24th August
Not much happened on this day except that I finally
got the Internet sorted for Emma and Kathryn At their house right after they had organized the phone and got it working... There was much jubilation and subsequent surfing.And because I was getting sucked into a techno moment, I left a little later than I had intended to get to the Airport to get to the flight, but most importantly was the fact that I got to the flight. Which by the way I got for the bargain price of $120 , one way to Cairns. Nice! The flight though was sheer genius. There was only 80 people on a flight for 300. Oh yes did I ever just relax out over 3 seats.
Got to Cairns and promptly got a cab to the hostel. My plan had always been to do bugger all in Cairns. As I wanted to leave the next day... I know it is a complete party town but still. It was a pretty shitty hostel I stayed in But it didn't really matter as it was only a stop over.
Thursday 25th August.
An early start at about 07.35 in the morning, though having lived for the past few days with Kath and Emma and their early morning medical starts, I was used to it. The grey hound down to my next destination of Townsville, wasn't too bad especially since they show films on the buses. Today's choice was The notebook, which had all the trappings of being a trite piece of sentimental rubbish, but by the end of the film I had actually quite enjoyed it. Damn me for saying so.
Along the way down the east coast I discovered the fine Australian tradition of creating big and unnecessary statues in glossy paper machier.
The trip Introduced me to a giant Captain cook, a giant emu and a giant Gum Boot.It was a brief stop as townsville as it was really only a gateway for me to get to magnetic Island. The ferry over was really nice except of course that it was the end of the school day and all of the kids Where going home... On the island.. So it was a little bit like the museum at times (though I do know several people back home who would have had an immense Urgge to throw them all over board!). But I sat up on the deck at the back of the boat watching the Australia coastline disappear.
And I started to talking to one of my future traveling buddies (for the east coast)for part of my journey. Magalie . From Marseilles in France. It also meant that I could practice speaking French (yep using my French tongue), which I have not had too much of an opportunity to do.in the evening Made dinner the usual and just a had nice couple of drinks with her while looking out over magnetic Island's Horseshoe bay to the north.
The Hostel (maggies beach house) was excellent and the food they did their was great. Though Magalie was dead keen to try some kangaroo before she left. But appartently it was not going to be at this hostel. magalie and I spent most of the nicest looking to see what her options were for getting a boat at Aeirlee Beach, were we where both heading next.
Friday 26th August
Now I had heard form many people that magnetic Island was kinda of Special and definitely worth another night. So I Booked myself an extra night there at my own expense. It was definitely worth it. By the way who ever said that girls don't snore.. You are so wrong. I awoke at 06.30 to a cacophony of snoring form these two German girls that where in my room... So bad!
After all the usually onward booking and organizing, myself and magalia and Sebastian form Germany ( I had spotted him from the ferry yesterday) went on a 6 hour hike around the north part of the island. The plan was to hit all of the local beaches, go for a swim, lie on the beach for a while;e then move on to the next beach.
All I have to say is that this was the first real point where my tan got topped up on my 2-3 weeks down the coast.
We Hit first of all Baldies (the Nudist Beach), then Respite, by which point we were already 4 hours into our walk/swim/relax, so when it came to the next two beaches Fortune and Arthur we took it pretty easy and just walked along them really.
By the way for future reference magalie could really swim! She dived into the water then 30 secs later she would turn up 40 meters away practically! Damn it was impressive. By the time it came to walking back to town we had considered visiting the Fort at the top of a large hill... But we were all just too knackered. The only thing that was driving us was the thought of buying some ice cream from the local supermarket there.
Dinner was next and as always I offered my delectable services to prepare something for Sebastian and Magalie. Then we started playing some pool, drinking some beer and then some wine (or was it the other way round), then we started to talk to this Swiss girl called Angelika, Who is possibly worse than me at playing pool... If such a thing is possible. There was also another bit of origami frenzy in the bar with people wondering where it was all coming from. In the drunken state that I was in Angelika started to take me through her photo's of Uluru and Kakadu, during which I was falling asleep on her shoulders. Classy! Hopefully I wasn't dribbling. But anyway I got to bed at about 01.00am and I do remember seeing a lizard on the wall about 10 cm big... Sort of a little bit bigger than the cockroaches I remember from my days living in New York.
Any way I would be bumping into Angelika several time on my trip since she was 1-2 days behind me in terms of travelling down the coast.
That will do for today. As you can tell I am in sydney and spending a fair old time internetting. I have been uploading photos like crazy to my Flickr account As I now Have have upgraded my account and can store more online... be sure to check out my under water rubbish photos from the whitsunday island and Great Barrier reef!
