Lindsay and Ryan Do the World 2008/09

Hmm…where to start…we left Airlie Beach on December 18 for a two day cruise on the Whitsundays.  We had 29 people on board with us and 4 crew.  They made us all go downstairs to set up our beds and for a quick briefing.  OMG.  It was the hottest thing I have ever felt down there. Ryan and I thought we were getting a double share room and it actually was a double bed near the roof of the boat…we couldnt even sit up straight!!!  It was terrible. I thought I was going to have a conniption.  There was no way I was sleeping down there. I would have woke up in a sweat and stabbed the closest person to me, and unfortunately that would have been Ryan.  He knew it too, so he said we will sleep on the deck.  That was not much better.  We had these tiny little mats about a centimetre thick and a sheet for our bed.  It was the worst sleep of my entire life and I am not exagerrating.  The sun woke me up at 5am and by 6am it was HOT out!  However, something good came of us sleeping on the deck.  When we arose we saw huge sea turtles coming up for air right near our boat.  That was awesome!  We also saw tuna jumping a little ways away from our boat as well.

 Other than at night, the trip was awesome!  Perfect weather, the snorkelling on the Great Barrier Reef was something else.  I have snorkelled a few other places in my day but the coral here was sooo colourful. Lots of different types of fish too.  When I was swimming towards the reef, I started getting bit by something.  I thought it was a jellyfish…I was soo scared and it stung so much!  You see so many signs warning people of the jellyfish and that you can die from it that I knew my impending doom was coming.  However, I called over one of the crew and he told me not to worry, you won’t die, it is just sea lice! OMG.  That may be worse.  SEA LICE.  EW.  So I continued snorkelling and tried to ignore the stings of the lice. haha

 They fed us great on the boat.  Better than we have been, thats for sure.  We met lots of people with some great stories and we sat around each night just talking to our new friends.  There was this older danish man that had some great stories.  He was great!  Ryan and I had some good laughs with him.

We also went to Whitehaven beach one morning for a swim.  The sand was the finest sand I have ever seen. The dry sand was like flour, not even kidding. It was so soft to lay and walk on.  Pictures won’t do it justice.

 Overall, it was a great time aboard the great British Defender!!  🙂

Lindsay and I have been keeping track of our weight to see if we gain or lose. I thought it was time for an update. Lindsay – departure day from Hamilton 130 lbs, Ryan – 234 lbs. Lindsay’s weight in Rotorua (New Zealand) 124lbs, Ryan 232lbs. Cairns (Australia) Dec 14th Lindsay 126lbs. WOW Lindsay really packing them on eh?LOL. Ryan 230lbs. We will keep you updated as the weigh in goes on.

Yesterday we arrived in Airlie Beach, its home of the Whitsundays Islands. Its a beautiful place,very nice beach front with a huge lagoon pool. Its a small little town you can walk end to end in about 10mins. Tomorrow we have booked the Whitsundays 2 night 2 days tour. Its a tour around the islands and snorkeling and swimming the Great Barrier Reef. We sleep on the sail boat 2 nights. We are both really excited, everyone tells us its one of the things you have to do in Australia.

On the 16th, when we were driving to Townsville we came across the little town of Ingham. We stopped at information and they told us about Wallaman Falls only 1 hour out of our way. We decided it was worth it to go take a look. The falls was really high and emptied into a gorge below, it was quite the site. On are way down Lindsay and I were talking about how awesome it would be to see the notorious cassowary. When Lindsay turned the next corner there one was, right in front of us!! We couldnt believe our eyes. Lindsay yelled “get the camera, get the camera” and hit the brakes. We got lots of pics and some video. I’ve got to warn you the video might not be the best because I was in such shock. This bird is easliy 5′ tall, it kind of looks like a ostrich. After that we headed back down the road and about 20 mins later came along a bunch of wallabies. They look like kangoroos but smaller. We were totally glad we took the drive to see the falls. What a awesome day!!!

We have finally figured out how we are getting around Australia for the next week or so. We are renting another car.  Its the cheapest way.  The buses and campervans are all way too expensive.  A car for 7 days is $261 AUD.

We have been in Cairns for 6 days now and its time to move on.  We head out tomorrow for Mission Beach and Townsville. About 4 hours south of Cairns.  Then from there Whitsundays (a group of islands) for a few days.  We are going to go on a sailboat to some islands that have 98% silicone sand! oh my.  They say you can polish your jewellry in the sand. I will let you know how that goes. 🙂  We are also going to snorkel the Great Barrier Reef while we are there.

The plan is to be in Brisbane in a week.  Thats when we have to drop off our car.  We will see what happens. We just wanted to update you on our plan because if we are on a sailboat for a couple days we won’t have internet access. 😛

Talk to you in a few days! Cheers.

Yesterday, December 12, we rented a little car and headed north for the day to Cape Tribulation.  Its about a 2 hour drive, but it took all day with all the stops we did.  Ryan and I were nervous about driving on the wrong side of the road but we got used to it pretty quick.  It was an easy drive up north anyways, just straight highway.  The ride up there was great.  We made lots of stops along the way, including Port Douglas, Mossman Gorge, lots of lookouts and an ice cream orchard.  The gorge was great.  The water was so clear and you could slide down the rocks in the rapids.  The water was cool but really refreshing.  We then went to a fruit orchard where they made ice cream from the fruits!  We tried wipple seed, banana, mango and black sapote ice cream.  They were all delicious.

We finally got to Cape Tribulation around 5:00pm or so.  It was beautiful, the sun was setting so it was cooler and the shadows made for some good pictures.  I will put some up on facebook.  You can’t swim here because of the jellyfish and salt-walter crocodiles.  There were warning signs everywhere, so we didn’t chance it.  There were also signs of cassowaries (big ostrich like birds).  There were warning signs to keep your dogs on the leash or they will get eaten or mauled by the birds! hahaha.  That’s quite a bird.  We wanted to see one so bad but we didn’t get too. 🙁  Also, when we were getting on the ferry to go back to our hostel, we asked this guy if he’s ever seen a crocodile on the river we were crossing and he said just the other night he saw a 4 metre croc!  That is like 13 FEET!  He said it so casually too! Crazy.

Overall, it was one of the best days we have had since the beginning of our trip I think.  It was nice to have a car for once and we saw so much in just one day.  We were exhausted when we got back to the hostel and went straight to sleep.

haha…sorry no pics….blog is messed up.  I will try again later.

Here are just a couple from Australia.  I don’t have too many yet, its only our second day, but we are on our way up to Cape Tribulation tomorrow so we will get lots there.  We rented a little car and Ryan is going to try and drive on the wrong side of the road in a manual transmission. I am terribly nervous.  But thats what insurance is for, right? lol

 I will write again and let you know how our road trip goes. !!!  Excited for tomorrow.

PS – I will put more pics on facebook once its working. grr.

We made it to Australia.  We flew over the Great Barrier Reef. That was something else. Got some good pictures of it too.

When we arrived in Cairns we heard my name over the speaker so we had to go to the information desk and were told one of our bags didnt make transit and was left in Brisbane (when we switched planes).  It turned out that it was Ryans. Aw.  Good thing he was already in shorts and a t-shirt!  The bag turned up at our hostel about 5 hours later. No harm done.

Then our free hostel shuttle didnt pick us up at the airport so we had to get a taxi ride to the hostel. We only had a few dollars on us because we hadn’t exchanged any. This nice old man gave us a ride in his taxi and paid the tab. Lucky us. 

I have never felt such heat in my life! It slaps you in the face when you walk out the door.  The day we arrived was 90 degrees and 100% humidity.  Not comfortable at all. We have to pay $1 for 3 hours of airconditioning.  Very worth it! 🙂

We walked around Cairns last night for a bit and saw the lagoon and ocean.   Can’t swim here because of deadly jellyfish and man-eating crocodiles! haha.  Well, maybe not man-eating.  So we were walking back to the hostel and heard what we thought were monkeys in the trees. We looked up and saw a bat flying over us and it was huge! But then we noticed they were all hanging from the limbs of the trees.  1000s of them! They were probably 2-3 feet with their wings open!  They looked like flying cats!  We are going there tonight to take pictures and video.  I don’t know if I like it or not. There are just so many of them.  I can’t believe the size of them either. They are fox bats. 

We went out for a drink with a couple people from our hostel. It was a nice night.

I thought it was time to talk about living in a hostel.  When we first got to Auckland we stayed in a hostel that we had are own privite room and shared a bathroom. That was are way of slowing us into hostel life. It wasnt too bad, the room wasnt the best but ok and at least you can be alone if you wanted. From there it was right into it, a 8 person dorm with a shared bathroom.  We got lucky there because there was only 1 other couple in our room, the other beds weren’t taken.  That hostel was really good nice people and great staff.

Our next hostel in Queenstown was a “Base”. Base hostels are quite the party, it seems like there is always something going on. This is where we met 3 Canadians and 3 English. They were great and we had awesome time. The room was full but it felt like a sleepover every night.LOL.

 First of all there are really really good hostels and really really bad ones.  It takes a little getting used to sleeping with strangers everynight and never being able to be by yourself.  You never know when people are going to be coming in and out of your room, they come in and out every hour of the night and wake you up.

On the most part, people are usally quiet when they leave the room and are packing up, but this morning at 6:40am, four people were leaving our room and were SO loud. And it wasn’t just for 15 minutes, it was for 50 minutes, slamming drawers, ripping sheets off the bed and rustling plastic bags.  It was so ignornant.

 I thought it was bad enough sharing two bathrooms with my family but try sharing it with a whole hostel.

We are in the middle of the north island of New Zealand right now, Lake Taupo. Its the largest lake in New Zealand.  Its a small little town, easy to walk around in.  Its quiz night at the pubs around here so we are going to go check that out I think.

A couple days ago we took a large ferry to the north island from the south island. Its the only way to get there.  It was pretty big.  3 decks of cars, 10 decks in all.  It was a 3 hour scenic ride.

 While we were eating dinner tonight at the hostel, we were watching the news and it said that a couple climbers were trapped on Mount Cook because of a storm. We were only there a few days ago. Crazy!  It was beautiful weather when we were there.  Got some great pictures too.

 We spent a couple days in Wellington, the capital.  Its not like the capitals I know, it was quite small.  The one day we were there we spent it with our new friend, Lindsay.  She is from Toronto. We walked around the town and had lunch by the beach. It was nice to spend time with someone new.  The next day Ryan and I hiked up Mount Victoria. Its a small mountain that overlooks the ocean and city.  It was warm that day and it was a pretty hard hike.  We then walked back down and ate lunch near the beach AND THEN walked across town to the cable car that took us to the botanical gardens.  It was a long nice and relaxing day, but a lot of walking.  My feet were killing me and I asked Ryan for a foot massage.  Did  I get one? NO.  😛

 Anyways, we are spending a couple days here at Lake Taupo and then heading to Rotarua.  There is supposed to be some great hot springs up there. 

Ryan said he was going to write a blog about hostel life so look for that.

Talk to you all soon. xo