In the most relaxed of surroundings

Continue to foster my precious australia time and spend it in Byron Bay - the place is definitely starting to grow on me, and I understand how you could lose months of your life here...

Went surfing today using the free boards at the hostel, they're solid and shorter than i'm used to, so it took a while to stand up, but I got some good waves in the morning and helped get rid of the lingering effects of the night before. Only stopped surfing when a little kid on a short board (one of the really pointy ones) drove into the back of my head (hooray first surfing headache).

I've been spending the days alternating between surfing, sleeping, and partying at Cheeky Monkey's (where you're expected to dance on the tables). Had some good times hanging out with the british guys in my room, who are on a quest up the east coast to try as many adrenaline sports as possible and drink themselves simultaneously stupid.

Speaking of, got waylaid by a guy on the beach who gives kite surfing lessons, and he pretty much convinced me to give it a shot. I know, just what i need, another expensive sport with a steep learning curve and limited practicality... but it looks so cool... it's pretty cheap to spend the first 3 days or so learning how to use the kite on the beach, so i think i might do that and see how it feels - the kite can also be used for snowboarding, landboarding, buggies, etc. and can be purchased for only $550 : )

Oh well, maybe i'm just an adrenaline junky... or a walking cash drain...

anyways, until next time,

Chris

Noosa, Fraser Island, the frantic and the chilled

Well, this will be an interesting, muddled, and maybe brief post, but a lot of stuff has happened since the last time and i still don't have the photos up yet...

perhaps i'll take a couple days and organize all my posts and photos etc. later, but right now i'm busy bouncing from one adventure to the next... so:

Fraser Island was absolutely incredible, one of the most beautiful places ever, despite the circumstances we visited it in... Spent the first two days of our three day trip in pouring rain, grey skies, and a massive squall line of 360 degree thunder and lighting from horizon to horizon on the second night. On the other hand, mud just makes driving a four wheel drive more fun, and it was definitely that... On the second day the roads were so washed out that I was driving and having to do rally car powerslides and corrections at 25-30 kph! We also saw the most incredible white sand beaches and freshwater lakes, and the tourist shipwrecks and coloured sand cliffs...

The group we had was pretty good as well, definitely adding to the atmosphere with plenty of goon chugging, naked beach running, and stupid stunts down giant sand dunes into the water. Camping in the rain, however, with barely english speaking people and food shopping performed by the eccentric and clueless, was kind of interesting - I was pretty happy when it was over, but overall, i've never had a more enjoyable camping trip in the rain (think back to Tofino, dear friends and relatives) and ended up being the really annoying, always happy and cheerful guy who laughs when the skies open up again. So, in conclusion, fraser island is incredible and should be seen, preferably for more than three days, and preferably with camper van or something...

I'm currently enjoying the surf lifestyle in Noosa, a couple hours north of Brisbane, and contemplating my next move to Byron Bay, another surf / hippy destination down the coast. I've actually gotten used to the routine of waking up at 6:30, surfing until 11:00, then coming back to the hostel for a huge breakfast and a three hour nap - I remain that really annoying cheerful guy at 6:00 even when (go figure) we were surfing in a massive thunderstorm and rain two days ago. Everyone looked at us like we were crazy, but by the time we got on the water, the storm was passing and in 20 minutes the skies were perfect and blue and the waves were in a storm whipped fury. Managed to learn through trial and error and stand up most of the time now - even in the 1.5 - 2 m waves we were getting with the storm. I think i might take a lesson once i get to Byron, however, as it would be nice to turn once in a while or be a little more confident.

Anyways, life remains very good, if a little frenzied as my countdown to thailand begins - right now I feel like i'll drop off the face of the earth once I hit South east asia, but i'm sure once i get there it will be more connected and techno centric than Australia or Canada. Just wait until i'm emailing you from my mobile to know i've totally lost it :)

Happy Trails,

Chris

Cooling my heels in hervey bay

Time is a slow trickle, waiting for the start of a four wheel drive fraser island adventure in Hervey Bay...

Spend most of it sitting and reading whatever cobbled together book exchange books are around and drinking cups of tea. The hostel that we have free nights at (or only $12 a night otherwise) is a mixture of converted caravans (campervans for those of us not of british colonial descent) and prefab house thingys with sliding glass doors... Actually one of the more comfortable places in terms of the rooms, it's about 7 blocks from the nearest anything and has all the visual and aesthetic appeal of a junkyard. So, life is exciting, but at least relaxing...

have to wait another day or so before there is an open slot on the self drive 4WD adventures, but i'm already excited - everyone i've talked to, including a German guy we met earlier in airlie beach, has said the driving is one of the best parts, skidding around corners and going along the sand of the beach... Also, the idea is that your time is directly reflective of the people you spend it with, so i'm hoping the rest of the people in our group will be fun as well...

Won some free beer last night by winning a game of "toss the dingo", but other than that, things are fairly laid back, which is to say boring, in Hervey Bay, and i'm about ready to get on with the adventure, or at least keep moving... Getting very excited about heading to Noosa and trying some real aussia surfing and beach bummery, but stagnating just a little bit where I am now...

Until next time,

Chris

Onwards...

Moving on today further south down the coast...

a lovely 14 hour overnight bus to Hervey Bay, the jumping off point for a Fraser island vehicle safari. Getting kind of tired of the Airlie Beach lifestyle after these couple days, can only take so much laying in the sun, eating expensive restaurant food, and drinking at picnic tables every night... On to a new, hopefully different, tourist trap down south :)

Will try and get the photos from the boat trip up at some point, if not I think Paul is trying the same, so you might at least get some second hand pictures... all of this assumes you can actually stand looking at me, but hey...

On the road again...

Chris

Living in a postcard

Wow...

It's crazy to actually go to a place that you've seen in a million pictures and brochures and should be desensitized to, and find out it's even more beautiful than tourist trap lingo can portray... When i got to whitehaven beach, I felt like I could happily stay there for weeks, just lying in the incredibly soft, pure, white sand and swimming in the ocean. Even the fact that I was dressed head to toe in an anti-jellyfish ninja suit didn't take away from my enjoyment. I think we got to spend like 3 hours there, but it was worth all the money and effort to actually get out there....

Anyways, boat cruise itself was pretty cool, got to dive and snorkel on the little reefs around some of the whitsunday islands and bask in the warm sun all day. The only downside was that selecting the, ahem, budget oriented boat, we managed to stick ourselves with a good collection of irish backpackers who spent the first night singing rebel drinking songs, arguing over which neighbourhood of dublin was shit (pronounced Shiite), and getting blind on cheap wine. Charming i'll admit, but when your bunk is 30 cm below the deck that they're pounding on at 4 am, it's not as much fun... We had our revenge the next day though, watching the two girls who had been the loudest (and most intelligent?) leaders of the chorus that night spew over the railings then sit and glower at the scenery for the rest of the day... Something about it just put a spring in my step, and I made sure I was the cheeriest morning person of them all at 6:30 am :)

In all the vastness of the ocean, we also managed to bump into some people we met at the hostel before the cruise and actually motored over to their boat for the second night to party with them, so the cruise was a pretty good chance to have fun socially as well. Learned a few exciting new drinking games that involve yeehawing and barn doors, but mostly the consumption of large quantities of goon. So, days were spent marvelling at the beauty of nature, gorging at the beauty of the onboard buffet, and rocking back and forth while laughing, cheering, and enjoying a spot of fine Australian tipple. Overall, no complaints, and it even got my psyched for the next stage of the trip, as talking to one
Irish guy about his time in Noosa surfing confirmed to me that it would be good times ahead....

until next time,

Chris

Airlie Beach - Gateway to the whitsundays!

Made it safely down to airlie beach, via townsville, through the magic of long distance bus travel...

For 230 bucks, i have a ticket which lets me get on and off as many times as i want and move south from Cairns to Sydney. Townsville was actually pretty cool, staying in a rabbit warren of a hostel and eating cheap noodles and eggs - We found out that the rum had leaked during it's journey down the coast, so we had to drink all the spillage and ended up passing out pretty early :) After another 6 hours on the bus, we made it to airlie beach, which is beautiful, and cheap (deluxe hostel room, $17 a night) and rowdy.

I think the attempt to keep costs down has forced us onto the british backpacker model - find a new town, check into sketchy accomadations, get blitzed on whatever the cheapest booze is while eating chip butties or 25 cent noodles...

Not quite as satisfying as you'd think, but it does involve a lot of $8.50 casks of wine (4 litres in a cardboard box). Anyways, sworn off box wine for at least a day after last nights interesting events... Paul hasn't woken up yet, but when he's moving again i think things will be cool...

This morning, booked a cruise in the Whitsunday islands on a small sail boat - white sand beaches, beautiful scenery, etc. etc. so that will give me a few days to recuperate and take some more photos...

Anyways, at this point i'm just rambling, but hopefully you get the picture, and once the effects of the box wine wear off a little i'll be more coherent...

Chris

Fabulous Photos...

Here is the link to my photos from my time at sea... haven't managed to compile all the ones from paul, tai, and the random german guys yet (though apparently they have underwater footage of a shark, etc.) Anyways, enjoy, and I apolagise for the small size, but i had to cut them down for the web - let me know if you want the large ones to make wall posters of me lounging in the hammock :)

Cairns Photos

Anyways, in no particular order, the photos include my last days in melbourne, dining at the chocolate restaurant with Sam and David, partying down with Tim at David and Claire's house, and 4 days cruising the outer great barrier reef and diving like crazy.

More excitement to come, next stop: Townsville and Airlie Beach.

Chris

Shark Bait

Just returned from four days and three nights aboard the atlantic clipper sailing the great barrier reef. I would say scuba diving here has definitely been the highlight of my trip so far - ridiculously beautiful surroundings, four dives a day, gently rocking hammocks to relax on, and a ridiculous party atmosphere with the staff once the diving is over.

Spent the first two days finishing the required dives for my open water certification (meaning I can be trusted to dive alone) and the next two doing some pleasure dives and some advanced dives for my advanced open water certificate. The great barrier reef was awesome, with so much life you just had to sit there and you'd realize there were thousands of fish and animals going about their lives in the 3 feet surrounding you. Saw tiny nemos (clownfish), manta rays, octopus, wierd invertebrates, and a rainforest of coral formations. My favorite coral has to be the ones that look exactly like the dancing trees in the background of super mario 3 - the mario trees that shift back and forth with the current.

Also saw cone shells, stonefish, and a variety of other pleasant things that can kill you, but decided to keep our distance. One of the best parts was doing two night dives, where you descend into the pitch darkness and either look at everything with a flashlight, or with the bioluminescence in the water... The reef totally changes after dark, with different animals taking over and fish changing colour, etc. Night is when the sharks come out to hunt as well, so the first night dive, when we descended to about 12 m of water and everyone in my group turned their flashlights off, i saw a pair of green eyes passing about 6 m away... When I put my flashlight on it, it revealed itself as a white-tip reef shark, relatively harmless to humans, but still 2 - 2.5 m long with pointy teeth. Once i noticed the first shark, i saw another set of eyes off to my left and found another shark.. this is when i started to get nervous and wonder how many sharks were actually down there...

Anyways, things turned out ok, then it was back to diving the next morning at 6:30 am, 9:30 am, and 3 pm. For our second night dive, we'd relocated to saxon reef, and as an added bonus, they decided to have a fish feed. The photos didn't turn out so well, but as this school of large (half metre long) fish was coming to the surface to get the food, about 5 grey whaler sharks (2.5 - 3 m long and very scary looking) started thrashing through the school and picking off fish with abandon... this is about 10 minutes before the second night dive, as we watch the sharks go into a feeding frenzy, literally right off the ladder we climb down to get into the water... to say i was a bit apprehensive is putting it mildly... anyways, by the time we were in the water, the sharks were full already, so they didn't bother us too much, but they were still circling till about 12:00 that night, keeping the school of fish herded into a circle so they could snack if they wanted to...

Anyways, running out of internet time, but there's more to tell, and some good photos, so I shall continue it at a later date... peace out y'all...

The magical underwater world of chris

Had the first day of the scuba diving course me, paul, and tai, are taking today, and it was awesome... Rob elected not to take the course due to the exorbitant cost, but after the first day, i'm kind of thinking that no matter how bad they fleece us(and they're trying hard), it's impossible for this to not be worth it.

No photos, unfortunately, but by the end of the week we should have a few, at least one or two with a view of chris tormenting potentially deadly wildlife (cross your fingers :)

The day itself was boring and exciting in alternating layers, starting with four hours of paint drying, grass growing video presentations on the magesty of the underwater world. Once we got in the pool though, things began to look up as we went through putting the equipment together, and how to deal with the most commmon crises underwater... Managed to inhale about a litre of sea water through my nose while trying to blow (not suck, dammit, i always mix those up) the water out of my flooded mask - found out what it feels like to cough water through the mouthpiece :) but that was actually kind of fun in it's own way....

I actually feel like doing this will make me more confident in the water in general, especially surfing, playing in the waves, etc. cause it teaches you to be calm when you should be panicking underwater...

Anyways, i'm tooting my own horn quite a bit, but my second thought after how cool it was was to think about how I could share this experience with other people... so, fair warning friends and accquaintances, you'll soon be pressured into yet another pricey hobby you can't quite afford...

As the fishy says, bloop...