Samstag, 26. april 2008
Hi Folks,
back home in Sydney, East Coast Trip was bloody amazing. Besides the short news already posted I also want to give a longer review here, pics will follow as soon as it works again...
we have started Thursday early morning 2 weeks ago (April 10), plane to cairns left at 7am and afterwards we've been checking out that city, I didn't like it that much actually, rather small town, not that much too see..but we had a great hostel, with pool and jacuzzi so we had quite a good time that day (it was really hot there compared to Sydney), picked up the car then that afternoon (pretty surprised, quite new station wagon, Ford Falcon) and went then early to bed cause we had to get up early the next day (as we had to most of the holiday!). Friday early morning we got picked up for the Cape Tribulation tour, drove a couple of hours with some stops, one at daintree river (crocodile watching - we saw two of the saltys -maneater - really huge ones..pretty scary) and another one to do a short walk through the jungle (our guide showed us some green ants with tasty acid coming out their backs - so I licked an ants ass, but was quite good, surprisingly..;-) ). Then we came to our accomodation in the jungle called beach house, it was really amazing there, the jungle at cape trib extends until the beach, so as soon as you come out of the forest you are at the ocean..can't swim though due to jellyfish...well, we just chilled at the pool that day, went then to a little outdoor pool in the middle of the jungle, little river where you can swim in, beautiful, with a small waterfall, fishes....great! only bad thing: spiders everywhere, big as my hand (at least)...and those spiders can jump up to one meter in the air...buh, was I frightened!
at nite we went to the beach, all dark there, but what an amazing view to the stars..I'm not the kind of guy easily impressed by that or even interested, but that was amazing. so clear, so near I have never seen the sky before...really awesome!
2nd day there (saturday) was again a relaxing one, chilling at the beach the whole morning, got picked up again at 1pm and then back to cairns (with a stop at Mossman Gorge, again small swim spot in the jungle, again cool!) where our car and a hell of a ride have been waiting for us...
we thought we have to be in airlie beach sunday at 11am, and we had 700km to go, so we left cairns sat evening at around 8pm and drove..and drove...what can I say, the so-called highway up there is a joke, it's like a rural street in germany, one lane each direction, you can hardly drive 80km/h (not to mention that you gotta be always afraid of kangaroos hopping into your car and trucks going at 110km/h!!!), it was the first time for me to drive on the left side and an automatic car, so it was really exiting...stopped in townsville to sleep in the car for a few hours (very uncomfortable) and then went on sunday morning at around 5am...arrived in airlie beach at 10am, picked up a friend from Norway who flew there to join our trip, bought some booze and checked into our ship for the whitsundays tour...and this was bloody amazing...sunday afternoon til tuesday afternoon on that ship, cruising around the awesome islands, snorkeling from time to time, just laying on white beaches with blue oceans (and the beach there was just wow, finest sand of the world, just a few of us....perfect!), since you've been on a ship no time at all for worries since you couldn't do anything else than relax, chill and drink at night..also slept outside under the clear sky (well, also becuase our "cabin" was the dining/living room, so we didn't really have any privacy - that's why the offer was that cheap! ;-) ) the other "bad" thing was that we had one shower the whole trip, one minute each..and really small toilets...so we all looked kinda strange in the end, and i couldn't wait to get on a normal spacy toilet again at the first mall we stopped by..;-)
after that sailing tour we (now 3 of us with Marius) had to drive in the direction of hervey bay where the fraser island tour started, so again a 850km ride awaiting us, in the end we drove til Rockhampton, stayed there in a hostel and drove the whole next day (Wednesday) til Hervey bay. There was a little briefing that evening, and then the tour began thursday 6am..picked up the car and all the camping stuff first, 10 of us in one 4wheel drive jeep, lots of boxes full of food, drinks and other supplies (tents, greasy cutlery...disgusting)..the car itself had to be checked by us, if anything was wrong in the end or would have been broken we would have had to pay for it, 1000 bucks in total, so that was quite a big deal...left then the garage at around 11am, took the ferry to fraser and have been there..on our own, no mobile connection, just us, the itinery and the car...drove directly to the campground (aboriginal owned, more later) and build up the tents, started to cook when suddenly at 7pm all lights flashed out..because no more power..and it is dark (and I mean dark!!) here at 6pm latest now..so we had to do the cooking, dishwashing and all the rest in complete darkness..sucked! also the fact that we had there one toilet, one shower for around 60 people..great! those aborigines have jsut been drunk or stoned the whole day and didn't really care abt anything..then we went to bed, slept and suddenly 2 drunken bastards fell in our tent, completedly wreckening it down..great..did i mention that it fucking rained the whole nite? what a great start man, trying to get that tent back up while it rains cats and dogs, those 2 bastards trying to help us and 2 aborigines commenting everything (well, one said when he heard that noise he thought that a tree had fallen on a tent again...i was like..what again???does that happen often here or what? omg!)
next day, still pissed (and the weather still not to good) we visited some more sights, best was the champagne pools (at the beach, like a natural jacuzzi, very nice!). that evening was better, but still i couldn't wait to get back into civilization again...last day (saturday) then also provided the highlight of fraser, lake McKenzie...and this is truly one of the best places on earth..definitely, I've never seen such a crystal clear lake with white beach, just, again, bloody amazing...
afterwards we drove back to the ferry, fraser itself is surely great, just the way we did it not. didn't have to much luck with the weather and campground (btw, I have seen there 6 whiteback spiders, as dangerous as the redback...), but if you're there with a group you know and in a hostel or so, it is really great...
when we came back sat afternoon, first we did was enjoy civilisation...went to dinner to McD, took a shower, shaved, played some pool, had some beers, felt good!!!next morning we drove Marius to the airport (he flew back to sydney, uni work), decided to cancel our canoe trip (fed up with camping) and instead enjoy the last 3 days and relax a little bit.
Called Vanessa (roommate of Anna in Munster, right now living in Surfer's Paradise) if we can visit her, and great news, we could...there was even a party that nite in surfers and we could also stay at her place overnite...yeah! so we drove past brisbane to surfers, arrived there at 6pm and went out with vanessa. man, what a nite, the only one we really partied while on this trip, but how great, at the harbour, students bar, had like 4 pitchers or so (the 3 of us) and went home at around 2, completedly wasted..;-) surfers btw is a nice city, but looks really artificial...everythings coloured, all looks like plastic, even the sky (don't know how many of oyu know the GTA computer games? it looked exactly like in there...weird!)..next day, monday morning, big hangover, but the journey had to continue..so we drove to Byron Bay to enjoy one day there, everybody has recommended us that city, and truly it is nice! just chilled there at the beach monday afternoon and tuesday morning before driving back to sydney..one more stop at a hostel tuesday nite in coffs harbour (boring!!!), wednesday than again a day just driving (short stop in newcastle though) before arriving in sydney late evening..
last steps btw was driving over harbour bridge and then through the heart of the city alongside george street..awesome!
well, that has been the east coast trip, amazing, but kinda short, had to leave out many spots we wanted to do...
and one more thing to mention here: Malls! i really love them, you find them in every city, and whatever you need (pharmacy, ATM's, food, supermarket) you find all in there..
that's it for now, gotta finish my stuff for tomorrow, pics will follow asap!
cheers, Max
back home in Sydney, East Coast Trip was bloody amazing. Besides the short news already posted I also want to give a longer review here, pics will follow as soon as it works again...
we have started Thursday early morning 2 weeks ago (April 10), plane to cairns left at 7am and afterwards we've been checking out that city, I didn't like it that much actually, rather small town, not that much too see..but we had a great hostel, with pool and jacuzzi so we had quite a good time that day (it was really hot there compared to Sydney), picked up the car then that afternoon (pretty surprised, quite new station wagon, Ford Falcon) and went then early to bed cause we had to get up early the next day (as we had to most of the holiday!). Friday early morning we got picked up for the Cape Tribulation tour, drove a couple of hours with some stops, one at daintree river (crocodile watching - we saw two of the saltys -maneater - really huge ones..pretty scary) and another one to do a short walk through the jungle (our guide showed us some green ants with tasty acid coming out their backs - so I licked an ants ass, but was quite good, surprisingly..;-) ). Then we came to our accomodation in the jungle called beach house, it was really amazing there, the jungle at cape trib extends until the beach, so as soon as you come out of the forest you are at the ocean..can't swim though due to jellyfish...well, we just chilled at the pool that day, went then to a little outdoor pool in the middle of the jungle, little river where you can swim in, beautiful, with a small waterfall, fishes....great! only bad thing: spiders everywhere, big as my hand (at least)...and those spiders can jump up to one meter in the air...buh, was I frightened!
at nite we went to the beach, all dark there, but what an amazing view to the stars..I'm not the kind of guy easily impressed by that or even interested, but that was amazing. so clear, so near I have never seen the sky before...really awesome!
2nd day there (saturday) was again a relaxing one, chilling at the beach the whole morning, got picked up again at 1pm and then back to cairns (with a stop at Mossman Gorge, again small swim spot in the jungle, again cool!) where our car and a hell of a ride have been waiting for us...
we thought we have to be in airlie beach sunday at 11am, and we had 700km to go, so we left cairns sat evening at around 8pm and drove..and drove...what can I say, the so-called highway up there is a joke, it's like a rural street in germany, one lane each direction, you can hardly drive 80km/h (not to mention that you gotta be always afraid of kangaroos hopping into your car and trucks going at 110km/h!!!), it was the first time for me to drive on the left side and an automatic car, so it was really exiting...stopped in townsville to sleep in the car for a few hours (very uncomfortable) and then went on sunday morning at around 5am...arrived in airlie beach at 10am, picked up a friend from Norway who flew there to join our trip, bought some booze and checked into our ship for the whitsundays tour...and this was bloody amazing...sunday afternoon til tuesday afternoon on that ship, cruising around the awesome islands, snorkeling from time to time, just laying on white beaches with blue oceans (and the beach there was just wow, finest sand of the world, just a few of us....perfect!), since you've been on a ship no time at all for worries since you couldn't do anything else than relax, chill and drink at night..also slept outside under the clear sky (well, also becuase our "cabin" was the dining/living room, so we didn't really have any privacy - that's why the offer was that cheap! ;-) ) the other "bad" thing was that we had one shower the whole trip, one minute each..and really small toilets...so we all looked kinda strange in the end, and i couldn't wait to get on a normal spacy toilet again at the first mall we stopped by..;-)
after that sailing tour we (now 3 of us with Marius) had to drive in the direction of hervey bay where the fraser island tour started, so again a 850km ride awaiting us, in the end we drove til Rockhampton, stayed there in a hostel and drove the whole next day (Wednesday) til Hervey bay. There was a little briefing that evening, and then the tour began thursday 6am..picked up the car and all the camping stuff first, 10 of us in one 4wheel drive jeep, lots of boxes full of food, drinks and other supplies (tents, greasy cutlery...disgusting)..the car itself had to be checked by us, if anything was wrong in the end or would have been broken we would have had to pay for it, 1000 bucks in total, so that was quite a big deal...left then the garage at around 11am, took the ferry to fraser and have been there..on our own, no mobile connection, just us, the itinery and the car...drove directly to the campground (aboriginal owned, more later) and build up the tents, started to cook when suddenly at 7pm all lights flashed out..because no more power..and it is dark (and I mean dark!!) here at 6pm latest now..so we had to do the cooking, dishwashing and all the rest in complete darkness..sucked! also the fact that we had there one toilet, one shower for around 60 people..great! those aborigines have jsut been drunk or stoned the whole day and didn't really care abt anything..then we went to bed, slept and suddenly 2 drunken bastards fell in our tent, completedly wreckening it down..great..did i mention that it fucking rained the whole nite? what a great start man, trying to get that tent back up while it rains cats and dogs, those 2 bastards trying to help us and 2 aborigines commenting everything (well, one said when he heard that noise he thought that a tree had fallen on a tent again...i was like..what again???does that happen often here or what? omg!)
next day, still pissed (and the weather still not to good) we visited some more sights, best was the champagne pools (at the beach, like a natural jacuzzi, very nice!). that evening was better, but still i couldn't wait to get back into civilization again...last day (saturday) then also provided the highlight of fraser, lake McKenzie...and this is truly one of the best places on earth..definitely, I've never seen such a crystal clear lake with white beach, just, again, bloody amazing...
afterwards we drove back to the ferry, fraser itself is surely great, just the way we did it not. didn't have to much luck with the weather and campground (btw, I have seen there 6 whiteback spiders, as dangerous as the redback...), but if you're there with a group you know and in a hostel or so, it is really great...
when we came back sat afternoon, first we did was enjoy civilisation...went to dinner to McD, took a shower, shaved, played some pool, had some beers, felt good!!!next morning we drove Marius to the airport (he flew back to sydney, uni work), decided to cancel our canoe trip (fed up with camping) and instead enjoy the last 3 days and relax a little bit.
Called Vanessa (roommate of Anna in Munster, right now living in Surfer's Paradise) if we can visit her, and great news, we could...there was even a party that nite in surfers and we could also stay at her place overnite...yeah! so we drove past brisbane to surfers, arrived there at 6pm and went out with vanessa. man, what a nite, the only one we really partied while on this trip, but how great, at the harbour, students bar, had like 4 pitchers or so (the 3 of us) and went home at around 2, completedly wasted..;-) surfers btw is a nice city, but looks really artificial...everythings coloured, all looks like plastic, even the sky (don't know how many of oyu know the GTA computer games? it looked exactly like in there...weird!)..next day, monday morning, big hangover, but the journey had to continue..so we drove to Byron Bay to enjoy one day there, everybody has recommended us that city, and truly it is nice! just chilled there at the beach monday afternoon and tuesday morning before driving back to sydney..one more stop at a hostel tuesday nite in coffs harbour (boring!!!), wednesday than again a day just driving (short stop in newcastle though) before arriving in sydney late evening..
last steps btw was driving over harbour bridge and then through the heart of the city alongside george street..awesome!
well, that has been the east coast trip, amazing, but kinda short, had to leave out many spots we wanted to do...
and one more thing to mention here: Malls! i really love them, you find them in every city, and whatever you need (pharmacy, ATM's, food, supermarket) you find all in there..
that's it for now, gotta finish my stuff for tomorrow, pics will follow asap!
cheers, Max
