Brisbane!

Brisbane!

This is what happens when girls play with cars...Nic using the traditional toilet roll method for cleaning the car engine

Wombat!

Trying a stint at Croc hunting

Croc feeding Irwin style!

Brisbane. Brisbane, Brisbane! What should have been our usual city break including museums, all things civilized, and lots and lots of walking, turned into a race against time, and lots of walking. You guessed it, 4 days until New Zealand and we have still not sold the car. We have put posters up across the whole city, as we did in Cairns, but in my haste, I put an ad on the internet. Then the calls started pouring in! Ok, I did receive a few prank calls in response to my babe on bonnet look in the photo ('err, does the girl come with the car, hee hee' grow up!) but we did get some genuine takers. We had lots of calls but only a couple have actually tried the car. At the moment we are waiting upon some Asian character called 'Ali' to get back to us, who took the car for a drive sporting none other than the socks and sandals look. To be honest, I would gladly walk round in socks and sandals for a day if this guy takes the car off our hands. We have a nervous wait but hopefully in 3 days time I can tell you it was a success!!

In between test drives we decided to make the most of having a car, and we went to Australia Zoo, the home of the Crocodile Hunter, that means Steve Irwin baby! It was pretty cool as unlike most places, the animals just lie there struggling to come to terms with the millions of screaming kids that are harassing them on a daily basis, and here they were all very animated! I don't know if they slip something in the water but even the snakes were dancing around and the tigers were rucking! It was also different because each animal had information next to them, written pretty much as if quoted directly from the croc hunter. Lines such as 'Look at this snake, she's an absolute beauty! But she gets mighty angry' was one of the gems! We spent the day there and went home feeling satisfied that we had stroked a koala and seen 2 otters tearing a water dragon apart, seriously...they had to send in the zoo keepers!

The next day we went to Dreamworld, Australia's answer to Alton Towers. It had about 6 big rides, including the worlds highest vertical drop ride, oh and the Big Brother house is filmed there so we went to have a look around the house (the show is over in Oz). We spent the day getting tossed around and Nic even suffered an injury on one of the high octane rides, Vortex (a kid's ride). Oh dear.

Fraser Island

Lake McKenzie

Slightly windswept, but clearly very happy!

Maheno ship wreck

75 mile beach

Yet another stop in the backpacker's itinerary is Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island! We went on another trip, which involved a 30 minute trip on a barge, and then we went by 4x4 tour bus around all the best bits on the island. Even the beach here is a highway, and we were hitting 110kmph! We saw a ship wreck on the beach and walked through lots of rainforest, and then went to the famous Lake McKenzie. Again it had the purest white sand ever and was absolutely beautiful! We were told the sand there was the best exfoliant in the world so Nic and I decided to put that to good use and renew our tired feet by rolling round in the sand!

Vic Hislop's Great White Shark Expo, aka the day my life changed forever

Big shark jaws, some idiot posing

Argh! Frozen shark!

The place; Vic Hislop's Shark Expo, Hervey Bay
The museum; some shark hunter has put a huge great white shark in a fridge (dead of course)
The reason; to tell everyone about shark attacks and how bad sharks are
The man; Vic Hislop, the shark's version of Steve Irwin

This is the day that my life changed forever. Having always been a little bit scared of what's in the sea, and jumping with every brush of seaweed against my leg, I am always curious about the source of my fear, Sharks. So when we passed by an old shack with faded painting proclaiming that it housed a 'frozen 3000lb monster' shark inside I simply had to satisfy my interest. I was not disappointed, I was rewarded with FIVE massive dead sharks in some weird fridge and hundreds of stories of shark attacks on humans and other animals, and insights on how people who have gone 'missing' in the sea, are surely the impact of a savage great white style death. Basically this guy hates sharks, and makes lots of home videos from the 80s of him catching them. The thing that scared me most was that this all took place right by where we are staying, just off the coast of Hervey Bay, and has video evidence of many a shark thrashing in the water, hunting its prey. It even showed a video of him catching 5 sharks, and then he pans out and you can see another boat, that is apparently a DIVE BOAT! Ah! Diving in shark infested waters people! The worst bit has to be a newspaper article about a Japanese diver on a dive trip to the Cod Hole (where we went) who went 'missing' (crazy Vic explains this as a certain shark death), and never surfaced to his dive boat, the 'Taka' (yes, the boat we went on). Now this may have been in 1993 but ah ah ah! I guess ignorance was bliss but Vic, I am a fan of your work!

Bundaberg

Pretty much as sacred as the Queen

Having been in Australia for 9 months now, we have got to know what's important to the Aussies. Now nothing is more important to them than their very own Aussie rum, called Bundaberg rum, suprisingly made in a place called Bundaberg, so we felt we had to visit as we went through the town. We went on the tour which was pretty interesting, but the best bit was of course the tasting at the end, and I benefitted from Nic's distaste of rum, by stealing all her samples! Yum yum rum in my tum!

Airlie Beach

Our pimped out raft

Beautiful beaches

Whitehaven Beach

One of the must do's on any backpacker's itinerary is the Whitsunday Islands, just off the mainland of Airlie Beach, so we felt we had to oblige. Most people do a three day trip on a fancy big sail boat, but hampered by time restrictions, we decided to do a day trip, and went on a big speed boat around the islands. It was a very choppy day so made the conditions slightly more painful, but the boat was bouncing up and down on the water with a massive BANG every time it hit the surface! Whiplash city! We went around the islands though which were convered in rainforest and the whitest sandy beaches and they were just beautiful! We went to Whitehaven beach, the most famous in the area, and stayed for a few hours and went on a few walks as well. So we managed to see pretty much everything in a day, even though we returned home slightly beaten from the boat ride, it was awesome!

Townsville, and Roz!

Yes, Roz, the 3 man has got you in his grips

We did it. We left Cairns. It was tough after nearly 2 months but we packed up the car (yes, still not bloody sold) and headed to Townsville, 4 hours south. Roz has been living there for the past 2 weeks and managed to get a job as a gym instructor, thanks to her qualifications all the way from Inverkip, Inverclyde, and so we met up with her. We stayed in the same hostel and decided to have a few drinks as we haven't seen each other in a while and had many a housekeeping tale to tell. Now Nic Roz and Kat go back about 2 years, and in that time we have had a fair few drinks, none more scarring than roughly a year ago when we played the infamous drinking game '3 man' in Birmingham. 3 man is basically a game played with dice that makes people drink a lot, especially if the fate of the dice decides that one person is the '3 man'. In Birmingham this was Nic, and the result was her being sick out of a window by 7pm and was too poorly to make it out that night. In Oz though, Roz would not shut up about playing this game, I think Nic had made her peace with it but the Scot persisted. So we gave in, and thank god, Roz was the 3 man. I swear we had been playing about 30 minutes and Roz was already 'gone', never have I seen anyone deteriorate so quickly. After an hour she decided she couldn't make it out and went to bed. I can only presume that in a year's time I will be the one being sick out of a window.

From Townsville we went to Magnetic Island, which is about 30 minutes from the mainland and we got to see beautiful beaches and koalas in the wild! It boast that it has '320 days of sunshine a year'. We went on one of the 45 unfortunately, and managed to spend a lot of time sat on the beach wrapped up in towels oh dear!

Dive trip baby!

We worked one last week in Cairns, mostly at the Convention Centre and fabulous housekeeping (we had worked so much at the Convention Centre we were practically considered supervisors compared to the other agency chumps that didn't have a clue), and just as we were finally getting good at our jobs, we quit! Yay! Now I can start adding many housekeeping and tray holding skills to my already sterling CV, ready for a career job when I get back home. We had worked so many crappy jobs we decided to reward ourselves with a diving trip, and after going to a tour booking office (the fantastic 'Dr Tours'!) we ended up with one of the most expensive tours but one of the best, and we managed to get an awesome discount! We originally were going to go on a quick trip, but realised that that would be going to a very frequently visited reef and it would probably be in pretty poor condition. So we got on board the 'Taka' which was to take us to the Northernmost point of the Great Barrier Reef, where very few boats go and so we will see much more unique stuff!
We boarded on a Tuesday afternoon and met the crew who were all quite young, but very nice, and got on well with the rest of our 23 strong group. Nic and I found a room, pretty much in 'steerage' and our toilets were upstairs and outside. We were ready for the Irish dancing to start in the evening a la Titanic, with Kate Winslet dancing like an idiot on her tip toes, while the others dined quietly upstairs, but it was pretty good and everyone got on well. Nic and I made friends with 2 good looking forty somethings (ha ha) called Patrick and James, both Americans that were set to entertain us for the trip with their over the top yank-isms! We had a briefing and then had our dinner and then went to bed as we were sailing overnight to our first dive location.
We were woken up at 6.50 am (ouch) by our trip director, Trent, and then we kitted up for our first dive. Having not dived since Thailand, Nic and I were slightly concerned that everyone else seemed to know what they were doing, and we could have easily done for a dive with an empty air tank without even realising. Thankfully we were taken down on the first dive with 'Jimmy' (real name Jackie Chan I presume as he was of the Asian persuasion) and he checked out a few diving skills and then we swam around for a bit and then went back to the boat. The second dive was in the same spot, the 'Cod Hole' which is home to 4 or 5 massive potato cod fish, not the average you would find served up at Marino's fish bar, but as big as you or I. One of the instructors went down with us and we all sat in a circle on the sea bed and he fed the potato cod in front of us. It was awesome being up close with such huge fish, and they were very gentle which was good (for me who is scared of most things that inhabit the ocean). The next dive of the day was at a reef called Challenger Bay, and everyone Buddy'd up (that's a diving term, darling!) so Nic and I went diving on our own for the first time. That's right, no instructor to check on our air levels and generally make sure we don't swim out to Hawaii, our lives were in our hands. Oh dear. Fortunately we had hired an underwater camera so we could take snaps to take our minds off the worrying reality! We saw some pretty fish! The final dive of the day was in the same spot, but this was a night dive. I won't lie, I was petrified. The boat was lit up on the front and back, and just to calm my nerves I looked out into the water that was alight. I saw sharks. Ok reef sharks. Ok small reef sharks, but they look just like mini Jaws and they did little to put my mind at ease. Neverthless I just closed my eyes and jumped in, with Nic in toe. We had an instructor for this dive because otherwise I would definately have got lost. Imagine being in the dark, under water, with a torch with th intensity of a tea light candle as your only guide, and then I lose Nic. In case you're unfamiliar, in diving everyone goes around in two's, aka 'Buddys'. You are pretty much responsible for each other, so you can imagine my horror when I can't find Nic. Even my instructor had no idea where she had gone but about 5 minutes later we find her about 10metres below us, following someone else who she clearly thought had a good set of legs and could do a mean pout. We all got together though and went for a little swim, we didn't see much except for giant morey eels and lots of darkness. I guess the only good thing about a night dive is that you wouldn't be able to see the Great White Shark with teeth poised, coming straight for you. Back to the safety of the boat for a night, and we thought the trauma was over. Oh no, then the sickness comes. It was pretty choppy the whole trip and Nic didn't manage to get her sea legs in time. Yes, that's right. She hurled.
The next morning was an early start and we went to a dive site called 'Steve's Bommie', which was pretty much a pinnacle dive, so it was a big reef that went down about 25 metres, but wasn't wide so you could swim round it in circles. It was awesome and we did it twice, including with one of the intructors, Troy, who managed to grab a puffer fish and well, puff him up! It was awesome! Then we went to a place called 2 and 2/3rds, where we saw a massive REEF SHARK!!!! The night dive was in a place called the 'Beer Garden' and I managed to hang on to Nic the whole time and we saw two huge turtles! Still damn scared though.
The final day was a dive at 'Troppos' and then 'The Playground' where we saw turtles and lots of amazing fish! Then we headed back into Cairns, on dry, and still, land for the first time in 4 days! It was probably the scariest but best trip I have done!

Things to do when you're not cleaning

Here's one for the photo album, Janet

Cape Tribulation

Ellis Beach, beautiful!

Hmm, looks tempting!

Amazingly, there are more fun things to do, other than cleaning. One of these is get a tan. Fortunately within a short drive of Cairns there are some beautiful beaches, and during the week they're pretty much deserted and you're on your own in paradise! We spent a while on the beaches this week as the work dried up, and we went to the rainforest! We went to a rainforest village called Kuranda and also further North to a beautiful place called Cape Tribulation. It must be hard to imagine that we are so close to the rainforest, but Cairns is surrounded by green mountains, and in no time at all you're up the top in a completely different environment! It's pretty cool! Oh and because of that the weather is pretty nice all the time! The only drawback is the warning signs at the beach, stating you may also be swimming with crocs, jellyfish and sharks. Fancy a dip anyone? No didn't think so.

Would someone please buy our god damn car!

It just screams buy me!!!!

Sexy poster, yes.
Passed it's roadworthy test, yes
USB ATTACHMENT, YES YES YES!

I'm beginning to wonder exactly what people want from our car! About 2 weeks in to our car selling scheme, a random call from some guy called George (who may or may not have been put off by Nic asking 'where the hell are you from?') later, and we are no closer to selling our beast. We took it to a dealer to see how much we could get it for, and he offered about 500 quid. We paid nearly 2000! At least we know that's the least we can expect (maybe he didn't notice the USB attachment and array of gossip mags in the glove box). So we have lowered the price to $3000, and still no takers. I'm not above advertising the car in a bikini* for goodness sake. The saga continues....

*err, maybe not

It gets worse

Ooh la la!

I tried making the best if a bad situation, but sometimes there's nothing you can do

Just a treat for the eyes...this is the July poster girl for the Hi-Vis Monthly calendar

As if it wasn't bad enough working at the Sheraton in their stupid floral numbers, things took a turn for the worse when we worked outside the other day, laying tables for a banquet. Now I must stress that the Aussies take sun protection very seriously (I believe the advert goes something like 'Slip, Slap, Slop', genius) and so we were forced to take precautions as we were outside. This took the form of a very sexy straw hat, that had clearly been sat on. To be honest, as painful as it was, at least we weren't god damn cleaning! We have more work coming up this week like that at the Sheraton, as Microsoft are there for some rah rah conference or something. Party in Bill Gates' room! Oh and for those who were wondering, the 'Suicide Prevention' dinner was a blast. Barely a drop of alchohol was supped, and we heard from some guy who had tried to commit suicide 7 times. Kinda puts you off your food.



We're working for one more week or so and then going on a diving trip on the Great Barrier Reef, and then heading down the East Coast. Hopefully that will mark an end to the floral shirt fiasco.