Day 73

Thursday 13^th January 2011

Car, Boat, Plane, Train, Plane, Car is the plan for today. We are up early to get down to Abel Point Marina to catch the ferry to Hamilton Island. We do manage to grab some breakfast at a café overlooking the water.

A couple of cockatoos were also up and about…

The ferry transfer was very pleasant – although the weather still hasn’t really decided  what to do with itself. It was 90 mins of a combination of blisteringly hot sunshine, rain and thick grey cloud.

Not that I really care anymore about the unpredictable Aussie weather – we’re heading to Thailand today!

Our flight out of Hamilton Island is on time and uneventful so we reach Sydney for 3.30pm. We land at the domestic terminal to discover that we have to catch a train to the international terminal – and pay $5 for the privilege!!!

Leaving Australia is a mixed bag of feelings – I’ve really enjoyed it but we’ve spent an absolute fortune despite living as frugally as we can. I’m looking forward to eating out in restaurants again and not paying over £4 for an undersized pint of lager!

We try the ‘honeymoon’ card again – well the guy on check in doesn’t know we’ve been at this for 10 weeks now does he? And we get the standard answer – the plane is completely full. There are no upgrades and no leg room seats available. But he HAS managed to seat us together!

We have a final Aussie McDonald’s – weight is soaring but it’s all we can afford as we only have $30 left (£20 – yes £20 to eat at Maccas!). Another good reason to get out of Australia while we can still fit in the plane seats.

We board our flight to discover that not only is it half empty but there is an entire row of seats available at the emergency exit. Lying b*£$%d at check in!!! We are informed that we must remain in our allocated seats for take off as the weight distribution of the plane has been taken into account with the seat allocation but that as soon as the captain turns the seat belt signs off we are free to move. This sounds like a great idea but we are on the back row of the plane – some 30 rows from the exit seats – and a number of passengers have their beady eyes on those coveted seats.

The seat belt sign is flicked off only minutes into the flight – GO! I yell at Franky and he dives out of his aisle seat and starts hurtling down the plane before anyone else realises what has happened. I’m hot on his heels and we make it. I narrowly dive into the row just ahead of another guy who only had 4 rows to move – ha ha ha!

We settle into our 9 hour flight in relative comfort. We pass the time watching the films on offer… The Switch and Dinner with Schmucks for me and

Wall St

and Salt for Franky. We nap a little and eat a little and before we know it we’re touching down smoothly in Bangkok where the local time is 11.00pm. We’re getting pretty used to these long hauls now!

Bangkok’s airport is HUGE and it’s a small hike to immigration. Sergeant Major Franky has me racing through the airport to beat the queues and it works so we sail through, grab the bags and head outside to hail a cab – the last in our numerous modes of transport for the day.

It’s 45 mins or so to the centre of Bangkok and then another 20 were spent aimlessly driving round looking for the Amarin Inn. The taxi driver finally caves and rings for directions – which is good job – we’d never have found it as it is positioned down a tiny alley that almost doesn’t fit me and my backpack down it. As we check into the room we discover that it is not only the access to the hotel that is tiny – our room is a double bed and a half a square metre of floor space to dump two bags. But it’s clean and air conditioned so there’s no complaints.

We collapse into bed at about 2.00am, absolutely shattered from our day of travelling.

Day 72

Wednesday 12^th January 2011

My dislike of Steve was increasing exponentially as the trip continued. It reached a peak at 7.00am this morning when he demanded that we get out of the sweat pit allocated for us to sleep in. After drenching the sheets, my hair and the T-Shirt I was wearing with cold water I had managed a little more sleep than the previous night but not a sufficient quantity to have me leaping out of bed all bright and refreshed at 7.00am.

It wasn’t clear why we had to get up either…. We weren’t sailing until 7.45am and then we were simply heading back to Airlie Beach to disembark.

However, there was no arguing so we got up….. and went up on deck to try and continue sleeping. This is not the easiest feat as the deck space was limited and cluttered with ropes and various other bits of paraphernalia that I am sure were crucial to the operation of the boat but which generally got in the way of my sunbathing / sleeping. Today was definitely about sleeping as there was no sun to be seen, just thick cloud and the odd spattering of rain. This rain was nothing to that which was falling in Brisbane though - it seems we had got out just in time as 20 000 homes were now under water as the Brisbane River had broken its banks, including the apartment building we had stayed in just 3 days earlier.

We sailed back into the Marina at 10.45am and disembarked. The plan was to meet up at Phoenix bar at 7.30pm that evening for free pizza and to ‘continue the party’ as Steve put it. I’m not sure which boat he had been on for the last 3 days but there were only a select few of us partying (and he hadn’t been one of them!)

We walked back into town and back to Harry’s café for some brunch. We couldn’t check into our room until 12.30pm. This was frustrating because we were absolutely knackered after 2 nights sleep deprivation in the super hot cabin. We couldn’t wait to get back to the air conditioned comfort of the room with a full sized bed.

At 12.29pm I was in the queue demanding our room key… to be told we were back in the same room we had vacated 3 days ago. I hoped the bed had dried out!

It had and we gratefully fell into it. I slept until about 3.00pm and then went downstairs with the laptop as we’d paid for 24 hours internet. Sleeping Beauty finally surfaced around 6.00pm.

We got showered and packed as the flood dodging Pommies were fleeing the country the following morning. 7.30pm soon came around and we headed down to Phoenix Bar. The German couple had turned up. They were both nice enough but he didn’t speak a word of English which made conversation none existent. His girlfriend could converse pretty well but I felt really rude chatting to her when he was completely left out. Karen and David, the Irish couple also showed up…. And that was it! Even Steve and Michelle didn’t bother – I think that sums up the ‘party atmosphere’ on our boat. The deal was that if we bought a drink we would all get half a Dominos pizza for free at 8.30pm so we decided to stay for that. This was painful as the bar’s owner was also the DJ and favoured hard core dance music – not my cup of tea at the best of times and certainly not before tea! The pizzas arrived at about 9.00pm and at 9.15pm we left the bar. Karen and Dave had the good sense to join us.

We wandered into Magnums for a drink. I thought Dave might be up for big night after his tea total day on the boat but they hadn’t spent the afternoon in bed and were absolutely knackered so not much company. We had one drink with them and then they headed off to bed. We had another one in Beaches, our hostel bar, and then headed off to bed ourselves. We’ve a full day of travelling ahead of us tomorrow.

Day 71

Tuesday 11^th January 2011

Well we didn’t sleep a wink. It was ridiculously hot in the cupboard of a bedroom and seeing as the engine was underneath our bed, we weren’t going to get any sleep when we got going.

We gathered for a breakfast of cereal and coffee as Steve set off for the next stop. Some of the group tried to get a bit of sleep on deck I was just grateful for the breeze and couldn’t wait to get into the water to cool off. Just over an hour later we were at our first snorkelling site of the day. I leapt into my stinger suit (due to the box jellyfish) and was pleased to have been deemed good enough to have flippers.

I jumped into the cool water and swam over to the reef. Most of the group followed suit. Steve rated yesterdays reef as a 6 out of 10 but rated this one as an 8. I was unclear as to how the rating system worked but I couldn’t tell the difference. Steve boasted that what made his tour different was that he took you to parts of the reef that others don’t, I was starting to realise why the other tours stuck to certain bits of reef, probably because the reef and fish are better there!

We saw some fish and the coral was ok but it wasn’t like you were surrounded by shoals and shoals of fish or the coral blew your mind, it was just, ok. Disappointing. We headed for our final snorkelling site and most of the group stayed on the boat, this was probably due the fact that the sites we were getting taken to were bobbins. Me and Suz decided to give it one more go and plunged into the deep blue. We were glad we did. We swam with another turtle and the reef was more vibrant and healthy. Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted something really small that hid as it saw me, I turned around to investigate and found a baby turtle hiding in the reef. I got Suzi’s attention and we swan down for a closer look. It was amazing. After that we went to White Haven beach, the most beautiful beach I have ever had the pleasure of lying on.

The sand is like flour and is so clean it actually squeaks as you walk on it. We were told that this is because the sand is 98% silica.

Whatever it was, it was staggering. We took a well earned nap until a few spots of rain woke me up. So with nothing else to do and an hour and a half to kill I dug a hole.

Suz woke up just as I finished and I told her that my plan was to put her in the hole and cover her up. Then make her a mermaid. She wasn’t keen. So I jumped in the hole myself and asked Suz to fill the hole in. She reluctantly obliged and dragged herself off her towel, she soon got into it though and spotting our fun from down the beach Dave and his missus Karen arrived to help out. We stuck to the same plan and made me into a mermaid. Well, it killed some time right?!

Regrettably, it was time to go back to Narra Bay, so we got back on the boat and set off. By this time the prospect of staying another night in the box was not appealing and I could have happily gone back to shore, but instead we went back to the same spot as last night. Dave was still feeling rough from last night so it was just me and Suz having a drink. I didn’t fancy the idea of carrying beer off the boat so instructed Suz to step up the pace.

We ate Spag Bol for tea (and the Italians didn’t get involved) which was average and then settled in for another night of drink and chat. I went to get my head torch as Steve said that it was common to see tiger sharks around the bay but I didn’t see any.

We managed to drink all but one of the beers but due to lack of sleep, and swimming all day we were all in bed for 22:00. Me and Suz decided to take a couple of blue tablets to aid the sleep. This helped and before long we were asleep, still sweating, but asleep none the less.

Day 70

Monday 10^th January 2011

Hold on a minute… this doesn’t feel like the bed I went to sleep in, oh yeah, it isn’t the bed I went to sleep in, what’s going on? Oh I remember…Suz is gonna be mad! Is the general gist of how the day started. I took myself to the shower and tried to negotiate with my hangover (which was a bit of a belter!)

We checked out for 10:00 and had to check in for our “Cruise around the Whitsundays”. After a spot of brekkie at Harry’s I had to go on the hunt to replace my lost hat and shades. I had left them in the taxi in Brisbane the day before. That sorted we headed down to the harbour to stock up on some booze and meet the group we were going sailing with.




36 cans of beer and a box of Sminoff and blood orange should do the trick just nicely, although when we bought it I was trying to convince Suz that I wouldn’t be drinking that day. We sat down with our group which consisted of an American, two Italians, Two Swedes, two Germans and not a drop of alcohol between them. Oh dear, where going to be the annoying drunk people….again! We were informed that we were waiting on two other people who had literally just booked on the trip. Ten minutes later and mercifully, an Irish bloke and his missus rounded the corner carrying a big box of VB bitter, drinking buddies, alright! We boarded the boat and met the crew.

Now, I don’t want give you the wrong impression here buy saying that we were on a cruise. The boat was tiny, like really tiny and when I say crew, well, that consisted of Steve (a really obnoxious, sexist, know it all Aussie skipper) and Michelle (the deck girl/ chef from Hull).

We were briefed on safety, how long to flush a toilet for when at sea (15 seconds if you're interested) and where our muster point was, I forget now but he did tell us where it was. We were also told not to leave lights on as we needed the electricity to last three days, anybody who left a light on would have to eat a spoonful of Vegimite, eeewwwwwww!!!

We set sail and headed out around some islands for a few hours, I was starting to feel a little better and so under pressure from Dave (Irish fella) we started drinking again.

After about three hours we stopped and had a snorkel around, this was explained by Steve as a training site to see who could swim etc etc.

We spent about an hour in there, we swam with a turtle for about five minutes until he sped off and saw loads of parrot fish. The only down side was that as soon as the Kodak Underwater camera we had bought (and used to good effect all around the world) touched the sea it died. It leaked and filled up with water, we bought the sodding thing specifically for the Whitsundays!!!

Back on board the boat Michelle started tea whilst us and the Irish tucked into the beers once more. After tea Steve called us all to sit around and we played a breaking the ice game, where you from, how long have you been travelling, favourite place blah blah blah. We moored up for the night at a place called Narra Bay and spent it swallowing huge amounts of beer and unfortunately for me, a huge spoonful of Vegimite, I left my bathroom light on and Steve was onto it in a flash, for the record, Vegimite is the most disgusting thing I have ever put into my mouth!.

Dave got more Irish as the night progressed and was absolutely incoherent by 22:00. When he went to bed he couldnt work out how to take his shorts of so he just gave them a good pull and ripped a hole in the groin area, he had to wear these shorts for the next two days.

We all decided to call it a night and went to bed. The rooms were so so so so so so so small and so so hot. The room was basically a single bed, that was it, you crawled onto the bed, closed the door and then sweated all night, yippee! I was talking to my Mum the other day about the cruise and the possibility that it might rain. She said, “oh don’t worry about it raining, if it does you just go to one on the bars”. It really isn’t one of those cruises!!

Day 69

Sunday 9^th January 2011

We had to check out of the apartment at 10.30am. This wasn’t pleasant and was made worse by the fact that it was absolutely shuttering down with rain outside. We went up to the Sky Lounge on the 36^th floor to read for a bit in the hope it would clear. You get a pretty good view from up there and can see the rain coming form about a mile away. It was pretty much IN the clouds when we arrived but it did get a little brighter and so we took the opportunity to head out.

Franky wanted some new flip flops / thongs/ jandals (choose the name depending on where you come from) so we made our way into town. He opted for these crocs – very understated don’t you think!

We had a coffee and after that we were pretty much hanging around and waiting to leave Brisbane. The rains were coming again so got a taxi to the airport a bit earlier than necessary. We thought if we left it any longer we might need an ark!!!

The check in wasn’t yet open, despite it being only two and a half hours to departure and the narky staff at Brisbane airport took great offence to us trying to queue within the barriers at the check in desk in an orderly fashion. Apparently our desire to queue was interfering with their break! We were made to sit with our bags beyond the barriers – this seemed to be in the way of everyone else trying to move around the airport and create something of a hazard but we thought it better not to argue.

At exactly two hours to our departure time we were allowed to make a queue and check in. We were offered emergency exit row seats at now extra cost though – yay!

The domestic terminal didn’t have a great deal to offer. We grabbed some food (still courtesy of the insurance company) and then headed to the gate. The flight was delayed …… Grrrrr! Amazingly this was the first flight we have had that has been delayed which is surprising given that this was flight number 13….. definitely the unlucky one!

The flight, when it did take off, was uneventful and touched down in Proserpine just an hour or so behind schedule. Proserpine is the smallest, most backward airport we have encountered thus far. They don’t even have a luggage carousel! It would also appear that they have one baggage handler who had one speed – somewhere between snail and reverse! Upon landing we walked straight through the corrugated iron shed that they ambitiously call a ‘terminal building’ straight onto the road beyond. Did we miss baggage claim along the way? Nope – we joined the sea of passengers waiting at the side of the ‘terminal building’. From here we could see the passengers now boarding our newly arrived plane, and the plane taking off! Still no sign of our luggage! We were getting a little exasperated – especially given the number of mosquitoes dive bombing us. They must love this arrangement - 9.00pm every evening a hole throng of unprotected tourists forced to loiter for luggage = LUNCH!!!! Eventually the luggage was brought – still on the flat bed trucks that it was offloaded from the plane onto. The trucks were parked up and then it was a free for all to try and find your bags!

It was fairly uncomplicated to arrange a shared minibus transfer to Airlie Beach – and half an hour later we were checked in to our new home – Beaches Backpackers. Again we had booked a ‘private double room’. This one was HUGE! It obviously used to be an 8 man dorm and they had cleared out the bunks and left just a double bed and a single. It also hadn’t had any maintenance since the early 1960s when it was built! But it was only for one night.

We threw the bags down and headed down to the hostel bar in search of liquid refreshment. After a couple of $10 jugs (it was happy hour) we thought we’d get ourselves settled somewhere to watch Utd v Liverpool which would be on at 10.45pm our time.

Next door at Paddy Shennigans (can you guess the origins of this bar?!) they had a number of screens showing sport, live music and $7 jugs all night – woo hoo! We spent the evening here with a group of Irish guys and gals and watched the footie. There were a couple of Liverpool fans in too so it was all very friendly as I’m sure you can imagine. It finished 1-0 with Giggs scoring the only goal, unlucky Mr Dagleish.

Franky was enjoying the banter and the beer (maybe a little too much as you will see)! It was late when we left the bar. We hadn’t had any tea so the pie shop across the road being open was a bonus! Franky garbled rubbish at me as we made our way back to the hostel in search of our bed. I fell into bed at 2.45am and promptly fell asleep.

I awoke some hours later a little confused about why the bed was wet……. and wondering about the whereabouts of my husband! Those of you who know him well (John) and in fact anyone who heard John’s speech at the wedding will know what had occurred. I, on the other hand was drunk, disorientated and asleep so it took me a little longer to put 2 and 2 together. Then it dawned on me – it had finally happened, Franky had performed his party piece and I had officially been christened!!! What is even more galling is that on realising his accident my beloved husband went to the bathroom, took off his wet boxer shorts…. and then got into the single (DRY) bed across the room. And me? Well he left me asleep to figure it out in my own time!!!!

Day 68

Saturday 8^th January 2011

We woke up with a stretch after a great night’s sleep in time to skype Helen and Eric – very entertaining as they were both pissed. They were on the Caffreys and wine (not mixed) and we were on orange juice and muesli!!!

As we sat on the couch looking out across Brisbane we could see the rain coming in and sure enough 10 mins later it was pouring down again. They call Queensland the Sunshine State – it’s anything but!

We whiled away the morning posting the blog and watching a documentary about honey badgers on TV – you really can’t predict the knowledge you’ll pick up whilst travelling!

By lunchtime the sky seemed to be clearing a bit, in that it was light grey and not black so we ventured out.

We had a wander into town to off load some second hand books. We need to drop some weight as we’re flying to Airlie with only a 20kg baggage allowance and all our other flights we’re allowed 23kg. We were going to post some stuff home until we found out how ridiculously expensive that was – with less than a month to go it doesn’t seem worth it. Instead we’ve bought some of those vacuum bags that you put your winter clothes and quilts away in and packed down all the stuff we don’t reckon we’ll need – mainly jumpers, hats, walking socks etc. So still carrying the weight but the bags shouldn’t be so much of an arse to pack anymore! Good news since this is probably my least favourite bit of the travelling process.

We were headed roughly in the direction of Brsibane’s cricket ground, also known as the Gabba stadium. It seemed appropriate as the 5^th test of the Ashes finished in Sydney yesterday and England were taking the Ashes back home with them in victory.

Along the way we found ourselves wandering through the Botanical gardens with lily ponds and HUGE trees.

 

We crossed the Brisbane river and found the Gabba – OK it wasn’t that difficult given the enormous flood lights. To Franky’s disappointment it was all shut up with no tours or anything – I secretly suspect he was using this as an excuse to further gloat at the Aussies. We had a mooch around the outside and headed back towards central Brisbane on the ferry.

 

This is the ‘famous’ Storey Bridge in the background – a poor cousin of Sydney’s I think!

We jumped off the ferry at the South bank. There’s a man made beach here which was pretty quiet for a Saturday – but not that surprising considering the lousy weather.

We also discovered lots of restaurants and bars in this area. We were pretty hungry as it was now 4pm and we hadn’t had lunch so opted for The Plough which did good steak and live music – always a winner! We wouldn’t usually be choosing the most expensive thing on the menu but since this meal should be on the insurance company…. Why not?

After lunch/tea we walked back down the Southern bank of the river and crossed the bridge directly in front of our apartment block.

It was time for a Frank nap for some and so I got to monopolise the lap top for a bit.

We got our glad rags on, ready to see what Brisbane had to offer on a Saturday night. Franky even IRONED his shirt! – neither of us has seen an iron for 68 days! The rain was back so we decided to have a few beers in the apartment before heading out – hardly a hardship as we were sat on the balcony with amazing views of the city. When the Becks supply was exhausted we were forced to leave!

We headed back to The Plough as they had been advertising live music. Sure enough there was a guy playing acoustic covers – so we grabbed a table. It seemed some of the patrons of this bar had been on the beer since our earlier visit at lunchtime – especially one Scottish lad who was celebrating his 21^st birthday (which apparently he’s been celebrating since Tuesday!). He was proudly wearing his kilt, and equally proudly proving that he was a true Scotsman.

The bar shut at midnight and we were forced to source further entertainment. We had been advised that

Boundary Street was good for live music and late night bars. Map in hand, we headed off in that direction. 10 mins later we found Boundary Street.

 

Another great Aussie road sign!

Unfortunately it seemed that the bands were finished for the night but they were still serving drinks for the next hour so we joined the throng for another beer.

At 1.00am they were winding down so we headed back to the apartment for cheese on toast and a night cap – if you can call red wine a night cap!

We did some drunken packing as we have to check out at 10.30am tomorrow and fell into bed at around 2.30am.

Day 67

Friday 7^th January 2011

Having decided to head to Brisbane we had to be up and out of the hostel by 8.30am. We got a free transfer to the bus station and jumped aboard a coach to Brisbane. The journey was fairly uneventful apart from the fact that it poured with rain the whole way. I got stuck into my book and Franky typed up the Fraser Island buts of the blog ready to post as soon as we got wifi again.

We arrived in Brisbane at 1.40pm and got a taxi to our apartment. The apartments are about 500 yards from the transit centre but:

-          we didn’t know that

-          our bags are bloody heavy

-          AND most importantly the insurance company are paying!!!

We checked in and were thrilled to check out our new pad. It’s on the 31st floor overlooking the Brisbane river so the views are amazing.

We have  floor to ceiling windows that pull all the way back onto balconies from both the lounge and bedroom. We have a full equipped kitchen complete with dishwasher AND in the bathroom we have a laundry centre with a washing machine and tumble drier!!!!

I couldn’t have been happier. Those of you who haven’t spent time trying to do laundry in Aussie hostels won’t understand the frustrations of firstly waiting for a washing machine to be available, then throwing all your clothes in to discover it’s only connected to the cold tap anyway and so nothing really gets clean. You then either have to sit and wait until the washing is finished (boring!) or run the risk of someone dumping all your freshly laundered (all be it not very clean clothes) on the floor the moment its finished because they want to use the machine. This washing machine had hot water, settings for different clothes types and everything.

Franky was equally delighted with the 50 inch flat screen TV, couch and huge fridge to chill the Becks that we’d been carrying since Byron Bay.

After running round and round the apartment like two excited cocker spaniels who had just been told it was time for walkies we decided to use all the facilities and have a night in. Now I know this isn’t the most obvious decision when you arrive in a brand new city on a Friday afternoon but that was what we really wanted to do – and it was still bloody raining anyway!

We headed out to do a grocery shop, stocked up the fridge and then both had a shower. This was the best shower we’d had since leaving Sydney – hot, powerful with no drunken Aussie teenagers having sex in it – some things didn’t make the blog from Byron Bay and I’m still quite scarred from the ordeal. And then we just vegged out all night. Yeah!

We had meatballs for tea – which Franky has been craving since about day 3 of the trip, a few beers and some red wine. Lovely!

Topped with some rether non-PC cheese!

Then we settled back on the couch and watched ‘My Boy Jack’ which is a film about Rudyard’s Kiplings son in the First World War – pretty good actually. I’d recommend you watch it if you get chance!

At 1.00am feeling a bit tipsy but totally relaxed we jumped into bed.