Steff & Rach’s Australia blog

Yeah yeah no dramas (sorry its late)

Hello all!
Its been ages since we have done a proper blog entry, i think its as far back as townsville.
Since then we have been to Airliie Beach, Krombit, Hervey bay, Rainbow Beach and now we are in Noosa.
Krombit was AWESOME!! its a cattle station out in the bush and you get to ride a mechanical bull, crack whips(very hard) go on a horseback goat muster, lasso goats and go clay pigieon shooting with a really shotgun. We had so much fun there, partly because we had spent the last two days with the same bus full of people and we got on with them really well. We also had officially the best oz experience driver called Forest, (who once had rabies) and he kept every one amused for the 11hr bus drive to kroombit with quizes and trivia about Australia ( Fraser island is made up of sand which eroded from the top of the great dividing range and was washed into the sea and carried by the current where it collected around the volcanic plugs that were left on the continental plate after the ice age. :p)
After kroombit we recovered from our string of 6am wake ups, and then booked onto a whale watching boat. Its only the start of the migration season so whales are a bit sparse but we did manage to see one, and some dolphins so it wasnt a wasted trip.
Rainbow beach was just a one night stop over but we had a good time having a drink with people off the bus and the second best oz experience driver Frat.
Now we are in Noosa. We have just finished our 3 day surf course. WE CAN SURF!! (a.ka. we can stand up on the board and ride it most of the way to shore before wiping out) I never realised surfing was such hard work, especially getting past the breaking waves to get out ready to paddle in. We are both coverd in grazes brusies and board rash but it was definatly worth it. We have some photos taken by the surf school on a cd which i will try and get up when possible.
Few more days left in noosa before heading the brisbane. The plan is to catch up on the good weather now its not raining and hopefully go kyaking on the river.
Hope everyone is well
You miss us
Steff & Rach
x

Townsville

Townsville is awsome, although no sign of the powerpuff girls which makes us sad!
Yesterday was pretty cool, we vistited the aqaurium and got to see loads of cool fish and even a giant turtle.
Today we had an early morning to head off to the koala sanctuary, where we got to hold both a koala and a wombat, and we got some really nice photos taken. We also got to feed some more kangaroos, and some angry angry geese who ran off with the bags of seed.
Off to Airlie beach tomorrow, where we will do a proper entry. The computer we are using has a really really slow connection
we will update properly and at length as soon as we can
Love Steff & Rach
p.s. hello nana if you have your laptop and are reading this
p.p.s post cards are written and will be posted tomorrow

Mission Beach

Getting up to walk into town for 7:20am bus is not fun, but we managed it. We are now safley in mission beach. There isnt really very much to do, especially today since its totally overcast and a bit nippy out. We have been chilling out on the sofa outside our dorm reading and doing very little, whihc is always nice. We are nearly completly out of books betweens us though.
Yesterday we got taken to a croc farm by the bus company. It was awesome, they came onto the bus as soon as we parked and threw a baby crocs on a girls lap. We got to feed the kangaroos, and watch while they fed all the big crocs they have. Gregory is the biggest croc in captivity any where. Hes about 5.5meters long and fooking massive, and the owner mad mik sat on him :s
We also got a chance to see some cassowarys and lots of different kinds of snakes (pictures going up soon) ooh and we ate crocodile satay, very nice tastes a bit like squid.
Thats about all there is to report, we are getting the bus to Townsvile and then magnetic island tomorrow.
Love
Steff & Rach
p.s. not impressed by the amount of comments being left. simply not good enough.

Root

Just got into the hostel in cairns after getting back from cape trib.
Was a bit of a mess trying to get back. The bus company that was supposed to pick us up never showed. When we rang them they claimed they had driven up to reception and rang up, and there was no one waiting, even though we had be sat outside reception for over an hour waiting for them. Luckily the hostel managed to book us on the last bus back to cairns. Which was late, and then dropped us off at a random stop on the side of a main road and told us another bus would come get us soon. Whihc luckily it did. That bus had to stop once for some one the get off and be sick, and then turn around to pick up someone it had forgotten. Ill never complain about the rainbow 5’s again.
Not much else to report. Had a quiet last few days in Cape trib since it seems to be mostly families over the weekend, and the other people we had met had already left.
Bus to mission beach tomorrow whihc should be cool.
The blogs a bit boring really but lucky for you we are about to upload pictures.
Love
Steff & Rach

How ya going?

We finally managed to get to cape trib via a rather indirect bus route. There’s no phone signal up here, so no texts or calls for a while.
The place is really nice. Theres a nice beach just down the path, and they have some fun stuff going on most evenings. Tonight apperently is hippy night, so we have to find some hippy stuff to wear.
We met some really nice people last night. Yasha (spelt with a J apperently) aka Herman the German (but not to his face). Sam, Jason and Sean were some delightfully hilarious drunks we laughed at. Also met a guy called Tristan, who we need to find today to give him his hat back. We also met a guy who used to roadie for U2 and the Rolling stones, or so he claims. He seems nice and fits the roadie profile so we believed him. He got chased by a cassowary the other day, so he gave us the useful tip to stick your arms out to make yourself big and shout alot.
The bar shuts at 12, so a biggish group of us headed down to the beach, which was so pretty. Huge moon, lots of stars, and a tempermental bonfire.
We cant get any photos up till we move on because there is no USB slot here.
Right we are off to the swimming hole in the lovely sunshine. We will make sure we watch out for crocs and cassowarys (and drop bears)
You miss us
Love Steff & Rach

Australia!!

Yay we are finally here and out of Hong Kong, even though we had to get up at 4am to get our selves to the airport.
The big buddah was awesome, lots of photos to come at a later date.

Hostel in Sydney was really nice, but probably not local enough for us to stay in when we go back through. Glebe is a really pretty suburb, you could easily live there. We got our first view of the bridge over the water in the park near where we were staying which was cool.

We arrived in Cairns a few hours ago, and have just been for free dinner at the pub, not much else to report. Off to cape trib tomorrow on an early bus. (could be interesting coz a guy we spoke to at the hostel here said it was very much a party place and we wouldnt get much sleep. although hes been living in hostels for the last 5 years so he seems an odd and therefore unreliable source :p ) what ever its liek there will be lovely beaches and nice weather so im sure we will cope.

Will update again soon from cape trib.
Love Steff & Rach x

Way too hot

I have decided I am not Hong Kongs biggest fan, its far too hot and it feels generally unclean. We went to Disney land today which was fun but painfulyl hot which ruined it a bit. By the time we were done there we both felt too icky to bus to the buddah statue so we are now going to do that tomorrow.
I will be glad to get on the plane to Australia on wednesday, there is nothign really wrong with the place, Hong Kong is just not for me.
Steff x

Took lots of piccies in disney land today, but probably wont get a chnace to upload those today.

Hong Kong (under my umberellaellaella)

Hello! We are finally here, after a stupid 12 hr flight with broken tvs and rude people sat behind us (oh and we were delayed 2hrs while they swapped the plane for one with less snakes on)
We managed to get on the bus and to the hostel pretty easily but did get rained on. Its wet. and HOT. The hostel is very odd. Its basically a huge square tower block, thats had some of the rooms turned into hostels. There are about 7 or 8 in this one building as well as normal flats with people living in. There are security guards on all the lifts downstairs so its nice and safe. The room is ok but very tiny. We arrived to find a lovely cockroach which Rach managed to slay with one of my shoes. We went for a bit of a wander on the main street last night just to see what the area was like.
Today we walked to the Hong Kong history museaum which was quite interesting, and free because of the 10 year celebrations, of when Hong Kong got handed back to China. After that we sat in some fancy plaza and ate weird sandwhiches with some kind of meat fluff in them, and an old man sat and stared at us

After that we tried to get into the Space museaum but it was shut for the celebrations tonight.
We went to a nice australian bar that got mentioned in both our guide books and drank beer, and had the hottest peppercorn steak in the world. We wandered out intime to see the fireworks, but couldnt get a very good view becuas eof the massive crowds so headed back to the hostel, to crash and watched shrek 2 on the tv in our room

Now we are going to go to bed and get up early so we can go to Disney land and the ginat buddah tomorrow.
Byebye
Steff & Rach x

p.s uploading some pictures.