Day 208 - Byron Bay

What a day! I felt for a second that my cold was gone, that was until I stood up. As soon as I did that, the nose started to run, and hasn't stopped since. Bloody colds!!

So I left Lismore, feeling quite happy about leaving it, and headed up into the hills to get to Minyon Falls. Yes, that's right, I'm back to the waterfalls. After a quite study to work out which walk to do, I chose the shorter one, to get to the bottom of the falls. In the process, I walked through some lovely rainforest. And the last 200 metres of the walk required some serious rock climbing, luckily at a low height. The view from the bottom was outstanding, it required time to sit there and contemplate.

On the way back up, about 500 metres from the end, the rain started poring down, and at that point I was so happy that I didn't do the bigger walk. Even such, I still got pretty wet. It was strange having the heater on in the car to dry my clothes.

From there I headed to Byron Bay, and I was very happy with the town. This could be a place where you could take your friends, or family and have a great time. Lots of things to do and see. But by myself, I went for another walk, once the rain had stopped. I think a walk that everyone does when they come here is the Cape Byron walk. It's a lovely walk, were you walk over surf beaches, along rock cliff faces, and in the process, get to see dolphins and whales. If only I had my fishing rod.....

Tomorrow I'm off to Coffs Harbour, and then Port Macquarie for Saturday to watch the AFL grand final....again. Gooooo Pies!!

Minyon Falls

Just some of the surfers in Byron Bay

Most easterly point in Australia

Day 207 - anybody for some gunja?

Hi everyone, I hope all is going well. For me, my cold has gone into full swing, I'm finding it so hard to breath without a whole lot of "boogers" coming out.

But I worked my way through it, and after a shower, and a whole lot of drugs, I got myself into the car and headed out. My end goal was Lismore, but I'd put a whole lot of things in to the day.

My first port of call was the Border Range National Park, but on the way there, I found a small road that took me to Mt Warning. Now this hill was quite outstanding, as it would be a rockclimbers paradise, albeit a huge rockclimb. The way was 8.8km which I rejected, just cause of the cold. But I did get to do a smaller walk that took me through lovely rainforest trees.

At the Border Range, there was a lovely drive to the top of the mountains, all on wet dirt roads, but at the top, I got to see lovely views. Unfortunately most of the road was closed off, but I did get to stand on the top of the Pinnacles, 500 straight down to the mountain floor.

From there I headed to the lovely town of Nimbin. Now this town isn't very large, I think I walked from one end to the other in 5 minutes. And in that time, I think I got asked by about 10 different people if I'd like some dope. Ahhh, the memories of Amsterdam and other European towns. Of course I didn't take any. Whilst there, I went into the Museum and the Hemp Embassy, two lovely but small shops in town.

Finally, I headed to Lismore, where the rain started coming out again. I found another cinema, and watched Wall Street 2. Not a bad movie, I wish I'd seen the first one from 20 years ago though.

Day 206 - Back on Holidays...back in the rain

Hi all, I hope you are well. I'm not. I'm a typical guy who gets a cold, very grumpy. But at least I'm back on my holiday. After a rocky 2 hour flight, I landed back in the Gold Coast, and found my car still there.

The main thing I noticed was that the weather was still terrible here. It was raining when I left, and raining when I come back.

Therefore it made doing things a little hard. All I did was take a short drive around Tweed Heads, before heading to a motel to try and feel better.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll feel better, as I'm heading to Nimbin!!!

Day 204 - Family Day

Firstly, sorry no photos.

So, after not getting much sleep the night before, I think I got about 10 hours last night. Mmmm good sleep. But I still woke up a little sad, so the first thing of the day was to walk the dog. Nice and therapudic.

From there I headed out with my sister, to catch up with an old family friend Berenice. We've known this lady since we were born, so it was nice to catch up and have a chat. The fact that she paid for brunch bothered me a little, but you all know how I am.

After that I caught up with Gareth for a round of golf. I was looking forward to having some quality time with him, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Just as we were about to hit off on the 1st, a lady came and asked if she could join us, and doing the right thing, we said yes. Mistake!!! This woman was a pain in the butt. Not only was she a huge Collingwood footy mole, she just wouldn't stop talking. Every time Gareth and I started to chat, she'd interupt our conversations. And if we didn't talk, she'd just continue anyway. Luckily we only played 9 holes.

After that, we headed back to his place, where I had time to play with James out in the garden. Hey, he throws with both hands, what does that mean at 2 years old??

Day 203 - Grand Final...Go Pies....well almost

Hi everyone, how was your Grand Final day. I hope it was enjoyable, whatever you were up to.

For me, I got up at 3am to line up with the thousands who wanted to get into the MCC section. There was 10,000 unreserved seats available, so people were lining up from the night before, just to ensure that they could get in.

When I got there, a little after 5am, there were already a huge line of people, half way around the MCG. Luckily I'd been chatting to another member, who'd had people there since 3am, so I jumped in line with him, and was only about 1500 back from the front of the line. Yippee! Ok, so then there was almost 3 hours of standing around, chatting to people, very civilised, before the gates opened. Oh, and boy, when the gates opened it was a made rush to get your favourite seat. It only took about 30 minutes for the 10,000 seats to be taken up, I have to say, I do feel sorry for all the people that didn't get in.

So, I'm in the MCG, at 8:30am, and have another 6 hours to wait before the game starts. What do I do??? I go to the Royal of course. So I went around to Cade's place, and after a short stop, we headed down to the pub for a few quiet ones. From there I headed to the London Tavern, a pub about 500 metres further away, which was totally packed.

By the time I headed back to the "G", around 12:30, lots of people were hanging around the G, BBQS and drinking games a plenty.

Just to note: this is my first Grand Final, so I was really excited. And I have to say, the pre-game entertainment was a little dissappointing. OK, we got to see (barely) INXS, but that was about it.

So, we all know the result of the game, a draw, yes Cade, 68/68, but I have to say, both teams should/could've won the game. If Cloke had've kicked straight in the second quarter, we could've been up by 36 at half time. Oh well, another footy game next week, and cricket gets to wait another week. The sad thing for me is, my friends and I made such an effort to get me down here, with quite a bit of money involved, and there was no result. Oh well, I'm back to QLD on Tuesday, and will find a pub to watch it in. Maybe we'll have a better result next week.

So I can't put the jumper/singlet/speedos away yet.

Go Pies!!!

The MCC Line - 6am

Go Pies!!

68 a piece.

Day 202 - Grand Final Eve

One more day to go. One more day until hopefully the Magpies win the AFL Grand Final. One more day until hopefully I get into the MCG to see the Pies win the Grand Final. Cross fingers.

Today was a day, full of footy festivities. I started my day with about 20,000 other Collingwood supporters, watching the players have their final training day. Not much really went on, as far as training was concerned, just a bit of circuit work, but it was a great atmosphere, and I took about 50 photos as the players ran in and out.

After that, Lance, Flo and I headed to the city to watch the parade. Of course, we didn't really watch the St Kilda team, we ran around the city just so we could see the Collingwood players twice.

From there I headed in to work, and had a good chat with lots of workmates. To think, in about 6 weeks I'll be back at work. Arghhh!!!!

No I have a MCC pass, but unfortunately it's not a designated seat, so I'm heading in to town around 5am tomorrow. Lots of red bulls to be drunk I think.

Presti

Leon Davis and Josh Fraser

Alan Didak

Day 201 - Lovely Sunny Melbourne

Hi All, well I'm back in Melbourne. And it's a lovely place, pity it's so cold. I'm certainly not used to wearing jeans, let along a jumper.

So, I had a busy run around day. It started off with visiting my brother, Gareth, along with his partner and son, Leanne and James. I spent a good couple of hours there, being amazed at how much a little kid (2) can grow up in the 2.5 months I've been away.

I then headed to Forest Hill, to go shopping. I bought some new runners, as I'd full walked/run the last pair away over the last 7 months travels. Oh, and a thing of note: Forest Hill Chase is changing, their re-doing the cinemas, along with adding things like JB Hifi (about time) and Rebel Sport.

From there I headed down to catch up with Steve, and relate a few stories. I then had dinner with him, and his lovely family, at where else, the Nott. Mmmmm Parma!!!

Tomorrow's going to be a busy day, as I head in to town to see all the football festivities. Go Pies!!!

Day 200 - what to do, what to do.....

Another day in paradise, another day in the rain. I was planning on going to Movieworld today, but once again, the weather caused a change in plans. So, without much thought on this, I headed to Wet N Wild, the original water park up here in the gold coast.

My first thought when I got here, was that it'd changed quite a bit in the 5 years since I'd been here last. I think there's about 6 or 7 more rides than the last time. I won't go into too many details, but I thought I'd describe two of them:

1. the AquaLoop - A short but very intense drop. This is an extension on the Wedgie ride from a few days ago, the only difference is that you do a sumersault in this one. Absolutely crazy. And the first person I saw riding it didn't get all the way around, which looked very scary.

2. Mach 5 - A very simple ride, from a very high height. A huge drop, at a 70 degree angle, I actually thought I was going to leave the ride I was going that fast. But lost of fun.

At lunchtime, I did what I did the last 2 days, and checked the mobile, to find wonderful news. Jacqui had found me a ticket to the AFL. It took me all of 3 seconds to reply back, saying yes, and about 5 hours later I was back in Melbourne.

So here I am, back in the warmth of lovely Melbourne, and am very excited about the next few days.

GO PIES!!!

AquaLoop

Surf Rider

Day 199 - Dont you go out in the rain.....

Beautiful one day, perfect the next? I dont think so, when it comes to Surfers Paradise. Like yesterday, it rained for quiite a bit of the day today, which made the idea of going to another theme park a bit wet. Hopefully it'll be dry tomorrow, and I'll head to another one.

So to avoid the rain, I went walking down to Cavill Ave, the central part of SP. I managed to dodge the rain a bit, and see that nothing much has changed in the last 5 years since I was here last.

From there I headed down to QDeck, the biggest building in SP. I did the usual, take the elevator to the top, all 77 stories of it. It was really nice, to see the whole of the region from up top. It's funny to see how big the actual area is these days.

Unfortunately I didn't see any sharks from up top, something that's been happening a bit lately, there's been thousands of Bull Sharks in the area.

From there I headed down to Pacific Fair, the major shopping centre. Whilst there, I went to a Sushi Train for lunch, which reminded me of last years Japan trip. And Drew, I didn't eat any fish products. I also went to see a movie whilst I was there (what else do you do in the rain). I saw Easy A, a movie about a school girl who fakes losing her virginity, and then has to bear the schoolyard consequences. Not a bad movie, but I was the only male of about 100 people watching the movie. Weird.

Day 198 - WhiteWater World

Hi all, I hope the weather there is better than it was here today. I think there was only about 30 minutes where there wasn't any rain. So, it made the decision easier, which them park to go to?

So, I've been to the Gold Coast a few times, and there's only 1 park I haven't been to, Whitewater World. I guess it's Dreamworld's version of Wet and Wild.

So how is the park? Not too bad at all. I did make a mistake early, and go for some of the bigger rides, it took a few rides for my stomach to get used to it, let alone my head. and the fact that about half the rides required you to "travel with a friend", it did make it a little awkward. I have to say, the rides are fun, and a good variety, such as:

The RIP: 4 people take a crazy drop into a circular pool, where you spin around and around until you pop into a second tunnel.

The Octopus: 8 people take a race to see who can travel the fastest down the strip. I think I won most of those, but I was competing against kids.

Hydrocoaster: Travel with a friend down a water rollercoaster, getting airborn in the process.

And my personal favourite, The Wedgie. This is a 50 metre fully enclosed very thin tunnel, where you start by having the floor drop out from under you, and you drop about 6 metres before you start straightening out. I didn't get a wedgie, but a didn't breath until I got to the bottom.

Oh, and a final note. Girls, 2 piece bikinis aren't the best thing for this sort of park. I saw the same girl 3 times lose her top. The first time was exciting, the 2nd and 3rd were just plain funny!!

Oh, and at this point, I just want to say thanks to all those people who've spent lots of time trying to find me a AFL GF ticket. No luck yet, but there's still a chance.

So now I'm in the Gold Coast itself. I went to the Hard Rock Cafe for dinner, mmmmm Fajitas.

As for what I do tomorrow, we'll just have to wait and see.

The Octopus

The Rip

Day 197 - Getting close to 200 days

Hi all, I hope you're all happy. So, it'll be a Collingwood vs St Kilda Grand Final. Hopefully Collingwood will keep going 1 more week.

As for today, I spent another day wondering around Brisbane. The first thing I did though was take my car down for a good clean. I booked it in to one of those car cleaning specialist places, and after 45 minutes, I no longer has any bat poo, or locust plague stains that have been on the car for up to 6 months. It's like I've got a new car again! Yippee.

From there I spent the next 2 hours walking along the Brisbane River, which included going through the botanical gardens, and mangroves. By that time I was pretty hungry, so headed up to Chinatown, and popped in to a Yum Cha restaurant. Mmmmm, Faye, I even thought of you. BBQ Pork Buns.

As my legs were starting to get a little tired, I jumped on the local river ferry, and took that down to the casino. Now, this is one place where Brisbane has it over Melbourne. There ferries travel all over town, and run ever 10 minutes. Fantastic.

The casino was little strange to me. It was set up in an old building, and consisted of lots of small rooms with thousands of pokie machines. It wasn't till I went to the first floor that I found their main casino room. Oh, and still no craps table. But they did have a $2.50 roulette table, so spent a few dollars there.

Lastly, I headed down to southbank again, this time to see a movie. If you want to go see a movie that's really funny, and not too deep, go see Despicable Me. Absolutely hillarious.

OK, well it's looking less likely that I'll be getting to the Grand Final, so tomorrow, I head down to the Gold Coast. Watch out kids and parents alike. I'm off to the water slides!!!

Day 196 - Brisbane

Hi all, firstly GO PIES!! What a game!! And to think, after half time the Pies really took their feet of the pedal, and still won the game by 40 points. But i must say, I felt a little hungover this morning, I must remember to stop drinking when watching the game for a second time in the one night.

Drew/Mio, so sorry for your team. It was stange hearing what the commentators were saying, like "End of an Era, and Ablett will be announcing, etc etc". Hopefully it all works out well, and the Cats come out firing next year.

So, enough about footy. Today I headed to Brisbane, all of a 90 minute drive. Because of drinking too much the night before, I didn't set myself any plans, but I spent a good 4 hours just walking around town, and saw some good things. Firstly, I really think Brisbane is like Melbourne and Sydney. Melbourne, because they have a big river running through it, and Sydney, cause all the streets are windy. I think I walked across about 10 bridges throughout the day.

I walked through the mall, yes they have one too, and did lots of non-buying shopping. I also found both the Suncorp and Gabba stadiums, but couldn't get in to either of them.

Now for all those Rockclimbers, Brisbane is the place to live. Along the eastern part of the river is a cliff face, that's about 20 metres long, and a kilometre long, and it's all set up for rockclimbing. There were about 50 people doing it, and I reckon I spent about an hour just watching them do their stuff.

So now I'm sitting back and relaxing, waiting for the footy to start. Go Dogs!!!

Day 195 - The Glasshouse Mountains

Hi Everybody, I'm Dr Nick. Nar just kidding. I'm writing this whilst watching the Collingwood/Geelong footy game. The game hasn't finished, but at this time, it's looking pretty good (up by 48).

So today I spent most of the day up in the Glasshouse Mountains. These are a bunch of mountains, half way between the sunshine coast and Brisbane. (Pies up by 61). I think I saw/walked about 5 different walks, all of which has some serious by short climbs to do. Lance, remember the Cheyennes Bridge climb, something like that.

After all these climbs, I headed to Mapleton, to find a waterfall. I thought I'd been to this one before, a long time ago, but when I got there, it didn't look the same.

So after a big day of hiking and driving, I headed back to the motel, to get ready for the AFL. All along, i thought I'd be watching the game at 9:30, but Foxtel, love them, have the game on live if it's not in VIC.

So, back to the game. It's half time, and it looks like we're up by about 61. Hopefully the game doesn't change too much. Go Pies!!!

OK, 3.4 time. I think we're down to 61 point lead. Go Pies!!!!

Mt Coonowrin

Mt Beerburrum

Day 194 - How times flies when you're having fun

Hi all, I hope you've had a great day. I've had a really busy one. There's so much to do here on the Sunshine Coast.

But for me, every with an agenda, I headed out early, and headed to the Australia Zoo. Now I have to say, this zoo is huge. I can understand why they have a train to drive people around the zoo. And another thing, unlike most other zoos, each animal compound was huge, every animal seemed to have loads of space to run around. The Irwin's have really done some good things here.

As you walk around, you really have to watch your feet, as there's lizards everywhere, oh, and also, there are staff walking around with animals for you to play with all day.

So of course the high-light of the day there is the Crocoseum, where they have an hour long show with all sorts of animals. The first thing that they brought out was snakes, including a 3 metre python, which the staff girl too into the water, herself included, for a swim. They had birds flying, including 1 cormerant that didn't want to leave the stage. The main part was bringing in a crocodile for a swim/feed. 2 guys just walking around whilst the croc follows them in the water.

So after 5 hours there, I headed to my next place, Aussie World. Aussie World seemed to be a small Dreamworld type place, but for kids, but I went to the front, where the Ettamogah Pub was. Of course I had a beer there.

Adter that I went to the Big Pineapple, where I hadn't been in over 30 years. It still looked the same, although a lot smaller.

Before heading back to the motel, I headed to the main shopping centre, where I shopped for quite a while, before heading back to the motel for a swim. Oh, and of course I went out for dinner, mmmmm Hogs Breath!!!

Jumping Croc

Feeding Croc

Stubby Holders for Steve Irwin???

Aussie World Pub

Big Pineapple

Day 193 - Mooloolaba

Hi all,

Sorry, I don't feel like writing much today, so this will be brief.

I packed up from Noosa this morning, and headed up to the little town of Eumundi. Now I only remember this town as a place that creates it's own beer, but things have changed in the last 20 years. They no longer make the beer. But to make up for it, they have a big market there every Wednesday, and hundreds of tourists were there. It didn't take me long to remember that I hate markets.

I then headed to Coolum, where I'd planned to walk up Mt Coolum, a small hill right next to the ocean. I did this walk last time I was here, but I seem to have gotten a little unfit in my old age, I only made it half way before turning around. I blame the big walk of yesterday.

So now I'm in Mooloolaba, another big touristy town. Like all others, it's grown a bit over the years. I headed down to Underwater World, another aquarium, and saw lots of fish. I also did a nice walk, and dinner, through the wharf here, which hasn't changed in 20 years.

Until tomorrow.....

Day 192 - Heading down to Noosa

Hi everybody, how are ya? for me, had a nice relaxing day. Not really. Although I wasn't on any tours, or boats today, I got enough done.

First thing I did was leave Hervey Bay. Now I have to say, Hervey bay's a place you could stay at for a long time, I could easily see myself retiring there. But alas, not enough time in this holiday to stay any longer.

The drive down to Noosa was nice and relaxing, I don't think I actually got over 100km/h. I got here by lunchtime, and after a slight issue finding my motel, I pulled up at the Anchor Motel, and loved it. See the little boat holes for windows!!!

I hadn't planned anything for the day, apart from a walk around town, and that's what I did. After about a 5 km walk, I got to Hastings St, the main street in town. A lovely strip of shops, and somehow bigger than the last time I was here, about 18 years ago.

From there I headed to the Noosa National Park, still on feet, and decided to go on the extended walk. What it meant was that a walked all the way through the national park, going on the outer edge (a longer walk). For the first 4km it was all about walking around the cliff edges, seeing people down in the water swimming, fishing and surfing.

Then I got to Alexandria Beach. Now this beach is a bit different. It's a nudist beach. Now I have a question, why do only men "go" to nudist beaches? Anyway, all the nudies were sitting up on the very edges of the beach, so to me, what's the point. I bumped in to a young german couple, and they thought it was funny. Until they started seeing whales in the distance, cause then they wanted to stay on that beach.

I moved on, and walked another 2 kms, before coming to the end of the walk. But then I had to find my way out, and find a bus stop....no each challenge. In the end I called a cab, hey I'd walked about 15km, and after waiting 45 minutes in a small town, it arrived and took my back to my motel.

Tomorrow I head down to the Sunshine coast, where I'll spend a few days. I might even go see the Australia Zoo and touch a crocodile or two.

Anchor Motel Noosa

Noosa Beach

Alexandria Beach - See the naked man....

Day 191 - Fraser Island

Hi all, today was another great day in paradise. If you look at the pictures below, you'll notice the lovely warm and clear blue skies. Terrible.

So, after a lovely day with whales yesterday, today I jumped on a ferry boat, and headed over to Fraser Island. At this point, I have to say thanks to all the people that helped me make the decision of whether I should drive on the island or not. Thankfully not. Within the first kilometre of the roads on the isle, I could tell my poor xtrail would have got bogged many times.

So thanks to everyone, especially Dan for giving me tips.

Anyway, back to the day's events. So instead of driving, I jumped on a 30 seater 4wd bus, and headed into the island. It was a day of nice activities, nothing really too strenuous. The first stop was Lake Birrabeen, where we got to swim/relax around the lake for an hour. It's a lovely lake, with white sand all around it.

From there we headed to Central Station, a place where we got taken out on a 30 minute walk around a lovely rainforest, where we got to see monitor lizards and funnelweb spiders. yeh!!!

By then we were hungry, so headed in to Eurong Resort for lunch, before hitting the world famous beaches on the eastern side of the island. On the beach, we got to stop 3 times, to see an old shipwreck, an area of sand with 75 different colours of sand, and then to Eli Creek. All along this beach, whcih is 75 miles long, you could see people beach fishing, along with tents hidden in the trees. On the way south of the beach, we managed to also see 3 whales, one very close to shore, but not close enough to worry for it.

On the ferry back to Hervey Bay, we had some dolphins swim around the boat. Now how good is this day.

So off to Noosa tomorrow. Looking forward to a nice relaxing day, before heading down to the Sunshine Coast. Catchya

Lake Birrabeen

Maheno Shipwreck

Eli Creek

Day 190 - Here whale, there whale....Hervey Bay

Hi all, what a glorious day. I hope your day was good too. Oh, and just a little thank you note to start off the day. Danni and Belinda, thanks for the early morning "drunken" phone call. Reminder, these things can be recipricated. :-)

So for me, the day was great. I left Bundaberg, and headed down to Hervey Bay. Oh, most people know of Hervey Bay because of Mimi McPherson, but it's more than that. It's a gorgeous town, is right near Fraser Island, oh, and of course is the centre of whale activity for tourism in Australia.

After walking around town, including looking at the local beach, I joined a 1/2 day cruise up to Platypus Bay to see if we could find a whale or two. And it wasn't too long before we found one, although it dived deep and we lost if before we could take any photos.

A short move up the coast, and we came across a group of 4 humpback whales, doing all sorts of different things, including slamming their tail down in the water, and jumping out of the water. It was lovely, watching these animals from about 100 metres away. For about 30 minutes we stood watching these 4 whales moving around, until they broke off into 2 groups of 2. We lost one group but were happy to watch the other group, until lo and behold, the two came right up to, and under our boat. The 70 odd people of the boat, including myself, went absolutely crazy.

All in all, we found about 12 whales, some passive, some a little creative, and on 3 occasions we had them come right up to the boat. Absolutely fantastico.

So now I'm back in my caravan park, looking forward to tomorrow, when I head to Fraser Island for the day. Catch you soon.

Day 189 - Bundy and Coke please

Hi all, ah, what a day. After a lovely day out on the water yesterday, today was a day for getting fluids inside me, and no, not in the drunken sense.

So as you can tell, I headed to Bundaberg today, but on the way, I went through a town called Gin Gin, and from there I found a small tourist thing, called the Mystery Craters. In the middle of lovely fields of soil, where sugar and bananas are grown, a number of craters were found, made out of the same stuff as Ayers Rock, and there's no idea of how it got here. It was a nice little side tour, and the lady behind the counter helped me out with other stuff as well.

Once I got to Bundaberg, I headed to the Bundaberg Rum distillery, for a tour of the factory. A very strange thing though, I couldnt take my camera on the tour, nor my car keys or watch. Apparently they've had 2 big fires in the last 100 years, and to protect themselves from that, you can't take anything in the factory that has a battery. Weird!!

Anyway, the tour was nice, we got to see how rum is made, and how much of it is stored there, but at the end of the day, we're all just there to have a few tastes. Mmmmm, liquer bundy, with a slight taste of Chocolate and Coffee, very nice.

From there I headed to the Bundaberg Barrel, where the reknowned ginger beer is located. This time no tour, but a very funny, if small, museum that showed how the ginger beer was originally located, and how Bundaberg GB came to existance.

So I'm now in another motel, and the footy has just started, so I'm going to sign off, and tune into the footy for a few hours. Go Swans!!!

Day 188 - Musgrave Island

Hi everyone, I hope you're all well, and that your week went quickly.

For me, I stayed in Agnes Water/1770 today, well actually, I went out on a tour, out to Musgrave Island. And I have to say, this tour fitted me perfectly, you couldn't work a water based tour any better.

So we took off from the marina in the early morning, and headed out, directly east for about 90 minutes, until we got to the island. On the way, we saw a bunch of hunchback whales, slapping themselves around in the water.

The island itself is only about 200 metres across, but has a huge barrier reef lagoon surrounding it, and it wasn't long until me, and about 70 other people were in the water snorkelling away. And what beautiful reef it was. The only reef I've seen on this trip that's been better was out of Port Douglas itself. After about an hour I got out of the water, as it's a little colder down this far south, only 22 degrees in the water.

After a quick lunch, the second part of the trip began. 12 of us were taken out of the reef lagoon, and headed fishing. I mean, can it get any better, fishing and snorkelling the reef on the same day!! And as almost always, I caught the first fish, a strange named fish called a "Hasa". And once that was caught, all sorts of other fish started coming into the boat.

On the way back to land, we got to see dolphins and turtles in the water. What a great day!!!

Anyway, that's most likely the last "reef" tour I do on this holiday. The water's getting colder, and the reef is starting to thin out a bit.

Catch you soon!!!

Day 187 - Agnes Water

Hi all, with great regret, I left Yeppoon today, and headed further sound. After chatting with a few different travellers over the last few days, I headed to a town called Agnes Water/1770, one of those places that Captain Cook came by in 1770.

Anyway, it was an uneventful trip, the only issue I had was trying to find a fuel station, when I'd almost ran out. Needless to say, I got through OK.

So what's there to do in 1770? Not much except relax, and go to the beach. Apparently 1770 is the northern most beach in Australia that provides surf, and so I headed down to have a look. Well, they almost had waves, maybe 2 ft tall. I didn't go surfing, but I enjoyed the time down at the beach.

One of the other things to do here is to ride "automatic" motorbikes. That's right, no gear changes at all. But I didn't take that on either, knowing my luck, I'd probably still crash it.

So I spent the later part of the afternoon sitting between my 4 resort pools that my resort has. How terrible. :-)

Day 186 - Great Keppel Island

Hi all, going on from yesterday, today I went on a ferry boat out to Great Keppel Island. Just one of the many islands in the Great Barrier Reef, but to me, this one's pretty special. It's just so pretty and unabused. There is a resort and a camping ground, but hardly anything else. Oh, and you can get to the barrier reef from the lovely beaches too.

When I got to the island, I decided to do a coral cruise, where the boat has a glass bottom, and from there we got to see all sorts of fish, turtles and even a shipwreck. At the shipwreck, we got to feed lots of fish, some of which even jumped out of the water to get to the food.

After the cruise, I got some snorkelling gear, and headed to the next beach. As I said, you can get to the reef from the beach, and that's what I did. I had a lovely and relaxing snorkel, with only 2 other people on the beach, both doing exactly the same thing.

Anyway, for such a great day, I can't write any more on it. Lets just say it was a beautiful place, an island everyone should go to at some stage in their life.

Day 185 - Back on the coast...to Yeppoon

So today I drove a huge distance, going from Rockhampton to Yeppoon. For those of you who don't know, it's 45km. But it's a big 45kms.

So why Yeppoon? This was as far as my family came, when we did a 5 week driving trip up the east coast, back when I was 7 years old. We spent 9 lovely days here, well 9 days here, one day it absolutely pored.

It has great memories in it for me. One of them being the first time I caught a fish, without having my next-door neighbour with me (who used to take me fishing). It was funny trying to go fishing, not knowing what to do, and neither did my parents.

Anyway. Moving on. So I had a pretty relaxing time today. Apart from remembering things, I spent a good part of the afternoon fishing, where the lake met the ocean, just under the bridge. I caught about 15 fish, including bream, fingermark bream, and grunters. If I had've put all the fish together, it would've weighed about the size of a normal fish, but it was still fun.

Tomorrow I'm meant to go on a charter out to Great Keppel, but I've just been called to be advised it's cancelled, so I'm going to have to do the run-around early tomorrow to get on another boat. Should still be fun!!

Old Caravan Park

Great Keppel Island