We've completed our 3day/2night sailing trip of the Whitsundays on the Southern Cross.
The only issue (that is a lie, I have more than one issue) with arranged tour groups is that everything goes as planned, and everything is planned. This means that I don't really have any interesting or funny stories to accompany this outing. The scenery was nice, we got to snorkel, swim with a turtle, scuba dive, lay on the deck and that's basically it! We did find out that you can volunteer on the boats and get a trip of the Whitsundays for free with minimal work involved! But they only take one volunteer per trip, and we weren't too interested in waiting around for each other so didn't sign up.
Tonight we're busing/flying to Brisbane, where it is a chilly 21 degrees. Hopefully none of us will go into shock!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Raging Thunder
Interesting name for a rafting company no?
Yesterday we went for our white water rafting trip on the Tully River. Since Tim is still learning to swim and Adam has an issue with putting his head under water we decided to go for the Extreme rafting! It's basically the same as the usual, but you get to spend more time in the water, flipping the boat, a couple of rock jumps and going down grade 2 areas without our boat. I thought it sounded like fun and sure way to get over fears, surprisingly the guys agreed to it! More surprisingly there was another Irish guy on our bus (who then ended up being in our raft) who also "couldn't really swim". He nearly drowned me during the last half hour when our boat flipped, and he thought that anything nearby was good enough to grab onto save himself. I did not agree with this opinion.
Aside from swallowing a lot of water and hitting my eye off of something while rock jumping (and no I don't know what) it was a wicked day!
On the celebrity side Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives, Superman) was on our rafting tour. She was not doing the extreme version though. At the end of day I was trying to do something to get my wet hair off my face, a failed venture, and she came into the washroom and asked me how our day had gone. My minute brush were a celebrity! I was also stopped by the woman who was traveling with her because I was wearing my SMU hoodie. Apparently there is a Saint Mary's in California and she was wondering if I had gone to that one.... I did not know that there was another in the States.
Yesterday we went for our white water rafting trip on the Tully River. Since Tim is still learning to swim and Adam has an issue with putting his head under water we decided to go for the Extreme rafting! It's basically the same as the usual, but you get to spend more time in the water, flipping the boat, a couple of rock jumps and going down grade 2 areas without our boat. I thought it sounded like fun and sure way to get over fears, surprisingly the guys agreed to it! More surprisingly there was another Irish guy on our bus (who then ended up being in our raft) who also "couldn't really swim". He nearly drowned me during the last half hour when our boat flipped, and he thought that anything nearby was good enough to grab onto save himself. I did not agree with this opinion.
Aside from swallowing a lot of water and hitting my eye off of something while rock jumping (and no I don't know what) it was a wicked day!
On the celebrity side Teri Hatcher (Desperate Housewives, Superman) was on our rafting tour. She was not doing the extreme version though. At the end of day I was trying to do something to get my wet hair off my face, a failed venture, and she came into the washroom and asked me how our day had gone. My minute brush were a celebrity! I was also stopped by the woman who was traveling with her because I was wearing my SMU hoodie. Apparently there is a Saint Mary's in California and she was wondering if I had gone to that one.... I did not know that there was another in the States.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Ta-da!
The idea of updating my blog at this point has become seriously daunting. It's not mid-June and we're back on the East coast of Australia after 6 weeks of being West. Adam, Tim and I had planned on driving the Mitsubish Magna all the way around Australia, however about 200km outside of Darwin we discovered that the Magna hadd other plans. It just hadn't told us yet! Luckily we were only 500m to the turnoff for a small town called Pine Creek. Nothing was overly spectacular about Pine Creek, but did mean we didn't have to hitchhike all the way back to Darwin, and we managed to get the dieing car to a local mechanic who could confirm, after replacing the split radiator, that the head gasket had blown. One of the many upsides of this trip has been my increasing knowledge of cars. Prior to two weeks ago I would not have even known that a car engine has a head gasket, and now I know that not only does one exist, but it's very important to the overal running of the car and we (possibly me, I have to admit I was driving at the time and I do have an affinity for destroying things - mostly unknowingly) had now ruined it. So we dumped the car, caught a bus back to Darwin and then a plane out to Cairns.
Before we broke down we did make it to Litchfield National Park. I've put photos up on facebook, but they do not the the park justice. What Litchfield lacked in the challenging and fun hikes of Karijini it made up with stunning waterfalls. It's easy to get to from Darwin and worth the time if you're in the Northern Territory. Be warned though, you must bring insect repellent.
Having spent so much time on the arid west coast the lush east coast was shocking! I have to say that Cairns has now made up on my list of top 3 cities to live in Australia (in case you were wondering Brisbane and Melbourne are the other two). Since there is a lot to see on the east coast and we were gauranteed a party of three for at least two weeks we decided to rent a car for 5 days and cram in as much as was enjoyably and physically possible. In our little, white Nissan Tiida we headed north to Cape Tribulation. While it's not the best spot to go for a dip in the ocean the tropical forest of Daintree National Park (Cape Trib's location) is stunning! Becuase of the tropical weather northern Queensland is full of
Driving south again we decided to take the inland route to spice it up a bit and ran across the Coffee Capital of Australia! As well as some fruit and veg stands with honesty boxes. I LOVE fresh produce, and it reminded me of road trips in Southern Ontario so we had to stop and shop.
We're in Airlie Beach now and in two days we start our three day sailing trip of the Whitsundays. It's been overcast lately so we're hoping for better weather tomorrow or the next day for our trip!
Before we broke down we did make it to Litchfield National Park. I've put photos up on facebook, but they do not the the park justice. What Litchfield lacked in the challenging and fun hikes of Karijini it made up with stunning waterfalls. It's easy to get to from Darwin and worth the time if you're in the Northern Territory. Be warned though, you must bring insect repellent.
Having spent so much time on the arid west coast the lush east coast was shocking! I have to say that Cairns has now made up on my list of top 3 cities to live in Australia (in case you were wondering Brisbane and Melbourne are the other two). Since there is a lot to see on the east coast and we were gauranteed a party of three for at least two weeks we decided to rent a car for 5 days and cram in as much as was enjoyably and physically possible. In our little, white Nissan Tiida we headed north to Cape Tribulation. While it's not the best spot to go for a dip in the ocean the tropical forest of Daintree National Park (Cape Trib's location) is stunning! Becuase of the tropical weather northern Queensland is full of
Driving south again we decided to take the inland route to spice it up a bit and ran across the Coffee Capital of Australia! As well as some fruit and veg stands with honesty boxes. I LOVE fresh produce, and it reminded me of road trips in Southern Ontario so we had to stop and shop.
We're in Airlie Beach now and in two days we start our three day sailing trip of the Whitsundays. It's been overcast lately so we're hoping for better weather tomorrow or the next day for our trip!
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