Tea and Scrabble with Sharon

  Cairns from Brisbane, Australia
Sunday, April 27, 2008

After saying goodbye to pops my good friend Shannon put me up on her sofa for three weeks, but there was no time to relax as we were off to see Jack Johnson. in the Botanic Gardens in Brisbane, then St Patrick's day all day drinking session sorry I mean Irish cultural experience! The next weekend was the Easter long weekend so we celebrated by going to the Byron Bay Bluesfest which is a blues and roots festival in Byron Bay, we could only afford to go for one day so we went on the Saturday. What an awesome day, my favourite was seeing Jools Holland and his orchestra play, amazing. Although I was one of probably only about 10 people who had heard of him as he isn't really known in Australia. We saw a lot of other great bands including John Butler, Bedouin Sound Clash and a great bluesy guy called Guy Davis. It was a pretty exhausting day and very very hot. On Easter Monday we went to the races on the Gold coast, got 'frocked up' again and had a laugh not really understanding how to bet, again it was seriously hot.

Eline at the races

Races

We spent the night in Surfers Paradise which is frankly horrible. Its a stop on the backpacker circuit but its basically a beach and many many high-rises with crap bars. I then spent a week waiting around Brisbane for my friend Sharon to arrive from Leeds.
Sharon and I used to work together in Leeds, in fact she was my mentor when I was a student nurse. She had just over three weeks holiday so she flew to Brisbane, to see me. I moved out of Shannon's house and into a hostel after picking Sharon up from the airport and spent a couple of days seeing the sights of Brisbane and saying goodbye to all my friends again.
We bought ourselves a greyhound ticket to Cairns which meant we could stop off on the way anywhere we wanted.
So our first stop was Noosa on the sunshine coast north of Brisbane.

Noosa

Noosa has a reputation for being expensive and where the rich Ozzies come on holiday but there isn't a high-rise in site. It has a national park and as mum told me whilst she was on Google earth there are also some big lakes. Sharon and I booked ourselves a day of mountain biking and kayaking. We went mountain biking in the rain and had a great time getting very very muddy indeed. We then kayaked, we were stood at the side of the river being shown how to paddle a kayak in the heaviest rain ever, we were soaked through before we even got on the water, it was hilarious. anyone watching probably thought we were mad. Our guide said he knew we were English, as only the English turn up if its raining. So after paddling round in circles for a while we went on a little tour of Noosa Sound which was very pretty despite the rain.

Noosa sunset

From Noosa we took the bus again to Hervey Bay to go to Fraser Island (again). Sharon had never been to Fraser Island and its such a beautiful place I didn't mind going twice. We went with a different company than the time before and they gave us bright pink 4WD so I was happy.

shaz and van

driving on the beach

The weather again was a bit damp but despite one downpour during dinner we managed to stay dry for the rest of the time despite camping. This trip we stuck to the schedule and managed to see everything we missed the first time, the rare moments of sunshine were much appreciated whilst swimming in crystal clear fresh water lakes. Again we spotted some scary looking dingoes and some starry skies.

lake mackenzie

We spent three days and two nights on Fraser and one night in Hervey Bay before getting back on the bus and heading to Town of 1770.
Town of 1770 was named for the year Captain Cook rocked up and 'discovered' it. This is the kind of place you only really visit because other backpackers tell you about it. Town of 1770 is sisterd with another town called Agnes Waters, well town is a bit of a grand term for a few shops and some houses. 1770 has a mariner from where you can go on trips to the Southern tip of the Great Barrier reef. We stayed in Cool Bananas hostel for a few days and basically just chilled out, lying in hammocks and soaking up the atmosphere. At cool bananas the very helpful Greg helped us to book a farm stay and organized our pick up. We took a minibus driven by a guy called Darrell Darly who gave us his card so we could tell other travelers about his wonderful service, the party bus. This guy has got a minibus decked out with a massive sound system, DVD player and karaoke machine and is hoping to ferry backpackers around. Except there is only 5km between 1770 and Agnes which isn't really enough time to work up a song. And apart from the odd transfer to Miriam Vale (where he took us) I cant really see him getting much business. When we got in he showed us all his toys then put on a CD of tunes that where older than me, I get the impression he didn't really do any market research before setting up his business but 10 points for effort though.
The Party Bus left us at Miriam Vale a place with not a lot going on except a diner called the Mud Crab Cafe complete with giant crab on the roof in true Australian style. It was outside this diner we waited for Bill to pick us up and take us to Glassford Creek Farmstay which was a stunning hour drive inland. What an amazing and beautiful experience, we were staying in a beautiful Queenslander with real beds, duvets and towels, luxury!
Glassford Creek farmstay is a kind of bush retreat and working cattle farm, small by Australian standards with 4000 acres. Where they have tourists came and stay and join the family for a few days, help out around the farm and eat home cooked food. We arrived and dumped our begs and went up to the 'smoko' for dinner. A smoko is a shed where workers go for a break and have a smoke therefore a smoko. To speak fluent Australian you just have to shorten all the words and add an O or a Y to the end, easy. For dinner we had real corned beef, mashed potato, mashed pumpkin and white sauce all sat together in the smoko. There was an Australian lady with her two young sons, the two Finnish Farm Hands, Bill and his parents in law Doug and Nolla, Sharon and me, one happy family for a few days. Sat around listening to Bills yarns. Bill is a big, bald, Australian guy who can talk the hind legs off a donkey but he was lovely and had us laughing constantly. You could really tell that he really loved that farm, the horses and his life. I couldn't believe that he used to be a corporate banker.

Horsey riding

After sitting around the bonfire watching the crazy piglets we went to bed. Now the beds were beautifully made with the sheets tucked in perfectly like grandma does then. and me being me I wanted to get to get into bed without ruining the 'envelope' so that you are all nicely tucked in and safe feeling. Now the beds were on wheels, very wheely wheels and the floors where beautifully polished, so as I delicately tried to get into the envelope the bed shot out across the room and I ended up on the floor in a heap. Needless to say Shorn found this highly amusing.
The next morning after explaining what all the banging and laughter was about we went for breakfast. After getting kitted out in riding boots and jeans we went and tried to milk some cows, which isn't easy at all, I got about a cup of teas worth (as long as you don't want it to milky). Nolla was chief cow milker and definitely better at it than us but she had been doing it a bit longer. The cattle on the farm are mainly beef cattle but they keep a few milking cows for the tourists and to feed the pigs. We then learnt to horse ride, actually learnt to ride instead of sitting on a horse I have no control over. I am no longer scared of horses as I have discovered that I am far more stubborn than a horse, they also do have brakes you just need to know how to find them. We went horse riding for two hours both days we were there and even attempted a bit of cattle mustering. It was such a beautiful way to see the farm which is apparently looking greener than it has in years due to the summer of rain they had. Apparently the creek was flowing for the first time in five years and the platypus have come back to the creek, not that we saw them. So we spent two full days enjoying the farm, the food and the atmosphere and having a wonderful time.

Horsey

One of the mornings we were all kitted out to go riding when I needed to pee, so I started to jog across the farmyard to the toilet. There is a goat that lives on the farm which according to Bill is going to be renamed Rogan Josh soon because of its behaviour. As I was jogging along I hear Bill shout "Rachel, The goat!" and I turn round and its running at me with its head down and its horns out ready for the charge, "what do I do?" "grab its horns" so as it comes for me I grab its horns and we start wrestling around the farmyard "what now?' "tie it up" "how?" at that moment one of the Finnish Farmhands came to rescue me! Sounds like the start of a very bad romance novel, I thought he was very gallant until I realised Bill had told him to and until that point had been watching and laughing. Sharon has some great photos of him running to my rescue, nice to see she was concerned about my welfare enough to get her camera out and take some photos.
I took loads of photos of the farm and of us horse riding but one night I let Nolla look through them on the camera and she accidently deleted them all. I didn't have the heart to tell her as she would have been mortified. But I managed to get some of some of the photos recovered. My favourite experience on the farm (apart form the atmosphere and the people) was driving the tractor! I was so excited when I saw the tractor but it had a flat tire, I said to Bill how I had always wanted to drive a tractor so he pumped up the tires and we went for a drive. So much fun! It was a digger really with a bucket on the front, so not only did I drive the tractor I drove it with two kids riding in the bucket.

Bill, me and a tractor

I think I was more scared than their mum who was watching. We did a bit of digging as well (the children had got out of the bucket) and drove about a bit then went to dump the earth by the smoko but in the process the tractor ran out of petrol, so its now sat outside the smoko with its bucket in the air!
The whole experience was great, it made me a bit homesick and less homesick at the same time, a bit of home cooking and family atmosphere made me realize how much I miss my family. So we left Glassford creek farm in the horse truck with a one eyed horse who may or may not have been going to the glue factory.

lift to town

So Bill left us back at the mud crab café to await the overnight bus going north. after an indigestion inducing pie and chips we sat at the 'bus stop' waiting for the greyhound. When I say bus stop I actually mean a lay bye outside the local police station . Outside was a sign saying 'opening times Mon-Tues 09-12'

Miriam vale police station

evidently not a lot of crime in Miriam Vale, in fact so little crime that the local bobby drove out from the police station in his car to have a little chat with us and find out what two girls were doing sat on rucksacks at the side of the highway. Why he came out in the patrol car and didn't walk the four steps from his front door to where we were sat remains a mystery, maybe we looked dangerous and he needed the car for protection!
After a sleepless night on the bus we arrived into a very very wet Airlie Beach where we had six hours to waste before getting on a yacht to sail around the Whitsunday Islands. We had crossed over the tropic of Capricorn during the night and were hoping for calm seas and sunshine but no luck there.
We where on a small yacht called the Schooner Friendship which fit 12 people very snuggly, the weather had cleared by the afternoon so we had a pleasant sail to an inlet on one of the islands to enjoy a huge plate of prawns and some beautiful views.

The Boat

Whitsundays

The next day the wind had dropped slightly so we were able to sail to Whitehaven beach which is absolutely stunning. The few glasses of wine I had had the night before did not help my sea-sickness and headache issues but despite this I enjoyed the day. In the afternoon we donned incredibly attractive stinger suits (see picture)

Stinger suit

to protect us from box jelly fish and went snorkeling. The visibility was terrible because of the recent rain (poor visibility could be the title of my entire travels!). We then sailed to another calm inlet for the night where I had an early one to sleep of the seasickness. Which was miraculously gone by the morning in time for some more snorkeling and a sail back to Airlie Beach. I would definitely recommend the Whitsundays and the Schooner Friendship, despite the skipper who talked constant bullshit, the other crew member and the incredible food made up for it. Oh and don't drink any alcohol if you get even slightly sea sick!
After some hot showers and vast quantities of laundry we got back on the Greyhound for another night of neck-paralysis to Cairns. These bus trips are usually pretty uneventful but sometimes you find some top characters that keep you amused, and it was so on this trip. We had the MOST jobsworth bus driver ever. He was wearing his neatly starched Greyhound uniform complete with shorts, knee-high socks and shiny shoes (in the style of many Australian men of a certain age). To complete the professional appearance he had a blue-tooth headset and a head torch, this guy was prepared for any eventuality. On 'embarkation' he gave his vary captive audience a long spiel about the laws of the road and the bus, he went on and on. He proceeded to repeat this three times through the night. We realised that he was taking his wife along for the trip so he was possibly showing off a little bit. We even spotted her taking photos of him refueling (complete with high visibility jacket) which is definitely one to show the grandchildren. We must have swapped drivers sometime through the night as when we arrived in Cairns in the wee small hours of the morning Mr. Socks was nowhere to be seen, what a guy. In Cairns we stayed at Tropic Days, a great hostel a little way out of the city but with complementary buses, definitely one of the best hostels I have stayed in. Sharon and I had only one week left together in Cairns before she flew back to Leeds (via Brisbane, Singapore and Manchester). So using the last of my funds we booked a loud of trips through the hostel . my friends from Brisbane Eline and Emily (well they are actually Dutch and Canadian) met us in Cairns for a few days so we all went on a tour of the Atherton Tablelands, slightly south and inland from Cairns.

Sharon, Emily, Me and Eline

We spent the day visiting various waterfalls and Crater lakes and got very wet from both the rain and swimming in waterfalls. One waterfall called Milla Milla has been the setting for various adverts and music videos.

milla milla

The old timotea shampoo add and Peter Andres Mysterious Girl video.

timote advert ish

We spent the night in a little hostel playing Uno and drinking tea after a few hours of not very successful platypus spotting. The next day we went for a lovely cycle ride in the sunshine before a swim in Lake Eacham ( a crater lake) and a massive burger at a road house. In the arvo (see I speak Australian) we went canoeing on a reservoir and went to spot tree kangaroos.

paddling on the resevoir

Sharon and I had definitely got our act together in the double after our previous experience while Eline and Emily are very good at going round in circles and shouting at each other, ahh well we cant all be experts like Sharon and I! We managed to spot some very cute tree kangaroos despite the racket we were making I didn't manage to get any decent photos though, we couldn't keep the canoe in one spot and not drop the camera into the water at the same time. Our guide found us some ochre so we had fun painting our faces so we all looked very special for our paddle and bus back to Cairns. In Cairns we had a beer or two and said good bye to Emily and Eline who went back to Brisbane and Sharon and I went on a reef trip. It would be very rude if you went to Cairns and didn't see the Great Barrier Reef. So we took a big boat out to the reef (about an hour boat trip form Cairns) for some snorkeling and diving. And guess what? the weather and visibility were great, I couldn't believe it, amazing! Sharon and I did an introductory dive together. Obviously I have dived before but I really regretted not diving with dad when he did it as I couldn't share the experience, so this time I came along for the ride.

Scuba Shaz

Sharon really enjoyed it and we saw some great things like an absolutely massive clam. We spent the rest of the day snorkeling and enjoying another massive plate of prawns. We hired an underwater digital camera and I had better luck with it this time and even managed to get some in focus photos of fish and coral instead of just bubbles and sediment! The great barrier reef defies words and I hope that I can come back with a few more funds and dive it properly. The journey back to cairns was spent sun baking and drinking sparkling wine, a hard hard life!

clam thingy

after a night in the hostel we took a trip north to Cape tribulation on Sharon's suggestion. We joined a tour group that took us up to Cape Tribulation via some crocodile spotting. The further north you get in Australia there are more things that can kill you it seems, and many signs warning of severe injury or death. In the sea are the stingers (jellyfish that can kill or at least cause unbelievable pain), in the creeks are Saltwater Crocodiles (when I asked a guide how fast a crocodile attacks, I think the words explosive force where used)

and again just to be sure

and in the forests are stinger plants whose leaves spike you with glass like tubes that lodge in your pores that cause amazing amounts of pain for anything up to a year with no known medical cure, nice country! That doesn't even begin to cover the sharks, snakes, spiders, insects, birds and lizards that also seam to have it in for tourists in particular.

Dangerous place

dangeous place

Cape Tribulation, so named after our friend Cook got into trouble on the reef up there, is where the reef, the beach and the rainforest meet. The Daintree Rainforest is a world heritage site and rightly so as its amazingly beautiful and contains many prehistoric species of plants, the rainforest starts about an hour north of cairns and pretty much keeps going to the top of the country to Cape York. So we went to see the tree tops as best we could by swinging through the trees on cables,

shaz upside down

followed by a delicious dinner and game of scrabble and a few bears before bed. We were staying in a very chilled out and beautiful beach house nestled right in the jungle complete with bar, restaurant and cheap accommodation oh and a scrabble board! the next day we after a rather later start we explored the beach and very small section of forest on foot, and managed to find a swimming spot without any death eating rabbits or other man-eating species (although it did have a cartwheel and a coconut at the bottom of it which was a little surreal it could have been a sign , or the beginning of a song, the Cartwheel and the coconut.....).

rainforest

We walked back to the resort along the road as it began to get dark and a little creepy with all the jungle noises and obviously neither of us had brought a torch with us but we made it back in one piece. So we not only celebrated our survival but also our last proper night together by having a bottle of wine and a game of ...Boggle! The next day we took the bus back to Cairns with a quick stop in Port Douglas to enjoy an ice-cream from a shop with 42 different flavours. We also stopped at Mossman Gorge and went for a swim despite warnings of severe injury or death it was safe though mum I promise! Our last night together in Cairns was spent playing scrabble and drinking tea, we really are crazy cats aren't we? Just to let you know Sharon won every single game of scrabble and boggle because I still cant spell.
The next morning at stupid-o'clock I got up to say good bye to Sharon as she flew home. I will really miss her as we had a great time together and had such a laugh, its I had never left we picked up exactly were we had left off which was great. The funny thing about travelling with Shaz apart from her obviously, was other peoples questions about us as they tried to work out the relationship between us probably because of the age gap (our average age is 32 1/2). So we got a bit bored of explaining that we used to work together so we started to make things up, my favourite was that we met in jail, that usually ended the conversation pretty quickly!
So after a great three weeks together Sharon abandoned me alone in Cairns with reduced funds, 3 months on my visa and no idea what to do next!
Stay tuned!