It’s Australia
Day! When all non-indigenous Australians show their gratitude to the English
(for…- complete as required).
Needless to
say, the sun’s out. But it hasn’t always been the case. Since our last post we
have endured electrical storms and rainforest conditions. Oh and lots of sun.
Chronologically,
we had four great nights in Airlie Beach where there was some bucket list
activity, as some of you will have seen on Facebook. We had a brilliant trip to
the Whitsunday Islands on a catamaran, where we indulged in lots of snorkelling
on the reefs around Hayman Island. The sea was very calm and clear with
excellent visibility, so we were able to see loads and spent at least two hours
face down in the water – Gillie too!
The next day we
took a fast boat out to the Great Barrier Reef, where I took my first-ever
scuba dive. If you’re going to pop your scuba cherry, The Great Barrier Reef is
a pretty good place to do it. The coral, fish and whole experience were quite
amazing. What a lovely (early) birthday present.
The next day we
drove 500+ km to get to the charmingly-named Kinka Beach at Yeppoon. I think
Australia takes the biscuit for place-names, as you will see from the photos in
this post! At Yeppoon we were treated to a spectacular electrical storm inland
while listening to Pink Floyd – ‘Comfortably Numb’ - which we were becoming
thanks to the wine…
From Yeppoon we
had a couple of pleasant beachside camps at Agnes Water and Rainbow Beach,
where I started to perfect my boogie board technique – alas still need
practice. Ho hum.
Got to a very
nice site in south suburbs of Brisbane and on Tuesday enjoyed the rare sight of
England winning an ODI comfortably. Won’t happen very often. We were also
chuffed to discover that our niece had managed to snap us on Sky Sports News in
a general crowd shot. Chances of that..?
From Brisbane -
where we were fortunate enough to meet a Dutch family who, as they were flying
to Sydney the next day, bestowed upon us a number of useful items they could no
longer use, such as a decent frying pan, cleaning items and more importantly
lots of beer and wine! – we set off early for Byron Bay.
Byron Bay was
always going to be a destination at some point on our trip and we arrived in
glorious sunshine. Lonely Planet says ‘you stay one day, then you book a couple
more and before you know it, you’re there forever…’ this is entirely possible,
as we have added days onto our original plan and will be blasting down to
Sydney in two days – not a killer, but we don’t like to rush things.
Some of you may
have seen a rather obscure status update when we went to Nimbin. In case you
didn’t know, it’s the ‘Marijuana Capital of Australia’, where bush and cookies
and mushrooms and practically every other type of herbal yummy is readily
available. The driver initially thought we were on the wrong bus, till we put him right. Anyway, we went there on Friday and had a lovely time…
We’ve seen
quite a lot of rain in Byron Bay, but it’s been very warm and when the sun is
out it’s fierce. Saturday night we had lovely Middle Eastern scoff at a BYO
called ‘Orgasmic’, then it was back to the beach on Sunday.
As we said at
the start, it’s Australia Day today, so we’re off to see how the laidback
surfer dudes and hippies celebrate. Our next post will probably be when we’re
in our second house-sit in Chipping Norton, near Liverpool (see earlier
reference to names).
By the way, if you feel the urge to comment on our blog posts, you can satisfy this by signing up to a gmail account, I think. Costs nothing and takes a few seconds. we'd love to hear from you.
By the way, if you feel the urge to comment on our blog posts, you can satisfy this by signing up to a gmail account, I think. Costs nothing and takes a few seconds. we'd love to hear from you.
PS Gillie, again. Hope you all are well, thanks for the
comments and emails, it’s really great to hear from you. Now about lemons… I’ve got a bee in my bonnet about the price
of lemons in Australia!!
In England I go
to Morrisons or where ever and buy a lovely juicy lemon for about 30p. I’ve just been to Woolworths (?) (one of the
big supermarket chains here in Oz) and purchased a lemon for $1.67, which is
not far off £1!!!!!! They grow them
outside on the trees all around for God’s sake! In the UK we have to import
them... What’s going on?
I asked the
lady at the fish counter why they were so expensive and of course she didn’t
know. A lady shopper approached me as I
wandered down the aisles and said, “I totally agree with you about the price of
lemons, I’m from New Zealand and they are much cheaper there!! So now you know, if you come out here for any
reason, bring your own lemons!! I’m now
on a one (sorry 2) women crusade to stop this robbery!!
I feel better
now I’ve got that off my chest and it’s still a great country. Byron Bay is just wonderful, we have so
enjoyed our stay here, we’ve met some great people and will be sorry to leave
tomorrow. However we’re looking forward
to seeing the girls for three more weeks before we shoot off on the next stage
of our adventure. Take care all of you. xxxx
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| Ready for some serious snorkelling action! |
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| On the Great Barrier Reef…Great |
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| Some big fish - and Gillie's thumb! |
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| Byron Bay - ready for the hot dog photo! |
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| Gillie's favourite road sign! |
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| These are the mists rising from the rainforest on our way back from Nimbin - not clouds of marijuana smoke - honest! |
