Flew up to Cairns from Brisbane. Arrived late on, had one night in a hostel and caught the bus first thing in the morning, which heads further north into Tropical Queensland, met a few nice people on the bus having a few chats with them all on the way up!

The bus stops to let us on the Daintree River cruise, where we got the chance to see Crocodiles live in the wild, Saw some slither out of the river and onto the banks, we saw the alpha male croc, who was massive, apparently they can both swim and run faster than an Olympic sprinter, so you don’t want to be anywhere near them in the water.

Mossman Gorge

Croc City

Got up to Cape Tribulation, which is basically completely covered in rain forest, the place I was staying PK’s jungle village, is set within the forest and literally meters from the beach!

Met some other people who were on the bus, and who were staying there, went to the beach with them! And then decided to hang out by the pool, after we see signs on the beach warning people about the crocodiles! :-/ (Apparently some drunken Belgian guy swam up the creek off the beach at night and was attacked! So we played it safe.)

Cape Trib

Tiny beware of the Croc sign top left of sand dune

Spent the evening in the bar with some of the girls, Hannah, Kelly and Myra, playing Cards and eating and drinking!!

The next day we had our day on the Great Barrier Reef, went out with Hannah and Kelly, on the Rum Runner it spends about 2 hours heading out towards the reef felt well rough on board, didn’t puke though, unlike a few others!

The great barrier reef

Me on the reef !

Kelly and Me on the reef

The cape

The Rum Runner

coming into shore

The next day we had a morning horse riding, which was pretty crazy, the guy let us race off on the horses, seemed pretty dodgy at the time, lots of fun though

Kelly was never happy with Silver in Sydney 2002

Me and Han on horseback !

The Gang: Bazza, Me, Kelly, Hannah, and Myra!

some muppet

close to where Steve Irwin copped it !

who are you to me

Kelly and Hannah...SHUT UP

I was staying in a really rowdy hostel and could hardly get any sleep, due to pissed up Scottish backpackers who seemed to have spent their entire trip in a drunken state.

The next day did a daytrip to the Atherton Tableland Mountains, which was excellent, especially as the girls I did Fraser island with were there to also do the day trip.
Swam in some beautiful lakes, rivers and even under the huge Milla Milla waterfall… (that very one used by Peter Andre)

Riding down

Me doing a crazy back flip spin down the falls

Atherton Tablelands

The Atherton Tablelands gang

The Milla Milla Falls

Behind the Milla Milla Falls

Andrea, Me, Eva, & Adelaide

When i finally returned to rowdy central! saw the scottish backpackers all still up drinking goon (sh1t wine) thought if you cant beat em...join em...so had a few drinks with them... I Hit the sack about 2am, had to be up at 7 for my flight to Perth Via Aryes Rock so that probably wasnt the best idea!

The trip was a flight to Ayres Rock, 2 hours there then back on a plane and over the rest of Oz, to Perth! pretty cool to see The Rock from the air and the ground!

Ayres Rock

The Rock

written by  tomrendell on August 6, 2007 from Cape Tribulation, Australia
from the travel blog: Melbourne and the East coast
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The trip to Fraser island stared at Rainbow beach, a really small town on the coast that has access via a ferry to Fraser island, I chose this over the more commercialised Harvey Bay...

Anyway, basically I arrived on my own and am told to convene in the lounge at 4PM to meet people and attend the 4WD briefing, everyone frantically looks around to form their groups, which will be there Fraser island team for the next few days...I was really lucky and just fell into this group of people that was all sat near by, we quickly realised there were plenty of dodgy chavs kicking about so were keen to avoid being in their group, which turned out to be a good job really but ill get back to that.

Our group of 11 consisted of Andrea & Eva (German) Adelaide (Belgian) Geoffrey & Vincent (French) Martijn & Esther (Dutch) Sinead & Michael (Irish) Dunan (Scotish) and Myself (Australian :-)

The Ferry...

The Gang

we have a few beers getting to know each other and sussing out who's driving etc and then early to bed as were off at 7am the next day !

early doors the next day we load up the 4WD Land cruiser (big enough to fit 11) with our bags, booze, tents, food etc and have a briefing from the 4WD company, No going over 60 Kph on the sand, no driving here...blah blah blah!

anyway as we set off at literally 7.45 there is the Chav gang in there 4WD all drinking cans of beer and smoking pot...so we all have a good laugh at them and their inevitable fate...

so we set of on the ferry and are soon on the island, we hit 4WD mode and are on the sand, and with Michael our 4X4 expert we are quickly off to a good start and leave the chavs stuck in the sand and eating our dust !

we start off with a inland track away from the coast line, and head for a walk through the rain forest which was great, the rain forest on Fraser island is amazing as it is the only one in the world that has managed to grow on sand, the whole of the island is nothing but sand, so apparently is a a miracle this has managed to grow, but its there.

Jungle Life

Rain Forest

Lake McKenzie

Me and Mike in Lake McKenzie

The lake is 150 square hectares and but is only 5 meters deep, anyway its so amazingly clear and is brilliant for swimming in, so we all jump in to cool off...the lakes are the only plac to swim as the sea has Box Jellyfish and Great White sharks in abundance

That afternoon we drove back down to the beach and decided to camp within a few hundred meters of the ship wreck which lyes in the surf halfway up the island,
so we camped on the beach, and cooked up some food and had a few beers and some good laughs!

after quite a cold night in our dodgy tent ! I got up before dawn to go and photograph the wreck at sunrise, which was well worth it ! as you can see.

Shipwreck at sunrise

breaking through

the next day we visited Eli Creek, which you can jump in and float down to where the water meets the sea ! which is a good way to spend the afternoon

Cruising down Eli Creek

The beast !

We drove up to the top end of the Island and walked to the top of the cliff face, and saw Whales jumping in the sea, they pass this way for the winter migration so it was amazing to see so many jumping out of the sea as they migrated north.

The gang at Indian head

View from Indian Head

we also saw a few dingos hanging around, you are warned several times about the dingos before and during the trip, as they can kill and be aggressive, a couple of years ago they "took" a boy, carried him away and killed him, so you have to be pretty careful.

Dingo

Me

Then it was my time behind the wheel, never driven a 4WD before especially on sand, so was a bit unsure but it turned out to be awesome fun, blasting down the beach what made it even better was having Australia by the Manic street preachers on blasting out the stereo...that song was made for this

we camped again on the beach and finished off the beers under the full moon.

Camping it up

Full Moon Rising

the next day we went to Lake Wabby which is massive hike for what seems like over 45 minutes, over hugh sand dunes, seemingly in the middle of the desert with nothing but sand and the occasional sign post, we all trudged across until magnificent lake Waby appears out of no where ! surrounded by rain forest its like something out of a film...I literally dropped my things on the sand and ran down the sand dunes and dived straight in...pretty cold after walking across the desert dunes...but pretty refreshing, the lake is good enough to drink which was a good job as we'd run out of water

6 am

crossing the desert

Eva and Myself swam across the lake, and most of the others followed, I was blown away by Lake Wabby which i thought was nicer than Lake McKenzie. but sadly its vanishing and in 4 years will have been swallowed up by the advancing sand dunes for ever

Lake Wabby Sand Dunes

Drying off by the lake

After that we had the trip back to the ferry, with all the other 4X4's realising they were running late at the same time, the bottle neck of the southern tip of the island became something out of a wacky races cartoon, everyone trying to take little shortcuts, getting stuck, driving round rocks into the sea...etc...but we made it on to the ferry in time !

Cracked open a beer each as we handed back the 4X4 and settled down for a great night, Free BBQ and Beer all night in the hostel thanks to a mix up

the after party

Pi$ed as.... with Goeffrey and Adelaide

A bit sad next day for the group to break up and head our seperate ways, definitely one of the very best things I've done and one of the very best groups of people I've met!

written by  tomrendell on July 30, 2007 from Fraser Island, Australia
from the travel blog: Melbourne and the East coast
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Have arrived in Queensland, flew in to Maroochydore from Melbourne, got up late and wash a bit of a dash to the airport, as id been out on the lash with Kay and Sharm the night before…for a few last Melbourne beers !!

But anyway got there in time and a couple of Powerade’s washed away the hangover...

The Sunshine Coast

Mooloolaba beach

I'm staying with my Uncles brother and his family for a couple of days in a place called Twin waters which is where the Queen stayed a coupled of years ago…so if it’s good enough for old Liz then its good enough for me, it’s been really great, have been out to 2 places on the coast in the local area, Mooloolaba and Noosa

Maroochy River at sunset

The first swim in 3 months

Main Beach

Colin, Myself & Eliot

The area around here is really tropical, so is really lush and looks great on camera! So theres plently of wildlife, and I saw a Koala up a tree

Noosa Nt Park

Me in the trees

Koala in the tree

Perfect Noosa

written by  tomrendell on July 28, 2007 from Maroochydore, Australia
from the travel blog: Melbourne and the East coast
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The river Yarra at night

I’ve been in Melbourne for a few weeks now so its about time to update you on what its all about and what ive been up too!

Arrived in Melbourne back in April and for the first week or so I stayed with Bonnie and her family whom Id previously met in Western Australia back in the good old Coral bay days!

Spent that week investigating Melbourne and getting my bearings, as I planned to be there for a couple of months at least!

La Trobe St

Central Station

I also needed to look for work so was incredibly lucky when the first job I applied for I got, I sent the e-mail on the Monday afternoon and by Tuesday lunchtime I’d got the job, which was awesome...Had the rest of the week to explore then I was to start the following Monday.

This week was the final week of the Melbourne international comedy festival, so along with Bonnie went to two shows, which were unbelievably funny, the second was so harsh on people in the front row, but I couldn’t stop laughing all night!

We also visited Matt who id met along with Bonnie in Coral Bay who was an English guy living in Perth, but unfortunately he’d been sent back to the UK for work so it was a fleeting visit, 2 nights out with Matt and he was back in the UK…

Towards the end of that week, I moved into a hostel nearer the town centre as this was closer to the office, hoping this would help me find a place to stay on a more permanent basis and meet some more traveling kids in the city!

So I had one week in the hostel which was cool, nice place great people, but being in a dorm was annoying while getting up for work in the morning…

St Kilda beach...Melbourne

St Kilda beach front market

I was dead lucky again when I looked into an advert on the net, for a house share, I ended up moving in the day after I looked at the place…as it was pretty much ideal.

The Job.

So the job was going well, for those who care im temping for a e-learning company working with a CMS of Video website working importing metadata and helping the team to get the site live..

That project is almost complete and ill be moving on to another involving compiling a report on user interface use on their e-leaning assets…

Anyway enough of that..

The House

The house is a big, open plan style one story house, (think Carl Kennedy’s house in Neighbors)

And there are 6 of us, who share the place, Auriel a French guy, Anders is Danish, then Kay and Sharm are Aussie’s…plus little Elvis the dog…and myself!

the gang - Martin Sharm, Me, Kay, Elvis and Aurel

Kannara, Kay and Sharm

We have a really good time in the house, and it’s really sociable which is exactly what I was looking for; the last thing I wanted was a flat for one or sharing with some grumpy hermit…

Elvis takes Kannara for a walk

Carlton Park

Football

Also been involved in a football team, which is cool to be back playing, played a few matches of 11 a side for JFG FC, and hopefully ill be back there this weekend!

Melbourne!

Melbourne has so much to shout about, it’s a great looking city, and looks very different to Perth, as its much older so it has a lot of character, and reminds me of different places when catch it at different times,

Cliché time…but being on the South-bank at night you could be in London, Walking through the tree lined streets in the morning past the Towering skyscrapers in rush hour echoes New York

Bourke street

Melbourne at night

Plus the some of the tightly packed side streets packed with continental cafes that spill onto the pavements stir memories of Paris!

Street life

Street scene

There are also seemingly hundreds of restaurants, each seems to be from a different part of the world, this is down to fact that Melbourne is the most composition place ive been to…my favorite at the mo is Saigon Inn, a Vietnamese place near the office.

Martin and Sharm at "Lentil as anything"

Degraves street

And a crazy bar is the Ice Bar, which is minus 15, and everything including the glasses and the bar its self is made of ice…even the furniture!
This is great but very cold…great if you want to be reminded of England’s weather…visited this place with Kannara when she came over for the weekend...she only lasted 10 mins...before she started to frezze over...

Ice Bar with Kannara

Grrrrrr

The Great Ocean Road

on the beach on the Great ocean road

Great Ocean Road

This long weekend we did the “Great Ocean Road” Road trip, drove down with 4 others, it’s basically a really long coastal drive culminating in the ‘Pièce de résistance' which are the 12 apostles, of which only about 6 remain, that are dramatic pieces of the coast that the sea has eaten around, and is slowly eating away at…within a few years to be eroded away completely...

the Gang on the Great Ocean Road

"the twelve apostles" Great ocean road

"the twelve apostles" Great ocean road

Elvis

Arrived in Punakaiki for 2 nights, started feeling a bit rough, must have been coming down with something ! not surprising its been non stop for so long !

Did a Horse trek into the rain forest then down onto the beach with some of the group, they guy at the stables got me a spare Horse out as I was a late entry, he said it used to be wild but they had trained it up a bit...I could tell as mine was a bit frisky while all the other horses where half asleep !

Rawhide !

River crossing

anyway went treking for a bout 3 hours, had a great time, I could tell my horse 'Billy' was a wild one, as he kept running off and charging through the river crossings, such a good time really hope I get the chance to do it again!

Punakaiki Rainforest valley

Me & Billy at lunch

Riding off into the sunset !

Punakaiki Sunset

camp fire

Our two day stop in Abel Tasman Nt Park, was my last 2 nights camping on the tour !

The amazing backdrop of one of the best looking coastlines you will ever see !!

in addition to that I got to fly the Pitt Special a stunt plane that can do acrobatic stunts like loops, barrel rolls, and flying straight up until it stalls then free falling !!

Totally awesome ! even beats skydiving for pure adrenalin !

I did a 15 minute flight and it was just unbelievable as the pilot takes off and hands control over to you...he just says loop it, spin it, fly upright etc...

He said afterwards all you could hear on the radio frequency was me laughing as we did loops at 180mph

Anchorage bay

Close up

ACTION

Ready for take off

....Lift off

So got to get out and see so much more of the place, Did 3 amazing activities, The Shotover Jet, a Jet boat ride at 85kph through canyons along the Shotover river ! the boat pulls off amazing 360 spins at breakneck speed ! really cool !

Shotover Jet !

85 KPH !!

Also got to go Bungy Jumping, AJ Hackett Kawarau Bridge, really differnt feeling falling off the bridge compared to Skydiving ! id say scarier as you can see the river so close, My upper body even hit the water before the cord pulled me back up almost just as quick !

BUNGIEEEEE

Bungy Jumping, Kawarau Bridge

Queenstown gave us the chance for a massive night out, us boys had planned to go out dressed up as the rock band 'Kiss' but as ever the planned descended into chaos as we were all off bungee jumping, jet boating or river boarding or some other crazy activity right up until we needed to head out, so we just donned the wigs which made us look more like the 80% of the Jackson Five than anything else...

Afro night out !

Steve with some Hen party granny

We had a great time, got lashed and caused a lot of commotion which ever bar we ended up in next !

I requested Run DMC "Its Tricky" remembering a old night out from Uni a few years back and within seconds we were doing the "road trip dance" and had all the girls & a hen party up on the dance floor...talk of the town if only for a few minutes !

Some guy even bought us a round of drinks as we reminded him of his "crazy days" before he got married, not quite sure what he was on about, but we accepted the drinks never the less...Great effort !

View from above

Lake Wakatipu

On our final day we went luging which involves a cabel car up to the top of the moutain then several luging runs later we were tired and crashed out ! and went down into town for a burger !

...Just another tough few days at the office...

Pre Race Photo

...and its Rendell through the corner first

written by  tomrendell on April 2, 2007 from Queensbury, New Zealand
from the travel blog: New Zealand
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First few days were getting better, had had a few freebies too a ride on a jet Boat, a Maori concert ,the morning sand boarding...this jobs a doddle...

A flash of work and loads of freebies...fair enough the hours are long, Sunrise till well after sunset, but I'm loving it !

Spent a day or so heading down from the Bay of islands to get to Taupo, went via Coromandal and Cathedral cove, got to see them again this time drenched in amazing early morning sunshine !

Swam out to a rock just off the shoreline at hot water beach and collected a few mussels, sparked a trend as this group of girls spotted me, 5 minutes later they were, then 5 minutes after that everyone on the beach was gathering them, we cooked them in the evening, really fresh had them the next night too ! new fave food !

spent the next day at my one of my favourite spots, the kick ass beach Whiratoa, the amazing place where there was no one on the beach, I just ran down from the board walk...pulled of my t-shirt, and just jumped right into the sea, instantly deep enough to swim in, and clear enough to see with your eyes open...a true slice of paradise ! looking back as I float on my back all I can see are rolling green hills, and amazing cliffs covered in temperate rain forest...and a Golden beach with no one apart from the advancing members of our bus party !

Whiratoa

Does it get any better than this ?

Spent the afternoon Skydiving ! the ultimate perk...any future job must live up to this...this time I did 15,000 ft and it was even better than before as I could take it in from the second I left the plane, and had a longer free fall ! awsome !!

WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

2nd time around

Dolphins - Kaikoura

Through onto the South island, the job is still going really well, spent some time in Kaikoura and went Dolphin spotting, ment getting up at 4.20 am...

but got to see over 150 Dusky Dolphins all playing in the water just off the shore, many jumping doing all sorts of back flips etc...

really cool to see them, in full flow at top speed !

Dusky Dolphons

Kaikoura - 'Dolphin Friendly'

...and Hannah...there is no back seat gang this time, they aviod that part of the bus, must be sacred ground now...I'm up at front with JP now...

written by  tomrendell on March 22, 2007 from Taupo, New Zealand
from the travel blog: New Zealand
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Rolled on into Paraparaumu, the lonely Planet made it sounds like an idyllic location and the flyer made the beach sounds awesome...
I thought a few days R&R by the beach would do the trick , before I started work...

The beach was awful, grey sand, full of drift wood, and the sea looked less than inviting, suddenly 2 days here seemed too long...

until I met these 3 girls from England ! Liz, Lisa and Naomi who I got on really well with and had some beers and played cards with that night, had a good time,

saw them in the morning at breakfast, and as it was tipping with rain of biblical proportions, I thought a crap town is bad enough, a crap town in the rain is even worse !

So they offered my a lift into Wellington, jumped at the chance, and rolled onto Welly with them, even though it was grim there there's heaps more to do...

Wellington

Welly with the girls, went to the Museum, sat drinking tea while the rained poured down, but had a good laugh with the girls, went to the movies, went swimming with them, great crap weather mates !

Had a good time for a couple of days, cheered me up before worked started !!

The next day work started for the first time in 4 months !

Started by picking up the guys and driving onward and upwards through the North Island towards Auckland and then North towards the Bay of Islands and Pahia !

Had a brake down to cope with, but my first few days of work were going just fine!!

written by  tomrendell on March 14, 2007 from Wellington, New Zealand
from the travel blog: New Zealand
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Appletree bay

Close up

Arrived at a camp site just outside of Abel Tasmen Nt park, ideal place...called Old MacDonald's farm...cycled the 40k into the camp with my biking buddies for the last time...we arrived hot and sweaty and jumped right into the river to cool down !

played volley ball in the evening until the sun went down! Oliver had my in stitches with his usual French laugh and stupid jokes while we were playing !!! the fact that Keith was hit in the face twice by his own team mates made it all the more amusing...

Anchorage bay

The swim around the island

Went out in the morning with Paddy and Birgeet !and got a water Taxi up to Bark bay, the most amazing beach I've seen on my travels, we dived right into the water on landing at the beach !

then started our 6 hour walk back to the camp...stopping a couple of times for a swim to cool off !

all got wet feet crossing the "low tide" short cut, Paddy got blisters soon after & carried on in bare feet...I mean who goes on a six hour walk with no socks...

Bark Bay - Paradise at last !

Diving around - Bark Bay

Got back to camp and went for a meal and drinks for the last time as a group !

The following morning we drove up to Picton where several of the gang got of the bus and went their separate ways...we'd had 4 quality weeks the best bits of my trip so far, shame to break it all up, but all good things have to come to an end!

Have been offered a job on the next tour though, as one of the guides, which I've accepted should be a great way of earning a few dollars...and beats sitting in an Office temping...

I've had to sacrifice something else in Australia for that and have had to let someone down big-time...but the lure of a job was to great when Im pretty much skint after over 4 months without working...& its not every day you get offered a job without applying for it, so I couldn't walk awayfrom this opportunity! plus its a pretty cool job touring NZ hiking, camping, swimming in the sea etc...and the occasional sky dive for free wont go a miss...

written by  tomrendell on March 5, 2007 from Port Motueka, New Zealand
from the travel blog: New Zealand
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saw the Pancake rocks...and did a mountain bike trail with Dagmar...we rode up through a track in the forest to a place called Cave Canyon...one of the most unbelievable sights I've seen this trip...

The canyon was deep down beneath two sides of the valley, and only fills up during a flood, so it was a dry river bed, that had become overgrown with some of the stunning flora and fauna from the surrounding forest. it was cold as it was shaded from the sun, so even on a red hot day we could see our breath in the air..the place was errie and very mysterious..could easily have been used in a film...there was a plaque warning that 10 people drowned here 12 years before from the flood water raging through the caves then into the canyon...so we didn't hang around too long...

written by  tomrendell on March 4, 2007 from Punakaiki, New Zealand
from the travel blog: New Zealand
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