So wild. I'm sitting here on the bus (a 10 hour bus from airlie beach to cairns) and I'm just baffled by how fast the last month has gone by.
It's been about a week since my last post, so I'm giving myself a pat on the back for not letting an absurd amount of time pass.
Last we left off josh and I had just gotten to rainbow, which was a bit of a shit hole. Our hostel was more of a villa style and inside it was full of dirt and past guests' garbage. If you were brave enough to open any of the cupboards you would find old rotting food and used latex gloves... But I guess that's what 17$ gets you in Australia, the most expensive country on the planet.
Didn't do much that day other than a workout where I came face to face with a massive cockroach who literally sprinted towards me as I was lying in the grass. Thankfully I spotted him, jumped up, booted him as hard as I could and sprinted away. What was the most frightening was seeing him 20 mins later right beside me at the end of the workout. Clearly he was stalking me and that is pretty terrifying.
That night we hung out a bit with our roommates and they were pretty meh... Rainbow beach was pretty meh.
Caught up with the mikster the next day and headed to our Fraser island trip briefing. Fraser island is meant to be one of the most beautiful spots in Australia. It's basically a giant sand island that's been marked as a world heritage site where 90% of the things that grow there don't grow anywhere else in the world. We signed up to do a 2 night trip on the island where you drive 4WD along the beaches all day, check out the best spots and camp.
We met or car mates, 4 Germans named Henrike, Charlie, Minh and Max as we as this 30 year old Irish woman who's name is currently escaping me. After a quick grocery shop for the trip the excitement of the day was pretty much over and we went to bed.
The next morning we woke up, loaded the jeeps and headed to Fraser. Right away we knew our guide, jimmy, was going to be a total whack job but definitely also entertaining. He was a middle aged man who looked about 70 with a Baseball glove appearance to his face and brown or missing teeth. We had another guide with us named Beaver who somehow knew all about hockey and talked with the boys about it for ages. He once used the phrase "shiver me timbers" in a totally sincere and not joking way which made the boys laugh for like 20 minutes.
Back to Fraser... So the first day was awful and given the choice that day I would have gladly returned to our bug infested hostel. It poured on us all day, and 20 minutes in one of the cars broke down. Our guides disappeared to fix the car for 3 hours without telling us anything and left us at a beach where we sat in the car and waited for them to come back and get us. Eventually some random man who "didn't work for the company but was going to start soon" picked us up and took us to a cafe where we continued to wait and thankfully beaver and jimmy did eventually come get us. Finally we did get to the campsite where our car had a BBQ, then the whole group had a bit of a party night. We were with two other cars, including one filled with Swedish girls that the boys obviously loved and I actually kind of did too. Jimmy gave us the long and true version of the woman who's baby got eaten by the dingo ("the dingo ate my baby") and also instructed us that if you ever get chased by an alligator you should run in circles. We got a rousing game of ride the bus going, then animal, and eventually crashed. I got woken up by josh and mike absolutely shrieking in terror about some giant ant on our tent. Such babies i'm traveling with.
The next day, thankfully, was gorgeous. We got an early start and headed to the champagne pools, which are these pools created by the native people to catch fish from the ocean. We played in there for a bit then did a mini hike up Indian head where we saw one of the best views of the trip, all on fb of course. I had my turn driving on this day and it was pretty cool to both drive on the wrong side of the car and on the beach. Beaver took us to this place called Eli creek where the creek is basically a lazy river but it's full of eels. We passed on it and when we got back to the cars the transport inspectors were ticketing beaver because our car's hand break didn't work. A little sketchy and him and jimmy had to take it in and have it repaired, just another little incident of the trip or as jimmy would say, "all part of the adventure". In the afternoon beaver took us sand boarding on what at first appeared to be a death cliff. Eventually we all worked up the courage to go down and it was heaps of fun, josh even took a snowboard down it and did pretty good. The only bad part about it was that it was a 20 minute walk up a giant sand dune in the blazing heat, and for those of you who don't know this, walking up a sand dune is the hardest form of walking. So tiring. We got back to the site and had a bit less of a party than the night before and headed to bed.
On the last day we got up, packed up the site and took the cars to check out this shipwreck (pictures on fb). It was pretty cool to see a giant steel boat washed up on shore. Apparently it's been there for years and its starting to fall apart. We saw a picture of the boat from before the crash and it looked pretty big and sturdy, so there's just one more reason to fear the ocean.
Speaking of fear... I have become increasingly aware of how much death surrounds you in Australia. Everywhere you go (especially on Fraser) there are venomous snakes and spiders. On Fraser we were actually told never to walk anywhere alone because it was too dangerous, and we were also given dingo sticks which are long poles used to defend yourself if a group of dingos chooses to come after you. All very very scary especially in the darkness.
Anyways back to our last day... We finished the trip up at lake Mackenzie, which is what they told us is the pinnacle of Fraser. On the way there our guide's car popped a tire and we sat for 45 minutes waiting for someone to fix it because he didn't have a jack...... Brutal. Lake Mackenzie was nice, but I think it was a bit of a disappointment. Either way we had fun swimming with the Germans and the weather was great so it wasn't a bad way to end the trip... Little did we know the adventure wasn't over yet.
On the drive back, we noticed we had very little gas. Jimmy waved it off saying we'd be fine. We weren't. We ran out of gas... In the worst possible place. Josh was driving when we ran out midway through a 20 meter stretch with the highest tide we'd seen. We stopped right as a giant wave hit us, and they kept coming after that for a few minutes. I didn't realize how bad this was until I saw jimmy and beaver sprinting towards us in panic. Obviously the sub tank was empty, so jimmy hopped in and just revd the engine until somehow the car drove again, but only after absolutely destroying beaver for not knowing how to do it. What a whack job. And so ends our time in Fraser. Despite all the mishaps, it was perhaps the best 2 days of the trip and definitely one of the most beautiful places we've been. Didn't hurt that we had sick company in our car either.
We got back to our dirty hostel, actually happy to be there because it was a room and not a tent. That night we partied with the Germans and another friend Adrian and despite the fact that we didn't leave the picnic table we started at all night it was a really fun night, despite Minh being a hooligan and pushing me fully clothed into the pool. I got back to the room before the boys that night and me and my 7 foot tall male roommate spent an hour hopping from bed to bed dodging cockroaches, he frantically killing them with cockroach spray and me pointing and screaming... The cockroach massacres continued the next morning.
Finally we were ready to leave rainbow. Josh and I hit the beach with the Germans. It wasn't a spectacular beach but definitely nice. After that the three of us hopped on the greyhound for an 18 hour trip to airlie beach. It's disgusting how much time we've spent on the greyhound... I think it's close to 50 hours now. Josh got stuck with this Canadian freak beside him who small talked him the whole trip about a lot of weird stuff, but we also met another cool Canadian so I guess it all balances out.
Finally the next morning we got to Airlie, a cute little town with a wasaga vibe. Like Brisbane it had a manmade lagoon where we spent most of our time. We couldn't swim in the water because it's infested with jellyfish, another thing in Australia actively looking to harm you.
The Germans caught up with us on the second day and we were very happy to see them. We had a nice family bbq and even treated ourselves to a cake for dessert. That night we all hit the strip (kind of a sad excuse for a strip) and had a not so hot night out. Minh woke us up bright and early the next day to take mike and I to a waterfall. I will admit, before I came on this trip I was expecting to see a waterfall a day... Once again I was wrong, this is only the 2nd real waterfall we have seen, but it was awesome. We played in it or ages and then had a very long photoshops which will undoubtedly be popping onto your newsfeed any day now. Josh would've come but he was unfortunately dealing with a paralyzing hangover. this reminds me that I haven't told you guys about goon, which is the only thing we've been drinking in australia. Basically it's boxed "wine" if it can be called that and you can get 5 liters for 11$. Of course, with this deal comes a trade off... I've tried not to look too much into it but I know that goon contains traces of things like fish bone, fish eggs and other questionable ingredients. I don't understand how it exists but it does and it somehow tastes delicious. The most unfortunate thing about it is that when you wake up the next day it feels like an 18 wheeler has driven through one ear and out the other, as josh so accurately exhibited on this fine morning.
We had to say goodbye to Minh and max that afternoon because they were getting on a sailboat to check out Whitsundays (a place much to expensive for us but that I would've loved to do) but we got to party with Henrike and Charlie one more night. We also got one last chance to catch up with Annie, Laura and Seren a they got there on our last night. We had a big party in our room with our swiss roommates and night out and it was a pretty good way to say goodbye to everyone.
That brings me to this morning. By 8am we were up as hauling our sad selves to the greyhound station for a 10 hour trip up to our last stop, cairns, which is like the mecca for backpacker partying. We'll be there for four nights and then we say goodbye to this beautiful country, but for now I'm not going to burden myself with those sad thoughts.
Thanks for sticking with me as always! In 3 weeks we can have all these discussions in person back on the homeland xoxo
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