The Tri-Island Championship Pt III: Fraser Island

I may have mentioned this before (like, ad nauseum), but I'm catching up on writing this blog approximately four years after the event. Like a diligent GCSE History student, I'm wading through primary (scrappy notes in travel notebook, Facebook photo posts) and secondary (Wikipedia, other people's Facebook photo posts) sources to try and piece together some semblance of fact amongst all my rose-tinted / tightly repressed memories. Take home point of this introduction being, if you want to write a travel blog, remember to do it at the time.

Anyhoo. 

We were last in Airlie Beach and that is when The Great Storm of '13 was about to hit (otherwise known as Tropical Cyclone Oswald). Kate had been due to fly to her next destination and, if memory serves, either had to get to the airport earlier than planned, or her flight was cancelled - either way, there was a sense of unease in the air that a big old dump of rain was on its merry way. However, optimism prevailed and the full extent of the rain hadn't quite reached us at Airlie, so I wasn't too worried about the odd drop or two. After all, it was technically rainy season, and we hadn't felt so much as a drip. 

I hopped onto the overnight Greyhound from Airlie to Rainbow Beach. This was my first, but certainly not my last, overnight bus. Overnight buses are a total ballache. The thinking is that you save on a night in a hostel - which is true, but you trade in a night of proper sleep in a horizontal, if not completely comfortable, actual bed. As we trundled down the Bruce Highway (yes, that is its actual name), I kept waking up to the driver's 1000 decibel destination announcements and rain beating mercilessly against the window - but given we were driving in the dark, I still didn't quite appreciate the level of storm we were experiencing. After about 11 arse-numbing hours on the coach, 4 of which were half-sleep, I was unceremoniously ditched near Pippie's Beach House Backpackers Hostel and blearily wandered over to check in. 

Pippie's Beach House Backpackers Hostel is a name that conjures up images of liberal, sun-kissed youths in the prime of their life spending their days bronzing their taut hides on the beach, and their evenings surrounding a campfire and talking about the magic of travel and what character-enhancing experiences they have had. I chose to stay at Pippie's in order to hopefully experience some of this bounty, before going on a pre-booked tour of Fraser Island with Fraser Island Discovery. The tour booking cost an arm and a leg, but I had been reliably informed by several people that Fraser Island (which is entirely made of sand by the way) was both 'unmissable' and 'amazing', so I did what I always do in these situations: closed my eyes after I entered my credit card details and clicked 'Pay Now'.

I don't actually recall my day or night at Pippie's - unfortunately this isn't down to some wild and debauched boozing session, just a poor set of notes for this part of the trip. I can just about remember doing some emailing after re-mortgaging my non-existent mortgage for some wi-fi credit, and going for beers in a nearby bar under a giant tarpaulin as the rain raged on.  

Carefree days on Rainbow Beach (image credit / disclaimer: Pippie's Beach House Hostelworld page. I don't actually know any of these people) 

What it actually looked like. Could be Bognor Regis

The next morning, things were continuing to look wet. I called the Fraser Island Discovery customer service line to see if the tour was still on and they assured me everything was still going ahead as planned. I wasn't sure what to make of that, but decided that perhaps Fraser Island had its own special microclimate that circumvented the storm and, light of heart and wallet, left Pippie's to meet Rick, our driver and guide for the experience. What kind of a guide was Rick? Well, I think this photo speaks for itself:

Here's Rick after a few quaffs of goon, whipping up a traditional Aussie barbie for tea

After gathering the rest of the group, we battled through a picnic lunch under a verandah-type structure and jumped into the 4-wheel drive monster truck that was Rick's tour car, which got us onto Fraser Island via a brief ferry trip. Needless to say, Fraser was a bit of a washout. Rick valiantly battled the wind and rain to drive us down the usually-breathtaking sands, and after a few stops to get out and take photos at the top spots (Maheno Shipwreck, Champagne Pools, Lake McKenzie), we were informed that we had to cut the outdoor portion of our trip short as the storm was actually a cyclone. Exciting! So we did what all good backpackers do when they can't actually go anywhere and cracked out the beers and goon.

Paradise

Cyclone Crew '12. Shout out to Rick, Connie, Ness, Julie, Billy, Lucy and Marcus

Champagne Pools - this is what it is supposed to look like 

If you read this far, I love you. Next instalment - Noosa!

The Tri-Island Championship Pt II: The Whitsunday Islands

I waved goodbye to little Magnetic Island, all 52km² of her (thank you Google), as I stood on the back of the ferry to Townsville. I don't recall much about this journey, other than it was stiflingly hot, which seems to be the general theme in Queensland. I think the Greyhound picked us up from the ferryport, so very little effort was required on my part to crack on with the next leg of my journey: a few days in the glorious environs of Airlie Beach, and more importantly, a few days living the P-Diddy life of luxury I had always craved on a yacht charter around the Whitsunday Islands.

Sound advice from Greyhound

Upon boarding the bus, I struck up a conversation with two friendly girls: Kate (also from England) and Valerie, from Germany. I think they had found each other along the travelling way, as you do, and in traditional traveller style we all made firm friends and knew each other’s potted life histories within c. 45 seconds. They hadn’t done hours of prior research on accommodation unlike old gimpy chops here, so I let them know I had booked a room at Backpackers on The Bay, a hostel selected less for its shining attributes and more for its availability. It actually turned out to be pretty amazing, and located away from the main strip so meant there was half a chance of some decent shut-eye. 

It was there we met a motley crew of people either working at the hostel, generally working in the Airlie Beach area or waiting around to find work on the yachts. I should explain that most of the economy of Airlie Beach, a town of just over 7000, is based pretty much solely on backpackers taking trips over to the Whitsunday Islands / Great Barrier Reef. As a result, it is basically like a mini Magaluf. I wasn’t complaining - after the fairly sedate pace of the Australia experience thus far, and a lot of alone time on Magnetic Island, I was about ready to don a pair of dirty flip flops and party with the best of ‘em. And party we did - at the aptly named ‘Beaches’! Big shout out to Soren, Jonas, Nicole, Chris, Chris and Neil, the Geordie lad who was practically obsessed with Valerie, and kept trying to woo her despite her clear lack of interest. Bless.

Backpackers on the Beach staff and new BFFs

Partying done - I do believe there was a 2am visit to the Airlie Beach Lagoon involved (with local law enforcement intervention) - we decided to take the fun back to BotB and go in the pool. Needless to say, the other guests and hostel owners were not impressed with our noisy fun, and I seem to remember those who were working at the hostel were roundly browbeaten with threats of job losses if such an incident occurred again. Five stars for the hospitality in my opinion - you can see that on TripAdvisor.

During those halcyon hours in and around late night boozing, Kate, Valerie, Jonas and I decided we would get in on the yachting action and chose a 3 day, 2 night trip on Silent Night - I can’t remember why exactly, but it was a fairly small charter and it’s always nice to be in a smaller group for these things - otherwise they start to resemble a P&O Cruise.

As always with these situations - I went halfway around the world to get on a boat with 10 other people and two of them were from High Wycombe (a couple, but still counts).

The scenic route

This is where obsessive documentation of everything comes in handy - at least you can remember where you went. Really, this is a nicety though, because who would ever forget a sight like this:

Whitehaven Beach <3

And because we’re still in Queensland, here’s a shot of me jumping in a stinger suit.

Irony

Prior to my World Tour, I remember being very dismissive of those backpacker ‘jumping photos’ and calling everyone in them wankers, but my attempts to be hilarious and caustically ironic just resulted in me joining in. I never managed to jump that high…

We had a beautiful stop off at Whitehaven Beach, where we got a chance to have a good wander and breathe in the literally awesome sight. I had one of those moments where a little voice in your head tells you ‘Drink in this view. You might never come here again - take it all in and store it somewhere so you can take it out and remember - you did this!’.

We snorkelled in Blue Pearl Bay, on the northwestern side of Hayman Island - sadly I never saw the resident Maori Wrasse (pictured below) but looking at other people’s reviews it seems like he makes quite a regular appearance.

Didn't see this guy

The sailing itself was hysterical, mainly because it felt like we were teetering on the edge of capsizing for a lot of the trip. Our skipper, Sammy, and deckhand, Taylor, were like something out of an Aussie boyband, but beyond those dubious credentials they seemed to know how to at least steer and put the sails up, so I felt safe. The only downside was sleeping - the bedroom we were in absolutely reeked of diesel, so made for some interesting conversation late at night when presumably we were off our tits on the fumes. However, it was a veritable Hilton King Suite in comparison to our Danish couple’s double room, which I seem to recall didn’t have the most watertight ceiling, and flooded during a particularly heavy storm on the first night.

This theme continued - as we were sailing during the ‘Wet’ season (confusingly, in Queensland, this is Summer) this meant that there were consistent periods of torrential downpour and storms, one of which resulted in an early exit from our trip back to Abell Point Marina, where Sammy carefully parked the boat and let us all off. It was to last for quite some time, as I found out to my cost after booking probably the most expensive trip of all time to Fraser Island, the next stop on my list (and chapter in the blog). That’ll do for now, my tea has gone cold - and my bum to sleep.

Yours truly

Team Silent Night

The Tri-Island Championship Pt 1: Magnetic Island

So according to my timestamps, I haven't posted since the 6th January 2014. I can safely say (and you are probably aware) that much has happened since then, more than would fill a thousand blogs. Oh, alright then... I met my future husband, we bought a house and then I married my aforementioned future husband. You can't accuse me of resting on my laurels, or not being smug. Anyhoo, on with the retrospective... Part One of Three journeys to Australian east coast islands. 

I believe we left things on a photo of a cassowary. The next thing I remember doing (having dug my travel diaries out from the garage, and consulted the paltry notes) was heading to Magnetic Island via several Hicksville stops on the Greyhound bus.

Magnetic Island is reached via ferry from Townsville, where my dear friend Sarah Galletly (who may or may not be reading) is currently located! Sarah, if you're reading, much love to you. The circle of life, it binds us all. Anyway, the main draw for me re: Magnetic Island was the chance to hang out with some koalas at the well-marketed Koala Breakfast in the Bungalow Bay Koala Village YHA, located on Horseshoe Bay at the north-east of the island. I remember getting a bus there from the main port in Nelly Bay, and upon arriving noticing how well-maintained the whole place was. I had a bed in a 4-woman hut, which was basically the place to myself compared to some of the places I had been resting my head. The bar was clean, it was located in pleasant grounds and was altogether pretty delightful. I patted myself on the back for finding such a cracking place and strolled off to find the kitchen so I could prepare myself a well-balanced and nutritious meal that evening.

And then, I found the kitchen.

I have Googled to see if anyone else has shared any horror stories about the Bungalow Bay Koala Village kitchen (it's quite a specific Google search), but looks like it's just me. Time's inevitable passage has slightly dulled the memory of quite how hideous it was, but I seem to remember it involved copious ants, and fridges that performed the function of a gastropub kitchen warming cabinet. I resolved to eat at the hostel bar that night. Come to think of it, they obviously kept the kitchen at a minimum level of crappiness so that people would turn on their heels and get their dinner from the bar. Genius!

To while away the time before it was an acceptable hour to eat, I went for a swim in Horseshoe Bay in the ubiquitous stinger nets, and then apparently made friends with some nice Swedish girls and two Scots, Nat and Pam, during Coconut Bowling in the hostel bar. This is all according to my diary and the photos I have dug out from Facebook - and I do have a hazy memory of chucking coconuts down a skittle alley. However, I have no recollection of taking anyone out with my inaccurate aim, which means I actually managed to bowl in a vaguely straight line, or that I am losing my grip on reality entirely.

The next day, I was booked onto 'Breakfast with the Koalas', an experience involving Bucks Fizz and an unremarkable breakfast, but a lovely tour around the animal sanctuary on-site. Here's a picture of me feeding a cockatoo a cracker with my mouth. I was obviously more daring in those days.

"Who's a pretty boy then?"

I skipped paying the additional $18 to hold a koala and have my photo taken, as I was vaguely attempting to stick to a budget, and once breakfasted decided to go and check out the Forts Walk, which takes in the former Royal Australian Navy artillery battery and several beautiful bays. I remember wandering around for several hours, trying to spot wild koalas but not seeing another soul. There were signs dotted about the place that called for vigilance lest one should encounter a death adder - I walked swiftly on, taking photos and eventually getting too tired to bother koala / death adder hunting any further, and met Nat and Pam for dinner that night. Another hazy one - I think we just drank a lot of beer and chatted bollocks for a few hours prior to bed, which is usually how these things go.

Beautiful Magnetic Island - one of the bays!

Well readers, that's about it for Magnetic Island - I'm attempting short-ish blog posts for the 'easy win' factor. Next time, we venture to The Whitsundays! And who knows, by then I might have won a Nobel Prize and mothered several children. Maybe.