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Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 4

Townsville, Australia

So today was mine and Irma's first day on the road together, up until now we'd only hung out at Toddy's in Alice or our respective hostels in Cairns. Apart from that brief period I travelled with Emma I hadn't travelled with someone who was a bit more than a mate before. So this could be interesting.

Especially as neither of us can read maps.


Some Random Falls

My New (Albeit Temporary) Woman Thing

We headed to Townsville via some pretty waterfalls, one of them being Wallaman Falls, the longest single drop waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere. Well you'd think they'd put it a bit bloody closer then wouldn't you instead of at the top of a big winding road up a mountain, they don't half like to make you work for your pretty things in Australia. Its the kind of distance where you expect someone to have put the kettle on and set up a camp bed for you for the night but not this time, we did the obligatory ooh ahh thing and drove back down.


Wallaman Falls: Really Fucking Long

And then it was onto our destination for the night. We rocked up just before 5pm and began the tedious task of trying to find somewhere to live. We pulled over and I called Globetrotters Backpackers to see if they had beds. They did and the following conversation ensued:

Bloke: Ok so when will you be here?
Me: Well we're in Townsville now so it's just a case of finding Palmer Street.
Bloke:Where are you now?
Me: On Walker Street. I'm... erm...

  • looks around and sees this:*



    • Imaginary Water Tank

    Me: I'm looking at a big water tank thing on a hill with a big green frog on it.

    Pause.

    Bloke: Have you taken something??

    Ahh, first impressions. I ended up taking that photo to prove to the bloke that I wasn't clinically insane, at least not on a discernible level. You should have seen his face when he first saw me and I tried to explain that there was a big green frog as well as some Nemo fish and a blue butterfly. He asked me if there were any little green spacemen as well.

    Funny cunt.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 1, 2007 from Townsville, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and EastCoast
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    Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 5

    Townsville, Australia


    Townsville At Night...

    ...Aaaand In The Day

    Ok so Townsville. Its very nice but at the end of the day there's fuck all to do but gaze wistfully over at Magentic Island then proceed to book a trip there. It's also a Proper Town, more so than Cairns. Cairns is still very touristy, you can get away with lounging around the lagoon in the middle of town in your swimwear and you can still wander the streets in bare feet and a silly hat clutching your souvenir boomerang and toy koala. Townsville makes you want to buy hair gel and do laundry.


    You WILL Have Your Photo Taken

    Random Waterfally Thing In Townsville

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 2, 2007 from Townsville, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and EastCoast
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    Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 6

    Magnetic Island, Australia

    At the time we were here, X Base were doing a deal where you give them $79 and it'll get you a return ferry to Magnetic Island plus 2 nights in the hostel, one cooked breakfast and an hours kayaking. I've never been a fan of Base hostels, they're all quite big and impersonal but this one kind of redeems itself, its slap bang on the beach and... erm... that's it really. You still can't take your own grog because they have a bar but hey, have a look at why you wouldn't care for a couple of nights.


    X Base As Seen From The Ocean

    The View from Our Dorm Room

    Pretty isn't it? After we'd attempted to go sea kayaking, given up and just drifted for a bit we spent the first day just chilling and deciding what to do the next day and we had our first Battle; Lesbian Beach Wrestling. Yeah I won, I kicked her Dutch arse into the sand. Hell yeah.


    Drifting

    Irma Does Kayaking. Tries To, Anyway.

  • does a little dance*


    • And I'll continue to remind her of this victory every time she wins me in a fight ever.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 3, 2007 from Magnetic Island, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
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    Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 7

    Magnetic Island, Australia


    Yeah I Got A Moke
    There are a few ways to get around Magnetic Island. You can (shudders) bus it, you can rent a scooter and spend the day looking like a big puff or you can rent a Moke and spend the day being laughed at because you're used to driving an automatic now and not only do you have to remember to change gear because the car won't do it for you, 3rd gear keeps evading you. Mokes are so uncool they're fucking cool. I'd never heard of them until Alice Springs when Wendy who runs Toddy's went on a Moke convoy to Uluru and ever since then I'd wanted a go in one. They're really cheap to rent an all, we picked one up from Magnetic Moke for about $69 for 24 hours including 60 free kilometres which is enough to get you around. It's Magnetic Island for fucks sake, you can stand on one side and spit to the other. Don't, though. That'd be disgusting.

    We'd already decided that we wanted to rent jetskis which is something you can do up at Horseshoe Bay which, from what I can gather, passes as the bustling hub of the island. They're not overly cheap to rent but you rent the jetski, its not per person and you can put two people on one. But then you wouldn't be able to race and where's the fun in that?


    Jet Skiiiiiii!

    We opted for one each for half an hour and proceeded to tear up the ocean and you know what? You really can't tip them. I know, I tried. You can get up to 50mph on them (I think that's about 80kph?) but you're not allowed to get too close to each other. Me and Irma raced anyway and maybe she won most races, y'know, it's hard to tell an stuff what with us being so far away from each other and not really knowing where the finish line was and stuff and anyway I kicked her arse on the beach ok? Yeah. Ha.


    On A Mokey Mission

    Irma About To Get Her Arse Kicked By Me

    After the jetskiing we bumped into some people we'd met at Mission Beach and went on one of the island's koala spotting walks. I was very nearly over koalas but I'd not seen them in the wild yet so we parked the Moke next to a million others at Forts Walk and wandered up to check out the furry little critters. We spotted loads of them, some of them even moved thus proving that koalas are real and not some great Australian hoax designed to lure tourists into the country.


    Cute, Cuddly And Very Fucking Lazy

    Not A Myth After All


    Posing With The Koalas

    View From The Top Of Forts Walk

    It was around this time I remembered I'd left two gas bottles in my car in direct sunlight for three days. Nothing ends a holiday like thinking you might have blown your car up.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 4, 2007 from Magnetic Island, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and EastCoast
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    Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 8

    Airlie Beach, Austria

    Having thankfully returned to an intact vehicle as opposed to a smouldering patch of concrete we left Townsville and headed south, our next destination being Airlie Beach which is big and shiny and expensive. Its totally buzzing if you have the cash to drink but we didn't. We met up with a mate of mine, Brendan who I know from Alice to Adelaide and also Broome and had a few drinks with him then just spent the next day chilling and deciding which Whitsundays tour to book.


    Power Napping

    It's A Hard Life, Being A Passenger

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 5, 2007 from Airlie Beach, Austria
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
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    Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 9

    Whitsunday Island, Austria

    About a million (figure may be slightly exaggerated for effect) boats leave for the Whitsundays every day ranging from one day tours to three day Sleep On The Boat Party Adventures which makes choosing one not quite as easy as you'd hope. After sifting through an entire rainforest worth of brightly coloured, shiny leaflets we decided on a day tour because Irma doesn't deal well with large bodies of water and it absolutely was not a party boat because me plus alcohol multiplied by ocean equals feeding the fish in the grossest possible way. We settled for Whitsunday Xpress on account of the promise of a BBQ and a cheese platter.

    After a cruise out to the islands, the first stop was a bush walk on Whitsunday Island itself, the largest of the islands, up to a lookout for Hill Inlet to look at the pretty patterns the tide makes in the sand.

    Bush walk. They make it sound so feral. Its not. If somebody suggests a bush walk in the Northern Territory or Western Australia you'd want to pack a bag, take plenty of water, don the sturdy boots and notify the local authorities of your estimated day of arrival. On the east coast a pair of flip flops will suffice as you make your way up the well used track, camera in one hand and make up bag in the other to ensure you look pretty for the photos. Although the destination in this case is worth a three day hike into the wilderness, its fucking beautiful, apparently the patterns are different every time the tide changes and if you look down to the left from the lookout platform you can make out about a hundred stingrays, a veritable Steve Irwin nightmare. Its awesome.


    Hill Inlet

    More Hill Inlet


    Even More Of The Same

    Bored Yet?

    After we'd all oohed and ahhed and been herded round the platform like the tourists we were it was back to the boat and around the corner to Whitehaven Beach where we'd be having lunch. After we'd moored with the plethora of other tour boats, we were given the option to swim to shore from the boat this time instead of going over in the dingy, it wasn't too far.


    Smurf

    Ahh, swimming in the tropics during stinger season, if you yearn for the days when it was acceptable to wear lycra, when cycling shorts were worn by everyone whether they owned a bicycle or not, when you wouldn't be openly mocked for walking down the street wearing clothes that look like they were painted on whilst you admired your wet perm in car windows, you'd love it. The only safe way to get in the water is to wear a stinger suit, an all over lycra body suit that includes a hood, mittens and straps that go under your feet reminiscent of the days of ski pants. Its a retro wet dream.


    Whitehaven Beach, Whitsunday Island

    Whitehaven Beach is gorgeous with its soft, white sands and crystal, blue water, the only other time I've seen a beach so postcard perfect was at Lucky Bay in the Cape Le Grand National Park near Esperance and there's no stingers there. Just hypothermia and frost bite. Don't ever expect to get Whitehaven to yourself though, it's just never going to happen.

    So we had the promised BBQ on the beach and stuffed our faces with meat products before jumping back on the boat (in the dingy this time) and headed to Mantaray Bay for some snorkelling around the coral there. I was back in my lycra and into the ocean and by the time I got back to the boat Irma had already got in, snorkelled, got out and dried thus depriving me of any chance of pointing and laughing at her in a full stinger suit. Damnit. That was going to be the highlight of my trip an all.


    BBQ With A Monitor Lizard

    The Promised Cheese Platter

    We reckoned a day trip was enough for the Whitsundays, we saw everything we wanted to and had an awesome day. If you're not on a tight budget like we were then maybe a two night effort would be a laugh but for the lower price a day trip was perfect for us.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 7, 2007 from Whitsunday Island, Austria
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
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    Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 10

    Mackay, Australia

    We drove down to Mackay and stopped off at the visitor centre to get information off a jolly old bloke who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near members of the general public. After he'd finished staring at my tits and making us cringe with his sexual innuendos followed by the line, "You couldn't say that sort of thing in my day!" we beat a hasty retreat clutching stacks of brochures to leave all over the floor of my car. There was a National Park nearby we wanted to see but the weather was a bit nasty so we decided to stay the night in Mackay and see how it was the next day.


    Staple Road Trip Breakfast

    There are two hostels that we know of here, the one that looked like fun was full and the other one which only had one bed left anyway banned alcohol, parties and television after midnight. As if spending the night in Mackay wasn't bad enough! By this time we were both feeling pretty crap after a week of bad diet, my gums had started bleeding a bit as well so I decided I probably had scurvy and we both felt generally run down. We decided to camp for the night and use the money we saved to buy Proper Food. We ended up at the bowling club up the road from the site which did $10 meals, I think we were the only people in the place that didn't have to take their teeth out to clean them.

    Anyway, the general consensus on this one was that Mackay sucks balls. Geriatric ones at that.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 8, 2007 from Mackay, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip and EastCoast
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    Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 11

    Rockhampton, Australia

    Stiiiiill pissing it down so we gave the National Park a miss this time because trees and soil are only fun in the sunshine and carried on towards Rockhampton and the Olsen Capricorn Caves so called because a bloke called Olsen discovered them and they're right near the Tropic Of Capricorn. Just in case you hadn't guessed. We both like caves so we rocked up, paid our cash and waited for the 1 hour tour.

    These caves are above ground, you can go on all kinds of exciting tours including ones for the more experienced caver which involve squeezing yourself through holes that were clearly not designed for humans to fit through. These kind of tours aren't for us, we preferred to use the big hole conveniently placed at The Entrance which was still a pretty precarious effort, it's times like these I really wish I'd renewed my medical insurance.


    From The Tropical...

    ...To The Temperate

    Anyway, after the general oohing and ahhing that accompanies looking at pretty things we carried onto Rocky itself, the beef capital of Australia as the various statues of cattle not to mention the over sized and slightly terrifying bovine that welcomes you to the town keep reminding you. We checked into the YHA Backpackers and decided to spend a couple of nights here just doing nothing. Nothing at all. Not a thing. Nada. We spent the next day chilling out in the lounge, watching DVDs and generally being drooling couch potatoes because sometimes its just nice to stare blankly at a screen of moving pictures with an overly dramatic soundtrack.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 9, 2007 from Rockhampton, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
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    Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 12 & 13

    Seventeen Seventy, Australia

    Beef consumption in Rockhampton is compulsory so we munched on a steak at the Great Western before driving down to the much raved about Town Of 1770 and Agnes Waters. We arrived on Sunday and spent the entire Monday trying to work out what people love so much about this place, we drove around, we went to the beach, we checked into the right backpackers (Cool Bananas) and consumed alcohol. Maybe you just need money to enjoy a place like this but the thing is, as pretty as each of these little East Coast towns are, each one is just more of the same. Once you've seen one you've seen them all.


    Nom Nom Nom

    Nom House

    Then I heard people talking about the Scooter Roo tours, they put you on a Twist And Go chopper and take you around town. Irma doesn't have a drivers license, rumour had it they never check but she didn't want to risk it. It took Tooheys Extra Dry and letting her win at Yammit (a little known, very simple and highly addictive card game with absolutely no skill involved that I learnt in Echuca) to convince her to stay another night.


    Yeah Whatever, No One Likes A Smug Cunt

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 12, 2007 from Seventeen Seventy, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
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    Obligatory East Coast Adventure: Day 14

    Seventeen Seventy, Australia

    Ok so the ScooterRoo tour didn't start until the afternoon so I duly dragged myself out of bed for the morning $14 group surf lesson, again without Irma because drowning isn't her idea of fun. As you travel from north to south, Agnes Waters is the first place with anything resembling surf, its out of the Tropics as well so despite the stinger warning signs there really isn't anything in the water dangerous enough to worry about. That was until I got in brandishing a large piece of fibreglass anyway, I can't say I conducted myself with grace and style as I flapped about in the water atop my board trying to get on a wave.

    And yep, that's me on a wave in that last thumbnail there. On a wave. Not on the sand. Nope. Not at all.

    It's about a 3 hour lesson and there's quite a large group of you. They put you in pairs, give you a board between you and take you down to the beach where they line you up in the sand and proceed to talk at you. And talk and talk and talk. I'm sure what he was saying was integral to the next 2 hours of my life but it's hard to concentrate while you're sat, slowly baking in the heat, piling sand up in front of you in different shapes in an effort to alleviate the boredom which was reminiscent of double physics lessons. Then no sooner had you stopped thinking about surfing and started thinking about a pint you were up and into the water for your first 15 minutes. It would be you then your partner then you and so on until the 2 hours was up.


    One Day I MIGHT Make A Surfer... Maybe

    15 minutes a time is plenty, its exhausting work dragging yourself and the board out, paddling like a crazy lady and trying to get on a wave. While you're in the water you find yourself wondering at what point they made 15 minutes longer than it was yesterday. Its loads of fun though but I'm not a surfer, I spent most of the time with my arse in the air and my face in the sand, it's gonna take weeks to get the salt out of my sinuses and what was left of my dignity is probably washed up on some deserted beach in Brazil by now. Well I wasn't like I was using it anyway.


    Loadsa Bikes
    No sooner had I gotten home and scraped the sand out of places sand has no right being it was into the ScooterRoo troopy to be taken to the array of bikes they foolishly lend to backpackers and tourists so we could see what 1770 was all about. They were right about the licences, they didn't check. In fact the boss wandered in and asked if anyone had ever ridden a geared bike, not Does Anyone Have a Geared Bike Licence, merely had they ever ridden one. I've got a full motorcycle licence (which, again, they didn't check) so I put my hand up for a 250cc instead of a hairdryer with flames painted up the side and we set off into the countryside to look at some kangaroos and trees and grass and stuff.


    SCOOTER ROO!!

    It's a lovely ride though and it was awesome to get back on a proper bike after 18 months and one thing I've never done on a motorcycle before is ridden along a sea front as the sun was about to set. It was beautiful. We stopped at the pub to get some potato wedges and settled down on some rocks to watch the sun go down over the Town Of 1770 whilst fending off seagulls who had no concept of backpackers and their attachment to their food. You're out on the road for a good while, it's definitely worth the money and the guy who leads the convoy is a top bloke.


    On Convoy

    Sunset Over 1770

    So I just want to thank Irma for indulging me on this one, she really didn't want to stay another night but she did so I could go and play in the sea and on the bikes, it was a brilliant day despite still having a small portion of the ocean sloshing about in my cranium and possibly half of Agnes Waters beach in my crack.

    permalink written by  Koala Bear on November 13, 2007 from Seventeen Seventy, Australia
    from the travel blog: Sod Off Great Big Mission Round Oz
    tagged RoadTrip, LovinIt and EastCoast
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