to make us more comfortable on our first dive – there was an instructor holding our hand the whole time, Matty was mine and Mikalea’s instructor and Holly was paired with a man and they went with a guy called Chris. Our first stop was at ‘The Drop Off’ and it was awsome, they taught us some basic skills before we went in and know the reef really well so were able to let us hold things like sea cucumbers and touch the velvety corals which aren’t poisonous (obviously!). On the first dive we saw a reef shark sleeping on the sea bed and a huuuuge sea turtle having a scratch on the coral 😀 and of course there were loads of tropical fish everywhere!

After the first dive we got dried off then had a yummy buffet lunch before arriving at our second stop of the day which was one f the most bizaarr things i’ve ever seen. They call it ‘The Island’ and it is basically a mound of sand in the middle of the ocean where it gets reall shallow for some reason arround the reef and so you can actually walk about in the middle of the sea!.. the water was crystal clear and we did a snorkle tour with Bec who was wicked fun and showed us not only a Nemo (clown fish) but a WEEMO, a baby one which is the size of your little fingernail! After this we headed back to the boat and got our gear back on for our second dive. This time they said we could have more freedom if we wanted and so Chris took all three of us down to sit on the bottom for a quick test of some skills under water to make sure we would be safe we were allowed to go it alone! We followed him under the boat where there was a big shaol of big fish.. then he sneakily got some chicken from lunch out of his vest and as we fed the fish they went wild darting all around us which was hilarious. Then we followed him around the corals, holding a big purple starfish and disturbing a stingray that was hiding in the sand! We had an underwater camera with us so were snapping away as we went 🙂

It was sooo much fun and we’ve all got the bug for scuba diving now, it’s just so cool actually being able to breath underwater! Back on the boat we started heading back and the crew brought around fruit, cheese and crackers and cake, yummmm. Infact talking of the crew they really were just the most lovely people and really made the day special. (cheesy yet true!)

Just getting ready to go out on the town…..again. Table tops in ‘The Woolshed’ here we come!

Over and Out XXXXXX

We spent 5 nights in Port Douglas at ‘The Parrotfish’ hostel, we had brilliant sunshine everyday so theres not really much to write about what we did here apart from this…

Pool, eat, sleep, sun, eat, read, sweat, pool, read, sleep, sweat, sun, eat, pool…you get the picture.

There was a really cool place called ‘Wicked..’ which did dvds, books and 42 different flavours of ice-cream so we popped in there a fair few times! Also we decided to be more adventurous with our cooking whilst there so made various delicious dinners like a fresh prawn curry – YUM! One evening we also took a walk down to see 4 mile beach which was really pretty.

Other than that it was just 5 days of relaxation and topping up the tan 🙂

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With Cairns being right near the tropical rainforests it was inevitably going to rain for at least some of the time. Our hostel was a real party place though so at least we didn’t have to go very far for a good night out! We also went to see ‘The Blind Side’ at the cinema one day which has become our favourite ‘rainy day’ past time out here as well as looking around the shopping malls at things we can’t afford!

Having stayed 3 nights at ‘Gilligan’s’ we had a trip booked to go and stay in the Daintree Rainforest at Cape Tribulation. The tour bus picked us up at 7.30am making for a really early start as we had to check out etc, and guess what – we were hungover yet again. Having driven for about 2 hours we stopped at a cafe for brekky and then heard the news that we would have to turn around and go straight back to Cairns due to landslides further down the track due to all the rain. So as you can imagine having left 4 hrs earlier we were dumped back in Cairns where we promptly checked into another hostel  ‘Global Palace’ and slid into bed. This is one of the only hostels where the beds have been regular singles not bunk-beds HOORAY! Anyway after making some calls we got to bed early that night as we were going to try and reach Cape Trib again the next morning. We awoke to glorious sunshine which proves being delayed a day must have been fate as the good weather remained for our whole trip to the rainforest 😀

The landslides had basically all been cleared and after a bit of a shakey bridge crossing where the water from the river had flooded and was now gushing over the top of it – we made it into the Daintree! First our guide took us on to a river cruise where we spotted some crocs sunbathing on the banks of the river and then showed us a few look-out points and boardwalks through the rainforest before dropping us all off at our hostels. We were staying at ‘The Beach House’ – so named as the main bar area backed right onto the beach which was really cool as the rainforest was right up to the sand. A guy called David was also in our room and the four of us had the hut furthest away from the main area making for a long walk back at night time, but more about that later..

That afternoon the four of us set out for a walk along the beach and headed up to the Cape Trib look-out which was beautiful. That evening we had a swim then cooked dinner and played some cards by the bar… then came the walk back to our hut in the dark, David had a torch which almost made things worse as he kept shining it on huge spiders in thier webs and giant crickety things – we were screaming and freaking out the whole way and David said he’d not laughed so much since he’d started his travels! haha.. about half way up Holly felt something under her feet only to realise she was STANDING ON A SNAKE – only a small python but still! EWW! Anyway basically crying we legged it the rest of the way to our hut and finally made it into bed.

Next day we walked around 4 kilometres up to Emmagen Creek, a natural swimming hole in the rainforest.. well, we found the sign anyway and then headed down the path which quickley vanished leaving us literally trekking through the jungle. After around 10 minutes of ducking and diving through the trees we decided to turn back but bumped into a couple and two brit backpackers also looking for the same place so we decided to have a second go.. again no luck – on our out again though we bumped into a local man and his son clutching lilos.. perfect, third time lucky. They led us right up the river and eventually we came out to a beautiful pool, if a little bitten and bruised by our jungle adventure it was well worth it in the end.

The next day the bus came to get us around 1.30pm and on our way out of the rainforest we stopped at the Alexadra Lookout and saw Mossman Gorge national park before being dropped off in the holiday town of Port Douglas.

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On our way up to Cairns the Oz Experience gets to stop at a Croc Farm – we pulled up into the carpark – the doors opened and a guy jumps onto the bus with a snake on top of his head and a baby alligator in his hands! (for the people who had nodded off on our journey it made for a rather nasty wake-up call! haha)

Any way, we headed into the main area where they had loads of tanks with little crocs and ‘gators in as well as snakes and big gross bugs. We all took it in turns to hold the snakes and little alligators but our favourite by far was the big black cockatoo called Banksy whowould walk up your arm and then sit on our shoulders like a proper pirate parrot! He was soooo friendly and cute 🙂 He got a little too comfortable on Mikaela’s shoulder however and weed on her!!! haaaaha. gutted.

After this we went for a walk around the farm. There were loads of peacocks and kangaroos just roaming free which we fed later on but first we headed to the Cassowary enclosure. They are the largest flightless birds in the world and bloody dangerous. Next we went to see the dingo enclosure and he called for them and they came leaping right over the fence! They have been around humans for so long that they were just like any old dogs so we could stroke them and stuff (not like the ones on Fraser Island!)

There were corcs and gators EVERYWHERE. in big enclosures and then we reached the pools and the guys went in to feed them. We were literally a foot away from them with only a fence between us and thier jaws – pretty exciting stuff and it made for some great pictures. It was great fun but rained so much we actually needed the heating when we got back on the bus to dry us all out again.

It’s wierd to think that that was infact our last Oz Experience Bus journey as we have reached the top of the coast.

When we reached Cairns we checked into Gilligan’s hostel and it has been raining ever since. Will keep you updated!

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Mission Beach is a tiny little place and we stayed at Scotty’s Beach House which had such a great family vibe about it. We had a 4-bed room with Kev and had our own sofa area to chill on outside which was wicked. The night we got there the whole hostel went round the corner to the local restaurant for cheap drinks and pizzas which was nice.

We woke up early the next day as we were going White Water Rafting 😀 When we got to the centre we grabbed a coffee and a muffin to waken ourselves up and then watched the safety video before jumping on the bus and heading down to the River Tully. Once there we stripped down to our swimmers – grabbed helmets, lifejackets and a pair of VERY chic rafting sandles and were then introduced to our guide. In our raft there was the four of us plus 2 other european guys, our instructor was called Tim. The rafting was mental, around 8 boats went out with our group so there was quite a bit of waiting about as each raft has to provide safety for the ones behind but we had such a good time. The rapids were huge and everyone kept falling out and capsizing. At one point i got thrown forward across the raft which has left me with a few bad bruises but nothing serious whereas a girl in another boat broke her ankle!.. pretty extreme stuff! We stopped for a big lunch on the side of the river then carried on down through more rapids to the end – everyone got changed into dry clothes and back at the centre we got to watch a DVD of our day as a camera man had been jumping from boat to boat and rock to rock catching all the action – funny stuff if a little embarrassing but we all got a copy so you can see that when i get back! Exhausted we slept all the way home on the bus. After showering, Scotty (yes, THE Scotty of ‘Scotty Beach House’) started up the BBQ and we had a proper aussie barbie with fish and steak and salad and potatoes – YUMMYYYY. (That night I also skyped mum and dad for the first time which was fun!)

Our bus to Cairns was leaving in the afternoon so with it being SOOOO humid outside we spent the morning in the super air-copnditioned movie room watching ‘The Hangover’ with a cup of coffee. The Oz Experience picked us up around 1.30.

XXX

Our last few days in Airlie Beach were pretty chilled although on our last night we managed to lock ourselves out of our room and so ended up sitting in McDo’ for a couple hours until we saw the boys from our room roll up for thier burgers before heading back – having waited what felt like forever i walked right up to them and demanded a key. They found the whole thing very amusing and once we were all safely back in our hut had a good old chat before bed 🙂

To get over to Magnetic Island you get a bus to Townsville and then take the ferry across. So the next morning we jumped on the Oz Experience and headed north.. our driver was Luke who did our ‘Melbourne to Sydney tour’ (he has since been trained to drive the East-Coast route – WAHOO!) It was a mad dash to reach the ferry on time and we literally boarded with 1 minute to spare!

The hostel on Maggie was awsome. The rooms were like Tee-pees and the whole thing was set right on the beach, palm trees – bar – pool – the works! That evening once we’d got settled in we ended up just jamming on the hammocks with our dutch friend Kevin playing his guitar, watching the fruit bats fly over head 🙂 Next morning we decided to hire a car. But on Magnetic they don’t just have your average rental cars – these are like Barbie cars! Most are white and bright pink (although we had a blue one in the end) they have no roof, barely any sides and carry 4 people… perfect for us and Kevin. We went to Horseshoe bay, picnic Bay, swam in the sea, sunbathed, had some lunch and went on a long SWEATY walk to see the Forts which had been built on the Island. You had to be 21 to drive the car and so that was fine for Miks and Kev but after a while Holly fancied a go (she has her liscense but is only 19) so you know, we though what the hell – its a tiny island we’re hardly gonna get in any trouble. So we’re cruising along, music blaring and Kevin decided to lean right out the side of the car… a police van is coming the other way.. it passes us – turns around and well…we are pooing our pants. So we pulled over into the carpark but were too late to swap drivers 😮 luckily he didn’t ask for the liscence and just warned us that its a $300 fine for leaning out of your vehicle – so naturally we pleaded ignorance, apologised, got a legal driver back in place and then fell about laughing, gooood times.

Next day we got up early and headed out on another SWEATY walk up to the view point at the top of the island with other Oz Experiencers where we saw a wonderful view and then with a day of glorious weather we spent all day tanning by the pool and then played cards in the bar with our room mates 🙂

The rain on our 3rd day was constant and grey. We spent the whole day sleeping, eating and reading. That night we headed down to the bar as it was Ladies night – which also meant that if boys dressed up as girls they would get the special offers as well… bring on the Ladyboy competition. Everyone that dressed up did a cat-walk and the winner got a $50 bar tab, hilarious if a little disturbing!

We jumped on the ferry the next morning to get our bus to Mission Beach.

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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….

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