June 25, 2004

Cairns to cape tribulation and port douglas

We left early-ish, and guess what beck and clare are on the same bus. Great!

We stopped for a cuppa, and then on to the daintree river for a boat cruise, where we saw lots of kingfishers and a couple of crocodiles. Big ones this time!

Next was a short walk in the rainforest looking at the mangrove swamps.

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Posted by alexd at 12:57 PM | Comments (1)

New Itinerary

29th -1400 tandom sky dive on mission beach
30th -Bus to Airlie Beach
1st-3rd July -Sailing round whit sundays then bus to 1770 overnight
4th -Arrive 1770 9.10am
5th-8th -Bus to Harvey bay and 4 wheel drive round fraser island
8th -Brisbane for couple of days
10th-ish -Sydney

This is if I don't break my leg parachuting.

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Posted by alexd at 12:45 PM | Comments (0)

Cairns

Arrived in cairns after a pleasant flight. Thank god it's warmer here... slightly.

Beck and clare are here as well, but staying further out of town, but I never got to catch up with them that night, as they needed 17 hrs sleep. Don't ask what they had been up to the night before to need that much sleep.

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Posted by alexd at 06:37 AM | Comments (0)

June 21, 2004

Alice/Urluru Safari in style

Well after being hoovered for explosive dust only to find out it was washing powder I arrived in Alice Springs. The only thing I can say is Alice is small, you don't walk around late at night, their tourist attraction is the flying doctors museum and it's bloody freezing here.

I arrived went to my room in so far the worst youth hostel ever. An official YMCA, showers outside and naff kitchen and the rooms were poky and small. I go to my room to meet a 50 year old german woman who wasn't all there. She was nice enough but when you are freezing, dying for the loo and a hot cup of cofee (just to hold the mug for warmth) she wouldn't let you go because of her talking.

After my warm coffee I then went to my room to meet a lady called jill who is my age and boy can she talk. We went for dinner and had a great conversation. We byepassed the normal how are you and how long you travelling for and went straight into the meety stuff. It was quite refresshing although boy can she talk fast and its hard to keep up. But a lovely lady.

She then said we should go to the local bar to meet others from her group. Turns out that the bar was on a web cam that night so I would have been on the internet. She also got me to try a new drink...kalooa and orange juice. Its sweet and at first okay until you have too then feel a bit sick. The group were nice but legless and playing a game of lets push the person off the end of the seat.

Jill got a bit fed up with one of the younger guys ian beacuse he was making a private joke and she found that rude. Boy did she let him have it so that he felt so small but not agressively. Was quite amazing to watch eevn though it made me feel uncomfortable. We left after that.

Next day I am up early after a freezing cold shower to meet the adventure tours coach for my uluru in style trip. Sall or sally is our tour guide...a big girl (not fat) who also knows niles, travis and Al (for god sake is this incestuous or what). She's married and her husband works as the same thing but for the competitors.

On our group is cali her chef/cook. The group contains 3 germans. A 22 year old and her parents. They don't speak much english and won't give it a go. You try and chat and they just walk straight passed you. The daughter was nice and tried to translate for them.

There was a lovely japense retired woman who taught at a smal small school art, painting, writing, music and theatre. She was so sweet every time you spoke to her she jumped and thclapped her hands for joy becuase you spoke to her. They were not that keen on english and she couldn't speak that well either. Next two japense young girls who didn't speak any english.

Finally a couple who arrived late at the airpoirt. She was from melbourne and moved to seatle where her husband is. They met on the internet she has 3 daughters and he has one. They were great and she was so funny and full of beans but they left their bag with all the dig cameras at the hotel.

After our 5.50 pick up sall drives us through teh macdonald ranges...no not the clown but local ranch area with a mountain range. Then we go to katajuna and a walk to the Olga's through the valley of the winds. It was a beautiful walk at such a fast pace...gosh sall can move it. At the end you look out over this valley which looks like jurrassic park hidden valley or from the lost world. It was beautiful and sall also knows so much about the plants which were all in bloom because of the rain. Neils speciality was birds of the feathered variety and travi's was snakes.

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Posted by alexd at 03:26 AM | Comments (1)

Darwin 3 days

Well there are 4 of us deep see fishing. Russ, Mark, clare and myself. I walk with russ to the wharf and we meet mark and clare there. Mark has brough steak where russ and i brought rolls and crisps and beer.

We wait for ages until we realise or a guy called gary who is also on the trip goes and see's the guy on the boat. Ian is our captian and he's there with his aging dog, wife and 2 year old son robbie. We set off to tghe firts location after clare and I get the dummies guide to fishing by sue (the wife). Well what else is there to say from 9 we are drinking beer, fishing and eating. You put squid on as the bait, throw you line out and if you are me you snagged every other minute till your too afraid to tell the skipper you have been snagged yet again.

Think it became a standing joke that I would always get snagged. Gary the austraiklian profeesional fisherman didn't catch anythign the first one who did was Russ and that was at the early part. I forget what its called but it wasn't a bad size and a prietty colour but it was horrible watching it splashing around on the side till they killed it.

I caught two. They were red in colour and really small so they threw them back in after opiercing their air bags. No fair...gary joked that all my fish swim upsidedown afterwards.

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Posted by alexd at 03:25 AM | Comments (0)

Kakadu National Park 3 days

Well the night before Russ and I being the beer monsters we are get our case of 24 for tinnies for the next 3 days. Its another early start and we are up again at the crack of dawn. Kat and Russ are both on the same tour and clare, beck and ben are going on a similar tour, but a bit later. Turns out their one was slightly better as they got to do a canaboree which is the aboriginal ceremony where they get their faces painted and dance round a fire. Clare said the womens dance wasn't very good, the mens one was better - typical... would love to have done that!

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Posted by alexd at 03:24 AM | Comments (0)

June 16, 2004

Broome - Darwin 8 day tour

All glad to leave Broome we set off with our new guide called Travis or Trav for short. He is absolutely lovely and all the girls are "phwoar" straight away. We are now not in a mini bus but a bus/off road vehicle with all the stuff piled in the bus.

Travis wears the shortest shorts going so that got mentioned in the comments box after the trip. I said can he wear longer shorts as it's all too distracting. His catch phrase as well was "it's all too easy".

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Posted by alexd at 03:06 AM | Comments (2)

June 01, 2004

Broome 3 days

Well we arrived here and it was our last big night with Al the tour guide. So we went and had cold showers in the youth hostel. After a few days of cold showers, and no showers some of us, we're a bit grumpy. Not me so far, with everything I have been positive and its good fun. You can't help nature.

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Posted by alexd at 02:42 AM | Comments (4)