After the extreme pleasure of seeing the baby turtles hatch at Mon Repos we moved on to a place called 1770, so named because in that year a Lieutenant Cook set foot for the first time in Queensland. You could see why he picked the spot; we parked up in our caravan park right on the water’s edge, looking out over a secluded and sheltered harbour, made calm by a long golden sweeping sand bank across the mouth of the estuary, perfect for pulling up in your 38 gunner! We spent a pleasant night there and I cooked using a recipe from the cook book Sophs gave me for my birthday – the camper’s version of a Bill Granger recipe ‘Potatoes with onion and panceta’ slightly different to how it looked on the page, but I was using the small gas oven in the van, my excuse anyway. We fell asleep listening to some Aussie bloke haranguing his children next door in a voice that was pure Jo Mangle from Neighbours ‘strewth kids I’m getting a little toired of telling youse to caaalm dahn!’, still the two bottles of white soon blurred that distraction.
Up the next day realizing as we ate our bacon butties that we had been sand-fly’d again, and very excited as we continue North to visit my mum’s cousins Mick and Jo, who lived just outside Rockhampton (shortened to Rocky of course) in a place on the coast called Yeppoon. A pleasant drive up the never ending A1 ‘BRUCE HIGHWAY’ (where is the SHEILA HIGHWAY?), we feel we really are in Aus now as have seen Emus and Kangaroos (unfortunately our Roo stats are a bit poor, we’ve now seen 13 but only 3 have been alive!). The trees are beautiful, blue gums and eucalyptus and a contrasting mix of a black barked tree (looks like it’s survived a forest fire) and a tree with a smooth bleached bone coloured trunk (looks like a compound fracture sticking out of the red earth). Mick and Jo were lovely kind people (have to say that they’ve got our blog address!) and we laughed loads, while we stayed for dinner on their huge wood deck looking out over the pacific. They invited their daughter-in-law Di and grand-daughter Jessie and it was great. Feeling absolutely shattered we went to bed, laughing as we realized that it was only just past 9! Cracking nights kip and a fry up in the morning, we were spoilt rotten! After resisiting the urge to stay for further pampering, we said adios to Mick and Jo and hit the road again, keeping heading North. Back to Rocky where we searched in vain for a sign indicating that we were bang on the Tropic of Capricorn (we wanted a matching phot of the one taken on Tropic of Cancer in Namibia) no sign though so you’ll just have to take our word on it! Longish drive through miles and miles of lush Sugar-cane fields towards Mackay, the roads have become increasingly arrow-straight and the only diversion to the monotony is avoiding being crushed by the massive articulated trucks that cream along at high speed and just do not slow for anything! Didn’t quite make Mackay and stopped off at Sarina, a beach town to the south. Went for a swim on the beach which was absolutely deserted, this was a bit disconcerting as we entered the water, searching left and right for stingers and/or sharks, every breaking wave was loud as it was so quiet, but we lived and nothing bit us! Really hot and humid overnight, several huge storms did nothing to clear the air and we awoke the next day in pools of our own sweat (nice!). Too hot for breakfast so just hit the road after a fairly pointless shower (3 minutes later feeling grimey again). Nipped into Mackay for a nice coffee, but too hot still for much excitement so made it a short stop, town itself is pretty ugly and not much to it, colonial buildings swamped by Americanised trade stores and fast food outlets. The roads here continue to be criss-crossed with the sugar-cane train’s track system, so every mile you have to slow down to prevent chassis breakages! We were lashed by some more fat raindrops before reaching our destination Airlie Beach, right on the Whitsunday passage. We were going to stop at the Eungella National Park, famous for its’ platypuses but 1) it was wrong time of the day and 2) (more importantly) it was the wrong time of year. Great planning, we were actually driving on the small rough road to get there when we finally read the guide book and realised our error! Airlie Beach was a touristy sort of place, but we found a good camp site and stayed there for 3 nights. The main beach at Airlie is unusable and has a massive ‘Maritime Dangers’ sign on the foreshore to prevent anyone going in, certainly got our vote. Stingers (jelly fish) are the main issue in these parts. On second day we were up early for our trip to the Whitsundays on the old cruiser ‘Mantaray’, skippered by an ex-Aus Navy fella (22 years man and boy), there was only a small group of us, mostly dutch so we had to be quick with the food! It was a wonderful trip, we left with scudding clouds spoiling the sky and a fair wind blowing up the Whitsunday Passage (discovered by……yep you guessed it Lieutenant Cook on Whit Sunday, he certainly went in for obvious naming). By the time we had got over this stretch of water and through the Hook passage (presumably discovered by Capt Hook) the weather had calmed a bit, but still no sunshine. We were taken to shore at the Hill Inlet lookout, which was a short walk through rain forest to a wooden lookout post in the jungle, with grand views over the Whitehaven Beach, Border Island and up the Whitehaven Estuary. This is the view you always see when the Whitsundays are advertised, but the sun was not out for us and an appoaching rain cloud made our stay a short one. Walking back through the forest had my photo taken with a spider (very brave Chris, if it had moved an inch I would have squealed like a girl!). Walked onto the beach and it was magnificent. The sand here is unique to this beach and one other beach on Border Island, it is created by techtonic plate movement in a 200 metre trench (the deepest spot in the Whitsundays) which seperates the two islands. This movement throws up silica which in turn becomes this extremely fine sand. It will ruin any electronic equipment as it gets inside it, but you can clean jewellery and watch faces with it. It also does not heat up, which is why there are no turtle nests on this side of the island, because they can’t incubate their eggs in the cool sand! (Fascinating aren’t I?). We dressed in our anti-stinger outfits for a swim in the bracing ocean, we didn’t see any jelly fish though and suspect it might just be an Aussie trick to make tourists look stupid! The beach was vast and beautiful and when the sun came out, which it did thank goodness, the sand was blindingly white and made for about three million excellent photos! It was a pleasure to be there and we know we are v lucky. Back on the boat and taken north to Hook Island for some snorkelling on a patch of live reef. Amazing, no photos, but we saw all manner of fish from Wrasse, groupers, parrot-fish and sea slugs and live coral which moved and changed colour in the crystal waters. Also noticed for the first time the noises the fish were making as they were munching on the coral bed, a bit like a snack for them (maybe a crunchie!) you can really hear it without dive equipment, very cool. Onboard for coffee and choc cake (lovely, get back you dutch people!) and then home, feeling very at one with the world! Spent a lazy sunday on camp before walking into town for a Sunday afternoon beer, listened to some good live music and got talking to 2 scary looking Aussies (phots in the next blog, we’ve run out of space!). One was quiet, but the other was hilarious – I’m not sure how many of his stories were true, but his tales of his days as a lion tamer and then a clown were brilliant! Then went for a meal with a bit too much white wine again (oops). As we sat on the balcony of the restaurant looking out over the twinkling lights of the bay, a young fella started playing songs on the opposite side of the street. He shouted out his mobile number to the restaurant clientelle and you could text him songs which he would then play, amazing – he never did play ‘whole lotta Rosy’ by ACDC though, spoil sport. Short drive today, stopping off at Cedar Falls just outside Arilie Beach. A beautiful deep pool at the base of a crashing waterfall, very Crocodile Dundee. I hiked to the top and took a phot of Soph at the bottom, but suddenly felt very ‘alone’ in the forest, not scared you understand just ‘alone’. We are now in the small community of Bowen (super, smashing, lovely – some of you may get that?) in a tiny little shop with the best internet gear we’ve seen since Brisbane, strange. Intention is to keep heading North now to Townsville before heading inland. We are loving the whole campervan thing, and think we may end up buying one in the UK, we may be hippies after all!
Nice and loose up the Bruce to see da falls at Cedar Falls March 31, 2008
Saying goodbye to the wedding guests and hello to the turtle’s nests! March 25, 2008
Hello everyone,
Hope you are not feeling too sick after all the Easter Eggs. We gave them a miss due to the melting potential and due to the fact that we have been flooring our poor bodies for 3 weeks.
Well we are finally going it alone again after a brilliant few weeks with all the wedding guests. Our trip to the Wet and Wild saw the end of our company. We had one more (hundred) bottles of wine with the newly wed Hills on Chris’s Birthday and then we left for the Coast.
It was ok saying goodbye as we know we are seeing them again before we go, so no tears this time.
We headed off to Dicky Beach in Caloundra just up the East coast from Brisbane. We kept our eyes out for kangaroos and saw two, unfortunately both dead!We have managed to avoid too much road kill ourselves , but did feel bad when a big butterfly was flattened spread-eagled on our stone guard. It then remained there for 30kms, staring at us. I just hope it wasn’t something rare, we have a photo of it in our album so feel free to enlighten us to our sins!
The rest of the trip was without incident, but green and pleasant. Our camper van is pretty slow, which I secretly like as I hate driving fast. When I first learnt to drive I would follow buses and never went out of second gear!
After a couple of hours ambling we arrived in a really pretty but touristy beach resort. We pulled up in our cool camper and strolled to the beach. Gorgeous sand beach with big waves and a huge clear blue sky. Perfect weather for semi professional boogie boarders like ourselves. We are still boogie boarding in waist high water, so I think it is safe to say that we don’t know everything yet. A good wave for me is one that takes me right into the beach and I only stop when my pot belly starts touching the sand, Awesome!
Our cheap boogie boards are a brilliant buy and I think I did get the odd admiring glance from girls between the ages of 4-6. The teenages however are way too cool for school here and all hurl themselves past me with very cool Body Glove boards and dive into big waves practically on the horizon.
We spent the day sunning and surfing and doing lovely beachy stuff. We had booked to play tennis at 6, the sun sets at about 6.45 which seems so early considering its still summer here. It also stays hot right up until it sets.
Anyway we hit the court and two youths (I have started to use this word since I am now mid thirties and everyone is younger than us on our travels) asked us for a game of doubles. As we are both massively competitive we agreed and felt a little unsure of how good they were as they had their own rackets. We soon found out they were not as competitive as us when one of the youths continued to smoke as we hit the shots around. Short lived as Chris and I kept hitting quite hard shots at him. I like to think we taught him a thing or two and we sauntered off triumphantly, but with faces so red that took about an hour for them to return to their normal colour. Damn alcohol and general unfitness!
The next day was spent on the beach doing the same old thing, surfing and sunning. I know it must seem like we do this all the time, but it doesn’t feel like it to us. By sundown we were relaxed and tanned and had another killer tennis game together. Chris is really getting good!
Our camper is the best in the evening as we snuggle up and watch DVDs on our brilliant new portable player. So comfy and so much better than the tiny damp tent. It feels really luxurious!
After 2 days at Caloundra we reluctantly left the beach and the easter cheer. I was fortunate enough to be behind the winner of the under 11 bunny colouring in competition, being presented with his egg as we checked out!
We headed up the east coast to Bundaberg. I was day dreaming with the wind blowing through my hair when Chris swerved to the side of the road and stopped. Unbelievably we had been driving along with the side door open. What a couple of idiots! As I shut the door we had another shock as I stood on something and got stung. We have heard some really scarey tales about the killer insects here so I was a little worried. Someone told us that workers cutting sugar cane have to work closely to a deadly spider that turns your body to mush with one bite, in 20 minutes. There is no antidote, so if they get stung on the hand while cutting sugar cane, they immediately hack off their hand to prevent it spreading into their body and killing them. Scarey stuff and we just happened to be in the sugar cane growing central of Australia. We set off again and I was secretly worrying and sat considered the pro’s and con’s of cutting my foot off with Chris’s blunt pen knife. Luckily after 20 minutes I remained alive with a bit of a sore foot but nothing else.
Bundaburgh is surrounded by sugar canes so the journey in was really beautiful . It is famous for this and its rum! Its lesser known fame is for its turtles which is why we where there.
We nosed around the city and had a quiet night sleeping rough (so to speak.) To save money we are going to spend a couple of nights outside the camp sites. Not as much fun as it sounds as we ended up struggling to find somewhere and having a security guard come out and stare at us. Eventually we pulled up in a side street and opened a bottle of white (wine not spirits). Feeling a bit homesick I phoned home and had a quick catch up with my mum and sister. About ten minutes later our mobile rang, we never get any calls so it was quite exciting. Our mate Rosy had phoned us up with great, great news, Her fella Chris has proposed with a big bling bling in her easter egg. The man who said he never would, finally had! We were pretty choked up and wished we could have been home to celebrate with them. Congratulations you lovely people!
The next day after a beach trip we headed for the turtle sanctury at Mon Repos for 6. After a short wait we were taken by a guide down to the beach. It felt quite strange standing on the beach in the dark with a group of people, but after a short walk we hit on the jackpot. We looked on while baby turtles began to pop their heads out into the world after a few weeks incubation. After being counted they were lead using torch light towards the sea. They head for the light of the ocean, but the conservation people were giving them a hand. Great fun and they came out swinging and dragging themselves pretty rapidly down the beach. We wished them all luck as they got skimmed away by the waves and hoped that one or two might survive. We were told that only one in one thousand will reach maturity and return to the beach in 30 years time. Really amazing experience and we walked back across the beach feeling pretty special. Short lived as we were back into the camper van for another night on the street. Well you have to take the rough with the smooth. We are both loving Oz. The sun here is fantastic and the more we read about oz the more I think is yet to come! Bring it on!
*Just a quick reminder and not wishing you to suck eggs, but if you want to see the phot stream behind the ‘cover’ photo – just double click on the photo and it will take you to our Flickr site, here you can see both the set applicable to the blog and also ALL our photos to date (well the last 200 or so anyway, to have more costs extra money!) Cheers
Watch out, here come the slow-moving, interstate travelling tinkers! March 21, 2008
Since the last blog time has continued to fly past. On the Saturday evening we met up with Nige and Victoria to watch the Queensland Reds (Super 14s Rugby Union) play the Bulls, last years result 92-3 to the Bulls, so not expecting much from the home team. Driven into town by Deb’s friend Jo and had a few beers in the ubiquitous Irish pub, they really are everywhere. This one was pretty good though as it smelt a bit like the Dolphin in Plymouth ie a real pub smell, not the same colour walls though, which was nice! Realised at about 19.05 that we were the only ones still sat drinking and my initial estimate that the game started at 1930 proved short of the truth. As we walked down the pub lined street we saw on various big screens that the game had started, well I presumed they were showing highlights from last years game, as we turned the corner to see the massive stadium with huge lights on and the massed rumblings of a big crowd all roaring, I took time to check the tickets and saw 1900 start – genius! Stil didn’t miss much of the game, 3-3 when we got in and then all the tries started coming. Phenomenal ground, great lighting and colours and cheapish beer, so we all had a good time watching the Reds win! Shocker.
We then visited the Pineapple Hotel where there was live music and a meet up with Jo. Only trouble was there was no bloke access if you were wearing flip flops (which Nigel and I were). So Soph and Vic had to go through and procure 2 pairs of shoes for us from Jo’s friends. As they brought the giant’s shoes back out in a handbag, we slipped on the size 14s and water-skied through to the music (or could have done easily), they grow them big in Aus! After giving this bewildered looking bloke his shoes back, realised 10 minutes later this wasn’t going to work as I wanted to go to the loo and couldn’t ask for his shoes again so we left!
Took a trip into Brisbane centre the next day, scooting around by train and the super cool Brisbane River Fast Cat ferry service (2 quid all day travel). Visited the South Bank park area, a bit like London, but more space. Took time to paddle in the waters of the inland beach there. Great location with the backdrop of the city looming over a live working beach, loved it! Also managed to pass through a Sunday market without Soph buying anything, probably the most remarkable event of the day! Tried to access the Andy Warhol exhibit, but a bit expensive, so went to the free city Art Gallery which was brilliant. Back on the Cat to see the River Point business district, tall glass towers turned molten gold in the fading day’s light. Back to Debs and Steve for a lovely lamb roast, what a life!
Next day we finally left the newly weds to it and said farewell to Debs and Steve and got our campervan (Toyota Hiace HiTop 2.4 EFI if you’re interested) to roam south of Brisbo. Ironically, St Patrick’s Day was the first booze free day for us since arriving in Aus. Drove back down to Byron Bay and arrived just in time to camp up in the dark and, after a quick meal, sleep like logs. Woke at 11 to the sound of bird song!!! Really comfy bed in our tinker’s van! Tried to flash up the gas oven for morning tea, but couldn’t make it work. Was well annoyed, but found later that the brief we got was lacking and there was a double valve isolation on the supply line, should have known (I was never any good at that submarine systems stuff either!). Bought ourselves some cheapo boogie boards from the local Target (like Matalan) both child’s size, Soph’s is a Little Mermaid and I’ve got a Transformers one! Experienced a bit of the surfer’s lifestyle by swimming in surf at ultra trendy Clarke’s Beach in a sheltered cove, couldn’t bring ourselves to get our small boogie boards out though, in the face of such aching coolness! Quick fresh water shower on side of beach and back in the van to pop up to the Lighthouse at Byron. Lovely walk down to the most Easterly point in Australia, as we bimbled along in sunshine looked into the clear blue water we saw, first a class of Dolphins (about 4) and then a whole school frollicking in the big swell off the point! Wonderful moment, it really was.
Drove up to Tweed Heads through sugar cane plantations by the river, for our next camp and very nice it was too. Saw that they had a tennis court so off we went for a game all excited. It was a CHILD’s size court, so we had a strange game of under-arm tennis looking like a pair Gullivers at the Lilliputian Wimbledon! I won (2 sets-0), but as Soph maintains it wasn’t a real game, more table tennis with full size tennis rackets and balls! A great swim in the pool afterwards and a pretty good day.
Only beaten by the next one, a visit to Wet’n'Wild water park, no photos I’m afraid, but be assured we loved it. Met up with Steve and Debs and at the start Soph was a bit scare-dy cats, by the end she was flinging herself off the ‘extreme’ rides of the park with gay abandon, excellent. We were almost the last to leave after 5 hours of childish japes – ok if you’re 40, not if you’re 41! My Birthday yesterday and woke up in a service station car park (where we had camped down the night before), now I’ve ended a birthday celebration lying in a carpark, but never started one – so it was a definite first.
Drove back up to Brisbane and the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, Soph incredibly excited by the prospect of cuddling animals (I feared for their lives). Good little sanctuary though, saw a sheep-dog demo, with dogs so intelligent you had to keep your eye on your credit card in case they nicked it and booked a holiday to the Caribbean, I swear one of them was doing timed Suduko puzzles. Saw Emu’s and kangaroos, snakes and wombats (they are huge). saved best to last and Soph had her phot taken with Saffron the koala. Good phot eh?
Back up to Debs and Steve for a birthday meal, cooked by Steve (thank you), and loads of pressies including a stubby holder in the shape of a beach babe, awesome. Surf and turf, a big cake and several red wines – great night. We’ve woken this morning to really, really leave Steve and Debs, yes for real this time! Off up North towards Bundaburg for Monday, so will blog from there. This is the start of the big trip up, round and through the interior – so some bonafide travel coming up.
Lots of boosa in Noosa March 15, 2008
Hello all,
We are back in the land of the living after serious boozing ,eating and being merry! Australia has been amazing so far. Our trip to Byron Bay for the hen weekend was great girly fun. Chris said as soon as the car full of hens waved goodbye, we all began talking at each other at the same time. The shared house had its own pool and some time was spent floating around in it making full use of the inflatible drinks holder. As the number of girls increased so did the number of stubbies clinking and the speed and pitch of the conversation. There was never any point when there wasn’t some one talking! Beer o’clock started at 12, all participating and happy hours were spent sat by the pool all singing/rapping to the Wham Fantastic Album!
Obviously i cannot talk too much about the hen night, but i can inform you that the hen night (mostly Debsi) were asked to leave the night club due to being too intoxicated. We all moaned about the injustice of it as we staggered home, but when we saw the photos the next morning we thought they may have had a point.
All those who know Debsi will be pleased to know she was at her bootaliscious finest and when we all arrived a little bedraggeled for the wedding she looked fabulous!
The wedding was very relaxed ,meaningful and emotional, lots of blubbing, mostly by me! The wedding supper gave us our first taste of a full Oz BBQ , with a continued supply of fresh meats, seafood and salads. Unbelievably the booze kept flowing from the free bar all night and when we were asked to wind things down on the roof garden, everyone grabbed the left over booze and headed back to the penthouse bridal suite.It made me laugh when i read a previous blogg saying that i hoped to take good photos and not just pictures of drunk people making faces.Whe i looked at our camer the next day there were about 20 picture of just that!If you click on the photo on this blogg you will see one of Ed,Jo and i,you will probably not be suprised to know it was taken towards the end of the night.
Great celebrations and a very cool day!When we arrived at Noosa Heads for a few days the booze flow and general good spirit continued. Our gorgeous town house overlooked the beach and beer o’clock remained at midday.
We had hired 4 by 4 jeeps especially for the beach here. In a convoy of 3 jeeps, we headed over the river on the Tewantin ferry for Teewah Beach. We had to let lots of air out of the tyres, confirm that the tide was indeed going out , then we started cruising along the beach. Great fun and lots of deranged smiling and frantic waving as we drove along. Big surf and a really beautiful beach stretching all the way to Frazer Island. We stopped for a picnic on a grassy verge, and had a bit of a run in with the local bugs. Unsure whether they bit or not we tucked into our food pretty quickly. I was quite glad to leave as there were also quite large burrows in the ground and i think there might have been big crabs around.
We had a quick dip in the rough surf, falling around a lot and then returned back along the beach. As most of you know, i am a bit of a wimp with speed and daredevil stunts, so was happy to drive along at a nice pace. However while doing so, Angelina drove by shouting and hanging out of the window and then driving in big doughnuts. She is nuts! Chris took over the driving wheel and followed suit ,driving fast and swerving in the sea,he couldn’t control himself. Everyone seemed to enjoy it except me and it took me about half a hour to speak to him again ,big show off!
The whole group we were staying with have all been great fun and evenings have been spent cooking and relaxing with beers on the balcony. The view over the river was stunning and as the sun set thousands of red fruit-bats took to the skies. We watched, amazed that none of them seemed to bump into each other, even though they were fast and somewhat chaotic.
The males and females went there seperate ways the next day(humans not bats), women to the market and men to the boats.
A frenzy of shopping resulted in lots of carrier bags of arts and crafts and exhausted we retired to the cafe, for organic food and, unbelievably, more wine. We felt confident we were returning home to a fish supper as the chaps had left in a motor-boat with high hopes to cruise the river and catching huge fish. But alas no, there were stories from Chris of the one that got away and a story of catching a Brim, it was only later that Steve informed me the hook had gone through its eyelid, poor little fella (the fish, not Chris).
We enjoyed one more large group seafood meal (bought not caught) before the group began to break up the next morning. Some people headed home, but a few people were off to the Whitsunday Islands, Sydney and Frazer Island. I feel so lucky to be staying and continuing our adventures. Austalia has so much to see and we are both really happy to be here.
I am slightly relieved to have stopped the drinking and eating festival, but will miss our new friends and the interesting personalities that mingled into a really fun group.
We are now back in Brisbane at the house of Steve and Debsi. Ed and Shiv stayed last night and we tucked into a Mexican and yet more wine for a final send off.
Tonight we are watching the Rugby (Reds v Bulls super 14’s) and there was talk of a few beers with Vicky and Nigel, two of the remaining guests. My husband and i are filling up with water to apologise to our bodies and relaxing in the quiet of an empty house.
Our campervan is hired for Monday and i will try to resist the urge to decorate it like Calamity Jane’s hut while singing”a womans touch”. I do miss my home making!
I can’t wait to see where we head next and the things we will see. The world is our oyster and the whole of sunny Australia spreads out before us. It just doesn’t get any better than this!
Before i go i want to send our congrats and love to the Walshies who now have a baby boy called Thomas. And let you know its Chris’s birthday on the 20th and we are accepting cash donations to keep us drunk! If not cash then maybe an email or leave us a comment on our blogg.
Right i am off, will be in touch with a lot of the ladies to organise my sister Lucy’s hen night,yeeehaaaa!
Bye for now ,you lovely people
Soph
From NZ to Aus, the tale of 40 beers and a wedding! March 11, 2008
First up, apologies to our regular readers who have been starved of info for last 2 weeks, we have been heavily involved in the social whirl surrounding Miss Deborah West’s and Steve Hill’s wedding and this has been a full time job so therefore no writing blogs for us. Second up, hope everyone is ok after all the storms in the UK, must be bad if we’re hearing about them in Aus. After leaving NZ, just as the sun came out, we headed North to the Australian East coast and the city of Brisbane or Brisbo as they say! Met at the airport by Debsi West and Soph and her had an emotional re-union which was very cool, had the feeling that I no longer existed in the car as they started talking …and talking ….and talking, still they love each other so that’s fine! Taken to Debs and Steve’s house in the Michelton district of Brisbane, a Queenslander design house on stilts, with under house space and lots of open plan living and light. Had dinner on the deck with these guys and Jo a friend from Dubai in for the wedding. As the light breeze cooled us against the residual heat of the day, the chirps, whistles and barks of insects and oppossums was a musical backdrop. With huge Golden orb spiders hanging fat and heavy in massive webs, ensuring I didn’t leave the deck area!Lovely food (even though, don’t tell anyone, we had eaten in the airport and on the plane!) and we feasted on spicy prawns and barbecue meat, perfect. Slept well that night and it was very restful. After that things started getting busy with various other guests coming and going before Soph disappeared to Byron Bay to the South of Brisbo for the Hen weekend. Had the chance to do some shopping and have looked into getting some wheels for our jaunt in Aus, went into the centre of the city which is quite small and attractive, about the same size as Plymouth but with less 1950s grey architecture. There is a river running through it with fast catamarans zipping up and down, all very modern and clean set against some colonial buildings built in late 1800s. Anyway after Soph went to Byron (don’t know what happened there and probably never will!) the boys had a weekend of good food, sport on the telly and a cancelled fishing trip. Instead we went shooting at a gun range, very slack range safety – guns and ammo laying around all over the shop. Still the shooting was good, we had to sign a form saying that we weren’t criminals and wee not mad and that was it, here’s a rifle and off you go. So we blatted off 20 rounds .308 each. One ex Army, one ex-RAF and me, so was nervous but my grouping was fine and all that training must have paid off! The boys then travelled down to Byron where we met up with the girls in the beach house for a group night out, met up with a bunch of new people, so thrust from having just our own company pretty much for 4 months to living in a big brother type household, bizarre but great fun. Good night out in Byron Bay restaurant and lots of silliness. The girls disappeared the next day and it was over to the boys, I think we were much better behaved and certainly quieter! Hired semi electric battery powered bikes to tour the area and visited the Byron Lighthouse which is perched just above the most easterly point of Aus, next stop heading east is Chile! (I think) anyway good fun day and lots of top bloke type stupidity. This continued for 3 days until we headed back to Brisbo and the girls. They had been freshly spa’d and scrubbed, there may have been extra people at this time, but by this stage I was a bit frazzled and confused by the sheer number of folks coming and going! God knows how the bride and groom to be coped with it all, we were shattered! Brisbo for 1 night to celebrate Steve the groom’s brother’s birthday so more booze and different people, that night we were whisked off to stay with Jo an lovely woman who was another ambulance driver from Brisbane. When everyone started talking about Ambo’s I thought they were talking about the indigenous population, but it’s the nickname for Ambulance men and women! Anyway, to continue the party we hired a huge 4×4 and headed North to Coolum Beach. One quiet night in (to recover) and then it was the wedding day. A fantastic day and the most different wedding I’ve ever been too. Held on Coolum Beach itself, the weather, which had threatened for days, cleared for the wedding. Great backdrop with golden sands, white creamy waves and an azure sea. The contrasted with the white of the wedding dress, the black of the bridesmaids and the black and white of the groom’s party – all very, very artistic! I’m biased but my wife did look phenomenal in her red dress. I managed to shoe-horn myself into a suit of Steve’s although I did look a bit like a Spanish waiter in those trousers! The wedding itself was a civil ceremony with a spiritual twist and very cool. Afterwards the party vacated the beach to the top roof top garden of the Coolum Beach Hotel. Very rappers crib! Great night, exquisite food, freestyle dance-offs and Deb’s dad Stuart doing a pole dance for the crowd – you had to be there! After the reception, we went from the top of one building to the top of the only other tall building in Coolum, where Steve and Debs had rented a Penthouse suite, again we overstayed our welcome as the party raged until the early hours. You would have thought after all this socialising that, that would have been it, but NO next day we all met up for take away and wine and now we sit in Noosa Heads town. Personally I’m exhaustipated, we had another soiree last night after swimming in the sea and today we are heading further north over the ferry and up the beach towards Fraser Island, doing 4×4 type driving on the beach. Very excited! So, in summary Mark, we have been drunk for 2 weeks and have been having a whale of a time. I think it will all return to normal soon as we head back to Brisbo, say goodbye to all these new fantastic people we’ve met and get into a camper van, as opposed to staying in luxurious accom – not sure if we can cope! We promise to do better on the blog after we sober up!!
