I realised I forgot to add this to the bottom of our first Australia post... it should have read:
There isn't really anything for me to add here except one story Cat forgot. Having mastered the art of (gracefully of course) scaling the end of my bed to get up and down, I had noted that Cat preferred to climb up the end and (no sides again) slide off the side on her front, dangle her feet onto the bed below and (gracefully of course) hop off. She preferred this method due to the girls on the bottom bunks insiting that thier bags had to go at the end of the beds which made descending a tad trickily (particularly in the dark when they've also hung washing all over the end of the bed). I was highly tempted by Cat's method until I observed her (forgetting she had just hung her washing alongside the edge of the bed) dangling off the side of the bed, becoming tangled in her own washing line, and proceeding (with only a small scream) to fall down (gracefully of course) onto the floor. I thought she'd died! I was genuinely concerned about getting out of the room for help and back in the un-openable door (I think it's fair to say that if 'a knack' is required to open the door to a room you've paid for, then they need to get it fixed. Particularly if this 'knack' involves holding the door closed as tightly as you can, twisting the key til your hand hurts - the girl on reception actually told me that - and then kicking the door til it opens. Lovely. I didn't manage to open it once.)
Anyway thankfully Cat was fine, but I don't think I'll be trying her bunk bed method any time soon. (Fortunately I am blessed with bouncy genes. Comes in handy occasionally. I'm sure if I had a skinny ass I'd have broken it!)
Monday, 22 March 2010
Saturday, 20 March 2010
The Grouches Down Under...
We walked off the train with our last threads of sanity (almost) in tact. We headed to a hostel called 'The Funk House' (yep sounds like we're headed for a much needed night's sleep doesn't it?!) Actually, it was ok as it happens, so we went to book another night to avoid getting up early and checking out. No Space. I walked down the road to our first hostel in Sydney, to finally get my sim card and phone back (wooooo), and made the decision to book us in for five nights - until the end of our time in Australia, thinking that would cut this stupid moving around stuff out. We spent the day washing, reading, and chilling a bit, and headed to bed for an early night at around 9.30pm.
I've been slightly concerned about how tired I'm getting lately. I am totally exhausted, and beginning to feel a bit ill because of it. For example, the other day I opened a bottle of Sprite which fizzed up on my leg - I nearly cried. That is how tired I was last week, and I haven't had a full night's sleep since then. Despite being in bed between 9.30pm, and 8.30am, I managed about 3 hours sleep. Loz can sleep through anything - in fact she shouts at me in her sleep sometimes and doesn't wake herself up, she points too, so I know it's my fault. I however, can not - I try to make up the odd hour by napping on transport, but it's only ever half sleep... Loz can't nap in the day, despite having spent five years as a student. Odd. The light did not go off until about 12.30am, which meant I was awake until then, but in that weird 'where the hell am I daze'. I felt a bit rough and was relieved when the last of the girls who was in put the light off.
After this the girl in the bed below me's phone went off on full volume, once every 15 minutes or so, 3 times. Not long after that I woke again to hear her being sick. No attempt was made to go to the bathroom, which meant I had the scratch and sniff version... this happened about every half hour, 3 times. Now she didn't get up any of thos times, which means there is a large bag of vomit somewhere in the bed below me. Nice.
Just as I'd dozed off again, one of the girls came home, off her face and slammed the door. Her phone went off (also on full volume of course), so she shouted back down it for a bit before she went to bed. I just about got back to sleep when at 4am, the last girl came back, also off her face, this time with a guy in-tow (who was incidentally also off his face). She left him in the room while she went out for a few mins. Now I don't know about you, but if you were in an all female dorm and woke up at 4am with a drunk guy leering over you, I'd be a bit freaked out. As it happens, I had seen the intro, and no one else woke up, so it was 'ok'. Anyway, she came back and shagged him on the balcony for a bit before moving to the bunk, and constructing a tent of blankeds around the bunk bed. This went on til around six, when they finally shut the F up, and I fell asleep, until my alarm went off at eight - I could have thrown it at one of them.
Amusingly when we woke up, the blanket thent had fallen down - we'll we'd had the audio, we might as well have the bloody visual I suppose. The girl in question was mortified that her blanket structure had failed to stay in place, as she had managed to be so damned subtle about his existance until this point! Her face was a picture. Loz and I made things better by reenacting her surprise and scenes from the previous night with a banana and some suncream across the top bunks. It amused us. I also may have accidentally slammed the door at every opportunity. Oops.
So we're on the train to the Blue Mountains (they'd better be blue!). We missed the train by 30 seconds (literally), and so had time for a traditionally shite and overpriced station breakfast, and are now heading out to Katoomba an hour later than planned. I had thought I'd have a nap, but of course no train journey is complete without your average dickhead who has a phone on full volume with a trance ring tone... which of course he can't hear ringing repeatedly because he's busy listening to trance at full volume on his ipod. Finally he answers his phone, and proves the intellect of people that listen to trance. His phone keeps cutting out - we're on a train - however you would think he'd been abducted by aliens... 'I don't know what's happening, I can't hear you and you can't hear me...' etc etc. Please someone help us.
I think anyone still reading this can tell we've had a rubbish couple of days since leaving Cairns (which is definitely my favourite place in Aus so far, even more so because it has the reef), and I think it's testament either to our wonderful sense of humour, or perhaps just loss of sanity, that we are already able to laugh at these things, particularly when we try to write them up for you, so you feel like you were there suffering with us. True we do usually cry when we read them back, but that's usually tears of laughter. Although to be fair, at the moment, I'm not entirely convinced Cat's aren't tears of despair. Even the Kirspy Kreme doughnut I bought in an attempt to cheer her up didn't seem to work.
At this point things got a bit silly - again due to delerium, so you'll have to imagine our people watching. I wish we could scan for all you readers the pages in our notebooks that we use, like naughty children, when we can't talk out loud in case the public hear us. I think our wonderfully illustrative drawings would also be winning prizes. We people watched for a bit. We were given gold, and spent most of the journey in hysterics... the young uni student in his first year, the girls opposite him having sat there blatantly cos they fancied him, while he talked about how thick his behavioural science text books were for a bit... don't think they were interested poppet. He finally cottoned on, and went into one of those, 'Oh my course is so difficult and time consuming, but it's ok, cos I'm amazing and I wrote my 50,000 word essay in three hours, and got an A double star.' Bless. Someone also used 'far out' in a real sentence. Then one of the girls got off, and the other started talking about how this other girl went dogging on the weekend with her friends' (don't think she had any left by the sounds of it) boyfriends. We can only assume that has a different meaning in Aus... we hope. Then an emo guy got on with his fly down. We were not short of entertainment.
So we're in Manly now. Yes, Manly, and are having a good snigger at 'The Manly Pharmacist', 'The Manly Jeweller' and 'The Manly Souvenir shop' - tee hee. It's now Loz's turn to be in a bad mood. The waitress in Nandos is Australian, which a high percentage of the time in our experience, can be interchanged with the word 'rude'. Having clearly asked for a 'lemon and herb' chicken, and being given a 'mild' one, on sending it back the woman told Lauren that in fact she had asked for the wrong one, and even checked on the til so she could prove this! Of course, that does assume that she put the information in correctly in the first place, which she must have, cos people don't make mistakes. Surely everyone knows that the customer is always right whether they are or not! (Loz was btw, I heard her.) Anyway, so having just spent £10 on a crap and wrong meal in Nandos, Loz is a bit pissed off. We're also a bit sandy again. Bugger.
I think we've established we are pool people. Realistically we're not a big fan of catching rays - as we usually manage to catch sunstroke, and probably skin cancer in the process. We're also not big beach bums (despite having big bums) as sand just gets everywhere. AND, we aren't really hot on the rave scene, so I guess we were rather foolish to come to Aus, as that and bankruptcy seems pretty much all it has to offer. However before we get overly grumpy, we should tell you we've had a lovely couple of days...
Firstly, after not sleeping, I was less than optimistic about our trip to the Blue Mountains, however we really enjoyed it. Despite the lies about the distances of the walks (fairly sure the signs were pointing as the crow flies, as opposed to round the bloody great craters - there was no way that was only 3km), and despite Loz walking into the biggest spider's web she's ever encountered (it still freaks her out), we had a lovely day. The mountains were red, not blue, although they did have a bluey haze to them so we saw where they got it from. We headed back shattered and got back around 10pm, and fell asleep for a whole night without incident!
The day after, we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park, which was wicked. It is full of Australian animals, and they let the kangaroos run loose in the grounds, so you can pet them and feed them. When they've had enough of the kiddy school trips, they have an area which is off limits to humans so they can go rest. We patted a koala and had our photos took. Unfortunately ours was sleeping, and in a very unattractive pose practicing for the Koala pole-dance championships later that month. We went back for another photo later when he was awake and looking a bit more dignified. They had dingos, Tasmanian devils (who apparently everyone knew were real except me), flying foxes, miniature pengins, emus, the biggest crocodile I have ever seen (we watched a film in Kuala Lumpur about that very one, so we gave him a wide berth), snakes and lizards, dragon things, echidnas... etc etc. It was fab - the kangaroos were so cute, feeding them was good fun as you'd have an emu appear on your shoulder and try to steal the food... it's quite hard to argue with a hungry emu. Loz doesn't like birds very much, which made it even more amusing, and we ended up buying several more cones of food so we could actually give some to the kangaroos. That night we slept again, almost without incident, although for a while I thought there was going to be a repeat of the other night.
So our final 2 days are now upon us. We've spent most of today sleeping and planning things for Hawaii, and are flying tomorrow. Very excited! We're going to a hotel too, which isn't particularly stunning I don't think, but will be a godsend after the hostels here. It has been like being thrown back in with the types of people I managed to irradicate from my life on leaving school... bitchy cow bullies. The kind that come back and add you on facebook 10 years later to make themselves look popular (*clicks ignore*). They even forced one girl to move rooms the other day. I'm not sure she was any better, but they are in their twenties, I'd have thought they could keep their mouths shut and deal with it by now. Oh well. Not long to go!
[We apologise for the lack of imagery in the last few posts, only our slow and stupidly expensive internet means we can't upload any. Normal service will hopefully be restored in Hawaii.]
I've been slightly concerned about how tired I'm getting lately. I am totally exhausted, and beginning to feel a bit ill because of it. For example, the other day I opened a bottle of Sprite which fizzed up on my leg - I nearly cried. That is how tired I was last week, and I haven't had a full night's sleep since then. Despite being in bed between 9.30pm, and 8.30am, I managed about 3 hours sleep. Loz can sleep through anything - in fact she shouts at me in her sleep sometimes and doesn't wake herself up, she points too, so I know it's my fault. I however, can not - I try to make up the odd hour by napping on transport, but it's only ever half sleep... Loz can't nap in the day, despite having spent five years as a student. Odd. The light did not go off until about 12.30am, which meant I was awake until then, but in that weird 'where the hell am I daze'. I felt a bit rough and was relieved when the last of the girls who was in put the light off.
After this the girl in the bed below me's phone went off on full volume, once every 15 minutes or so, 3 times. Not long after that I woke again to hear her being sick. No attempt was made to go to the bathroom, which meant I had the scratch and sniff version... this happened about every half hour, 3 times. Now she didn't get up any of thos times, which means there is a large bag of vomit somewhere in the bed below me. Nice.
Just as I'd dozed off again, one of the girls came home, off her face and slammed the door. Her phone went off (also on full volume of course), so she shouted back down it for a bit before she went to bed. I just about got back to sleep when at 4am, the last girl came back, also off her face, this time with a guy in-tow (who was incidentally also off his face). She left him in the room while she went out for a few mins. Now I don't know about you, but if you were in an all female dorm and woke up at 4am with a drunk guy leering over you, I'd be a bit freaked out. As it happens, I had seen the intro, and no one else woke up, so it was 'ok'. Anyway, she came back and shagged him on the balcony for a bit before moving to the bunk, and constructing a tent of blankeds around the bunk bed. This went on til around six, when they finally shut the F up, and I fell asleep, until my alarm went off at eight - I could have thrown it at one of them.
Amusingly when we woke up, the blanket thent had fallen down - we'll we'd had the audio, we might as well have the bloody visual I suppose. The girl in question was mortified that her blanket structure had failed to stay in place, as she had managed to be so damned subtle about his existance until this point! Her face was a picture. Loz and I made things better by reenacting her surprise and scenes from the previous night with a banana and some suncream across the top bunks. It amused us. I also may have accidentally slammed the door at every opportunity. Oops.
So we're on the train to the Blue Mountains (they'd better be blue!). We missed the train by 30 seconds (literally), and so had time for a traditionally shite and overpriced station breakfast, and are now heading out to Katoomba an hour later than planned. I had thought I'd have a nap, but of course no train journey is complete without your average dickhead who has a phone on full volume with a trance ring tone... which of course he can't hear ringing repeatedly because he's busy listening to trance at full volume on his ipod. Finally he answers his phone, and proves the intellect of people that listen to trance. His phone keeps cutting out - we're on a train - however you would think he'd been abducted by aliens... 'I don't know what's happening, I can't hear you and you can't hear me...' etc etc. Please someone help us.
I think anyone still reading this can tell we've had a rubbish couple of days since leaving Cairns (which is definitely my favourite place in Aus so far, even more so because it has the reef), and I think it's testament either to our wonderful sense of humour, or perhaps just loss of sanity, that we are already able to laugh at these things, particularly when we try to write them up for you, so you feel like you were there suffering with us. True we do usually cry when we read them back, but that's usually tears of laughter. Although to be fair, at the moment, I'm not entirely convinced Cat's aren't tears of despair. Even the Kirspy Kreme doughnut I bought in an attempt to cheer her up didn't seem to work.
At this point things got a bit silly - again due to delerium, so you'll have to imagine our people watching. I wish we could scan for all you readers the pages in our notebooks that we use, like naughty children, when we can't talk out loud in case the public hear us. I think our wonderfully illustrative drawings would also be winning prizes. We people watched for a bit. We were given gold, and spent most of the journey in hysterics... the young uni student in his first year, the girls opposite him having sat there blatantly cos they fancied him, while he talked about how thick his behavioural science text books were for a bit... don't think they were interested poppet. He finally cottoned on, and went into one of those, 'Oh my course is so difficult and time consuming, but it's ok, cos I'm amazing and I wrote my 50,000 word essay in three hours, and got an A double star.' Bless. Someone also used 'far out' in a real sentence. Then one of the girls got off, and the other started talking about how this other girl went dogging on the weekend with her friends' (don't think she had any left by the sounds of it) boyfriends. We can only assume that has a different meaning in Aus... we hope. Then an emo guy got on with his fly down. We were not short of entertainment.
So we're in Manly now. Yes, Manly, and are having a good snigger at 'The Manly Pharmacist', 'The Manly Jeweller' and 'The Manly Souvenir shop' - tee hee. It's now Loz's turn to be in a bad mood. The waitress in Nandos is Australian, which a high percentage of the time in our experience, can be interchanged with the word 'rude'. Having clearly asked for a 'lemon and herb' chicken, and being given a 'mild' one, on sending it back the woman told Lauren that in fact she had asked for the wrong one, and even checked on the til so she could prove this! Of course, that does assume that she put the information in correctly in the first place, which she must have, cos people don't make mistakes. Surely everyone knows that the customer is always right whether they are or not! (Loz was btw, I heard her.) Anyway, so having just spent £10 on a crap and wrong meal in Nandos, Loz is a bit pissed off. We're also a bit sandy again. Bugger.
I think we've established we are pool people. Realistically we're not a big fan of catching rays - as we usually manage to catch sunstroke, and probably skin cancer in the process. We're also not big beach bums (despite having big bums) as sand just gets everywhere. AND, we aren't really hot on the rave scene, so I guess we were rather foolish to come to Aus, as that and bankruptcy seems pretty much all it has to offer. However before we get overly grumpy, we should tell you we've had a lovely couple of days...
Firstly, after not sleeping, I was less than optimistic about our trip to the Blue Mountains, however we really enjoyed it. Despite the lies about the distances of the walks (fairly sure the signs were pointing as the crow flies, as opposed to round the bloody great craters - there was no way that was only 3km), and despite Loz walking into the biggest spider's web she's ever encountered (it still freaks her out), we had a lovely day. The mountains were red, not blue, although they did have a bluey haze to them so we saw where they got it from. We headed back shattered and got back around 10pm, and fell asleep for a whole night without incident!
The day after, we went to Featherdale Wildlife Park, which was wicked. It is full of Australian animals, and they let the kangaroos run loose in the grounds, so you can pet them and feed them. When they've had enough of the kiddy school trips, they have an area which is off limits to humans so they can go rest. We patted a koala and had our photos took. Unfortunately ours was sleeping, and in a very unattractive pose practicing for the Koala pole-dance championships later that month. We went back for another photo later when he was awake and looking a bit more dignified. They had dingos, Tasmanian devils (who apparently everyone knew were real except me), flying foxes, miniature pengins, emus, the biggest crocodile I have ever seen (we watched a film in Kuala Lumpur about that very one, so we gave him a wide berth), snakes and lizards, dragon things, echidnas... etc etc. It was fab - the kangaroos were so cute, feeding them was good fun as you'd have an emu appear on your shoulder and try to steal the food... it's quite hard to argue with a hungry emu. Loz doesn't like birds very much, which made it even more amusing, and we ended up buying several more cones of food so we could actually give some to the kangaroos. That night we slept again, almost without incident, although for a while I thought there was going to be a repeat of the other night.
So our final 2 days are now upon us. We've spent most of today sleeping and planning things for Hawaii, and are flying tomorrow. Very excited! We're going to a hotel too, which isn't particularly stunning I don't think, but will be a godsend after the hostels here. It has been like being thrown back in with the types of people I managed to irradicate from my life on leaving school... bitchy cow bullies. The kind that come back and add you on facebook 10 years later to make themselves look popular (*clicks ignore*). They even forced one girl to move rooms the other day. I'm not sure she was any better, but they are in their twenties, I'd have thought they could keep their mouths shut and deal with it by now. Oh well. Not long to go!
[We apologise for the lack of imagery in the last few posts, only our slow and stupidly expensive internet means we can't upload any. Normal service will hopefully be restored in Hawaii.]
Scouting for Sea Cucumbers
Well, we made it to Cairns... this may not surprise you so much, however those of you again who have flown with me before, will know that I am continuously surprised that every plane I am on does not drop out of the sky, and am always grateful for my life when I step off the other side. (I also have a desire to strangle anyone who dares to use electronic equipment or mobile phones during take off or landing, as they clearly tell you not to for a reason. Why should we all risk death because you want to send a text message NOW?) Anyway, we phoned our shuttle from the airport, which arrived after some interesting directions (go left outside to the public pick up area... oh my other left?! Silly me!) We walked out into the carpark in time to be hit with torrential rain... good good, it had followed us again, and it wasn't long before Simon from Devon picked us up in a minibus and took us back to our hostel.
The staff were lovely - it was a good start. Simon carried both of our backpacks at once (also good) while taking us on a tour, we walked past the bathroom and saw there was a clean shower, a clean toilet, a clean room, with a fridge, a fan, and an air conditioner, and best of all NO BUNKBEDS. We were very excited, and booked ourselves onto the traditional Wednesday 'Aussie Night' BBQ, putting our quibbles with Australia behind, and embracing an evening of entertainment. This included a sample of croc meat (tastes like chicken - honestly, not just saying it), kangaroo meat (this is weird and does not taste anything like chicken, or anything else for that matter), and a prize draw for a horseriding/quadbiking trek which lead to 3 people being put into a didgeridoo competition.
Now we were particularly gutted we did not get drawn out for this (well I was...), as we would have bloody rocked that didgeridoo! The guy even gave lessons (he was a bit crap, and there were molto blow job jokes... he was Irish...) but given we have a little background knowledge in the old wind instrument stakes we even knew the proper names for his techniques, and didn't even need the sexual references to put them into action. I guess however, it was for the best that we did not get pulled out of this draw, because it seems that most of the entertainment is in the watching people unable to play anything on the didgeridoo cope, while the guy pretends it's a big black cock and shoves it in their face. We would have just been the smartarses that managed to play a tune and ruin everyone's fun. (And while I'm ruining the fun, I might add that it's foolish to describe a didgeridoo as being different to every other wind instrument when you've clearly never played another wind instrument. 'You don't blow at the didgeridoo like other instruments, you vibrate your lips - it's not like a trumpet or a trombone...' You tit. Nevertheless, it was funny watching these poor sods attempt to 'play' it. The first girl was English. We were rooting for her of course, she came second on account that she couldn't quite get the lip vibrations right (yes, you can imagine the comments). The second was German. She came third having tried hard, but infact been fairly useless; and the last, was an American-born Chinese guy, who happened to be gay. He came first, basically because the guy took the piss out of him much more than the other two... I'm guessing he plumped for the horse riding over the quadbiking... oh look at me and my witty stereotyping!
So with the falic (we've had a debate about the spelling, not sure if that's right) instruments out of the way we settled down to enjoy the 'fireshow'. This was pretty cool, even though the middle woman was a bit scary with her renditions of Pink's 'Rockstar' and 'The Female of the Species'. The first girl's music was a little more gentle, and I felt less like she was going to hurl the fire at someone in a mad rage. The guy was just cool - there's something about firetwirling - it's very masculine... sadly, when he was not handling the fire, it appeared he was more likely to be handling men than women. Anyway. We got to have a go with the firetwirling later on - alas not with the fire, just with balls (maybe that's the attraction! Ha! Look at me - I'm on fire this evening! (there I go again). Sorry, I know it's terrible. I've stopped, and I'm seeking help.) We got tutored by the guys who had performed, and then this old geezer showed up too. He looked a bit like Frank Butcher, but clearly must have trained the 3 of them. He was like some sort of Jedi master, and certainly didn't take any crap. While the 3 of them were trying to be nice, getting us spinning our balls, crossing them over, and weaving them in and out (which inevitably resulted in several smacks on the head, and in the crotch (wwooooooah, your sex is on fire.)) He was coming round making us very nervous, and shouting at us for hitting ourselves. Christ mate, it's only a bit of fun. (Actually, I should cut him some slack. I imagine if I was forced to teach the saxophone to 25 of the most unmusical, slightly pissed, game-for-a-laugh adults, I would be rather similar. Do it properly or don't do it at all. That's the kind of fun-loving girl I am... and why I am on holiday.
So anyway, having practiced setting ourselves on fire several times, they doused the balls in petrol, and let us try for real. Loz and I were so good we ran off and joined the circus, and won't be seeing you for a while longer. Sorry. I'm on a 14 hour train journey from Brisbane to Sydney, having only had 3 hours sleep. We're only half way, and delerium has set in. I'm making my own entertainment for the next 7 hours, so if I laugh at my crap puns, then that's enough for me.
We headed to bed not long after, and did a little bit of skyping. We were sat, toasty and happy in our small but brightly-coloured room, until Loz spotted something. I've lost patience with insects now. We're far from the days of standing on the beds in Kuala Lumpur (not least cos we'd already broken both beds here, just by sitting on them), and had I have found it the little blighter, it would have been seeing the bottom of my shoe pretty damned quickly. We went through all our stuff - which of course was all over the floor (or mine was, Loz is much tidier) in the area where said bug had been spotted. Nothing. I decided it was hiding under the fridge, but I really couldn't be bothered to pull the whole thing out, so it could stay there, under the threat that if it even dared poke one of its antennae out, it would be dead. We were however beginning to think Australia was pulling itself round a bit - much to our relief - and were looking forward to the trip to the reef the next morning.
Having power-walked to the jetty (which was a good 20 minutes away... not the 10 that had been suggested, by the guy who's directions had sent us the wrong way at the airport). We asked for more directions, and were sent to wait by our boat. It was getting disturblingly close to 7.45, when the boat was due to depart, yet there was no activity at all near the boat. Well, Aussies are pretty laid back I guess. Perhaps 2 mins is enough to prep a boat. We thought we'd better check. Another guy told us the same company had another boat round the corner. We legged it, hoping we hadn't missed it, only to find some girls with a checklist, saying, 'Sorry girls the boat's not going out today, didn't you get the phone call?' 'Oh yes love, we got the phone call. Getting up at 6 after a late-night cockroach search, has just become sport, so we thought we'd pop down anyway.' Goddamit Australia. Not only that, but they couldn't find us on the booking sheet. We were very annoyed. We then did another 20 minute grumpy walk down to the office, where we waited for a girl to tell us what the hell was going on.
Loz, my lovely travel partner (not life partner, I make this very clear distinction), is very much a calming influence on me. She is always nice to people, whether they deserve it or not. I have been trying to be better in this respect, because I don't believe I'm actually an angry or unpleasant person. I'm lovely. I'm just surrounded by idiots who make me angry on a regular basis. But hey, you don't choose your IQ right? I should just be nicer to them, as being angry isn't good for anyone now is it? How about that for an epiphany? I'm not sure it trumps ice-cream to be honest. Anyway, as I'm trying to get away from being ready to kill someone in an instance for being incompetent, I let Loz handle this one. We were assured that a boat would definitely go tomorrow, and that we were now definitely on the list and that we'd been upgraded. The girl was nice enough, and she's moving to the UK next month - I don't blame her... although it was Chingford I think she said. I also think she was having a bad week, and was surrounded by idiots too. I felt her pain.
We now had a day to kill. I found a lovely FREE outdoor swimming pool on the Esplanade. Something for free in Australia that doesn't crawl across your face in the middle of the night - AMAZING. Very cool. Then we found a shopping centre - also cool, given the amount of holes in the back of my 'wrinkle free travel skirt/dress' (partially due to my elegance in bunk bed ascent (although I'd repared those), and partially due to my rucksack just rubbing holes in it.) I found a new, much nicer dress in the sale for about £13 (I know, a sale.). Loz found herself a cardigan. I (not for the first time) may have walked into a pharmacy, and applied a tester of foundation, concealer, blusher and lipstick, reminding myself that I can look human if I try, then we had some tea and went home.
Next morning we headed to the boat again... a little less fraught as we knew how long it would take this morning, and feeling slightly nervous in case the boat wasn't going and we had to get angry Cat out. No promblemo, the boat was loaded with more hot men than you could shake a sea cucumber at (I feel 'physically attractive' must be a condition of getting a holiday work-permit in Australia) and we were good to go. We got on board, were handed some flippers and a snorkel, and sat down to fill in our 'if I die, I waive my family's legal rights to sue you, even if you were negligent' forms. After this we were presented with a proper bacon and egg sandwich. Well done Australia. The first place that has managed to do bacon properly. (It's probably a fiver a slice, but well done Aus, it's an achievement for you). Unfortunately, given the very rough sea crossing, it wasn't long before I was presented with the same bacon sandwich, again, and again, until I'd had quite enough of bacon sandwiches for a while. I hasten to add, it wasn't just me who saw their breakfast again several times - half of the boat was out the back with sickbags. The sickness set a precident for the day for me unfortunately. The hour and a half boat trip to the reef was the worst I have ever experienced, and no amount of free homeopathic seasickness remedy was going to stop me. Fortunately, one Japanese guy had some real medicine which he took pity and gave me, and despite feeling like it couldn't be possible, I held onto lunch at least.
[Someone just actually used the word 'chillax' at a grumpy guy on the train- ha]
We arrived at the reef. Loz and I had been convinced by Charismatic Mick that we absolutely had to try scuba diving, because it was free to try, and we didn't have to pay to go on the big dive if we didn't want. Unsure, we had our names put on the list anyway, and it wasn't long before we were being weighted down and chucked over the side of the boat. I spent every second of the next 15 mins being absolutely convinced I was going to drown. I like to think of myself as quite a rational, logical person. I'm not generally of a nervous disposition, and firmly believe in mind over matter. All of this went straight out of the window as I clawed at the boat gasping for breath. I couldn't find a place to hold onto, and was sliding straight off again, only to be chucked back onto the side of the boat by the rough sea. They adjusted my boyancy, so I was supposed to feel less like drowning was imminent - I didn't - and I was then supposed to be taken under the water to practice my techniques that had been taught on the boat: how to get water out of my mask, how to get water out of my breathing equipment, and how to equalise my ears.
So while my poor, usually logical brain, was torn between thinking 'breathe, Cat, breathe - you're wearing oxygen. Yes it's water, but you're not going to die', and 'oh my god I'm going to die, what the hell is going on, I'm under water, I can't breathe', and also imagining the underwater scene from Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliette, which Charismatic Mick was playing out rather well at this point (I suspect, that I was equally as attractive as Clare Danes in my one-strapped swimming costume, eyes wide with fear, and snorkel full of water - I will add, Loz had gone for a wetsuit and looked a right tit, so it could have been worse!) I think poor CharisMick may have had scratch marks in his arms by the time he deposited me on the bar under the back of the boat, only for me to clamber to the surface gasping for breath, spitting out salt water, and going 'oh my god, oh my god'. Not to be defeated, he gave it another crack and pulled me back down. I could not get this 'breathing under water doesn't necessarily mean death' thing into my head. This time I was under for a little bit longer, managed one of the techniques (the mask clearing - although to be honest, I still couldn't see very well, and I certainly was convinced I couldn't breathe). Then my flipper started falling off. Trying to remember what the sign language for problem was, I realised I didn't know the sign for flipper, so it was useless. I went for 'I OOOOS UMMIN OFFFF' which he didn't get. I tried again with a bit of pointing - he put it back on. Excellent. Oh yes, then I remembered again I couldn't breathe - back to the surface we go.
I had a third and a fourth attempt... clearly CharisMick had lost patience with my this time, so I was given to a guy called Shun as a special case. He was on the bars at the back of the boat - he'd also chosen to wear a wetsuit, so there was less of the Romeo and Juliette crap going on in my head - now it was pretty much just death. He tried to get me to take the breathing apparatus out (which I was clearly thrilled by), clear it, then put it back in. I sort of did it, but there was still water in it. Hence another trip back to the surface. Shun appeared as I was (gracefully, gracefully) gripping the boat with everything but my teeth. 'Another go?' Desperate to conquer my fear, because in my real brain I knew I wasn't dying, I gave it a crack. That was it though. When asked what was wrong, all I could manage was a pathetic school kid's 'I don't like it'. There was no way on earth I was going to be going on the proper dive. Pay $55 to feel like I was dying for another hour? It was lose, lose really. I got back on the boat to recover and waited for Loz - who had seemed to manage to get to grips with the whole breathing thing - it's not as if we've done it for 25 years or owt, and had been doing rather well. She'd even got a round of applause from CharisMick - bitch. Oh, hang on I lie - 2 rounds of applause she just added, rubbing it in my face. (We think they were possibly being sarcastic as she assures me she was probably just as crap as I was.)
Anyway, after my near death experience, I was a little concerned about the old snorkelling. In fact, I wasn't convinced I'd be able to do it. I'd managed to convince myself, despite the fact that actually I'm quite a strong swimmer (obviously not entering the olympics any time soon, though I can usually keep myself afloat, and swim a good distance) that perhaps I'd been kidding myself, and the sea was a completely different kettle of fish (ha) to Scartho Baths, and maybe I wasn't cut out for that sort of thing. Luckily though, the tight bitch inside my head reminded me how much I had paid to do this, and that I was wasting it if I didn't give it a try - I was glad of her. Snorkelling was cool. We saw some fish - rather unsurprisingly - and some coral, again... really though... it was incredible. We saw sharks, giant clams - all sorts, a 'Dory' fish and a 'Nemo' and the anenonenmoneee. Alas it wasn't the season for speaking to whales though, so we didn't bother. After a good snorkel round with our noodles (floatation device, I'd convinced us we needed, as I clearly couldn't swim - it got in the way a lot), we headed back to the boat as I was feeling like I was going to be sick again. The sea was still quite rough, and I'd swallowed a lot of saltwater which wasn't going down too well.
It is moments like this which for me clear up any doubt over the existence of a god. I have just (of course gracefully, because that's the girl I am) dragged myself out of the water, exhausted, to sit on the side of the boat for a rest. My hair is all over my face, dotted with bits of coral and seaweed. I have lines on my face where my snorkel has been, I'm desperate for the loo and I'm trying not to barf. Yes. This is the point in my life, where I should meet Fit Paul. Fit Paul is the boat's resident marine biologist, which makes him not only fit, but smart. He gets chatting to Loz and I - a conversation in which I have limited participation, given the fact that I can't stand up for fear of vomming, and can't hear out of one of my ears at all, and am partially deaf in another. (Please feel free to use this as an example in an RE essay - I feel it is a good argument for atheism if you are looking for one. From what I can hear, Fit Paul is both lovely and a fellow Brit, and we have a nice little chat, before we are called in for some lunch.)
It wasn't long before Fit Paul was coming round recruiting for his snorkel tour of the reef at the second site in the afternoon. Having discussed the merits of Fit Paul with Loz, I, being a bad person, felt we should both spend $20 to partake in the snorkel tour... for its educational merit. There was an element of show and tell, which I was particularly looking forward to. Me, being me, managed to slap suncream ALL over my face just before he got to us. I have to say, I sometimes also doubt the theory of evolution, because people like me would have died out a LONG time ago if it was so. (Feel free to use that in an essay, if you are looking for a pro-God argument.) Loz actually told me off for this, because apparently he was already there when I decided to slap the suncream all over my face, then looked up, looking like some sort of abominable snowwoman (I use that term loosely). She is a good friend. We have decided, I need to be sent to some sort of finishing school. There is a lot of work to be done. You see, my theory on this is - there is only one way a relationship can go after someone spent a morning watching you barf, you've bared your sunburnt arse at them in a swimming costume, and then shouted 'WHAT?' at them after every question they ask you for 10 minutes, before slapping a litre of suncream on your face and speaking to them without rubbing it in... and that is up! So! Call me!
After I'd finished committing relationship suicide - yet again. I tried to eat some lunch. It wasn't going down so well. It was nice, but unfortunately boats and me do not get on, so I only managed a little, despite being quite hungry after losing my breakfast several times earlier. Loz and I, after much discussion, decided to splash out (ha), on an underwater camera. It's a disposable, and having almost forgotten how to use one. I decided to try to find which button to press. (Now, don't mock me! It was more complicated than usual, as it had covers on and stuff for the underwater protection.) Eventually, I found the button and promptly took a picture of the ceiling. Loz came back from the loo just in time to make fun of me for this. I shusshed her - keen to not add 'thick as shit' to my list of top qualities. She was not laughing for long, as I put her in charge of the camera! She spent the whole snorkel winding the bloody thing the wrong way, so not taking any pictures, and wondering why it wouldn't work. I took the camera smugly back and took some incredible pics, only for Loz to scan the camera at the airport, probably wiping them all. (I did manage to take some (hopefully) good ones thank you, after I figured out what I was doing wrong!)
We had about a 20 minute trip to our next snorkelling site. As just sitting on the boat when its still causes me problems, I took up residency on the back of the boat. The sea was a bit calmer now, and only a few really sickly people were special needs enough to be there. I was a little surprised to be honest, after the vomming, the suncream, the burnt arse in the air, the deafness etc. that I had company. Bless him. We had a nice chat, and it turns out that Paul is not only fit and smart, but quite sweet too. Apparently force four winds like the ones today would make the average person sick you know! Much higher and they don't take the boats out. So there! No excuse for the arse or the suncream though... maybe he hadn't noticed!
Anyway, in the meantime, me Loz, Colin and his mum Audrey (who bless her could not swim, but was being towed around in a rubber ring by fit Paul... see! - Helps old ladies, I was onto a winner), headed out to the Reef for a look at some things which uneducated eyes may not have spotted. Now, being still deaf, in the roaring ocean, the informative little speeches were of relatively little consequence to me. I tried to nod intelligently in the right places - although establishing what these were with the use of only half an ear is a little tricky. I settled for having my head down, searching for sea cucumbers. We had been promised that if we were good we could handle a sea cucumber, but unfortunately the only one we came across was too deep for Paul to pick up.
We swam around for a bit, being showed various types of coral, and being smacked into by Colin (the least spacially aware swimmer ever, who flippered Loz in the face several times) and also by Audrey, who had no control over where she was going as she was being towed several metres behind Paul, who was darting around looking for things on the reef. The other thing that's tricky, is to stay in the same place in the water. Aside from dealing with your Colins and your Audreys, the waves have a nasty habit of chucking you about a bit too. Despite being told NOT to kick the coral, or to touch it, I managed to get knocked onto it, and it scratched my leg. It stung a bit, but Loz couldn't see anything, so I kept quiet, not wanting to be the muppet that killed the Great Barrier Reef. In my final act of grace for the day, I got knocked by Colin towards Paul, who was coming back up from the reef, and managed to headbutt him. Go me! (Call me!) (Loz just suggested she films me for a documentary, and acts as my 'carer'. Thanks Loz.) So at the end of the tour, being the good friend she is, Loz grassed me up to Paul for damaging his baby and told him I'd scratched my leg. (Only cos he scratched himself as well, and said he had to clean it in case it gets infected... see I do care, I didn't want you to die of infection!) He told me he kicked it all the time by accident and gave me some savlon. Aw. (I did have a brief moment too where I realised I was waiting like a small child for him to put it on my leg, before I figured I should be holding my hand out. Kill me.)
Loz and I headed back for a bit more snorkelling, before we gave up and tried to dry off. It was now I discovered, I was hideously burned. (Yay. Please add lobster to my list of endearing features.) There was cheese and wine, but there was no way that would have stayed down, so I assumed the position on the back of the boat with my sick bags yet again... and it wasn't long before I had company again. Wow, it really must be pity now right? That's pretty much all I'm getting. Anyway, I was brought biscuits, moved to a less sicky place, given an entertaining little dance... I even felt better! I could probably have moved inside... erm... nah! (Loz was even refered to as my friend, as opposed to my girlfriend! About bloody time.)
We were invited to the pub (not just us, it was an open invite from the crew. I convinced Loz she wanted to go. Obviously, there needed to be some showering and a trip to the pharmacy to borrow some tester make up first, but we were going. Unfortunately, my stomach had other ideas. It was still on the boat as far as it was concerned, and short of letting it embarass me again, I had no option other than to lie down... I crashed out in my wet clothes for 14 hours. This is why I am single.
I woke the next morning not giving a crap about anything. I felt terrible. My bum was so burned I could not sit down, my back had blistered again, and I still felt sick. I drank another rehydration sachet and sprayed myself down with aftersun. Loz was of course up and dressed, packing, as we were checking out in an hour. My stuff was wet, all over the place, and I was dirty and smelt of swamp. I was also still deaf, which really was driving me mental... not just because I couldn't hear or balance, but more because of the story one of the guy in Coffs Harbour told us. Apparently, one of his mates went swimming in the sea in India, then couldn't hear. After many courses of antibiotics, a doctor stuck some tweezers in his ear and pulled out a large mushroom which had been growing there. Nice. I hoped there were no mushrooms in my ears.
I had a shower, and somehow made it out of the room for check out - Loz trying to book all the stuff we needed to get to, and to stay in Brisbane cos I was a useless shell. After looking up home remedies for 'water in the ear', I tried hair drying my ears to evapourate the water. It didn't work. It just burnt my ears really. We had time to kill, so I forced myself to walk to the pharmacy for a solution. Luckily they had one in the form of drops, which smell a bit of vinegar. I asked how quickly they worked. They didn't know, however suggested I kept going every few hours. I was getting nervous, as we were flying in a few hours, and I was envisaging another Hong Kong to Auckland, nose-bleeding, head-imploding, 'would someone please remove my sinuses with a rusty spoon' flight. Wahooooo! They were instant, or at least the bad ear cleared completely. The other one hurts a bit, but so does my throat on that side, so I imagine that's something else as opposed to mushroom growth.
The flight was uneventful - mainly due to the fact we had to pay for TV again. Dammit Branson. Loz read, I slept. It's a pattern now really. We arrived in Brisbane, caught a taxi to our overpriced hotel (which again came with a free beetle thing - luckily dead this time - so we put a glass over it and left it for the cleaners) and we crashed out. We tried to book our train to Sydney for the next morning. It was Saturday night. Everything was closed, and their damned website wasn't having it. We were stuck in Brisbane. Great. Oh well, at least it meant a lie in.
We spent a fairly uneventful day watching rubbish films, and poor Australian soaps (Blue Heelers - check it out. Dreadful!) And yep, here we are. 1 1/2 hours left of our 14 hour epic journey to Sydney. I want my bed now please.
The staff were lovely - it was a good start. Simon carried both of our backpacks at once (also good) while taking us on a tour, we walked past the bathroom and saw there was a clean shower, a clean toilet, a clean room, with a fridge, a fan, and an air conditioner, and best of all NO BUNKBEDS. We were very excited, and booked ourselves onto the traditional Wednesday 'Aussie Night' BBQ, putting our quibbles with Australia behind, and embracing an evening of entertainment. This included a sample of croc meat (tastes like chicken - honestly, not just saying it), kangaroo meat (this is weird and does not taste anything like chicken, or anything else for that matter), and a prize draw for a horseriding/quadbiking trek which lead to 3 people being put into a didgeridoo competition.
Now we were particularly gutted we did not get drawn out for this (well I was...), as we would have bloody rocked that didgeridoo! The guy even gave lessons (he was a bit crap, and there were molto blow job jokes... he was Irish...) but given we have a little background knowledge in the old wind instrument stakes we even knew the proper names for his techniques, and didn't even need the sexual references to put them into action. I guess however, it was for the best that we did not get pulled out of this draw, because it seems that most of the entertainment is in the watching people unable to play anything on the didgeridoo cope, while the guy pretends it's a big black cock and shoves it in their face. We would have just been the smartarses that managed to play a tune and ruin everyone's fun. (And while I'm ruining the fun, I might add that it's foolish to describe a didgeridoo as being different to every other wind instrument when you've clearly never played another wind instrument. 'You don't blow at the didgeridoo like other instruments, you vibrate your lips - it's not like a trumpet or a trombone...' You tit. Nevertheless, it was funny watching these poor sods attempt to 'play' it. The first girl was English. We were rooting for her of course, she came second on account that she couldn't quite get the lip vibrations right (yes, you can imagine the comments). The second was German. She came third having tried hard, but infact been fairly useless; and the last, was an American-born Chinese guy, who happened to be gay. He came first, basically because the guy took the piss out of him much more than the other two... I'm guessing he plumped for the horse riding over the quadbiking... oh look at me and my witty stereotyping!
So with the falic (we've had a debate about the spelling, not sure if that's right) instruments out of the way we settled down to enjoy the 'fireshow'. This was pretty cool, even though the middle woman was a bit scary with her renditions of Pink's 'Rockstar' and 'The Female of the Species'. The first girl's music was a little more gentle, and I felt less like she was going to hurl the fire at someone in a mad rage. The guy was just cool - there's something about firetwirling - it's very masculine... sadly, when he was not handling the fire, it appeared he was more likely to be handling men than women. Anyway. We got to have a go with the firetwirling later on - alas not with the fire, just with balls (maybe that's the attraction! Ha! Look at me - I'm on fire this evening! (there I go again). Sorry, I know it's terrible. I've stopped, and I'm seeking help.) We got tutored by the guys who had performed, and then this old geezer showed up too. He looked a bit like Frank Butcher, but clearly must have trained the 3 of them. He was like some sort of Jedi master, and certainly didn't take any crap. While the 3 of them were trying to be nice, getting us spinning our balls, crossing them over, and weaving them in and out (which inevitably resulted in several smacks on the head, and in the crotch (wwooooooah, your sex is on fire.)) He was coming round making us very nervous, and shouting at us for hitting ourselves. Christ mate, it's only a bit of fun. (Actually, I should cut him some slack. I imagine if I was forced to teach the saxophone to 25 of the most unmusical, slightly pissed, game-for-a-laugh adults, I would be rather similar. Do it properly or don't do it at all. That's the kind of fun-loving girl I am... and why I am on holiday.
So anyway, having practiced setting ourselves on fire several times, they doused the balls in petrol, and let us try for real. Loz and I were so good we ran off and joined the circus, and won't be seeing you for a while longer. Sorry. I'm on a 14 hour train journey from Brisbane to Sydney, having only had 3 hours sleep. We're only half way, and delerium has set in. I'm making my own entertainment for the next 7 hours, so if I laugh at my crap puns, then that's enough for me.
We headed to bed not long after, and did a little bit of skyping. We were sat, toasty and happy in our small but brightly-coloured room, until Loz spotted something. I've lost patience with insects now. We're far from the days of standing on the beds in Kuala Lumpur (not least cos we'd already broken both beds here, just by sitting on them), and had I have found it the little blighter, it would have been seeing the bottom of my shoe pretty damned quickly. We went through all our stuff - which of course was all over the floor (or mine was, Loz is much tidier) in the area where said bug had been spotted. Nothing. I decided it was hiding under the fridge, but I really couldn't be bothered to pull the whole thing out, so it could stay there, under the threat that if it even dared poke one of its antennae out, it would be dead. We were however beginning to think Australia was pulling itself round a bit - much to our relief - and were looking forward to the trip to the reef the next morning.
Having power-walked to the jetty (which was a good 20 minutes away... not the 10 that had been suggested, by the guy who's directions had sent us the wrong way at the airport). We asked for more directions, and were sent to wait by our boat. It was getting disturblingly close to 7.45, when the boat was due to depart, yet there was no activity at all near the boat. Well, Aussies are pretty laid back I guess. Perhaps 2 mins is enough to prep a boat. We thought we'd better check. Another guy told us the same company had another boat round the corner. We legged it, hoping we hadn't missed it, only to find some girls with a checklist, saying, 'Sorry girls the boat's not going out today, didn't you get the phone call?' 'Oh yes love, we got the phone call. Getting up at 6 after a late-night cockroach search, has just become sport, so we thought we'd pop down anyway.' Goddamit Australia. Not only that, but they couldn't find us on the booking sheet. We were very annoyed. We then did another 20 minute grumpy walk down to the office, where we waited for a girl to tell us what the hell was going on.
Loz, my lovely travel partner (not life partner, I make this very clear distinction), is very much a calming influence on me. She is always nice to people, whether they deserve it or not. I have been trying to be better in this respect, because I don't believe I'm actually an angry or unpleasant person. I'm lovely. I'm just surrounded by idiots who make me angry on a regular basis. But hey, you don't choose your IQ right? I should just be nicer to them, as being angry isn't good for anyone now is it? How about that for an epiphany? I'm not sure it trumps ice-cream to be honest. Anyway, as I'm trying to get away from being ready to kill someone in an instance for being incompetent, I let Loz handle this one. We were assured that a boat would definitely go tomorrow, and that we were now definitely on the list and that we'd been upgraded. The girl was nice enough, and she's moving to the UK next month - I don't blame her... although it was Chingford I think she said. I also think she was having a bad week, and was surrounded by idiots too. I felt her pain.
We now had a day to kill. I found a lovely FREE outdoor swimming pool on the Esplanade. Something for free in Australia that doesn't crawl across your face in the middle of the night - AMAZING. Very cool. Then we found a shopping centre - also cool, given the amount of holes in the back of my 'wrinkle free travel skirt/dress' (partially due to my elegance in bunk bed ascent (although I'd repared those), and partially due to my rucksack just rubbing holes in it.) I found a new, much nicer dress in the sale for about £13 (I know, a sale.). Loz found herself a cardigan. I (not for the first time) may have walked into a pharmacy, and applied a tester of foundation, concealer, blusher and lipstick, reminding myself that I can look human if I try, then we had some tea and went home.
Next morning we headed to the boat again... a little less fraught as we knew how long it would take this morning, and feeling slightly nervous in case the boat wasn't going and we had to get angry Cat out. No promblemo, the boat was loaded with more hot men than you could shake a sea cucumber at (I feel 'physically attractive' must be a condition of getting a holiday work-permit in Australia) and we were good to go. We got on board, were handed some flippers and a snorkel, and sat down to fill in our 'if I die, I waive my family's legal rights to sue you, even if you were negligent' forms. After this we were presented with a proper bacon and egg sandwich. Well done Australia. The first place that has managed to do bacon properly. (It's probably a fiver a slice, but well done Aus, it's an achievement for you). Unfortunately, given the very rough sea crossing, it wasn't long before I was presented with the same bacon sandwich, again, and again, until I'd had quite enough of bacon sandwiches for a while. I hasten to add, it wasn't just me who saw their breakfast again several times - half of the boat was out the back with sickbags. The sickness set a precident for the day for me unfortunately. The hour and a half boat trip to the reef was the worst I have ever experienced, and no amount of free homeopathic seasickness remedy was going to stop me. Fortunately, one Japanese guy had some real medicine which he took pity and gave me, and despite feeling like it couldn't be possible, I held onto lunch at least.
[Someone just actually used the word 'chillax' at a grumpy guy on the train- ha]
We arrived at the reef. Loz and I had been convinced by Charismatic Mick that we absolutely had to try scuba diving, because it was free to try, and we didn't have to pay to go on the big dive if we didn't want. Unsure, we had our names put on the list anyway, and it wasn't long before we were being weighted down and chucked over the side of the boat. I spent every second of the next 15 mins being absolutely convinced I was going to drown. I like to think of myself as quite a rational, logical person. I'm not generally of a nervous disposition, and firmly believe in mind over matter. All of this went straight out of the window as I clawed at the boat gasping for breath. I couldn't find a place to hold onto, and was sliding straight off again, only to be chucked back onto the side of the boat by the rough sea. They adjusted my boyancy, so I was supposed to feel less like drowning was imminent - I didn't - and I was then supposed to be taken under the water to practice my techniques that had been taught on the boat: how to get water out of my mask, how to get water out of my breathing equipment, and how to equalise my ears.
So while my poor, usually logical brain, was torn between thinking 'breathe, Cat, breathe - you're wearing oxygen. Yes it's water, but you're not going to die', and 'oh my god I'm going to die, what the hell is going on, I'm under water, I can't breathe', and also imagining the underwater scene from Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliette, which Charismatic Mick was playing out rather well at this point (I suspect, that I was equally as attractive as Clare Danes in my one-strapped swimming costume, eyes wide with fear, and snorkel full of water - I will add, Loz had gone for a wetsuit and looked a right tit, so it could have been worse!) I think poor CharisMick may have had scratch marks in his arms by the time he deposited me on the bar under the back of the boat, only for me to clamber to the surface gasping for breath, spitting out salt water, and going 'oh my god, oh my god'. Not to be defeated, he gave it another crack and pulled me back down. I could not get this 'breathing under water doesn't necessarily mean death' thing into my head. This time I was under for a little bit longer, managed one of the techniques (the mask clearing - although to be honest, I still couldn't see very well, and I certainly was convinced I couldn't breathe). Then my flipper started falling off. Trying to remember what the sign language for problem was, I realised I didn't know the sign for flipper, so it was useless. I went for 'I OOOOS UMMIN OFFFF' which he didn't get. I tried again with a bit of pointing - he put it back on. Excellent. Oh yes, then I remembered again I couldn't breathe - back to the surface we go.
I had a third and a fourth attempt... clearly CharisMick had lost patience with my this time, so I was given to a guy called Shun as a special case. He was on the bars at the back of the boat - he'd also chosen to wear a wetsuit, so there was less of the Romeo and Juliette crap going on in my head - now it was pretty much just death. He tried to get me to take the breathing apparatus out (which I was clearly thrilled by), clear it, then put it back in. I sort of did it, but there was still water in it. Hence another trip back to the surface. Shun appeared as I was (gracefully, gracefully) gripping the boat with everything but my teeth. 'Another go?' Desperate to conquer my fear, because in my real brain I knew I wasn't dying, I gave it a crack. That was it though. When asked what was wrong, all I could manage was a pathetic school kid's 'I don't like it'. There was no way on earth I was going to be going on the proper dive. Pay $55 to feel like I was dying for another hour? It was lose, lose really. I got back on the boat to recover and waited for Loz - who had seemed to manage to get to grips with the whole breathing thing - it's not as if we've done it for 25 years or owt, and had been doing rather well. She'd even got a round of applause from CharisMick - bitch. Oh, hang on I lie - 2 rounds of applause she just added, rubbing it in my face. (We think they were possibly being sarcastic as she assures me she was probably just as crap as I was.)
Anyway, after my near death experience, I was a little concerned about the old snorkelling. In fact, I wasn't convinced I'd be able to do it. I'd managed to convince myself, despite the fact that actually I'm quite a strong swimmer (obviously not entering the olympics any time soon, though I can usually keep myself afloat, and swim a good distance) that perhaps I'd been kidding myself, and the sea was a completely different kettle of fish (ha) to Scartho Baths, and maybe I wasn't cut out for that sort of thing. Luckily though, the tight bitch inside my head reminded me how much I had paid to do this, and that I was wasting it if I didn't give it a try - I was glad of her. Snorkelling was cool. We saw some fish - rather unsurprisingly - and some coral, again... really though... it was incredible. We saw sharks, giant clams - all sorts, a 'Dory' fish and a 'Nemo' and the anenonenmoneee. Alas it wasn't the season for speaking to whales though, so we didn't bother. After a good snorkel round with our noodles (floatation device, I'd convinced us we needed, as I clearly couldn't swim - it got in the way a lot), we headed back to the boat as I was feeling like I was going to be sick again. The sea was still quite rough, and I'd swallowed a lot of saltwater which wasn't going down too well.
It is moments like this which for me clear up any doubt over the existence of a god. I have just (of course gracefully, because that's the girl I am) dragged myself out of the water, exhausted, to sit on the side of the boat for a rest. My hair is all over my face, dotted with bits of coral and seaweed. I have lines on my face where my snorkel has been, I'm desperate for the loo and I'm trying not to barf. Yes. This is the point in my life, where I should meet Fit Paul. Fit Paul is the boat's resident marine biologist, which makes him not only fit, but smart. He gets chatting to Loz and I - a conversation in which I have limited participation, given the fact that I can't stand up for fear of vomming, and can't hear out of one of my ears at all, and am partially deaf in another. (Please feel free to use this as an example in an RE essay - I feel it is a good argument for atheism if you are looking for one. From what I can hear, Fit Paul is both lovely and a fellow Brit, and we have a nice little chat, before we are called in for some lunch.)
It wasn't long before Fit Paul was coming round recruiting for his snorkel tour of the reef at the second site in the afternoon. Having discussed the merits of Fit Paul with Loz, I, being a bad person, felt we should both spend $20 to partake in the snorkel tour... for its educational merit. There was an element of show and tell, which I was particularly looking forward to. Me, being me, managed to slap suncream ALL over my face just before he got to us. I have to say, I sometimes also doubt the theory of evolution, because people like me would have died out a LONG time ago if it was so. (Feel free to use that in an essay, if you are looking for a pro-God argument.) Loz actually told me off for this, because apparently he was already there when I decided to slap the suncream all over my face, then looked up, looking like some sort of abominable snowwoman (I use that term loosely). She is a good friend. We have decided, I need to be sent to some sort of finishing school. There is a lot of work to be done. You see, my theory on this is - there is only one way a relationship can go after someone spent a morning watching you barf, you've bared your sunburnt arse at them in a swimming costume, and then shouted 'WHAT?' at them after every question they ask you for 10 minutes, before slapping a litre of suncream on your face and speaking to them without rubbing it in... and that is up! So! Call me!
After I'd finished committing relationship suicide - yet again. I tried to eat some lunch. It wasn't going down so well. It was nice, but unfortunately boats and me do not get on, so I only managed a little, despite being quite hungry after losing my breakfast several times earlier. Loz and I, after much discussion, decided to splash out (ha), on an underwater camera. It's a disposable, and having almost forgotten how to use one. I decided to try to find which button to press. (Now, don't mock me! It was more complicated than usual, as it had covers on and stuff for the underwater protection.) Eventually, I found the button and promptly took a picture of the ceiling. Loz came back from the loo just in time to make fun of me for this. I shusshed her - keen to not add 'thick as shit' to my list of top qualities. She was not laughing for long, as I put her in charge of the camera! She spent the whole snorkel winding the bloody thing the wrong way, so not taking any pictures, and wondering why it wouldn't work. I took the camera smugly back and took some incredible pics, only for Loz to scan the camera at the airport, probably wiping them all. (I did manage to take some (hopefully) good ones thank you, after I figured out what I was doing wrong!)
We had about a 20 minute trip to our next snorkelling site. As just sitting on the boat when its still causes me problems, I took up residency on the back of the boat. The sea was a bit calmer now, and only a few really sickly people were special needs enough to be there. I was a little surprised to be honest, after the vomming, the suncream, the burnt arse in the air, the deafness etc. that I had company. Bless him. We had a nice chat, and it turns out that Paul is not only fit and smart, but quite sweet too. Apparently force four winds like the ones today would make the average person sick you know! Much higher and they don't take the boats out. So there! No excuse for the arse or the suncream though... maybe he hadn't noticed!
Anyway, in the meantime, me Loz, Colin and his mum Audrey (who bless her could not swim, but was being towed around in a rubber ring by fit Paul... see! - Helps old ladies, I was onto a winner), headed out to the Reef for a look at some things which uneducated eyes may not have spotted. Now, being still deaf, in the roaring ocean, the informative little speeches were of relatively little consequence to me. I tried to nod intelligently in the right places - although establishing what these were with the use of only half an ear is a little tricky. I settled for having my head down, searching for sea cucumbers. We had been promised that if we were good we could handle a sea cucumber, but unfortunately the only one we came across was too deep for Paul to pick up.
We swam around for a bit, being showed various types of coral, and being smacked into by Colin (the least spacially aware swimmer ever, who flippered Loz in the face several times) and also by Audrey, who had no control over where she was going as she was being towed several metres behind Paul, who was darting around looking for things on the reef. The other thing that's tricky, is to stay in the same place in the water. Aside from dealing with your Colins and your Audreys, the waves have a nasty habit of chucking you about a bit too. Despite being told NOT to kick the coral, or to touch it, I managed to get knocked onto it, and it scratched my leg. It stung a bit, but Loz couldn't see anything, so I kept quiet, not wanting to be the muppet that killed the Great Barrier Reef. In my final act of grace for the day, I got knocked by Colin towards Paul, who was coming back up from the reef, and managed to headbutt him. Go me! (Call me!) (Loz just suggested she films me for a documentary, and acts as my 'carer'. Thanks Loz.) So at the end of the tour, being the good friend she is, Loz grassed me up to Paul for damaging his baby and told him I'd scratched my leg. (Only cos he scratched himself as well, and said he had to clean it in case it gets infected... see I do care, I didn't want you to die of infection!) He told me he kicked it all the time by accident and gave me some savlon. Aw. (I did have a brief moment too where I realised I was waiting like a small child for him to put it on my leg, before I figured I should be holding my hand out. Kill me.)
Loz and I headed back for a bit more snorkelling, before we gave up and tried to dry off. It was now I discovered, I was hideously burned. (Yay. Please add lobster to my list of endearing features.) There was cheese and wine, but there was no way that would have stayed down, so I assumed the position on the back of the boat with my sick bags yet again... and it wasn't long before I had company again. Wow, it really must be pity now right? That's pretty much all I'm getting. Anyway, I was brought biscuits, moved to a less sicky place, given an entertaining little dance... I even felt better! I could probably have moved inside... erm... nah! (Loz was even refered to as my friend, as opposed to my girlfriend! About bloody time.)
We were invited to the pub (not just us, it was an open invite from the crew. I convinced Loz she wanted to go. Obviously, there needed to be some showering and a trip to the pharmacy to borrow some tester make up first, but we were going. Unfortunately, my stomach had other ideas. It was still on the boat as far as it was concerned, and short of letting it embarass me again, I had no option other than to lie down... I crashed out in my wet clothes for 14 hours. This is why I am single.
I woke the next morning not giving a crap about anything. I felt terrible. My bum was so burned I could not sit down, my back had blistered again, and I still felt sick. I drank another rehydration sachet and sprayed myself down with aftersun. Loz was of course up and dressed, packing, as we were checking out in an hour. My stuff was wet, all over the place, and I was dirty and smelt of swamp. I was also still deaf, which really was driving me mental... not just because I couldn't hear or balance, but more because of the story one of the guy in Coffs Harbour told us. Apparently, one of his mates went swimming in the sea in India, then couldn't hear. After many courses of antibiotics, a doctor stuck some tweezers in his ear and pulled out a large mushroom which had been growing there. Nice. I hoped there were no mushrooms in my ears.
I had a shower, and somehow made it out of the room for check out - Loz trying to book all the stuff we needed to get to, and to stay in Brisbane cos I was a useless shell. After looking up home remedies for 'water in the ear', I tried hair drying my ears to evapourate the water. It didn't work. It just burnt my ears really. We had time to kill, so I forced myself to walk to the pharmacy for a solution. Luckily they had one in the form of drops, which smell a bit of vinegar. I asked how quickly they worked. They didn't know, however suggested I kept going every few hours. I was getting nervous, as we were flying in a few hours, and I was envisaging another Hong Kong to Auckland, nose-bleeding, head-imploding, 'would someone please remove my sinuses with a rusty spoon' flight. Wahooooo! They were instant, or at least the bad ear cleared completely. The other one hurts a bit, but so does my throat on that side, so I imagine that's something else as opposed to mushroom growth.
The flight was uneventful - mainly due to the fact we had to pay for TV again. Dammit Branson. Loz read, I slept. It's a pattern now really. We arrived in Brisbane, caught a taxi to our overpriced hotel (which again came with a free beetle thing - luckily dead this time - so we put a glass over it and left it for the cleaners) and we crashed out. We tried to book our train to Sydney for the next morning. It was Saturday night. Everything was closed, and their damned website wasn't having it. We were stuck in Brisbane. Great. Oh well, at least it meant a lie in.
We spent a fairly uneventful day watching rubbish films, and poor Australian soaps (Blue Heelers - check it out. Dreadful!) And yep, here we are. 1 1/2 hours left of our 14 hour epic journey to Sydney. I want my bed now please.
You know you're a bad person when...
It's a really terrible feeling, particularly as someone who works with children, when you find yourself laughing at a child who has hurt themselves. However, when said child has spent the last hour annoying everyone in the carriage, including its mother, you sometimes have to have a little giggle. Or in our case, tears streaming down your face as you try to hide your laughter. It really isn't very funny at all and I'm not sure we should be blogging this, but...
The brat was busy with his newest activity - one hand on the arm rest either side of the aisle, and a big swing up in the air, all the way up and down the carriage (I successfully removed our armrest from the game by leaning on it) - when a particularly over zealous swing caused him to land facedown, kersplat, on the carriage floor. I hate to say 'I told you so', but Cat and I had forseen this outcome, and I'm fairly certain I'd heard his mother tell him several times to stop. The resultant screaming lasted several minutes and could even be heard after he'd been removed from the carriage. Sadly, he returned sometime later with a cold cloth and a bag of ice over his face. Unfortunately there was no chloroform on the cloth.
I do feel terrible, but it was the most perfect example of karma in action I have ever witnessed. It is particularly amusing for us as yesterday we did a trip from Sydney to Coffs Harbour (which is 9 hours on a train) with a screaming toddler. It wasn't the toddler's fault in fairness, that the parents had brought her absolutely nothing to do, and kept trying to go to sleep. The baby didn't want to sleep, and kept crying cos she was bored. So they'd hit her, which made her scream the carriage down. When the girl's sister/aunt (not sure which) actually picked her up and pointed out the window, she shut up and behaved. Fancy that! Anyway, as we sat down today for a 4 1/2 hour journey and were greeted by this whiney little so and so, we were not impressed. Moving is not an option, as the seat numbers are reserved, and the guy has a list of your names to ensure you sit in them. Mum had very little interest in disciplining him, so Loz turned to me and said, 'Don't worry, he'll knock himself out in a minute!' Cue karma! Hillarious, unless you're in teaching, so I didn't find it at all funny. I suspect the guy behind us wasn't in teaching, as he was sniggering away to himself.
Cat's just gone to get some tea. She wanted to swing down the train, but now she's seen what can happen, I think she's going to walk. Very sensible.
An Australia person or a New Zealand person...?
People we've met say you're either an Australia person or a New Zealand person. Having already established that we were New Zealand people before we left New Zealand, Australia had a LOT of work to do.
It wasn't a good start. Far from the almost immaculate manners, and helpfulness of the Kiwis (bus drivers and Graham excluded), the grumpy cow at customs couldn't even be bothered to turn my customs declaration card over. 'Other side' she barked at me. It's double-sided, silly me. I should have known that you were more interested in the plantlife I wasn't bringing in, than the food I was. Hmph.
Anyway, we got ourselves a free shuttle to our hostel. The guy decided it would be funny to wind us up and tell us we needed a ticket (it is a good job we had our corsets on that morning, else I fear our sides may have split.) If you are in transport, and spot people with bags under their eyes a similar size to their 80 litre backpacks, it is not a good idea to try witty little wind ups!
After listening to a long discussion on Lebanese politics, between a French guy and the driver, we arrived at the hostel. This hostel was the most expensive place we've stayed so far, including the 5* hotel, so we expected it to be fairly decent. We'd booked 2 nights, and another at the end of our trip so I could hopefully pick up the new sim card that missed me by a day in both Hong Kong and Auckland.
The hostel was huge, and the bathrooms downstairs and outside. The dorm was a tip, as as we later discovered, most of our room mates had been there for months. We both got our favourite beds - top bunks - mine was particularly fun as it had no sides. Logic says given that I have fallen out of bed about 3 times in 25 years, most of which where when I was under ten, the chances are a sideless bunk bed will be ok. However, it does make getting up and down a little difficult when there's nothing to hold on to.
It wasn't long before we were hacked off with Australia. It's ludicrously expensive - EVERYTHING is expensive. A cheap meal costs about £7, internet is about £2 an hour - more in some places, and in our experience people have been pretty damned rude. For example, the first morning I woke up early and went around the corner to pay an extortionate amount of money for a version of scrambled eggs on toast, on account that the place had free internet. It had powerpoints too at the tables, as most internet cafes do, and I sat for a while with my breakfast answering my emails. Later, Loz went back with me, also for some scrambled eggs, and we did some planning. All was well. The following day, the internet in the hostel which we'd (over)paid for, wasn't working. So in the evening we thought we'd head out for coffee to the same place. We walked round the corner in the rain to the cafe, and sat down, as the day before, and plugged ourselves in, waiting for the waiter to take our order. We were greeted by a guy who said 'If your looking for the internet, it's not on at this time of night, as we're in the middle of dinner, and it's not very nice.' Great. 'Ok, thanks' we said, debating whether to have a coffee anyway, while we decided how we were going to book the stuff we needed to book with no internet access. While we were thinking, said gentleman (debatable), came back and said, 'Oh, and for future reference, if you want to use our power, you can come and ask us first.'
I was actually speechless. Usually when I'm in normal mode, as opposed to holiday mode, my tongue lashes a little quicker, however, disappointedly all I could muster in my shock was a dejected 'ok sorry.' I felt like a small child, who'd just been told they had terrible manners and been sent to bed early in shame. Needless to say we wouldn't be needing his future references.
The thing that I'd most been looking forward to about Australia was the freedom of hiring a car and driving up the coast, stopping wherever we pleased, enjoying the beaches, and gradually making our way up to the Great Barrier Reef for some snorkelling. Unfortunately after blowing the budget in New Zealand (and of course the fact that it was ludicrously priced anyway), car hire was out of the question. Aus was costing us twice as much per day to live as anywhere else we'd been.
One of the girls in NZ had tipped us off about camper van relocations. We were mega excited by this, having found three that we could relocate for a hire fee of $1 per day. Some of them even had a petrol allowance, meaning we would hardly have any fuel costs. It was perfect. Our driving dream may work out after all... Nah! The first time I called, the woman told me to phone back in an hour (and hung up... nice). Apparently they were waiting on an updated list, which would arrive in an hour. We checked the site, and the updated list still showed the ones we'd wanted. Phew. The second time I called, all of our vans were taken! Gutted! Now what?! We had almost three weeks in Sydney to spend being ripped off by rude people in a hostel with cockroaches. Fabulous. The whole reason we'd extended our time there was to account for driving time which we no longer needed. Eventually we discovered a backtracker train pass, allowing us unlimited train travel between Melbourne and Brisbane for 2 weeks. This combined with a return flight to Cairns, became our new solution. The new solution cost us a whole week's budget on its own, but we were out of options, and it was still the cheapest.
Busses are more popular than trains in Australia, which only has about six trainlines in the whole country. The trains are comfortable, with plenty of legroom, and the food on them is generally cheaper than other places - interesting! They do only move at 4mph though.
We spent 3 days sleeping and planning in Sydney, managing to visit Bondi beach (which is actually really nice), and to walk round the harbour, seeing the bridge, the opera house and the botanical gardens - again, lovely. On day four, we packed up and started our trek up the coast. First stop, Coffs Harbour - 9 hours on the train from Sydney. I'm fairly sure the guy who built this railway was drunk, as he clearly had no concept of straight lines, and after a couple of hours I was turning quite green. My only option... take some pills and sleep, which would have been easier without the screaming toddler. That's what earplugs are for... right?
The guys at the Coffs Hostel were great. Really friendly, really helpful. They even sent a hottie to pick us up from the station for free and show us round - lovely. We had a nice BBQ, which wasn't too expensive, and met some nice people over dinner. We watched the Simpsons movie - you know, normal stuff - the stuff we'd been missing for a good few days! The people in Coffs were a bit more chilled. The hoste was friendly and sociable, and not in the sense that it was blaring dance music at all hours of the night, and plying drunk chavs with beer until they were sick. I liked it. Sydney was very 'Brits abroad'. This was not so. (Loz and I have concluded we are abnormal, not wishing to be permanently slashed and vomming in our day sacks.) We hadm, it seemed, brought the rain with us though, and the first part of the next day we spent indoors, not really fancying the beach. Luckily though it did dry up, and we went for a walk, and then a swim in the sea. (Or I did, Loz was more sensible and stayed dry.) It was lovely apart from being damp and Sandy for our 4 1/2 hour journey up to Byron bay that evening. [For incidents on the train see 'You know you're a bad person when']
We changed coach and arrived into Byron Bay at around 8.30pm. We'd struggled to find a hostel in Byron - everything was either booked or too expensive, but the Coffs Harbour guys booked us at one which they were associated with. We were wrong to expect them to be at all similar. We trotted up to the blaring 'mmmcha, mmmmcha, mmmmcha' of Cascada's latest dance track outside our room, with no glass in the windows, only mesh. We were shattered. I had no clean clothes, and felt filthy, but decided I still couldn't be bothered to shower. The showers were outside, past the drunk people, and I wasn't in the mood. We fell pretty much straight to sleep.
I woke the next morning to a bed full of sand, managed a slightly grim shower and then checked out. We left our bags, booked a hostel in Brisbane for two nights and then headed out to the beach. They had not lied. Byron was beautiful. We walked the length of the beach, which was covered in little crabs, and paddled our way to the start of the lighthouse track we were going to walk. Having already walked for about an hour, we figured it couldn't be much further up to the lighthouse. We climbed the first steep hill, its peak rounded a corner where we discovered that it was still a very long way in the distance. Despite the rain having followed us again in the morning, it had now dried up, and was roasting and very humid. Decided we weren't up for it, or up to it (or both), we sat for a bit, and admired the view. We also saw quite a big lizard and several turkeys who took a shine to our biscuits. We paddled our way back along the beach - it really was nice - clear water, white sand. I'd have swam if I hadn't learned from yesterday.
At about 8.30pm the coach picked us up to drop us in Brisbane. We'd booked the hostel in Brisbane because it looked great, quieter than the others, but its main attraction was the free internet. Finally! Somewhere forward thinking enough to provide free wifi! When we arrived the hostel was in full party mode. They had their own pub, which I waded through to find someone to check us in. We headed up to our room, where we were greeted by a moth. (Loz does not like moths at all.) I had bloodstains on my pillow and bottom sheet, and chewing gum all over my bedposts. There was no ladder to get onto the bed, and my bed wasn't properly attached to the bottom bunk below (of course we had top bunks again) so each time I attempted to get on it, it moved. I ended up having to move the washing that was all over the end of my bed so I could climb up (gracefully of course). We were not amused, and again went straight to bed.
I didn't sleep well at all, as the girls came in plastered, with the lights on in the early hours making no attempt to whisper... then they got up again at like 7am! Argh! Long story short, we managed to do some washing and post some stuff, but their free wifi didn't work, and the hostel was grim. You see when you put a bar in a hostel, which doesn't have its own toilets, you have to expect that your hostel toilets will look like those of The Pier (a cheap Cleethorpes club, for those who haven't been) on a Friday night. The posters on the wall of the common room read things like 'Thank F**k it's Friday - that's right guys we meen naked chicks' (their spelling mistake, not mine), and all of the female hostel staff (all girls except one guy... the duty manager or 'pimp', we'll call him), had to wear tops with 'weapons of mass distraction' written across the chest. If hooters owned a hostel, this would be it. In the words of Dolly Parton 'It costs a lot of money to look this cheap'. It did, and it was.
So, we are almost up to date. We're now on a Virgin Blue flight from Brisbane to Cairns. The aircon is broken and it's £7 dollars if you want to watch TV. Fortunately, we're almost landed. It's strange for a country who insists on you producing photo ID to buy a sim card, and to post anything due to terrorism risk, that their domestic aiport security is crap. We didn't have to produce any ID or a reservation number or anything to get on the flight. I just told them my name, they believed me, and assumed the other girl was Loz. Fair enough.
We've flown to Cairns to snorkel on the Reef tomorrow. We've booked into a comparatively cheap, but nice-looking hostel, in a twin room for 3 nights. Come on Australia. You have a chance to redeem yourself. We want to like you, but you are making it very difficult.
I don't think there's anything I can add to this!
It wasn't a good start. Far from the almost immaculate manners, and helpfulness of the Kiwis (bus drivers and Graham excluded), the grumpy cow at customs couldn't even be bothered to turn my customs declaration card over. 'Other side' she barked at me. It's double-sided, silly me. I should have known that you were more interested in the plantlife I wasn't bringing in, than the food I was. Hmph.
Anyway, we got ourselves a free shuttle to our hostel. The guy decided it would be funny to wind us up and tell us we needed a ticket (it is a good job we had our corsets on that morning, else I fear our sides may have split.) If you are in transport, and spot people with bags under their eyes a similar size to their 80 litre backpacks, it is not a good idea to try witty little wind ups!
After listening to a long discussion on Lebanese politics, between a French guy and the driver, we arrived at the hostel. This hostel was the most expensive place we've stayed so far, including the 5* hotel, so we expected it to be fairly decent. We'd booked 2 nights, and another at the end of our trip so I could hopefully pick up the new sim card that missed me by a day in both Hong Kong and Auckland.
The hostel was huge, and the bathrooms downstairs and outside. The dorm was a tip, as as we later discovered, most of our room mates had been there for months. We both got our favourite beds - top bunks - mine was particularly fun as it had no sides. Logic says given that I have fallen out of bed about 3 times in 25 years, most of which where when I was under ten, the chances are a sideless bunk bed will be ok. However, it does make getting up and down a little difficult when there's nothing to hold on to.
It wasn't long before we were hacked off with Australia. It's ludicrously expensive - EVERYTHING is expensive. A cheap meal costs about £7, internet is about £2 an hour - more in some places, and in our experience people have been pretty damned rude. For example, the first morning I woke up early and went around the corner to pay an extortionate amount of money for a version of scrambled eggs on toast, on account that the place had free internet. It had powerpoints too at the tables, as most internet cafes do, and I sat for a while with my breakfast answering my emails. Later, Loz went back with me, also for some scrambled eggs, and we did some planning. All was well. The following day, the internet in the hostel which we'd (over)paid for, wasn't working. So in the evening we thought we'd head out for coffee to the same place. We walked round the corner in the rain to the cafe, and sat down, as the day before, and plugged ourselves in, waiting for the waiter to take our order. We were greeted by a guy who said 'If your looking for the internet, it's not on at this time of night, as we're in the middle of dinner, and it's not very nice.' Great. 'Ok, thanks' we said, debating whether to have a coffee anyway, while we decided how we were going to book the stuff we needed to book with no internet access. While we were thinking, said gentleman (debatable), came back and said, 'Oh, and for future reference, if you want to use our power, you can come and ask us first.'
I was actually speechless. Usually when I'm in normal mode, as opposed to holiday mode, my tongue lashes a little quicker, however, disappointedly all I could muster in my shock was a dejected 'ok sorry.' I felt like a small child, who'd just been told they had terrible manners and been sent to bed early in shame. Needless to say we wouldn't be needing his future references.
The thing that I'd most been looking forward to about Australia was the freedom of hiring a car and driving up the coast, stopping wherever we pleased, enjoying the beaches, and gradually making our way up to the Great Barrier Reef for some snorkelling. Unfortunately after blowing the budget in New Zealand (and of course the fact that it was ludicrously priced anyway), car hire was out of the question. Aus was costing us twice as much per day to live as anywhere else we'd been.
One of the girls in NZ had tipped us off about camper van relocations. We were mega excited by this, having found three that we could relocate for a hire fee of $1 per day. Some of them even had a petrol allowance, meaning we would hardly have any fuel costs. It was perfect. Our driving dream may work out after all... Nah! The first time I called, the woman told me to phone back in an hour (and hung up... nice). Apparently they were waiting on an updated list, which would arrive in an hour. We checked the site, and the updated list still showed the ones we'd wanted. Phew. The second time I called, all of our vans were taken! Gutted! Now what?! We had almost three weeks in Sydney to spend being ripped off by rude people in a hostel with cockroaches. Fabulous. The whole reason we'd extended our time there was to account for driving time which we no longer needed. Eventually we discovered a backtracker train pass, allowing us unlimited train travel between Melbourne and Brisbane for 2 weeks. This combined with a return flight to Cairns, became our new solution. The new solution cost us a whole week's budget on its own, but we were out of options, and it was still the cheapest.
Busses are more popular than trains in Australia, which only has about six trainlines in the whole country. The trains are comfortable, with plenty of legroom, and the food on them is generally cheaper than other places - interesting! They do only move at 4mph though.
We spent 3 days sleeping and planning in Sydney, managing to visit Bondi beach (which is actually really nice), and to walk round the harbour, seeing the bridge, the opera house and the botanical gardens - again, lovely. On day four, we packed up and started our trek up the coast. First stop, Coffs Harbour - 9 hours on the train from Sydney. I'm fairly sure the guy who built this railway was drunk, as he clearly had no concept of straight lines, and after a couple of hours I was turning quite green. My only option... take some pills and sleep, which would have been easier without the screaming toddler. That's what earplugs are for... right?
The guys at the Coffs Hostel were great. Really friendly, really helpful. They even sent a hottie to pick us up from the station for free and show us round - lovely. We had a nice BBQ, which wasn't too expensive, and met some nice people over dinner. We watched the Simpsons movie - you know, normal stuff - the stuff we'd been missing for a good few days! The people in Coffs were a bit more chilled. The hoste was friendly and sociable, and not in the sense that it was blaring dance music at all hours of the night, and plying drunk chavs with beer until they were sick. I liked it. Sydney was very 'Brits abroad'. This was not so. (Loz and I have concluded we are abnormal, not wishing to be permanently slashed and vomming in our day sacks.) We hadm, it seemed, brought the rain with us though, and the first part of the next day we spent indoors, not really fancying the beach. Luckily though it did dry up, and we went for a walk, and then a swim in the sea. (Or I did, Loz was more sensible and stayed dry.) It was lovely apart from being damp and Sandy for our 4 1/2 hour journey up to Byron bay that evening. [For incidents on the train see 'You know you're a bad person when']
We changed coach and arrived into Byron Bay at around 8.30pm. We'd struggled to find a hostel in Byron - everything was either booked or too expensive, but the Coffs Harbour guys booked us at one which they were associated with. We were wrong to expect them to be at all similar. We trotted up to the blaring 'mmmcha, mmmmcha, mmmmcha' of Cascada's latest dance track outside our room, with no glass in the windows, only mesh. We were shattered. I had no clean clothes, and felt filthy, but decided I still couldn't be bothered to shower. The showers were outside, past the drunk people, and I wasn't in the mood. We fell pretty much straight to sleep.
I woke the next morning to a bed full of sand, managed a slightly grim shower and then checked out. We left our bags, booked a hostel in Brisbane for two nights and then headed out to the beach. They had not lied. Byron was beautiful. We walked the length of the beach, which was covered in little crabs, and paddled our way to the start of the lighthouse track we were going to walk. Having already walked for about an hour, we figured it couldn't be much further up to the lighthouse. We climbed the first steep hill, its peak rounded a corner where we discovered that it was still a very long way in the distance. Despite the rain having followed us again in the morning, it had now dried up, and was roasting and very humid. Decided we weren't up for it, or up to it (or both), we sat for a bit, and admired the view. We also saw quite a big lizard and several turkeys who took a shine to our biscuits. We paddled our way back along the beach - it really was nice - clear water, white sand. I'd have swam if I hadn't learned from yesterday.
At about 8.30pm the coach picked us up to drop us in Brisbane. We'd booked the hostel in Brisbane because it looked great, quieter than the others, but its main attraction was the free internet. Finally! Somewhere forward thinking enough to provide free wifi! When we arrived the hostel was in full party mode. They had their own pub, which I waded through to find someone to check us in. We headed up to our room, where we were greeted by a moth. (Loz does not like moths at all.) I had bloodstains on my pillow and bottom sheet, and chewing gum all over my bedposts. There was no ladder to get onto the bed, and my bed wasn't properly attached to the bottom bunk below (of course we had top bunks again) so each time I attempted to get on it, it moved. I ended up having to move the washing that was all over the end of my bed so I could climb up (gracefully of course). We were not amused, and again went straight to bed.
I didn't sleep well at all, as the girls came in plastered, with the lights on in the early hours making no attempt to whisper... then they got up again at like 7am! Argh! Long story short, we managed to do some washing and post some stuff, but their free wifi didn't work, and the hostel was grim. You see when you put a bar in a hostel, which doesn't have its own toilets, you have to expect that your hostel toilets will look like those of The Pier (a cheap Cleethorpes club, for those who haven't been) on a Friday night. The posters on the wall of the common room read things like 'Thank F**k it's Friday - that's right guys we meen naked chicks' (their spelling mistake, not mine), and all of the female hostel staff (all girls except one guy... the duty manager or 'pimp', we'll call him), had to wear tops with 'weapons of mass distraction' written across the chest. If hooters owned a hostel, this would be it. In the words of Dolly Parton 'It costs a lot of money to look this cheap'. It did, and it was.
So, we are almost up to date. We're now on a Virgin Blue flight from Brisbane to Cairns. The aircon is broken and it's £7 dollars if you want to watch TV. Fortunately, we're almost landed. It's strange for a country who insists on you producing photo ID to buy a sim card, and to post anything due to terrorism risk, that their domestic aiport security is crap. We didn't have to produce any ID or a reservation number or anything to get on the flight. I just told them my name, they believed me, and assumed the other girl was Loz. Fair enough.
We've flown to Cairns to snorkel on the Reef tomorrow. We've booked into a comparatively cheap, but nice-looking hostel, in a twin room for 3 nights. Come on Australia. You have a chance to redeem yourself. We want to like you, but you are making it very difficult.
I don't think there's anything I can add to this!
Re-westernization
Today is a landmark! Loz and I purchased a bag of pasta, a jar of sauce, a block of cheese and some reduced price salad leaves, and made ourselves a gormet meal for the first time in 2 months! It's amazing how good it feels to be able to read the packaging, and not to be on red alert every time you open a packet of something, just in case the food is looking at you, or tries to jump out! Yes, New Zealand feels gastronomically safe, and is going down rather well so far. In fact, I love it! That sweeping statement is based on 2 days sleeping in a hostel, and one bus journey. But still, it's true.
We arrived in Auckland after an 11 hour flight (who knew that there was that much world between Hong Kong and New Zealand?! It's like flying to Japan. AGAIN.) Anyway, we arrived at 7.25 am. Auckland is 5 hours ahead of Hong Kong, so we were messed up before we started, having landed around the time we were used to going to bed, and it only being first thing in the morning. Also, we couldn't check into the hostel until 1pm, so I had a nap in Starbucks (New Zealand smells and tastes a little weird, I think it's the dairy) and Loz went to check out the nearby gift shops. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, I went to bed... woke up for tea, and then went back to bed again.
The next day Loz optimistically set her alarm for 9am. I made it up at 10, Loz slept til around 1. We were going to go up the tower in Auckland, but we ended up planning our whole week in NZ instead. It took a lot of doing! We had planned to hire a car, until we discovered we could do it cheaper by bus! We'd planned to go to Cape Reinga (I keep saying it wrong, it's Ree-ing-ga), which is the most northern point in New Zealand, and were going to get a tour from a place called Hokianga Harbour. Seen as we weren't driving though, this kind of threw a spanner in the works, as we couldn't get there, so we skipped the harbour and booked a bus to a place called Paihia (pie here). This is where I googled 'things to do in Paihia', and found far too many exciting and expensive things for us to do. We booked 'swimming with dolphins' and our day to Cape Reinga, then I got distracted by a tour to Hobbiton in the town of Matamata (matter matter), so we booked a bus there, then decided on Waiotapu (why otter poo) for it's 'thermal wonderland', Rotorua and Lake Taupo, with a bus back to Auckland to catch our flight. We were a combination of fed up of planning, and desperately excited by the time we'd finished writing all our reservation numbers out at about 1am. We got practically no sleep before heading out on the bus to Paihia the following day.
Paihia is cute. It's a pretty little seaside town, full of gorgeous shops, which in turn are full of gorgeous arty things, all of which we would like to take home. My favourite is www.flyingfishdesign.co.nz - they do mail order, in case anyone is feeling generous :D. We chilled out for a little while at the hostel, then went for a wander on the beach as the sun went down.
Skip to 24 hours later, and we've not long returned, knackered and sand filled from our Cape Reinga tour (Ree-ing-ga, Ree-ing-ga, Ree-ing-ga). We've had a fantastic day and it's only fermenting my love for New Zealand.When I woke up this morning at 6:15am my heart sank. The sound of pissing rain was all I could hear, and I was seriously concerned that the weather was about to screw us once again. It dried up for a little while as we waited for the bus, which was uncharacteristically considerate, however it wasn't long before it was raining heavily again. We went to a forest of kauri trees (koh-ree) first. The trees are 700-1000 years old (which is quite young for kauri by all accounts) and consequently they are huge! They are the material of choice for Maori carvings, and one of the places we stopped had some incredible furniture, inlcuding a hollowed out tree trunk, turned into a spiral staircase. Unfortunately it costs 10s of thousands of pounds, else I'd have bought you all a lovely table.
We stopped a couple of times on the way up the east coast before we got onto 'the tail of the fish' (the north part of New Zealand), and up to the very tip: Cape Reinga. The scenery is stunning, but of course it was foggy. Luckily as we got closer, the mist cleared and we could see everything: the lighthouse; where the pacific ocean joins the Tasman sea, the bays and the pure white sand at the bottom of the lush green forests. Beautiful.
The Maori believe Cape Reinga is the parting place for spirits when you die. The north island is a fish (a big fish caught by a boy called Maori - the top is its tail) the south island is an upturned canoe (when he caught the fish it was so big and beautiful he wanted to let it go, however his brothers hacked away at its flesh for food, so Maori tied a sea-going canoe to the fish to help it float) and the tiny island at the bottom (I think it's Stephenson Island or something like that), is the anchor used to lodge said canoe. Anyway, when you die your spirit goes to Cape Reinga to walk into the ocean back to the homeland. People plant trees in memory of people here to help reforest the island. Loz and I did our bit, and can watch them grow on google earth - my tree is at S34.43054, E172.68190, if you want to see it! It's the bushy one - Loz's is next door, the leafy green one. If you're visiting Cape Reinga at any point, please check up on it, and give it some water.
We only made a short stop, so by the time we'd planted our tree, we legged it down to the lighthouse, then had to power walk back up the hill. Luckily we were on time, and weren't last - the old lady and her daughter were quite late... poor woman, running that hill was pretty hardcore! When we got back on the bus we headed to the sand dunes for some boogie boarding!
The safety demonstration scared me so much that I almost didn't bother. Very graphic descriptions of what happens if you let go of the board... broken fingers, then wrist, then arm, then dislocated shoulders... plus choking on sand, and various other things, as you might expect travelling on your front with your arms out down a hill at 30mph. Loz was ahead of me in the queue, and I watched as she whizzed past me on her board. Despite having been made to repeat 'I will not let go of the board' several times, guess what?! There was a gasp of horror from the group as she flew over the top of the board and tuck-rolled into a big sandy puddle. She got up and shouted 'I'm ok', which was good, because it was funny! When I made it to the bottom, Loz looked like someone had been sick very violently down her front. She was a big spoilsport and wouldn't let me take a picture though.
After the sandboarding we took a drive down 90 mile beach, driving through the waves at points, and making the occasional zig zag to stop us sinking. We stopped on the beach for quite a while and had a paddle. Some of the waves were quite big, so I was waist deep at times. The tide was really powerful, and sucked you out to sea if you didn't stand firm. The sand was full of oysters - the coach guide must make a fortune, as he was collecting them by the bucket load - he does the same tour every day, so I guess he must collect hundreds! He got a little distracted by the oysters, and as we were heading to the coach, one of the waves swept right under the bus. He had to run and shift it quick, before it got stuck in the sand. We headed back, and made ourselves another gormet pasta dish before heading to bed.
On waking the next morning, I was so excited. This was one of the days I was most looking forward to: swimming with the dolphins. We got on the boat at 8.30am, and sat on the top deck enjoying the views of the Bay of Islands. The Bay of Islands, so named by Captain Cook, has 144 islands, some big, some small, but I'd gladly live on any of them. We picked some passengers up at Russell, and then stopped in the bay for a brief safety demonstration. It was explained that as dolphins are wild, there is no way sightings can be guaranteed. They don't live in the bay, however the bottlenosed dolphins come in to feed, and the common dolphins can be found further out to sea. The plan was to search for bottlenoses in the bay, as these are friendly and enjoy swimming with people (they think we're toys). They're about 3m long, compared to the common dolphins (I'm sure they're lovely, and very well mannered), who are only about 2m long, and are not fans of human swimming cos we're much bigger then them. It was also explained that we couldn't be guaranteed to swim with any dolphins, as if the sea was rough it's too difficult to get us back on the boat, and also if the dolphins have babies with them, it's illegal to swim with the pod in New Zealand. They said sometimes it would take an hour to find some, sometimes 2, sometimes 3 or 4 and sometimes they wouldn't find any at all, in which case we would be issued with a lifetime voucher to come back until we did see some. The lady also said they'd had 2 brilliant swims the day before, and so she was fairly confident.
So. Four hours later, after scouring the north east coast of New Zealand, and spotting nothing but sholes of sea trout, and the odd gannet, we were a little concerned. It was very windy and cold (we'd also just figured out we're paid £1.50 for a crunchie - jesus!?!) and we were feeling a little low. Our bus was due to leave Paihia for Auckland at 3pm, so there was no way we'd be able to use our voucher this trip. Our whole time in New Zealand was carefully planned and booked, and the bus tickets were non-refundable, because they're much cheaper that way. We do like cheap.
I asked after we'd been issued with our vouchers, the likelyhood of seeing any dolphins in the afternoon, and they said it was possible, although it was probably better to try the day after. Great. Loz and I had a chat, and I really wanted to change the bus ticket if we could possibly afford it. We got off the boat, which is conveniently where all of Paihia's tourist information offices, tour company offices etc etc are, it's also where all the busses and boats go from (New Zealand is incredibly organised for tourists - it all links perfectly! More on the virtues of NZ later...) Anyway, we found the Intercity bus counter, which was unmanned. We asked at another desk, and a lady called a guy named Graham over to help, who clearly wasn't happy about this. Now, Graham gets a special mention in our blog, for being one of the few, rude and useless people we've met along the way. We had half an hour to get in touch with the bus company, the hostel and rebook the afternoon's cruise, but we had no reference or phone numbers with us. We asked the lovely Graham if there was a later bus going to Auckland that night. There was, 7.10pm. Excellent. We then asked if we could change our reservation, and how much this would cost. He grumpily looked us up on the computer, as we didn't have the details on us, and said it would cost $106 between us to change the ticket which was £53 ish, but we should call the bus company and see if they might let us change.
We had no phone, no number. Graham clearly wasn't going to do it. 'Erm do you have a phone number for them please?'
Tutting, he found us a phone number. 'Do you know if there's a phone somewhere that we could use?' He pointed out of the door on his right, without speaking. 'Erm, do you still have our reservation number so we can quote it to the people on the phone?'
'Not now, because I didn't know I needed it!'
Well Graham, you are the height of customer service. Intercity must be proud of you.
When I'd finally scrawled the numbers on my hand (paper was one step too far for Graham) we headed out of the door on our right and saw another little hut. We went in.
'Hi! We're looking for a phone, is there one in here we could use please?'
'What kind of phone?'
'Erm, a payphone - the guy from Intercity said we'd find one in here'
'Oh did he now? Who are you calling?'
We explained, and the lovely lady handed their company phone over. We called the company. It was a fax number. Thanks Graham!
'Alright?' asked the lady.
'No, it's a fax number, we'll have to go back next door and get the right one.'
'Hang on' she said, dialling the phone. The tone was priceless:
'I have the two girls you sent over here, you've given them a fax number, do you want to give them a phone number?' She smiled at us. 'There you go girls. It's a freephone number so take as long as you like.'
We got hold of the bus company who managed to get us student tickets for an extra £5 each. Perfect! While I paid, Loz ran to rebook the dolphins. Then we realised we didn't have the hostel number either. Another lovely lady in the same office googled and called them for us. Again, we're really grateful to the two women in the tourist office, because it really wasn't their problem, as we weren't even their customers. They went out of their way to help us anyway. Unlike some. Graham.
So! We were back on the boat heading out to Russell to pick more people up for the second time that day. We pulled up again for a safety briefing, then the phone went. Unfortunately another boat had broken down, so we had to go and take some of its passengers back to Paihia. Then, it turned out, our 'dolphin cruise' had suddenly become a 'combination cruise', so whilst looking for the dolphins we were picking up another 50 people, and visiting various parts of the bay as well. We thought that this would scupper our dolphin hunting chances significantly, as we'd already lost an hour, and now there was more to cram into less time.
Two hours in and there was no sign of any dolphins. We'd been around the bay again (this time in a little more depth, with an added bit of historical information), we'd been out to sea again, we'd made it up to 'the hole in the rock' again, and even gone through it this time. Still no dolphins. We headed back to an island - the one where Swiss Family Robinson lived (before they got murdered by an angry tribesman - that wasn't in the cartoon), to drop some people off. It was now around 3.30. Even though they'd extended our trip time until 5.30, given we'd already spent 7 hours that day looking, as had about 4 other boats, it wasn't looking hopeful.
We arrived in Auckland after an 11 hour flight (who knew that there was that much world between Hong Kong and New Zealand?! It's like flying to Japan. AGAIN.) Anyway, we arrived at 7.25 am. Auckland is 5 hours ahead of Hong Kong, so we were messed up before we started, having landed around the time we were used to going to bed, and it only being first thing in the morning. Also, we couldn't check into the hostel until 1pm, so I had a nap in Starbucks (New Zealand smells and tastes a little weird, I think it's the dairy) and Loz went to check out the nearby gift shops. As soon as the opportunity presented itself, I went to bed... woke up for tea, and then went back to bed again.
Paihia is cute. It's a pretty little seaside town, full of gorgeous shops, which in turn are full of gorgeous arty things, all of which we would like to take home. My favourite is www.flyingfishdesign.co.nz - they do mail order, in case anyone is feeling generous :D. We chilled out for a little while at the hostel, then went for a wander on the beach as the sun went down.
Skip to 24 hours later, and we've not long returned, knackered and sand filled from our Cape Reinga tour (Ree-ing-ga, Ree-ing-ga, Ree-ing-ga). We've had a fantastic day and it's only fermenting my love for New Zealand.When I woke up this morning at 6:15am my heart sank. The sound of pissing rain was all I could hear, and I was seriously concerned that the weather was about to screw us once again. It dried up for a little while as we waited for the bus, which was uncharacteristically considerate, however it wasn't long before it was raining heavily again. We went to a forest of kauri trees (koh-ree) first. The trees are 700-1000 years old (which is quite young for kauri by all accounts) and consequently they are huge! They are the material of choice for Maori carvings, and one of the places we stopped had some incredible furniture, inlcuding a hollowed out tree trunk, turned into a spiral staircase. Unfortunately it costs 10s of thousands of pounds, else I'd have bought you all a lovely table.
We stopped a couple of times on the way up the east coast before we got onto 'the tail of the fish' (the north part of New Zealand), and up to the very tip: Cape Reinga. The scenery is stunning, but of course it was foggy. Luckily as we got closer, the mist cleared and we could see everything: the lighthouse; where the pacific ocean joins the Tasman sea, the bays and the pure white sand at the bottom of the lush green forests. Beautiful.
The Maori believe Cape Reinga is the parting place for spirits when you die. The north island is a fish (a big fish caught by a boy called Maori - the top is its tail) the south island is an upturned canoe (when he caught the fish it was so big and beautiful he wanted to let it go, however his brothers hacked away at its flesh for food, so Maori tied a sea-going canoe to the fish to help it float) and the tiny island at the bottom (I think it's Stephenson Island or something like that), is the anchor used to lodge said canoe. Anyway, when you die your spirit goes to Cape Reinga to walk into the ocean back to the homeland. People plant trees in memory of people here to help reforest the island. Loz and I did our bit, and can watch them grow on google earth - my tree is at S34.43054, E172.68190, if you want to see it! It's the bushy one - Loz's is next door, the leafy green one. If you're visiting Cape Reinga at any point, please check up on it, and give it some water.
We only made a short stop, so by the time we'd planted our tree, we legged it down to the lighthouse, then had to power walk back up the hill. Luckily we were on time, and weren't last - the old lady and her daughter were quite late... poor woman, running that hill was pretty hardcore! When we got back on the bus we headed to the sand dunes for some boogie boarding!
The safety demonstration scared me so much that I almost didn't bother. Very graphic descriptions of what happens if you let go of the board... broken fingers, then wrist, then arm, then dislocated shoulders... plus choking on sand, and various other things, as you might expect travelling on your front with your arms out down a hill at 30mph. Loz was ahead of me in the queue, and I watched as she whizzed past me on her board. Despite having been made to repeat 'I will not let go of the board' several times, guess what?! There was a gasp of horror from the group as she flew over the top of the board and tuck-rolled into a big sandy puddle. She got up and shouted 'I'm ok', which was good, because it was funny! When I made it to the bottom, Loz looked like someone had been sick very violently down her front. She was a big spoilsport and wouldn't let me take a picture though.
After the sandboarding we took a drive down 90 mile beach, driving through the waves at points, and making the occasional zig zag to stop us sinking. We stopped on the beach for quite a while and had a paddle. Some of the waves were quite big, so I was waist deep at times. The tide was really powerful, and sucked you out to sea if you didn't stand firm. The sand was full of oysters - the coach guide must make a fortune, as he was collecting them by the bucket load - he does the same tour every day, so I guess he must collect hundreds! He got a little distracted by the oysters, and as we were heading to the coach, one of the waves swept right under the bus. He had to run and shift it quick, before it got stuck in the sand. We headed back, and made ourselves another gormet pasta dish before heading to bed.
On waking the next morning, I was so excited. This was one of the days I was most looking forward to: swimming with the dolphins. We got on the boat at 8.30am, and sat on the top deck enjoying the views of the Bay of Islands. The Bay of Islands, so named by Captain Cook, has 144 islands, some big, some small, but I'd gladly live on any of them. We picked some passengers up at Russell, and then stopped in the bay for a brief safety demonstration. It was explained that as dolphins are wild, there is no way sightings can be guaranteed. They don't live in the bay, however the bottlenosed dolphins come in to feed, and the common dolphins can be found further out to sea. The plan was to search for bottlenoses in the bay, as these are friendly and enjoy swimming with people (they think we're toys). They're about 3m long, compared to the common dolphins (I'm sure they're lovely, and very well mannered), who are only about 2m long, and are not fans of human swimming cos we're much bigger then them. It was also explained that we couldn't be guaranteed to swim with any dolphins, as if the sea was rough it's too difficult to get us back on the boat, and also if the dolphins have babies with them, it's illegal to swim with the pod in New Zealand. They said sometimes it would take an hour to find some, sometimes 2, sometimes 3 or 4 and sometimes they wouldn't find any at all, in which case we would be issued with a lifetime voucher to come back until we did see some. The lady also said they'd had 2 brilliant swims the day before, and so she was fairly confident.
So. Four hours later, after scouring the north east coast of New Zealand, and spotting nothing but sholes of sea trout, and the odd gannet, we were a little concerned. It was very windy and cold (we'd also just figured out we're paid £1.50 for a crunchie - jesus!?!) and we were feeling a little low. Our bus was due to leave Paihia for Auckland at 3pm, so there was no way we'd be able to use our voucher this trip. Our whole time in New Zealand was carefully planned and booked, and the bus tickets were non-refundable, because they're much cheaper that way. We do like cheap.
I asked after we'd been issued with our vouchers, the likelyhood of seeing any dolphins in the afternoon, and they said it was possible, although it was probably better to try the day after. Great. Loz and I had a chat, and I really wanted to change the bus ticket if we could possibly afford it. We got off the boat, which is conveniently where all of Paihia's tourist information offices, tour company offices etc etc are, it's also where all the busses and boats go from (New Zealand is incredibly organised for tourists - it all links perfectly! More on the virtues of NZ later...) Anyway, we found the Intercity bus counter, which was unmanned. We asked at another desk, and a lady called a guy named Graham over to help, who clearly wasn't happy about this. Now, Graham gets a special mention in our blog, for being one of the few, rude and useless people we've met along the way. We had half an hour to get in touch with the bus company, the hostel and rebook the afternoon's cruise, but we had no reference or phone numbers with us. We asked the lovely Graham if there was a later bus going to Auckland that night. There was, 7.10pm. Excellent. We then asked if we could change our reservation, and how much this would cost. He grumpily looked us up on the computer, as we didn't have the details on us, and said it would cost $106 between us to change the ticket which was £53 ish, but we should call the bus company and see if they might let us change.
We had no phone, no number. Graham clearly wasn't going to do it. 'Erm do you have a phone number for them please?'
Tutting, he found us a phone number. 'Do you know if there's a phone somewhere that we could use?' He pointed out of the door on his right, without speaking. 'Erm, do you still have our reservation number so we can quote it to the people on the phone?'
'Not now, because I didn't know I needed it!'
Well Graham, you are the height of customer service. Intercity must be proud of you.
When I'd finally scrawled the numbers on my hand (paper was one step too far for Graham) we headed out of the door on our right and saw another little hut. We went in.
'Hi! We're looking for a phone, is there one in here we could use please?'
'What kind of phone?'
'Erm, a payphone - the guy from Intercity said we'd find one in here'
'Oh did he now? Who are you calling?'
We explained, and the lovely lady handed their company phone over. We called the company. It was a fax number. Thanks Graham!
'Alright?' asked the lady.
'No, it's a fax number, we'll have to go back next door and get the right one.'
'Hang on' she said, dialling the phone. The tone was priceless:
'I have the two girls you sent over here, you've given them a fax number, do you want to give them a phone number?' She smiled at us. 'There you go girls. It's a freephone number so take as long as you like.'
We got hold of the bus company who managed to get us student tickets for an extra £5 each. Perfect! While I paid, Loz ran to rebook the dolphins. Then we realised we didn't have the hostel number either. Another lovely lady in the same office googled and called them for us. Again, we're really grateful to the two women in the tourist office, because it really wasn't their problem, as we weren't even their customers. They went out of their way to help us anyway. Unlike some. Graham.
So! We were back on the boat heading out to Russell to pick more people up for the second time that day. We pulled up again for a safety briefing, then the phone went. Unfortunately another boat had broken down, so we had to go and take some of its passengers back to Paihia. Then, it turned out, our 'dolphin cruise' had suddenly become a 'combination cruise', so whilst looking for the dolphins we were picking up another 50 people, and visiting various parts of the bay as well. We thought that this would scupper our dolphin hunting chances significantly, as we'd already lost an hour, and now there was more to cram into less time.
Two hours in and there was no sign of any dolphins. We'd been around the bay again (this time in a little more depth, with an added bit of historical information), we'd been out to sea again, we'd made it up to 'the hole in the rock' again, and even gone through it this time. Still no dolphins. We headed back to an island - the one where Swiss Family Robinson lived (before they got murdered by an angry tribesman - that wasn't in the cartoon), to drop some people off. It was now around 3.30. Even though they'd extended our trip time until 5.30, given we'd already spent 7 hours that day looking, as had about 4 other boats, it wasn't looking hopeful.
Just then, the announcement came over the radio. A couple of dolphins had been spotted on the other side of the bay. We were very excited! The crew practically threw the other passengers off the boat, and sped off towards the dolphins.
It wasn't too long before we spotted them. Well, actually, there were several minutes of people 'oohing' and 'ahhing' before I could figure out where they were looking, but then I saw them too. Two dolphins playing around the boat. Apparently the boats are like new toys - every time another one comes along, they go and play with it. Just as we had distracted them from one boat, yet another boat joined us to transfer some passengers (those who were unfortunate enough to have to be back by the original time of 4.30. This included one poor German girl, who was on her fourth attempt at dolphin swimming!) After they'd been despatched, we got called down for a swim-safety briefing, handed a snorkel and some flippers and told to jump. The crew screamed 'swim!', and we all took off army-style after the dolphins. All except me that is, who had managed to lose one of my swimming costume straps. I had a difficult decision - swim and flash, or drown with dignity. I went for swimming, although it wasn't long before we were called back to the boat, as the dolphins had buggered off. Great. The problem I had now was, I need two arms to get back on the boat, and at least one arm to hold my swimming costume up.
Having in my usual graceful style made it back onto the boat, Loz helped me reform my costume into a halter neck, as we got ready to go in again. Alas, the dolphins were having none of it. They'd vanished - clearly not enjoying the floorshow. Oh well. We swam in the same sea as them - that counts right?!
So, safely back on dry land, and having at least seen some dolphins, we prepared to return to Auckland before heading off to Rotorua the next day for fun in The Shire. As Cat may have mentioned, tourism in New Zealand is incredibly well organised, and everything links up to make it easy for you to get from one attraction to another. Having changed our bus, we decided to grab our bags, and a very hasty tea, near the bus stop so we could see when it arrived. Dinner was a fantastic curry, which we only wish we'd had more time to enjoy.
One of the other things about the busses in New Zealand is that the drivers are all crazy. The first one we had threw an absolute hissy fit about people touching the air-conditioning vents on 'his' coach. I'm not sure I've ever experienced dictatorship quite like it:
DON'T TOUCH THE VENTS! DO NOT TOUCH THE VENTS! (Aimed at some poor person who just tried to adjust them). AS SOON AS YOU DO I WILL KNOW! YOU WILL EITHER FREEZE OR COOK THE PEOPLE AT THE FRONT AND THE BACK! YOU DO NOT TOUCH THE VENTS!
We didn't touch the vents. I have to say this guy, apart from his vent touching issues was actually quite nice, and reminded me a bit of Alf from Home and Away.
Not to be outdone, our next bus driver (who looked a bit like Santa, or Colonel Sanders) was practically having an aneurism over the fact he'd not been given his usual sleek and stream lined coach, but something old and rusty, slightly resembling the cheese wagon-style American school bus (thankfully minus the garish yellow), with a little tow trailer for luggage. We knew we had the right bus because in New Zealand, they have a list of passenger names, and are expecting you, and check you in like you're on a school trip. There were only four of us, and we settled in for the first leg of the journey. Cat got into trouble for asking to get her laptop out of her big bag in the trailer. Santa wasn't happy. No presents for Catherine this year.
We made it to... I don't know where, where we were unceremoniously dumped on the side of the road to wait for the next bus to Auckland. Imagine our joy when 'vent man' turned up. We were told to wait outside, as the bus wasn't ready, and had a little giggle doing our best 'DON'T TOUCH THE VENTS' impressions. At this point, one of the girls we'd met on the boat said she'd had the same experience as us, and joined in. Quite fun really. Oh, while I remember, she'd also been shut in the door of the old bus by santa for trying to ask if we were at the right stop. Tut tut! No present for Maria either. I don't think Loz was quite watching what went on with the door, as she wasn't in as good a position as me. What actually happened, was the girl, who is Brazillian, asked if this was the right stop to change for Auckland. The Colonel ignored her, and said 'watch out for that door, it might close on you', she did not understand him. She repeated herself. He repeated himself, and then pressed the close button on the door. I don't think he can be santa.
At this point we also got chatting to Maria, who had majored in journalism before she went travelling, and had been working for a magazine. We asked her what type of journalism she wanted to do, and then tried to hide the amused looks on our faces when she came out with, 'what I really want to do is work for playboy.' I think we may not have been successful, as she followed that with, 'In Brazil playboy is actually very informative, with lots of interesting articles and stories' ... presumably about breasts.
Finally the bus was ready. It turned out vent-man had closed off half of the bus, and we were only allowed to sit in the front four rows. What did he think we were going to do? Throw a party? Crumble crisps on his precious floor, spray sprite on his ceiling... touch the vents?! Obviously we would not be eating or drinking on the coach. They say power does funny things to people... but really?!
We eventually made it to Auckland & then headed off to Rotorua to go on a tour of Hobbiton, which is The Shire movie set from the Lord of the Rings (& apparently also the up-coming Hobbit) movies. Never having realised quite how big a LOTR fan Cat is (she'd been singing/whistling/humming the soundtrack at me for days), I got quite caught up in the excitement of it all & was really looking forward to it by the time we got there. The lovely driver Ben picked us up at the bus station & as we were the only two going from there he took us to our hostel first to check in & leave our bags. So nice. We then left for Matamata, which is basically the town nearest to the farm where the set is, & were dropped off at The Shire's Rest Cafe at the edge of the 'tourist farm'. Here, we were bundled into a minibus with the other tourists & set off into the farm, which is still a proper working sheep farm, just with hobbits too. (One of the girls on the tour was even sort of dressed as a hobbit... sort of... a bit... well she said she was... but not really...)
Having a dad who works in TV means you grow up very aware that it is all actually fake but still find the whole idea very exciting at the same time (or maybe that's just me). Carolyn, our tour guide, was very knowledgeable & quite fun as she showed us round what is essentially now a field with a few bits of manky plywood which are the front of hobbit houses (there are no actual houses behind them except for one...). We did also get to see the Party Tree & the Party Field and the Lake too though so mustn't complain. The most exciting part of the tour for me (& I think for Cat also,) was getting to visit & stand inside Bag End (Bilbo's house). This is the only one that has anything behind the wall facade, though it's just a square room & was apparently made only for the camera to go in to film the back of Gandalf & Bilbo's heads through the doorway. Of course we joined everyone in having our pictures taken with our heads poking out of the windows. After the set tour, we were taken back to the Shire's Rest & got to watch a sheep having it's first shearing & (yay) feed something lambs with huge baby bottles. They were unbelievably cute! We got a surprise after that in the shape of a complimentary cup of tea, quiche, apple & a (delicious) homemade raspberry & chocolate chip muffin before we were taken home & dropped at the hostel. (I'd like to add at this point that we did want to buy you all some of the special LOTR 'SobeRing' 1% beer brewed especially for the LOTR so the actors could have 'real beer' in the scenes but not get too drunk to act, but we'd never have got it home. Also, Michael, Cat really did want to buy you the staff of Saruman/Gandalf (can't remember which) and the mask of Sauron but we really didn't have a spare million dollars. Sorry!)
After Rotorua we went to the Waiotapu Thermal Park & saw the Lady Knox Geyser (having heard both 'guyzer' & 'geezer' as pronounciations, we were educated by the man who came to set the geyser off, that in Kiwi Land (sounds like a fruit based theme park) it's pronounced 'guyzer'). We have to mention two lovely people we met here called Sue & Steve. Having caught the bus to near the park & very kindly been allowed to leave our big backpacks at the local cafe/petrol station bit on the main road, we walked the 2km to the park, and were then told we couldn't walk from the visitor centre to the geyser (which goes off only once a day at a set time so we had to be quick) and would have to beg for a lift off a fellow visitor. Neither of us was at all thrilled by this prospect & were amazed & relieved & very, very grateful when a lovely English lady called Sue (who was behind us in the queue & had overheard all this) immediately offered us a ride. Not only did her & Steve take us to the geyser, then back to the visitor centre to do the walk (which was amazing - the earth really is incredible & very beautiful & a bit crazy), they also offered us a lift down to Lake Taupo where they were headed that afternoon, which meant we weren't stranded for the entire day waiting for the bus. Once again, we'd been lucky enough to meet some incredibly nice people & are truly grateful to them for taking us under their wing.
Lake Taupo is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen in my life. It's a huge expanse of water bordered by mountains & tiny beaches & a little yacht club where the locals sail & race. I loved it. They also have a stunning waterfall called the Huka Falls which I walked up to one day & sat by for a while. I think I can safely say that New Zealand as a whole is probably the most beautiful place I have ever been & both Cat & I are gutted we didn't get to go to the South Island, & we wish we'd spent more time there. We're already planning to go back & if you learn nothing else from our blog let it be that you should spend time on both parts of New Zealand, cos we really do feel we missed out. We headed back to Auckland with heavy hearts to get ready to fly off to Australia & hoping it would live up to our expectations. (I should add that the bus driver on the way back, was another mentalton, throwing everyone's bags on and off the bus as hard as he could. He was Scottish this time, and practically swallowed the microphone when talking, making his announcements almost impossible to decipher. He also told bad jokes. Must be a Scottish thing.) Deciding to do some last minute souvenir shopping on our way to check out the harbour, we were accosted by the shop-keeper who repeatedly shouted 'open, open, open' at us when we tried to get through the (open) door (which also had an 'open, please come in' sign on it too). Once this was combined with much 'go away' style arm waving & shaking of the head we deduced she actually meant 'closed'. Oh silly us, how did we not realise 'open' meant 'closed' on this little patch of land. Ah well, last minute shopping at the airport then. We went home to pack for another early flight & hoped that Australia would be as good as the awesome land of the Kiwis.
It wasn't too long before we spotted them. Well, actually, there were several minutes of people 'oohing' and 'ahhing' before I could figure out where they were looking, but then I saw them too. Two dolphins playing around the boat. Apparently the boats are like new toys - every time another one comes along, they go and play with it. Just as we had distracted them from one boat, yet another boat joined us to transfer some passengers (those who were unfortunate enough to have to be back by the original time of 4.30. This included one poor German girl, who was on her fourth attempt at dolphin swimming!) After they'd been despatched, we got called down for a swim-safety briefing, handed a snorkel and some flippers and told to jump. The crew screamed 'swim!', and we all took off army-style after the dolphins. All except me that is, who had managed to lose one of my swimming costume straps. I had a difficult decision - swim and flash, or drown with dignity. I went for swimming, although it wasn't long before we were called back to the boat, as the dolphins had buggered off. Great. The problem I had now was, I need two arms to get back on the boat, and at least one arm to hold my swimming costume up.
So, safely back on dry land, and having at least seen some dolphins, we prepared to return to Auckland before heading off to Rotorua the next day for fun in The Shire. As Cat may have mentioned, tourism in New Zealand is incredibly well organised, and everything links up to make it easy for you to get from one attraction to another. Having changed our bus, we decided to grab our bags, and a very hasty tea, near the bus stop so we could see when it arrived. Dinner was a fantastic curry, which we only wish we'd had more time to enjoy.
One of the other things about the busses in New Zealand is that the drivers are all crazy. The first one we had threw an absolute hissy fit about people touching the air-conditioning vents on 'his' coach. I'm not sure I've ever experienced dictatorship quite like it:
DON'T TOUCH THE VENTS! DO NOT TOUCH THE VENTS! (Aimed at some poor person who just tried to adjust them). AS SOON AS YOU DO I WILL KNOW! YOU WILL EITHER FREEZE OR COOK THE PEOPLE AT THE FRONT AND THE BACK! YOU DO NOT TOUCH THE VENTS!
We didn't touch the vents. I have to say this guy, apart from his vent touching issues was actually quite nice, and reminded me a bit of Alf from Home and Away.
Not to be outdone, our next bus driver (who looked a bit like Santa, or Colonel Sanders) was practically having an aneurism over the fact he'd not been given his usual sleek and stream lined coach, but something old and rusty, slightly resembling the cheese wagon-style American school bus (thankfully minus the garish yellow), with a little tow trailer for luggage. We knew we had the right bus because in New Zealand, they have a list of passenger names, and are expecting you, and check you in like you're on a school trip. There were only four of us, and we settled in for the first leg of the journey. Cat got into trouble for asking to get her laptop out of her big bag in the trailer. Santa wasn't happy. No presents for Catherine this year.
We made it to... I don't know where, where we were unceremoniously dumped on the side of the road to wait for the next bus to Auckland. Imagine our joy when 'vent man' turned up. We were told to wait outside, as the bus wasn't ready, and had a little giggle doing our best 'DON'T TOUCH THE VENTS' impressions. At this point, one of the girls we'd met on the boat said she'd had the same experience as us, and joined in. Quite fun really. Oh, while I remember, she'd also been shut in the door of the old bus by santa for trying to ask if we were at the right stop. Tut tut! No present for Maria either. I don't think Loz was quite watching what went on with the door, as she wasn't in as good a position as me. What actually happened, was the girl, who is Brazillian, asked if this was the right stop to change for Auckland. The Colonel ignored her, and said 'watch out for that door, it might close on you', she did not understand him. She repeated herself. He repeated himself, and then pressed the close button on the door. I don't think he can be santa.
At this point we also got chatting to Maria, who had majored in journalism before she went travelling, and had been working for a magazine. We asked her what type of journalism she wanted to do, and then tried to hide the amused looks on our faces when she came out with, 'what I really want to do is work for playboy.' I think we may not have been successful, as she followed that with, 'In Brazil playboy is actually very informative, with lots of interesting articles and stories' ... presumably about breasts.
Finally the bus was ready. It turned out vent-man had closed off half of the bus, and we were only allowed to sit in the front four rows. What did he think we were going to do? Throw a party? Crumble crisps on his precious floor, spray sprite on his ceiling... touch the vents?! Obviously we would not be eating or drinking on the coach. They say power does funny things to people... but really?!
We eventually made it to Auckland & then headed off to Rotorua to go on a tour of Hobbiton, which is The Shire movie set from the Lord of the Rings (& apparently also the up-coming Hobbit) movies. Never having realised quite how big a LOTR fan Cat is (she'd been singing/whistling/humming the soundtrack at me for days), I got quite caught up in the excitement of it all & was really looking forward to it by the time we got there. The lovely driver Ben picked us up at the bus station & as we were the only two going from there he took us to our hostel first to check in & leave our bags. So nice. We then left for Matamata, which is basically the town nearest to the farm where the set is, & were dropped off at The Shire's Rest Cafe at the edge of the 'tourist farm'. Here, we were bundled into a minibus with the other tourists & set off into the farm, which is still a proper working sheep farm, just with hobbits too. (One of the girls on the tour was even sort of dressed as a hobbit... sort of... a bit... well she said she was... but not really...)
Having a dad who works in TV means you grow up very aware that it is all actually fake but still find the whole idea very exciting at the same time (or maybe that's just me). Carolyn, our tour guide, was very knowledgeable & quite fun as she showed us round what is essentially now a field with a few bits of manky plywood which are the front of hobbit houses (there are no actual houses behind them except for one...). We did also get to see the Party Tree & the Party Field and the Lake too though so mustn't complain. The most exciting part of the tour for me (& I think for Cat also,) was getting to visit & stand inside Bag End (Bilbo's house). This is the only one that has anything behind the wall facade, though it's just a square room & was apparently made only for the camera to go in to film the back of Gandalf & Bilbo's heads through the doorway. Of course we joined everyone in having our pictures taken with our heads poking out of the windows. After the set tour, we were taken back to the Shire's Rest & got to watch a sheep having it's first shearing & (yay) feed something lambs with huge baby bottles. They were unbelievably cute! We got a surprise after that in the shape of a complimentary cup of tea, quiche, apple & a (delicious) homemade raspberry & chocolate chip muffin before we were taken home & dropped at the hostel. (I'd like to add at this point that we did want to buy you all some of the special LOTR 'SobeRing' 1% beer brewed especially for the LOTR so the actors could have 'real beer' in the scenes but not get too drunk to act, but we'd never have got it home. Also, Michael, Cat really did want to buy you the staff of Saruman/Gandalf (can't remember which) and the mask of Sauron but we really didn't have a spare million dollars. Sorry!)
After Rotorua we went to the Waiotapu Thermal Park & saw the Lady Knox Geyser (having heard both 'guyzer' & 'geezer' as pronounciations, we were educated by the man who came to set the geyser off, that in Kiwi Land (sounds like a fruit based theme park) it's pronounced 'guyzer'). We have to mention two lovely people we met here called Sue & Steve. Having caught the bus to near the park & very kindly been allowed to leave our big backpacks at the local cafe/petrol station bit on the main road, we walked the 2km to the park, and were then told we couldn't walk from the visitor centre to the geyser (which goes off only once a day at a set time so we had to be quick) and would have to beg for a lift off a fellow visitor. Neither of us was at all thrilled by this prospect & were amazed & relieved & very, very grateful when a lovely English lady called Sue (who was behind us in the queue & had overheard all this) immediately offered us a ride. Not only did her & Steve take us to the geyser, then back to the visitor centre to do the walk (which was amazing - the earth really is incredible & very beautiful & a bit crazy), they also offered us a lift down to Lake Taupo where they were headed that afternoon, which meant we weren't stranded for the entire day waiting for the bus. Once again, we'd been lucky enough to meet some incredibly nice people & are truly grateful to them for taking us under their wing.
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