Wednesday, March 29, 2017

The road south 1/25/17

Long travel day today.  Started with a mid-morning flight from Airlie (well Proserpine) to Brisbane where I had roughly a 5 hour layover before another short hop from Brisbane to Sydney.  Took advantage of that to wander around South Brisbane for the afternoon.  All I have to ask is how the hell are these the public parks in other countries....
When I eventually rolled into Sydney I was pleasantly surprised because it was officially the nicest hostel I have ever been to.  It was called The Pod Sydney.  I had a legitimate full size bed and a curtain ad my own power outlets and lights and a towel and personal soap and yeah. I was blown away about as close to a hotel as a hostel could get.

Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays 1/22/17-1/24/17

It wasn't a super early start the first morning which I really appreciated.  We left about noon, which meant I got to wander down the waterfront slowly on my way there.  I stopped about 10 times to inspect trees I wish I could climb up without people looking at me funny.  No dice... Anyway we got aboard and took off.  Our boat was the beautiful catamaran Wings 3.  Yes it is a truly original name but it was a pretty boat.  Cue floating photo sphere which as we know is not the cleanest photo sphere but it is as good as I can do from a boat.
Floating Photo Sphere

One of the first things we got to do was snorkeling on a pretty spectacular chunk of reef.  Most of my pictures aren't spectacular underwater because I lack the filters I really need to make underwater photography look right but I had a few that I really did want to show.

These clams are awesome, if you move the water near them they suck themselves down into the rock and close up.  They are tons of fun to play with.  Like Christmas tree worms which I don't seem to have any great pictures of but will someday.
Cool looking coral pictures

We had to get back on the boat before the sun got too low so I spent a couple hours snacking on the deck while the sun slowly dropped out of the sky.

The next day our boat took us to the super famous Whitehaven Beach.  One problem... the weather did not hold up like it had the previous day so we got dumped on continuously and the water didn't look as spectacular as it could have.  On the plus side the water was quite warm and comfortable.
Famous, and currently cold and grey
and warm all at once

The ridiculous thing was the next day when we were heading back the weather went back to this spectacular sunshine.
I did take advantage of the sun though
Got a really nice nap out of it (PS yes I am the master of somehow avoiding people in my pictures there were like 20 of us on this boat)
One last unfortunately floating photo sphere

This brings me, as ridiculous as this sounds, to my favorite part of my stay in Airlie and the Whitsundays.  On my walk back I finally saw someone doing something about the coconuts in the trees.  Except BLARGH, he is cutting them down to chuck them out.  It was then that I decided to do something about this horrendous abuse of resources.  When he came down from one of the trees I asked him if I could snag a few of the coconuts from his soon to be dumpster haul and he said sure no problem.  Talking to his boss and coworker I found out that they get so many that the coworker's 5 year old kid uses a power drill to get into them before filling buckets with the stuff.  They perpetually have to much.  Anyway, I finally had a use for one of my super heavy duty trash bags that I have been carting around.  I loaded it up with 6 of the best coconuts I could find and they were these absolutely beautiful pale yellow (there were also some classic greens from the tree next to it but I decided to take the road less traveled because how could I not.  You might be asking why only 6... I'll show you.
Stumbling upon this treasure trove
Making friends with the coconut butcher
The reason I could only carry 6
The aftermath of having to use abused hostel kitchen knives to get into them.  I did split them open by chucking them from the second floor onto concrete in the back repeatedly.  

I actually shared some with Kjell (one of my compatriots from Frasier) only to find out he had never tried coconut before (WHAT!!!!).  I felt obligated to open his deprived eyes to the endless possibilities of life.  The 6 coconuts that I carted back weighed probably about 10 pounds apiece.  That was unfortunately on top of my 25 pound backpack and at least one of the coconuts really enjoyed rolling over and dropping on my head.  The important thing was I got them, got them home, managed to get into them, managed to split them open, and discover that these were straight up some of the best coconuts I have ever had.  They were gigantic and had tons of water in them, they were the perfect sweetness, and between the 6 I got a great variety of ages so I got the whole range of flesh density.  Yes, this was the best part of this section of the trip.  Kjell and I spent the rest of the day hanging out in the public lagoon/pool (chlorinated with an artificial beach and was super shallow) before grabbing dinner and some drinks with my boat mates.  

Sunday, March 26, 2017

A not so terrible travel day 1/21/17

Today was pretty mellow, woke up and took a quick plane trip back north to Airlie Beach (yes this route is screwy).  The cool thing about that flight is that we flew right up the coast I had just hopped down.  That point right there (in the picture) is actually Noosa National Park.  The long stretch of beach on the right is the one that had me questioning what I was doing with my day and the little beach on the right side of the point is Alexandria.
In Airlie Beach I checked into my hostel, ran into Bryce on the street for a few minutes, then grabbed a bite at the bar downstairs from my hostel.  Food was mediocre at best but dirt cheap for anybody staying at the hostel.  Only other mandatory thing on my list was checking in for my Whitsunday Islands cruise that left the next day.  i have to point out one really fundamentally frustrating and important thing here.  I see coconuts and coconut trees everywhere (I even saw a few that I wanted to try and climb a tree to get on Frasier Island).  Despite this I can’t find a single person selling them.  Our tour guide on the Frasier trip said they mostly just get chopped down and thrown away so they don’t fall and hurt somebody.  THROWN AWAY>>>>>>> OMIGOD THIS IS AGRAVATING.

Noosa 1/19/17 - 1/20/17

When we got back to Rainbow Beach (the place our Frasier trip left from) we were left in the same mediocre hostel we were at before we started.  On the plus side my group decided to cook for me tonight instead (I think Bryce did most of the work) it was pretty good chicken alfredo .  Despite following that with an evening at the hostel bar (they had lots of good cider) I managed to get up way too early to catch my next bus.  I headed towards Noosa which is supposed to be a huge party town and another spot you can leave for Frasier from but I really just wanted to go hiking up and through Noosa National Park. Unfortunately before I could do any of that I had to look for a place to stay.  The lack of cell phone service on Frasier led me to procrastinating too long on that.  The first place I walked to unfortunately did not have any space so I ended up having to backtrack halfway across town to get to the other place that looked good.  On the plus side the hostel was working with one of the tour companies that was holding a small promotional party that evening.  I managed to snag a few free slices of pizza and even won a game of Goon Pong (goon is terrible Australian boxed wine) before walking down the same road for like the 7th time that day on my way back to the hostel.  The next day was a bit more productive and I have to say this was one spectacular chunk of National Park.  Getting to the actual park from my hostel involved walking down this unbelievably pretty section of beach.  Pretty enough that I was questioning whether or not I should go hiking and if I should go surfing instead.  I stuck with it though and it paid off.  When I got to the park I may have gone off road a bit at the start of the hike but in my defense I didn’t realize I was in an off-limits area until I found the actual trail halfway up the side of the mountain with a chain between me and it.

Off limits, maybe, but there was a turtle in there
After I found the actual trail I was lead to this unbelievably perfect section of beach (Alexandria beach/bay).  The thing is this beach carries a secret.  A secret I may have learned about if I bothered to do any real research t this was one of my fly by the seat of my pants kinds of days.  Turns out it is a nude beach and yes there were a few very very old people.
Hell’s Gates and you can’t see it but I found another turtle
This whole trail was covered in views like this.  The water here was a color I’m still not sure I believe. I also made a friend in the park right at the end of the trail (or start, turns out I did the trail backwards from most people).  I snagged a popsicle from the park store and this guy decided he wanted to be friends. 
I think he is a monitor lizard but I’m not sure. 
Apparently he was so distracting I missed a Koala that was supposed to be near there but I think I won.  This dude was actually trying to eat from my hands (I said no because it was my popsicle and I don’t know how to share).

To end my day I snagged a giant pizza before catching a bus back to Brisbane (so I could fly to Airlie Beach in the morning).

Frasier Island 1/16/17-1/18/17

So Frasier Island is apparently a must see on the east coast of Australia.  To be honest I was initially a little bit skeptical.  The state of my hostel room last night really didn't fill me with confidence either.  This is however the trip to say “fuck it why not” because I’ll never get better chances to say that than I am right now.  Each car had 8 people and was a diesel 4x4 that we got to take turns driving.  Did I mention that they were sticks and not all in great condition (oh yeah and I think the last time I drove a stick that wasn’t a bike was on the order of a decade ago).  We made it about 10 feet onto Frasier before the first car got stuck.  This is looking incredibly promising.  I should note that I was not the primary photographer behind the camera on many of these shots.  That honor goes to Bryce, who you will meet in an epic picture later on.
Yup, stuck (this happened a few more times but we got better and better at dealing with sand)
This was the first stop we took, these two pictures are from Lake Mackenzie and yes the water is actually that color.  Also the sand is impossibly nice.

One of my favorite parts about this trip was that it was actually a camping trip (my sleeping pad came in super handy).  The beauty of camping is that we get to cook our own food.  I don’t know how it happened but I ended up nominated as our cars chef.  Apparently the following picture was taken while Bryce was trying to get me to smile for a picture but I was too focused to notice anything around me.  At least 3 people told me after one of our dinners that I had made the best steak they had ever had which is a miracle given the steaks we started with (or an indictment of all the steaks they had had previously)
I don't know if I ever been described as oblivious before.
Some post dinner shenanigans
Had to grab at least one photosphere.  This is taken from the top of Indian Headleands which is the rock that stuck out of the water and created the currents that dropped all the sand to make Fraser island
One more picture from the top.  This was a really cool spot.  From the top we saw a shark, a sea turtle, half a dozen rays, a tuna, a bunch of little fish and a manatee.

I may have picked up a little bit of a tan

The following pictures are a perk of Bryce having an epic camera and the fact that there wasn’t a single cloud in the sky the first night and maybe one on the second night.  Light is very fun to play with  but there is much to say but  just to let these pictures speak for themselves. 
This is me learning just how terrible I am at handstands
This is Bryce

After a couple days of sand getting everywhere we were pretty happy to be getting back to civilization.

This was an epic couple of days and for whatever reason it was a little unexpected.  I wasn’t quite prepared for driving a stick but that was a blast even when I was driving the one 4x4 that was belching out thick black smoke.  I don’t quite have pictures of all the places we stopped because I was afraid of my phone getting near the sand or the water but the other spot worth mentioning was a lake that was a clear dark brown because the lake was surrounded by tea trees.  It was also incredibly warm because it is incredibly shallow (like you could walk 100 yards out and still be standing with your shoulders out of the water). 


PS: thanks to Bryce we also caught the ISS on the first night when we walked down the beach to watch the stars