Road Trip, Part 3

12th - 27th September 2012

We arrived in Airlie Beach on 22nd September and it didn't take long for me to decide that this is my favourite place on the East Coast. The hostel we stayed at was awesome. It had a huge outdoor space with a pool and a bar. Airlie Beach is a small touristy town so its small enough to know everyone but it has the nightlife.

We spent most of the day doing boring but essential things like washing clothes and facebook. I spent about 2 hours putting all my pictures on! We saw some weird birds too. No idea what they are and we didn't really notice them because they stand as still as statues and its only when they move that you realise they are actually alive!

Nomads Airlie Beach

Statue or real?

The lagoon at Airlie Beach

Obviously being a party town we felt obliged to test it out. When in Rome and all that! We filled ourselves with goon before heading to a club where they were hosting a wet t-shirt competition. Buza volunteered for this but she had no idea what she was letting herself in for. She thought it was more of a dance off and thats why on her go she broke out the worm. It was good but the other girls started basically having sex on stage so she didn't make it through to the next round. I have a lot more respect for her for not being a total whore like the others and we actually cheered for the girl from Townsville who was relucatant to take her top off. But morals asside it was good fun and a really good night out!

Pre drinks

PICTURE!!

Ladies getting wet

Hungover, we found ourselves running to catch the boat the next morning that would be taking us around the Whitsundays. We were late getting up and then there was a faff with where to park the vans and then we lost our confirmation details that we found after turning our van upside down only to then leave it in the van again. Lucky for us the boat had waited and we didn't need the confirmation number but everyone else was looking at us all sweaty carrying boxes of goon wondering, im sure, if it was too late to bail.

Exercise first thing with a hangover is not good

The boat we had booked was a 2 day 1 night sail around the Whitsunday Islands and in my opinion its the best thing you can do on the East Coast. The whole trip was awesome. Chilling out on deck in the sun with a beer with the most amazing scenery really is a must do thing.

We powered out to sea before hoisting the sail. We all had a go pulling the sail up and its a proper effort! We settled into our beds which can only be described as holes in the wall but it was comfy enough.

Hoisting the sail

Below deck

My hole

We set ourselves up above deck in the sun as we sailed out to sea. We were told to not all sit on one side but we didn't listen so the boat was tilting a fair bit.

The way to do it!

We arrived at Whitsunday Island and got in a smaller boat to get to shore. Then it was a 10 minuite walk to the other side of the island to the world famous Whitehaven Beach. It has the purest sand in the world, 98% silica and its so fine you can use it to polish jewellery . Nasa paid 12 million dollars for some sand to make the lenses for the Hubble Space telescope. They have since asked for some more but were refused as the sand is slowly being washed out to sea and when its gone its gone.

Facts aside, the view is absolutely amazing. Proper postcard scenery but pictures just don't do it justice.

Whitehaven beach

We went down onto the beach for a few hours. We put stinger suits on with it being Queensland and jellyfish are around and went for a swim. It was fun pissing around in the water all afternoon. Throwing sand at each other, having wrestling fights while sat on shoulders and dodging sting rays as they casually swam by!

the family

Back on the boat we sailed back into the sea and the girls hit the goon hard. So much so that buza ended up being sick over the side of the boat and had to go to bed. The rest of us had our tea and watched the sunset while the skipper anchored us in a bay for the night.

The German (Dennis) seemed to be getting a lot of attention from the girls. Something he looked very pleased about.

Player!

Sunset on the boat

The next morning we went snorkelling on a reef. It was awesome! I felt like I was in finding nemo or something. I took some pictures on an underwater camera but i've not had them developed yet. We spent over an hour there swimming round looking at the reef and the fish. Just as we set off back we saw a sea turtle which was really cool.

Snorkelling

TURTLE!

The route map, vandalised!

We sailed all the way back to Noosa and we went back to Nomads and our campervans. We were told there was a after party type thing for us in a bar so we went to that but we were 2 hours too late! Nobody had mentioned a time but the manager was really nice and gave us 3 free jugs of cocktails!

There was a quiz with weird a karaoke element for extra points. I wanted an extra point so after Tara and Buza had sung I dragged Adam up to sing but the DJ-man-quizmaster put bloody YMCA on so it was pretty horrendous!

Oh its not called a quiz its called Trivia. Bloody aussies

Quiz time

sing it!

The next day we spent most of the day chilling. We had an awesome breakfast in a cafe down the road. It cost $20 but it was so good my mouth is watering at the thought of it! We were supposed to be hitting the road again but one of the tour guides from the boat had invited us to a BBQ had his place so we stayed at went to that.

He has a really cool appartment with an awesome view. We had a proper aussie BBQ with this guys friends and got drunk, again! Brandon fell asleep so we put him a life saving thing that was in the corner and left him there for the night.

Nice view

wave!

Brandon can't hack it

We finally left Airlie Beach the next day and set of to Girringun National Park and Wallaman Falls. It was an incredbile site. The tallest permanent waterfall in Australia and it is fecking tall! 268 metres in fact. The was some really impressive scenery around as well. It was a really great spot and a highlight of the whole trip.

Wallaman falls

Bit of planking

Amazing scenery

Just in case you didn't know!

There was a track going down to the bottom of the waterfall so me, Brandon, Mark and Adam decided we would go for a walk. It was late in the day so Mark and Adam decided to run down it but I didn't want to risk it. It was a steep decent and there was rocks everywhere.

Waterfall in a jungle. awesome!

By the time I got down to the bottom Mark and Adam had already climbed over all the rocks between the lookout and the pool at the bottom of the waterfall and were getting in. I swam to meet them at the bottom of the waterfall and they were already climbing halfway round the rocks behind it. The force of water was incredible. It you swam under it then it would push you under. It was like being in a hurricane (I imagine). I couldn't see or hear the other to so i swam back. They had climbed all the way around the pool. As we swam back Brandon had come down to join us. He mentioned something about flip flops not being appropriate footwear even though we had already told him before we had set off

The bottom of the waterfall

Conquered!

We treked back up the track. What a trek it was! So steep! Brandon came up a few minuites after me absotely covered in mud. He had slipped and rolled down the hill a bit. We laughed so hard!

Fail!

We drove back down the mountain which was a dirt road and Dennis decided he wanted to go around the corner sideways! We ended up 90 degrees to the road on the wrong side brushing up against the cliff! He seemed to find the whole thing hilarious and it was not until a couple of days later i found out he had been admiring a souvenir from Nimbin! It was kinda funny though.

Assessing the damage

We stopped at a free rest stop that night and the next morning we made our way to our final stop, Cairns.

one last jump start

So our vans made it all the way from Sydney to Cairns without too much damage.
Well, apart from the window being smashed in the guys van
and the water pump being ripped off the bottom of our van
and the number plate hanging off
and our battery being completely buggered
and the scrape down the side of the van where Dennis managed to crash into a post in a petrol station whilst doing 2 mph
but apart from that we made it without a scratch!

Mark, Shelly and Beckie had established themselves as parents of the family as they looked after the rest of us. I managed to persuade them to give me the title as uncle because I didn't really need that much looking after.

All in all it really was an awesome experience and easily the best roadtrip I have ever been on and I'm hoping to get the chance to do it again before I leave Australia

Final stop