Big country, bigger ocean
G'day sport!!
First things first, I have to take back an earlier comment regarding the Germans. I'm sorry, you're not all bad, come back all is forgiven! I'll come to it later but the guilt was getting too much for me!
I love islands! after enjoying all that Cairns had to offer, including some terrible night clubs, a rather expensive trip to the dentist (had to have a compacted wisdom tooth forcibly removed), a couple of trips to the Casino (stupid I know but won $170 in total so...) and some great cliff diving at a place called the Crystal Cascade (trust me, diving from 10m feels great until your head hits the water!) I drove south (with Dave aka Tim Henman from west coast) and had my first real swim in the Pacific Ocean by doing some great snorkeling off Magnetic Island (don't really count the quick dip during my parabungy jump!) and then once again realized how unfit I was while cycling up and down the length of the island's east coast.
From Magnetic Island - beautiful place by the way - it was further south to Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands on the British Defender, an 83 ft long yacht with a 113 ft mast. Amazing boat and even more amazing islands. Even more spectacular snorkeling, beautiful beaches, great people (about 20 of us - 50/50 male female split - some of whom were German and great fun!), sailing at ridiculous angles (boat was a racing yacht from the whitbread round the world race) and obviously plenty of jumping and diving in off the bow!.
Beyond the place itself we also saw humpback whales and massive green turtles from the boat, and snorkeled with a loggerhead turtle that was over a meter long , poisonous nudibranches, parrot fish, Napoleon rass (1.5 m long and only inches away from me), Emperor Angel fish, bat fish, butterfly fish, giant multi coloured clams and god knows what else I couldn't name but could literally reach out and touch!
I'm now at Hervey Bay from where I'll be taking a 4 wheel drive vehicle of some kind out around Fraser Island in a couple of days which should be entertaining (Fraser is apparently the worlds biggest sand island, sure Brucetta could handle it but no one else is quite so sure of her so....). After Fraser not sure on next move, seem to be managing to spend a stupid amount of cash but still need to learn to scuba dive, go whale watching, become a pro surfer at Byron Bay and then hit the bright lights of Sydney so have to start selling parts of my body I think!
Well, hope you're all having as much fun as I am, (hope today went well Noreen, sure it will of - sorry I couldn't be there!).
Laters
Jonathan
Escape Backpackers
Hervey Bay
Queensland
Oz.
First things first, I have to take back an earlier comment regarding the Germans. I'm sorry, you're not all bad, come back all is forgiven! I'll come to it later but the guilt was getting too much for me!
I love islands! after enjoying all that Cairns had to offer, including some terrible night clubs, a rather expensive trip to the dentist (had to have a compacted wisdom tooth forcibly removed), a couple of trips to the Casino (stupid I know but won $170 in total so...) and some great cliff diving at a place called the Crystal Cascade (trust me, diving from 10m feels great until your head hits the water!) I drove south (with Dave aka Tim Henman from west coast) and had my first real swim in the Pacific Ocean by doing some great snorkeling off Magnetic Island (don't really count the quick dip during my parabungy jump!) and then once again realized how unfit I was while cycling up and down the length of the island's east coast.
From Magnetic Island - beautiful place by the way - it was further south to Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands on the British Defender, an 83 ft long yacht with a 113 ft mast. Amazing boat and even more amazing islands. Even more spectacular snorkeling, beautiful beaches, great people (about 20 of us - 50/50 male female split - some of whom were German and great fun!), sailing at ridiculous angles (boat was a racing yacht from the whitbread round the world race) and obviously plenty of jumping and diving in off the bow!.
Beyond the place itself we also saw humpback whales and massive green turtles from the boat, and snorkeled with a loggerhead turtle that was over a meter long , poisonous nudibranches, parrot fish, Napoleon rass (1.5 m long and only inches away from me), Emperor Angel fish, bat fish, butterfly fish, giant multi coloured clams and god knows what else I couldn't name but could literally reach out and touch!
I'm now at Hervey Bay from where I'll be taking a 4 wheel drive vehicle of some kind out around Fraser Island in a couple of days which should be entertaining (Fraser is apparently the worlds biggest sand island, sure Brucetta could handle it but no one else is quite so sure of her so....). After Fraser not sure on next move, seem to be managing to spend a stupid amount of cash but still need to learn to scuba dive, go whale watching, become a pro surfer at Byron Bay and then hit the bright lights of Sydney so have to start selling parts of my body I think!
Well, hope you're all having as much fun as I am, (hope today went well Noreen, sure it will of - sorry I couldn't be there!).
Laters
Jonathan
Escape Backpackers
Hervey Bay
Queensland
Oz.
posted by JP at 6:21 am
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