The Land Down Under

So, I've been in Australia for a few weeks now and figured it was time for an update!



Spider the size of a grapefruit...

After a bit of a rough start (missing home and feeling a bit down) I figured out a way to come home a month earlier, and sorted out a rough plan for Australia and started feeling better. So I started heading up the east coast.

I spent my birthday in a town called Port Macquarie which didn't really have much to it other than a koala hospital, which is why I wanted to stop there in the first place. I met a group of five 18 year old girls from Edmonton on the bus and they came out with me in the evening, but there wasn't much happening. But I was happy because I wasn't alone and made some new friends. I did go see the koala hospital in the afternoon too, and that was really neat.


Koala getting some treatment

Jenny, Sarah, Sara, Renee and Claire from Edmonton

After that I headed up to Byron Bay and Surfer's Paradise which are two of the big places to see on the East Coast. I'm not one for sitting on a beach all day though, so they didn't really hold my attention for long. Both places were having crappy weather and bad waves when I was there so I didn't get a chance to surf which bummed me out a little bit but there wasn't anything I could do about it. They were both very beautiful places though.


Surfer's Paradise

Next stop was Brisbane where I had a great time even though I was only there for one night. I had most of a day there and so I went walking around the city and saw the town hall and huge clock tower that you could go up inside. I spent a while in the Queen street pedestrian mall and bought a few things, and then I went walking over a bridge to a different part of town and saw a massive ad for Phatom of the Opera on the side of a building. It was a performing arts center and so I stopped in to see if the show was currently playing, and they happened to have a few tickets left for that night! I had never seen it before and hesitated over the price of the ticket for the very last row of the second balcony, but decided to do it anyway. It was amazing! The music was so good live that the theme gave me the shivers, and the sets and actors were spectacular. I'm really glad I went.

From there it was up to Noosa which I was going to use as a stopoff point to go to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. Long story short I wasn't able to get out there since it turned out to be an hour and a half away, and very expensive. I was kind of sad about that, but I've been to a lot of zoos anyway. The main reason I wanted to go was to hold a koala, but I found another place further north where you could do that so I ended up just saving myself a lot of money by not going. So the next day I headed north again to a place called Hervey Bay, which is the jumping off point to get to Fraser Island, the largest sand island in the world.

I did a day trip tour to Fraser Island and had a great time. It was so neat to be underneath tropical rainforests that grew out of nothing but sand! And some of the lakes were just breathtaking. We visited Lake Mackenzie which is a huge lake that is formed by rainwater only. What stops the water from leaking out through the sand is a layer of old decomposed plant matter that makes a kind of rock like substance that lines the bottom of the lake. It was so fantastically blue and I wish I could have stayed there all day. The sand was 98% silica and was the best facial scrub I've ever had! Silky smooth skin!


Lake Mackenzie

We visited the Maheno shipwreck which washed ashore there before WW1 and is now mostly buried by sand and almost completely rusted away, but still very cool. The island is also home of the purest bred dingos in Australia, but there are only about 150 - 200 on the island and we didn't manage to spot one that day. I did find a Honey Coloured Skink and some pretty funny looking trees though....





Let me just say I was not the first or only one to notice these trees ok?

From Hervey Bay there isn't really much to see on the way north for a while, so I took an 18 hour overnight bus trip up to Townsville. I bypassed Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands (pretty much a mandatory excursion for backpackers) because I had no desire to sit on a sailing boat and just party for three days. And why snorkel there when I'm going to dive the Great Barrier Reef? Plus I didn't really have time, and the area is getting completely battered with rain and flooding lately, so most likely it would be a miserable three days inside a cramped boat... So yeah, not too upset that I missed that experience.

I'm in Townsville right now and I'm stayin with a friend of my brother. His name is Ryan too, and him and his wife Carla are great. It's nice to be able to stay more than one night somewhere, and have a chance to stretch out and relax a bit, which doesn't always happen in the hostel environment. After I got in on the bus yesterday they picked me up and we went to the beach for a swim, and then had a quiet night at their place and one of their friends came over for dinner. I lovely home cooked meal! I haven't had steak in months so that was quite a treat.

Today we went out to the Billabong Wildlife Sanctuary which was the other place I had found that lets you hold a koala. I got to do it and was very happy! So there is one of my Australia goals accomplished, and I got some great pictures. I also held a 3 year old saltwater crocodile (it's mouth was banded shut for us!) and a python too. Wasn't too amped about the python, but it was actually pretty cool. They had kangaroos that just hopped around the park and took food from your hands, and a massive saltwater croc that had to have been 4 or 5 meters long that they coaxed out of the water at feeding time.









Tonight Ryan and Carla are having a barbeque with some of their friends and we might go out for some drinks after. In the next few days I'm heading up to Cairns where I've booked a dive trip to the Great Barrier Reef, and then it's out to the sizzling outback for a 5 day tour. Wish me luck that I don't roast out there!

Thanks for the great comments on my last blog entry. Just remember to put your name at the end if you use the anonymous option or I don't know who you are!

Miss you all!