Ali n Stew s world tour

July - August 2006
A 32-day adventure by Gone walkabout
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  • 3countries
  • 32days
  • 51photos
  • 0videos
  • 10.8kmiles
  • 10.3kmiles
  • Day 27

    So Many Bites!!! (and some salty shorts)

    August 5, 2006 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Hello again! Seems like a long time since we last posted a message and we have a lot to catch up on!

    We arrived at Magnetic Island on Monday safe and sound after an unplanned trip around the island on the local bus service, which sped around in the pitch black for 20 minutes around narrow roads with sheer drops. People were being let off at various resorts until finally we were told it was the end of the line and we were the only ones left sitting there going 'errrrrr, what do we do?'. Thankfully the bus driver was very nice and agreed to take us to our hostel on the way back. After checking in we thought we would go and looke around the local area for something to eat. Unfortunately Magnet Island closes at 9pm, so for dinner that night we had 2 packs of crisps and a six pack of beer. After one of the noisiest nights ever, due to the fact that the rainforest was about 50 metres behind our room and the birds here sound like young children being strangled, we had a very nice day. We walked a trail to a place called the Forts, where we were told it was possible to spot wild koala's, and if you were lucky Death Adders! Stew was convinced we would meet the latter but not see any Koala's, and was jumping at every lizard that moved around us. After about 1km walking up the footpath we bumped into some Spanish tourists making cooing noises and pointing to a tree. We knew that there was either a Koala or the heat had gone to their heads and it was time for a siesta. Thankfully it was the cutest Koala up in a gum tree, not doing an awful lot, as was to be expected, but he did actually move his head a bit which was exciting. After this we carried on walking on the trail to a place called Horseshoe Bay and decided that after 5 km we had definately earned a lunch time beer and two of the biggest burgers I've ever seen. Included in Stew's 'lot burger' was bacon, egg, pineapple, onions, beetroot (which the aussies put in everything), not to mention a rather large piece of cow! Then we went to a Koala sanctuary and got to stroke some of the rescued Koala's, and saw a baby Koala which was about 5 1/2 months old. We also stroked some Kangaroos and met an albino Wombat and a 128 year old bird. We picked up a few supplies, hopped on a bus and after a quick stop at the local bottle shop made our way back to our accomodation.

    The next day we got the ferry back to the mainland after a more successful bus journey, and got a bus to Airlie beach, where we are staying again tonight! Pretty uneventful night, just went to the supermarket and ate in our room, v exciting.

    The next day we walked down to meet our ferry across to Hook Island, an easily walkable distance according to our landlord. However, after walking down to the coast and seeing a sign which said it was 2km to where we needed to be in about 25 minutes, we were slightly less happy and our backpacks felt suddenly much heavier. Luckily we made it to the Marina in time to catch a veritable cruise ship. We then discovered that we were actually invading a day tour of the islands and would be making a stop off in Whitehaven beach before Hook Island. This beach is like something out of a postcard, the sand is pure white for 7 km and the water is crystal clear. Unfortunately it was Winter and the temperature reached a measly 25 degrees, but somehow we coped. We then hopped back on the boat and had an overpriced lunch, and were taken to Hook Island. It took us all of 10 minutes of being on the island before we decided that we wanted to stay 2 nights instead of the 1 we had planned, and we weren't dissapointed. The staff were lovely, the view was amazing and the food was in Stew sized portions. Apart from when tour groups were coming through, which was few and far between, it was one of the most peaceful places we've been to. We encountered loads of wildlife including a Whale, a Moniter Lizard, 2 Thick Knees (a long legged bird which spent most of it's time scrounging), and when we went snorkling we got up close and personal to some parrot fish and loads of other fish which I don't know the names of! All in all the last 2 days on Hook have been hell!!

    Well where we are now, the internet is expensive and our washings nearly done so we shall leave it at that 4 now. Oh and by the way we have again found ourselves at a pc without the ability to upload pics, so you'll have 2 wait.

    miss u guys loads
    Ali and Stew

    P.s. Chris, Stew will ring you asap to talk to you about the video cameras, he reckons it'll be better that way.

    Mich, I think Fran's in Italy for a month or something at the mo so don't worry too much, we done on the job, that's really cool!

    Mum Wheeler, we think the Didgereedoo might arrive on Monday, so hopefully you should get a card through the door! Speak 2 u soon! xxx
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  • Day 28

    Quick appology

    August 6, 2006 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 21 °C

    Hey guys! Just wanted to apologise for not explaining the title of our last blog which must have left you guys wondering what the hell we had been drinking! We meant to mention that Hook Island, beautiful as it is, has the most vicious, blood sucking insects we've encountered to date and were apparantly partial to 'British tourist' brand blood. Also, the salty shorts referred to the salt stains that now cover my board shorts because I spent so much time in the sea. To make it up to you I will impart some wisdom, if you are wearing sandles, put suntan lotion on your feet and don't leave your sandles on when you're sitting in the sun. If you follow this advice you won't end up like me with a nice semi-circle of sun burn on each foot!

    Stew and Ali

    *photos added on backup due to restrictions on photos per post*
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  • Day 32

    Prince of Whales

    August 10, 2006 in Australia ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Hello!

    Since the last blog we have basically been in Rockhampton. Rockhampton generally sucked, but there were a couple of ok things to do there. On our first full day we went to the Capricorn Spire which marks where the Tropic of Capricorn crosses Australia, which was fun. Then we went to the zoo, which was pretty cool as we saw a Kangaroo who had a Joey in her pouch (6 legged roo from our last blog), and also Koalas, Crocs, Chimps, Cassowarys and lots of birds. We got a cool picture of a peacock displaying for is, which we'll post up on the next blog. We then spent a bit of time walking around the botanical gardens which is on the same site as the zoo, but decided it wasn't that interesting so we swiftly got a cab home. That night we had the best steak EVER!!! Rockhampton is apparantly the beef capital of Australia, and so we obviously had to test this out, so in our hostel there was a restaurant which had this special way of cooking their steaks called a Stonegrill. This is basically a volcanic rock which they heat up to about 400 degrees centigrade and put whatever cut of meat you want on it, raw and give it to you with veg or whatever. You then have to cut the meat and can cook it to however you want. The steak was absolutely amazing, and really tender and juicy, and to Stew's delight was served raw, so he could eat it while it was still mooing.

    The next day we decided we were going to go and play minigolf, and so we trekked the 2 or 3 kilometres up the road. On the way we got visciously attacked, but a 7 week old ball of fluff pretending to be a dog. He was apparantly very good at escaping from his garden and continually followed us down the road, until we eventually picked him up and dropped him over his fence into his garden, which he promptly found a way out of and followed us again. after this we picked him up again and took him to the house in the first garden we'd seen him in and asked the guy who lived there if it was his puppy, it was his neighbours. So we dropped him into his own garden and locked the front gate, and luckily he wasn't clever enough to realise that he would have to go back on himself to follow us again, so we lost him. Shortly afterwards we got to the minigolf, and found a big sign saying it was closed today, open again tomorrow as usual. At this point we started cursing Rockhampton, and decided to go shopping. It turned out that there was a reasonable shopping centre here, so we bought some clothes, sunglasses and books and stuff for dinner and went back to the hostel. Unfortunately, when we decided to have our dinner that night (a healthy feast of frozen pizza and garlic bread) we discovered that we didn't actually have an oven. After a brief experiment with the garlic bread in the microwave, we decided that this was never going to happen and Stew went and got us something else. A pizza.

    Rockhamptons saving grace was that the hostel and all the people there were really nice. We had a good couple of days chilling out and catching up on old school movies that they had for us to watch, so it was really ok.

    The next morning we were up at 5 to catch our bus to Hervey Bay. It was a fairly uneventful bus journey mainly consisting of us sleeping or reading (and then falling asleep whilst reading). We arrived at Hervey Bay around 1pm and got picked up and taken to our next hostel. It's a really nice little family run place, with cute dogs and a four year old to liven things up. After we checked in, we took literally minutes to decide what tours we wanted to do, booked them at reception and went to explore the town. We had a nice meal, found an English bar that shipped in proper English beer that, as it turned out, had actually left England for Australia about 2 months before we did! Nice of it to wait for us!

    This morning we were up early again to go on a whale watching tour. We left the harbour at about 8.30 and went out into Platypus Bay and reasonably swiftly spotted some whales, apparantly a group of 1, 2 or 3 whales is called a pod, and if they come up to the boat it's called being mugged. We were mugged repeatedly by various pods of whales, which was very cool. We got loads of video and tons of photos (most of which look like unidentifiable dots in the sea) and had a really good time. Yesterday evening whilst we were using the phone, Stew was convinced he saw well over 100 bats fly over us, today we discovered where they came from. We were walking through town again and back down to the coast when we came across a flying fox colony, containing not just 100 or so but thousands of flying foxes. They were all squawking and flying around and hanging in the trees like weird fruits, but unfortunately we didn't have the camera with us and the only evidence is on Stew's phone, never mind.

    Tomorrow we're going to do a 1 day tour of Fraser Island, which you will hear about v soon!

    Ali & Stew
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