Fraser Island to Rainbow Beach to Brisbane

After arriving back to Hervey Bay from our 4x4ing tour very tired, very dirty, and very scarred from the English boys stories and questions, we headed off to Rainbow beach for one night. This town, again, had an amazing beach, but really didn’t have much else to offer. One could basically say that it would be a nice place to retire one day. Luckily, we headed off to Brisbane the next day, which is comparable to Vancouver in that it has high-rises, was about the same temperature, and has cafes and sushi restaurants on every corner. They had an ice-skating/winter/Christmas festival set-up. It was complete with fake-snow, kids running around in Santa costumes, and free chai tea lattes (which were obviously what drew us to the event). We all agreed that we felt very weird being in a Christmas environment in the middle of June, but nonetheless we quite enjoyed the little taste of the holiday spirit. In Brisbane, we spent most of our time either watching the Canucks, or going out to massive clubs. The nightlife was a bit of a let down though, considering we didn’t make it there on their busy nights, and the people that we did meet were a bit less gentleman-like than Vancouver. However, we did get to spend the day at Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo. We lucked out because we happened to be there on the day that Terry, Bindi, and Bob Irwin were filming the first episode of their new show. We got to watch as they wrestled an alligator to move it to a more suitable home. It was like watching the crocodile hunter all over again! We also got to hang out with kangaroos that would willingly interact with you and allow you to pet them. There was also a Koala sanctuary that allowed us to give the Koalas willing to participate, a pat on the back. Overall, the standards of the zoo were pretty good, considering the Irwin family is running the facility, and they are actively involved with many conservation efforts, and humane-treatment of animal movements. Then we headed off to Surfer’s Paradise…

Cairns to Magnetic Island

We arrived back in Cairns to very hot weather. The hostel we stayed at was called “Nomad’s” and we were placed in a room with two Canadian guys, and one Swedish girlfriend. The first night we took it easy, and decided to book a boat tour of the Great Barrier Reef the following morning. Kayleigh decided to try diving for an additional $70, and she lucked out and saw a shark. Kirsten and I decided to stick with the snorkelling, and by far the coolest thing I saw was the giant clam. The clams were typically 4 feet long, and were bright purple on the inside, with tiny glowing blue dots all over them. The first time I swam over one I was afraid that it was going to snap shut on me. We also saw a sting ray – the same animal that killed Steve Irwin. The tour was also great because we spent most of our time on the boat. We suntanned on the outside deck, and even though I reapplied SPF 45 three times, I got terribly burned. The next couple of days we took things pretty easy during the day, especially me since I had to avoid time in the sun, but we still took to the clubs at night. Our favourite spots were Gilligan’s and The Woolshed – which is famous for dancing on tables. We also met a travel agent at the front desk of the hostel who helped us map out the rest of our adventure. He recommended a tour called “Uncle Brian’s”, in which we travelled from a swimming hole in the rainforest, to a beautiful rainforest waterfall, to a lake in a dormant volcano. Although the trip was beautiful, the tour guide was absolutely crazy. We are convinced that he lost his mind over the 5 years of travel he described just returning from. He did manage to find some giant spiders in the forest though, and some wild turkeys that randomly seemed to be everywhere. The best part of the day though was a platypus sighting! Since we learned that only 2% of Australians have even seen a platypus in the wild, we were pretty excited to find one ourselves. The travel agent also advised us to take “The Oz Experience” over the greyhound to get down the coast because it is more catered towards young people, and the drivers give a sort of tour and narration of each journey. We got on the bus at 6am to travel to Magnetic Island, and since Kirsten and Kayleigh slept the whole way, I decided to sit up front with the driver. We drove through the rainforest that had just been hit by all of the devastating hurricanes just a few months ago, and he described it as being completely torn down compared to the forest that he grew up with. So although the rainforest is probably in the worst shape that it has ever been in, it was still amazing to see how much land was occupied by it. It was still beautiful.