Some piccies

It's a shame to knock the news of our engagement off the top of the blog but we know you like seeing piccies of us having fun!

Charlotte being a professional orange packer:


The main street in Gayndah (rush hour):


Having a beer and watching the sun go down in 1770:


The baby 'roo in the mechanics at Gladstone:


Finch Hatton Gorge in Eungella National Park:


Drinking champagne and watching the fishies in the underwater viewing chamber on the reef:


Looking out over the Whitsunday islands from Hamilton Island:


Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island:


Townsville from Castle Hill; a massive rocky hill just sitting in the middle of an extremely flat city:

One other thing...

Oh, we didn't mention one other small thing that happened out on the reef - we got engaged. Kev got down on one knee and popped the question after our nice romantic meal, and Charlotte said 'no'. Then 'yes'. She's such a joker.

We stopped off in Bowen on the way up and were joined by Rod and Tracey from Gayndah who had had enough of citrus and were looking for work there. We left them and travelled another 3 hours up the coast to Townsville, a lovely tropical city. Will add more when we have a bit more time.

More pics to follow, but here's one from sunrise on the barrier reef. At this point, we were engaged:

We found Wally

As we promised, we made it out to the reef and returned yesterday. We studied all the brochures and decided against a live-on-yacht cruise around the islands in favour of a trip out to the barrier reef. We took 3 hour boat ride out to a floating pontoon, which is fully kitted out with snorkelling, scuba diving, viewing chambers, submarines and commentary to make sure that you see a shedload of the reef in the most comfort possible. It was a little bit Disneyworld in the way it was presented, but ultimately a great day out.

Or it would have been a day out, if we hadn't chosen to stay after the boat left and sleep out there on the reef. On the pontoon are a couple of rooms for up to six people to stay out there with only the crew, the fish and the coral for company. We got lucky and were the only two, which meant an instant upgrade to the kingsize double bed. From the moment we left the mainland we were treated like VIPs with our own host making sure every part of our trip was spot on. We were even given free sea sickness tablets, not that it stopped Charlotte and half the rest of the boat from leaving their breakfast on board. The water around the Whitsundays is quite flat, and at the reef there's barely a wave, but the open ocean in between was as rough as anything for almost an hour.

Despite that, we managed to sign up to go scuba diving (with 2 dives also included in our deal), although our stomachs told us to take the afternoon dive rather than the one straight away. Instead, we donned our wetsuits and went snorkelling. It's hard to describe what it's like but the sheer number of fish and the walls of coral are stunning.

We spent a bit too long out in the water - missing lunch - and got straight into our scuba gear for our first ever dives. This was even better than the snorkelling although a bit more scary. Kai, our instructor, was superb and looked after us above and below the water. He's also quite mad. And Finnish.

Once that was over, we dried off and waved goodbye to the other 200-odd guests as the boat left in the middle of the afternoon. And then, we had the whole place to ourselves, and free, unlimited booze! We had a quick briefing with Belinda, our host, and then fed George the Groper, a huge 4ft fish that likes to hang around the pontoon and scare the divers.

The clouds chose to ruin any chance of a sunset, so we opted to take our champagne and cheese and crackers down to the viewing chamber, where we were given a couple of bean bags to sit and marvel at the fish and the reef.

Next on the itinerary was a tasty three course meal (served outside under the stars of course), before taking a bit more booze back to the viewing chamber for the most relaxing and beautiful aquarium you could imagine.

We started the next day early, just in time to catch the sun rising over the reef, and then Kai invited us to go for our second dive before the boat arrived. This time we were taken deeper and it was simply beyond words. We had a bit of time for a quick snorkel on our own before the boat arrived, and were joined by Wally. He's a huge Hump-headed Maori Wrasse that likes a bit of attention and doesn't mind being patted. We continued snorkelling as the new day's guests arrived, finding a few Clown Fish hiding amongst the coral, or "Nemos" as everyone seems to call them since the film came out.

This time we got out in time for the buffet lunch, and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the sun, the reef and the fish. The boat home was at least as rough as the journey out but we both managed to hold on to our stomachs and made it back to land to find a miserable dark cloud over Airlie Beach. Not that it ruined our trip at all, it was one of the best things we've ever done.

Tomorrow we're off to the see the islands, including the famous Whitehaven Beach. The weather's not looking too promising but we'll try and struggle through. Don't worry. We'll cope.

Whitsundays

Time for an update. First, Matilda had her 10,000km service and to our absolute relief they found no real problems. The fuel pump that we got fixed further south is still faulty, which is annoying, but other than changing the oil they didn't find reason to do anything else. The garage was very friendly and, bizarrely, had a little sort of animal sanctuary in the office. One of the owners rescues animals that have been hit by cars so she introduced us to a little baby kangaroo, a small bird and a litter of puppies while we discussed engines, oil leaks and fuel pumps.

We celebrated with a KFC, making sure to text our former housemates and let them know (there's no KFC within an hours drive of Gayndah). We headed up to Rockhampton, which didn't seem too appealing to stay in, so went east to the coast, through Emu Park to a town called Yeppoon. This was a surprisingly beautiful part of the country since we'd never heard of it, so we were glad to take the detour.

Unfortunately it had rained every day and continued to do so as we arrived 3 hours further north in Mackay. The weather gave us an opportunity to take a day off travelling and sightseeing to consider our next steps, and to make some plans for the next few months. After we get to the northern part of Queensland, our intended route begins to get a bit more interesting and we really had to work out our money and time. In particular, we don't want to be in the north when summer starts. You'll see what we worked out over the next few months, we don't want to give anything away yet!

We left Mackay and since our next major stop was the coastal Whitsunday area, we headed inland for an hour to the area of Eungella National Park. A trip up into the 'moutain' range led us to a spot called Broken River, which is one of the few places that you can see the Platypus in the wild. As we arrived we saw a group of people hanging over a bridge, and our luck was in as there were a couple feeding in the river below.

An hour and a half further north and we're now in Airlie Beach. The sea and scenery here is just stunning, but it's the Whitsunday Islands and the Great Barrier Reef that we're mainly here for. Like Fraser Island, this is one of the big (and expensive) stops on our trip so we're currently studying all the brochures to decide on the best way to make use of our hard-earned cash. Rest assured, within the next few days we'll be snorkelling/scuba diving/swimming/sailing.

Ta-ta for now...

Back to the van

We did it. We left Gayndah!

With a sad goodbye to our new friends we headed out for the Town of 1770. It's called that because it's the year that Cook first landed in Queensland, and so they call this place the birthplace of Queensland. After a 4 hour drive (including a pie stop) we found it, and discovered that there wasn't much to find. It's a beautiful little place but consists of about 4 roads, a caravan park and a big load of building work. In a few years it'll probably be quite a significant tourist town but for now it's peaceful and quiet.

We had a couple of nights there and spent our time exploring the nearby town of Agnes Water, considering whether to do a boat cruise out to the southern great barrier reef, hire a boat and bob around the river and do a spot of fishing, jump in an amphibious vehicle that looks like a giant ice cream van or just relax around the caravan park and get used to life in the van again. In the end, we realised that to keep Matilda's warranty valid we would have to get her serviced asap and so we chose to save the money - just in case.

As we packed up to leave 1770 we got chatting to a couple in a caravan next to us who must have taken a liking to us as they gave us a genuine invite to stay with them in Tamworth, west of Sydney, when we're back down that way. We may well take them up on it later in the year...

Another hour and a half north took us to the port city of Gladstone. An odd but pleasant place that has a port (the least surprising part), a normal city/town centre and then some huge industrial works dotted around. It's a bizarre mixture but it all seems to work quite well together. We booked the car in for it's service and then headed to a town 20 minutes back down the road called Tannum, where we've been staying.

Last night we got chatting to an Aussie family, and the parents had done the full circle of Oz a few years back so they gave us all sorts of tips and advice. It also happened that Chris - the Dad - happened to be an ex-Mitssubishi mechanic so he gave us a few very useful pointers on the van too. Speaking of which, the van's in the garage right now being serviced and possibly having the tappets adjusted (a knocking engine being Matilda's latest ailment).

So that leads us to where we are now, sitting in a library in Gladstone on a wet but mild Friday morning. Assuming we get the van back today, we'll be back on the road heading northwards towards the Whitsundays, which everyone says is beautiful, even if it is still raining.

Piccie time!

Fraser Island from the air:


Eli Creek, Fraser Island


Dingo, Fraser Island:


The SS Maheno shipwreck, Fraser Island:


Kev, about to swim with the catfish in Lake Wabby, Fraser Island:


Charlotte in the crystal clear waters of Lake MacKenzie, Fraser Island:


Charlotte's surprise birthday party, organised by Leila and Adam in Gayndah:


BBQ at Mackonnels Lookout (from L to R - Kev, Charlotte, Tracey, Rodney, Rowan, Chloe, Luke, Heeya, Julie and Adam):

Gay Gay Gayndah

It's been over a month since we arrived in this town but the end is in sight. We had our last day yesterday. We've been doing less hours and 5 day weeks for the past fortnight as the work is beginning to dry up so it's time to leave. We've made a decent chunk of money which should take us through the next month or two, depending on how much sailing, scuba-diving, surfing, driving and various other activies we do.

We've actually become a little fond of Gayndah as we've made some good friends here and had a really good time. So to continue from our last update a couple of weeks ago, we were invited to a barbecue by a weird Kiwi man we met in the kitchen, who insisted that because we didn't hang around with him and his odd friends that we were anti-social. Luckily we were working that day but we organised our own bbq instead and got a group of friends up to the lookout. Much beer was drunk, sausages eaten and views taken in and it was a good day out.

The house has been great. Rodney and Tracey are our hosts and they're native Queenslanders, although they're from further south. They've been looking after us well and the fridge has been tremendously well stocked with beer since we arrived. Adam, one of our other workmates who was also a neighbour at the camspite has also been living with us so the 5 of us have been keeping each other amused both at work and at home.

Last weekend we were joined on Friday night by Dave and Pam Male, (friends of Kev's Dad who are over here for the rugby - but don't mention the rugby) and they treated us to a big meal and an endless supply of beer and Bundy and cokes. No complaints from us for that! The following Sunday was Adam's birthday so on Saturday we invited one of the Korean girls from work over and she insisted on cooking us some Korean food, which was superb.

In return, we cooked some traditional English mashed potato, which was also superb, as far as mashed potato goes.

But all things must end and so this weekend will be our last here. Rod cooked us all a fried breakfast this morning and is cooking us a roast for this afternoon, so we're just going to sit back in our reclining chair and enjoy it.

As long as the van doesn't disagree, Monday is when we say goodbye. The van briefly broke down again last week but Kev and Adam spent a few hours pulling bits off the engine and putting them back on again, so it'll probably be fine from now on. We plan on heading to a place on the coast that is called Town of 1770. Honestly, it is. Captain Cook must have been low on inspiration that day.

Still can't upload our photos unfortunately but if we get chance on Monday we'll pop into the library and do it before we leave. There are quite a few...