Brisbane to Cairns

Once we left Surfers we went a couple of hours to Brisbane to see someone I meet last year and spend a night there just for a quick catch up and somewhere to stay for the night, he made us a lovely dinner and then took us out for what he says is the best ice cream in the world called…

I mean it was good but it hasn’t made ruin ice cream for me.

We left the next day and heading up to Bunderburg, the weather was horrible making the drive really hard for me. There were some points where I could hardly see in front of me but we made it there safe and sound, and we were able to stay at Gerry’s daughter’s house for a few nights, so we actually had a bed again for a few nights. Whilst we were there we went to the Bunderburg Rum factory and had a tour and a couple of free tastings and they have a rum they make but only sell from the factory which is a coffee/chocolate liqueur so obviously I had to buy a bottle of that and it is just amazing, over a bit of ice…yum yum yum.

We soon left Bunderburg as we only wanted to go to the rum factory, and headed up to Airlie beach and this time we stayed with Gerry’s son. We didn’t have a bed this time but we got to set up our lovely tent in his garden and we had a fire every night so that was a bonus. Airlie beach was amazing I loved it, we went to the beach on the first day but the water was murky so we didn’t really fancy going for a swim as it was the end of the box jelly fish season, not nice. But the next day we went on a jet ski tour of the islands and that was fun. We had about 20 minutes on the way out to the island and Judith was driving and then when we got to the island we had a tour of the aquarium and got to feed the rays and hold a baby bamboo shark. On the way back from the island I was driving and it was so much fun, I just wish we didn’t have to stay in a line and follow each other as it made it harder because one person would be going to slow or the person behind you would be right up your ass and it was really annoying. We nearly didn’t get to go out that day as the weather was getting rough and the swell was about 3 meters so they phoned round in the morning to check that we were up for an adventure and weren’t going to be scared of it! ha us scared of a little water…

After we left Airlie Beach we went straight on up to Cairns and the weather was horrible nearly the whole way, we must have been following a storm or something, but we made it there, managed to find our hostel and again we found a really good deal for a private room for 3 nights, the room was more like a hotel with a balcony and en-suite and a massive double bed. Unfortunately money and weather meant we were very limited on what we could do in Cairns, so we didn’t get a chance to go out on the reef as it just rained every day we were there, but we did go up into the rainforest to a place called rainforestation which is a nature park set in the rainforest. We ended up having our very own private tour on the amphibious vehicle as we were the only English speaking people there (everyone else was Chinese or Japanese) and we think the tour guide loved us as he kept stopping and chatting rubbish to us and the tour went on for a lot longer then we think it should have done, neither Judith or me remember anything he told us. The main thing we did was cuddle a Koala, it was amazing and we got our photos taken with him. Other than that like I said we didn’t actually get up too much, Judith brought me home a big sombrero from a night out she had and it has been travelling with us ever since.  

Gold Coast

Beautiful beaches, sun shining, good nights out, what more can I say? We spent 3 days in Surfers Paradise, and we had such a good time, the hostel we stayed in was small but good, managed to get a private room for $28 each a night so that was a good score. As soon as we got there we decided to go down the beach but on the way there we got called over by some club reps and had a lovely chat with then, turned out to be alright as we got $40 tickets for 2 nights out on town, one that night which was a club crawl and one the next night which was a ladies night at one of the clubs. So we had a couple of good nights out on the town. During our first day there we went to a water park called Wet and Wild, this was interesting as we were slightly hung over and the first ride we went on was called Kamikaze which involved what I would say was a 65^o drop and Judith was sat backwards and I was the one that would have to sit facing the drop and you go down on a rubber ring things and it just goes straight up the other side and you just keep going like that until it stops, but when you first go over the edge it feels like you are just going to topple over. On the next night we went to a dinner and a show called Outback Spectacular and it was amazing, we got a 3 course dinner, and a show that consisted of horses, quad bikes, cars, and people all doing tricks and really amazing things. So that pretty much concludes the main things we did in surfers, but we had a really good time there and was just nice to relax and have some fun.

Ballina/Bryon Bay

After what felt like 100 road works, we reached Ballina and the farm where we would be staying for the next two weeks. Instantly we met their dog, Boofi, and the horses, King and Jimmy, as soon as I saw the horses I knew I didn’t want anything to do with them but Sophie and Judith were all over them so I knew they would be kept entertained on any day we didn’t have anything planned. During the two weeks we were there we went to Bryon Bay which was about a 30 minute drive from where we were staying, we went to the St Paddy day races in Ballina and then went to Bryon Bay in the evening thinking it would be a good place to celebrate, but apparently everything shuts at midnight even on St Paddy’s day, which was very disappointing. We went on a few trips to the surrounding towns, but there wasn’t really much around so most of the time we would just be at the farm looking after the animals, and surprisingly I actually ended up helping out with the horses every day, and Judith even managed to ride Jimmy bare back and get his saddle on him which no one has done for a while. Unfortunately just before we were going to be leaving Sophie decided that she wanted to move on and do some travelling in other countries in the time she had off, so one morning I took her on a four hour round trip to Brisbane where she stayed the night until she got on a plane the next day to go to Airlie Beach and catch up with a family friend. It was sad to see her go but it’s good for her. So that just leaves Judith and Me to finish the journey to Alice Springs. When Gerry and Corinne got back home they offered us to stay a few days and so some work around the farm for cash, so naturally we agreed. Gerry taught us how to chainsaw, and I was cutting down trees and chopping them up into smaller pieces, not sure the English health and safety would approve but I’m still here so it can’t have been that bad, and he also taught us how to use and the front end loader tractor. Judith and I had great fun over those few days and we got paid for it, even better! Then it was time to leave and head on up to Surfers Paradise. 

Melbourne to Byron Bay

Here we go again then, the blogs have started, been a while since I left I know that but haven’t had good enough internet to do this with.

Judith and me landed in Melbourne late on the Sunday night and stayed with Liz, two days later Sophie arrived. That caused a bit of hassle bless her as she sent her flight details to my English number which I didn’t have any more, causing us to have to phone around friends back home in a panic trying to figure out what time she would be getting here. Eventually Josh managed to get the details from her sister and we made it to the airport, but the panic wasn’t over yet as her flight never arrived. One main problem is that because of the time of night there weren’t many staff around that could help us, finally we managed to find out that her flight had been delayed by 3 hours. When we caught sight of her through the gates, it was the best feeling ever as by this time it was about 2 in the morning and all we wanted to do was sleep. But we got her home and away we went.

Whilst we were in Melbourne Judith, Liz and I went on the neighbours’ tour, so worth it if you are a fan, was so strange to see the street and we meet Eve AKA Sonya. Judith, Sophie and Me then carried on the Melbourne fun by going to St Kilda beach, the National Museum, Geelong, they had a White Night festival whilst we were there as well, went to Karaoke, Melbourne Zoo, War memorial, and we toured the city on the City Tram and the City bus so we think we managed to see a lot of the city that most people wouldn’t end up seeing, went to the science and technology section in Federation Square.

After Melbourne we went to stay with a couple of my friends Graham and Lee and one of their friends Louise up in Ballarat, for the weekend, was really good to catch up with them all. We didn’t really do much whilst there apart from go Koala spotting up a small mountain and scaring Judith by going up a lookout tower whilst there.

Then it was time to hit the Great Ocean Road, with a quick stop off at Mt Eccles National Park, where we were surrounded by Kangaroos, Koalas and Possums all night, we even got to have a play in a Police car. The Great Ocean Road was really good, we spent two days driving  along it, starting off by stopping off at all the viewpoints but after about 6 stops we realised we could start missing out on a few of them, but we made sure we stopped at the 12 Apostles. When we got to Apollo bay we were going to go for a swim but decided the sea was way too cold and instead had fish and chips and a beer!!

Our next stop was Canberra, but unfortunately we didn’t get much time here as Corinne and Gerry (my bosses last year and this year) phoned and asked if we wanted to house sit for them, but they needed us up at Byron Bay area within a week, it was originally going to be about 2 weeks maybe a bit more. But we agreed to do it so we had one afternoon in Canberra which we spent at the Captain Cook water fountain and the Parliament house, considering none of us are the political sort it turned out to be a little bit boring so we made our way to the campsite we would be staying for the night. It appeared to be a very nice camp ground, a showground that was only used on week a year and the rest of the year it was a campsite, we woke up in the morning to a misty scene, which was really good for photos, but then things turned rubbish as Judith heard the caretakers wife bitching about us to some other campers, say how we must think it was hot as we were sat out in the sun at 9 in the morning, and how we have all our stuff everywhere (we had a tent, a car and three chairs so don’t know how she figured that one out!!) then she came over to us and started saying it all to our face. I have never felt so unwelcomed at a camp ground in my life, so we quickly packed up “all our stuff” and high-tailed it out of there!

After a few hours of driving we got to SYDNEY, now that was a bit of a pain to get into as we paid for one toll road and we really didn’t want to pay for another one so I decided to turn down a side road and go into the city through all the back roads. When you don’t actually have a point to head towards, other than the city centre it is actually really hard to find anywhere, eventually we found a hostel and just about managed to get two nights stay, but we had to find somewhere else to park the car as they only had six spaces, first car park we went into was going to cost us $280 for two nights so we moved on from that one and found another one still expensive but a lot better at a price of $120 for two nights. One the first night there we went out with the guy who was sharing our room, and we didn’t get back in until 4.30 in the morning! The next day was our only full day in Sydney, so we paid for the city tour bus as we thought this would be the quickest way to get around and see the sights. We managed to cram in a lot considering we didn’t start until 1ish. Saw the Oprah House and the Harbour Bridge, got the classic photos and moved on to Bondi Beach.

Next day we had a short trip through the Blue Mountains, and it’s true, the eucalyptus trees do give off a blue haze. It was a really pretty drive with lovely views, we went down a couple of look outs on the way, including one that (again) pushed Matt to the limits but he got us there, even if it did turn out to be a bit of a waste of time as the water fall we went down there for was another 2 hour walk away and none of us were prepared to do a two hour walk. We carried on through the mountains and did a loop to the other side where we found a national park to camp for the night. Over the next couple of days we were just driving up the Pacific Highway towards Byron Bay.

leaving Ross River finally!

Where to start…well it has been an amazing four months since I last updated you. I have settled very nicely into Ross River, turning it into my home away from home! I have done many things since I have been here, from cleaning toilets after the festival to throwing a cow tail at the Harts Range Rodeo the other weekend..and yes you did just read that right I throw a REAL cow tail and I was up there with the winners, I didn’t win unfortunately but it was still a bit of a chuckle. 

I now only have less than a week left here before I head off further out bush to work in a camp kitchen for this Art group that came to Ross River. I will be living in a place called Tempe Downs and sleeping in a swag for a month. Should be interesting. But the good news is that I will actually be getting paid! Seems like forever since I last had money going into my bank account.And this is where i will be living:

 As my lovely friend Judith mentioned to me it is only 62 days until I come home now, this time in 2 months I shall be landing back in Gatwick (or is it Heathrow…will have to double check that one) and back to the lovely cold weather of the English winter.
Even though it has been winter here for the last 2 months I have still been having better weather then England (sometimes it matches your weather with lows of about 12) with temperatures of about 20/30 during the day, it has been great this last week I have even been able to top up the tan and be in shorts and tshirts again. However the night time is when we have felt the freezing temperatures of winter, with temps dropping down as low as -5 some mornings, so don’t worry I do still know what the cold feels like. 

So what have I actually been doing in these last 4 months I hear you say…I started off as just a general busy body helping out with general maintenance and cleaning cabins, and then for a month I became a governess (home tutor type of thing) which was very interesting as Ziggy (the 8 year old I was teaching) had become very fond of me, causing some days to be very awkward. But we got through it without killing each other. After this I went back to cleaning cabins, and was originally meant to be leaving on the 12^th of July, after my 21^st birthday, which was just amazing. Everyone here made such an effort to make it special for me and we had an ‘M’ themed party. They all used their imaginations, and we had costumes ranging from a mime, to mincemeat man…yes…that’s right Cathal strapped two packets of minced meat to himself. Now I was actually all ready to leave Ross River this time and I had accepted the fact that I would have to leave, when suddenly I was given a job offer to go out to Tempe Downs and work in a camp kitchen (as mentioned above) this would mean that I would have to spend another month at Ross River, it didn’t take me long to accept that offer and change my train ticket for a 4^th time. So for the last month my job has mainly been painting all the cabins I think I am up to something like 16 cabins painted at the moment, with only 3 left to go, so really haven’t done a bad job there. Apart from the job side of life (if you can really call it the job side of life out here) I have been doing a few different things, I have been on 2 more helicopter rides, been to a 3 day festival, few not to memorable nights in town J, and just general parties for people leaving and birthdays. I really have made this place home and I will be sad to leave here, but it is good to have the knowledge that I am coming back here next year for another couple of months, don’t think I could ever stay away from here for too long, Shane, Jodie, the kids, Graham, Lee, Cathal and the rest of the gang have really made it so I have had the time of my life here, and I love them all for it.
But now, it is time to get on the road again and see what else is out there.

The Train and Beyond

An early start to the day as I had to be at the train station early to drop my car off, now Google maps said that it would take about 30 minutes to get there so I got up at 5 to get ready and then left at 6, however it turns out that it only took 10 minutes to get there. Kind of annoying as that meant I had even longer to wait until the train left. After a little sleep in the waiting room I was awakened by more people coming in. this must mean that it was getting close to leaving! So on the train we all went and I was sat next to another girl who was travelling by herself and we ended up chatting most of the way there unless we were sleeping. We made a stop in Katherine for a couple of hours, so we went to the coffee shop for a drink and then went to Woolworths to stock up on some food as it seemed like we were the only ones on the train that didn’t bring any food with them. We decided to go have something quick to eat from the dinning cart and when we sat down one of the staff guys brought us over a plate of cheese and biscuits, we didn’t know whether to say that we didn’t order it or not so we just decided to stay quiet and eat it, especially as we realised that it wasn’t even on the menu which means he must have made it specially for us! The ride was pretty boring after that just the same scenery plus a couple of cows! Before we knew it, it went dark and we went to sleep. Didn’t take long for the morning to come around and then a couple of hours later we arrived in Alice Springs!!!! I couldn’t believe that I was actually here at last, Alice Spring and Uluru are the main reasons I came to Australia, well that plus the Great Barrier Reef. We both went for a quick walk around town and got some breakfast, and then we went our separate ways again. Instead of staying in Alice I decided I was going to drive to the West McDonald Ranges, lovely drive once I figured out how to get there. Driving around I couldn’t get the smile off my face, I loved the change of scenery and the fact that it was a much dryer heat then Darwin. I first stopped off at this natural pool and went for a quick swim, nearly had the place to myself but then another two people turned up, wasn’t impressed. After this I pretty much drove straight to a place called Glen Helen, which is where I was going to be staying the night. It was still rather early when I got there so I saw that they were doing helicopter rides…after looking at the prices I decided that I could maybe just about afford the cheapest one they were doing. Unfortunately there had to be a minimum of 2 people in order for them to do a flight so I had to wait around to find out if anyone else that turned up would want to go for a ride. Thankfully a couple of hours later a tour bus turned up and a couple of ladies who wanted to go up. It only lasted for about 6 minutes but it was 6 minutes that I will remember it was the first time I had ever been in a helicopter and it hopefully won’t be the last. Once we got back I went on a walk and nearly got lost as I couldn’t find the next marker but it turned up finally and I was able to find my way back! Next morning I headed off back in the direction I came as annoyingly I couldn’t do the loop I wanted because I didn’t have a 4X4 L but I didn’t mind too much as it gave me a chance to stop at the stops that I didn’t do yesterday. At one of the stops I went up to the lookout but about half way up I had one of those moments where you realise that you shouldn’t be doing this by yourself especially because no one knows that you are there. The walk to get to the lookout was more of a climb then a walk and there were a couple of shear drops which slightly worried me a little but I got there and it was worth it! And the main thing is, is that I managed to get back down again. I carried on with my drive back to Alice and went through Alice to the Ross River Highway and ended up at the Ross River Homestead. It seemed a little odd when I first got there as there seemed to be no one around so I just set up my tent and read my book whilst I waited for people to be around. A few minutes later the owner, Shane, comes back and says ‘you fancy a drive’, and without thinking about it I said yes. So we jumped into his 4X4 and off we went, he showed me around his “back garden”, which is a massive outback station, and we went to his windmill that he had just fixed as he wanted to make a fishing pond for himself, so he had to fix the windmill so that he could get the water pumping again. After the drive I had fallen in love with the place, it was perfect and somewhere my dad would be very jealous of. Shane was already trying to talk me into staying for longer than one night but unfortunately I had my train booked and I didn’t think I would be able to get my money back, so I told him I would stay for another night as a compromise. This gave me the chance to get to know the other guys that were working there, we spent the day playing pool, and we went rock climbing down at John Hays Rock pool, amazing natural pools. The next day I was meant to be heading to Uluru, and it turned out that the two Scottish guys who I meet wanted to go as well, but they couldn’t drive and were going to get a tour there, so I told them they could come along with me if they could get the time off work, which they did and the 3 of us set off for Uluru and Kings Canyon the following morning. After a long drive we eventually saw what we thought was Uluru, but it turns out that it was another mountain called Mt. Connor, apparently everyone gets it confused so it has been nicknamed Falsaru. So my two new travel buddies and me headed off again and carried on down the long, straight road eventually to see the real Uluru. To start off with I didn’t think that it looked that impressive as Mt. Connor was bigger and looked better, but we were prepared to give it a chance (after all we had just driven all that way!) however the giving it a chance would have to wait till the next day as by the time we got into camp none of us could be bothered to go to see the sunset, so we went and cooked dinner and started on the drinking! It was during this drinking session that I decide that I was going to stay at Ross River for a month, now I could blame Dan and Chris for this but at the end of the day they hardly had to persuade me much! After a bottle of rum and a bottle of Jack Daniels between the three of us, we decided it was time for bed. When we eventually ventured out the next day we headed into Uluru and bravely decided to do the 10Km walk around the base of Uluru, starting off very enthusiastically and with only a bottle of water each in the mid-day heat, it wasn’t very long until we realised what a stupid idea it was! Even though the time of day wasn’t great, the actual walk it’s self was pretty cool, what I didn’t realise on the other hand is that a lot of the walk you are not allowed to take photos because they are sacred sites to the aboriginals, which is a bit of a shame because when you weren’t meant to take a photo is when you really wanted to take a photo…but don’t worry we managed to get a few sneaky photos in (well can you blame us, the rock looked really cool, we needed to get photos). After a hot, near four hour walk, we finally reached the beginning again, and then, much to our annoyance we realised that the climb was open, but by this point we were all knackered from the walk so we didn’t end up climbing Uluru. So back to the camp we went, where we thought that we would go for a lovely peaceful swim as we saw that no one else was in the pool. Unfortunately this is not what happened, as after about 10 minutes a girls school group decided to come join us and the pool was overtaken by them. We stayed in the pool for about half an hour before we decided to call it quits. After an early dinner we all went off to watch the sunset over Uluru, I was a little bit disappointed with the sunset, as everyone always hypes it up but it just seemed a little rubbish because there is a sunset viewing park that you are told you should go to, but looking back at it now, I would have gone further round and seen it from a different angle. The sunrise the next morning, on the other hand, was impressive. It was only Dan and myself that ended up watching the sunrise as Chris didn’t want to wake up at 5 in the morning, again we went to the actual sunrise viewing area, where we both found a good spot which was free from everyone else, but after about 10 minutes we got invaded by everyone else and we had to fight to keep our spot. But sunrise was lovely, the shadows that all the ridges on the rock made looked amazing and defiantly made it worthwhile waking up at five in the morning. After waking Chris up when we got back we packed up camp and headed off on the road again towards Kings Canyon, this was only about a 3 hour drive if I remember rightly. So we got there just after midday, and we had the choice of going to the camp site first or to go straight into Kings Canyon, we decided on going straight to Kings Canyon. Now you would have thought that we would have learnt from our mistake yesterday that doing any sort of walking in the midday heat was a stupid idea, we didn’t. It was 1 in the afternoon and the idea of doing a 3 hour climb/walk sounded like a good idea to us!! Least we weren’t the only ones being stupid. The first part was a gruelling climb up the side of the cliff (ok there were steps but it was still a near straight up climb) once you got to the top of this section the view was instantly wonderful, but that wasn’t the highest part yet. The rest of the walk was pretty easy just having to follow the ‘path’ then we saw that there was a water hole that you could go swimming in, but we were still a little while away so we missioned it to the water hole only stopping every now and then to take some photos of the scenery.  We eventually got down to the water hole, all feeling the heat, me the most, so we just sat in the shade for a bit before plunging into the near freezing cold water. But man it was refreshing. We carried on along the walk and reached the top, the view was breath taking you could see all along the canyon and beyond. Considering how long it took us to walk to the top, it only took us about five minutes to walk down again, and we were back in the car park before we knew it. Next stop was the camp site, first of all we were thinking about getting a cabin as we were all really tired and wanted a good night sleep, but they were fully booked so that put a stop to that idea, tent it was then. Once we set up the tent and swag, we were all getting a little tired and grumpy with each other so we went for a little sleep before attempting to cook dinner. The ladies that were camping next to us, warned us not to leave any food in our tent as the night before they had left bread in their tent and dingo’s ripped the tent open to get to it. So that night we made sure that there was not food anywhere in or around the tent, but I woke up in the middle of the night to Dan cuddling into me swearing because he had seen and heard a dingo outside, and from that point on, it wasn’t a good night’s sleep as we were both worried that a dingo was going to attack us. This is just what I needed considering I had a 6 hour drive to do the next day! Once we got back to Ross River I broke the news to them that I would be staying for another month, and they were more than happy about that news, it was just the matter of figuring out where I would be sleeping but that was sorted out pretty quickly. So that was it, I am now a fully fletched member of the Ross River gang. And all I have to do is work for four hours 5 days a week and I get free accommodation and free food every day, so really not a bad deal. During the afternoons we try and keep ourselves busy by either going down the John Hays waterhole, or random drives around the property. During a couple of the evenings we have gone for a camp fire up on Contiki Hill, and camped there over night, where Cathal decided to dance on top of his car before going to sleep and when we woke up in the morning we saw the massive dents in the top of his car. I have also been on another helicopter since I have been here; Dan took me on a ride over what I call our ‘back garden’. This was pretty amazing as I got to see where everything was. Since I have been here I have decided that I am now staying for 3 months because if I work here for 88 days then I will be able to apply for my second year visa. I still don’t know if I want my second year visa but this was least I will have the option of it if I do want to stay longer, but don’t worry I will still be coming home in November for a few months.