The Rest Of Australia!! ... on Life Without Toast

So I left Mission Beach sorely disappointed at my cancelled Skydive but onto bigger and better things!

I went to Magnetic Island, nice place, nice weather, nice kayaking, it was fun, met some cool peeps, was sort of bored and then left again to go to Airlie Beach to go on a Whitsunday Islands Sailing adventure. My boat was called the New Horizon. We drank lots of beers, did lots of saling, scuba diving, snorkelling, shark watching (only lil reef sharks though so it was ok, there were no Jaws like attacks. My bed was beside the engine room, I got very little sleep. I did see Whitehaven Beach, it is like paradise!! Then we got back to Airlie and I had a 12 hour wait ahead of me to get my night time Greyhound bus. I chilled out at the lagoon, walked about aimlessly, talked to a crazy Italian coffee shop owner and then went to the pub for our boats party. Got fairly tipsy and then swayed my way down the main street with my backpack to get on the horrible
Greyhound. I had a 12 hour journey overnight. I awoke at 6am from my beer fuelled slumber and thanked my lucky stars that we were stopping in the next 10 minutes. I downed abut a litre of orange juice in about 10 seconds such was the ferocity of my hangover.

Next stop was the Town Of 1770, so called because it was discovered in 1770. Sweet! I loved it there. Very chilled out, small town, I surfed loads (and pretty well) won the best bikini contest in my surf school for my floral number and then went on a 4 hour motorbike cruise called the Scooteroo, we ate chips and dips while watching the sun set over the ocean (that doesn’t happen much on the East Coast seeing as the sun sets over the West) and it was all very pretty.

From there I went to Rainbow Beach on another bitch of a bus journey. Rainbow Beach is where you go to Fraser Island from. Apparently the biggest sand island in the world, it was sandy alright. I drove the most out of our crew of 11 people in a converted Toyota Landcruiser. We went to all the beautiful lakes there and had a great laugh camping out, getting covered in sand, drinking casket wine or “goon” as it’s called, (one word – yock!!) cooking, eating lovely food prepared by me which was also covered in sand, getting sand in my ears, up my nose, in my eyes and all over everything that I owned, bickering loads because we were all in such a confined space and none of us really knew one another oh and then one night while driving on the beach one of the people from another group jumped out of the back of their van right on front of us and I nearly killed everyone in my van trying to not kill him. It was all ok in the end, jamming the breaks on in soft sand is like when you do the same on ice, skiddy skid skid, but we didn’t flip or crash so obviously I am the best 4 x 4 driver in the actual world!! Fraser
Island is beautiful though, there are lots of scary dingos that howl into the night which freaked me out but that was the only thing that I didn’t like about it, that and the sand everywhere! I stayed in Rainbow Beach for a few more days after getting back from the Island, I surfed in a storm and itwas one of the scariest experiences in my life because I was freaked about sharks. My surf teacher was insane.

Then it was onto Brisbane which was where the rain began but I was staying with my friend in his amazing penthouse apartment for four days so I didn’t care about the rain, I wasn’t staying in a scaldy hostel so I was happy as a pig in shit! Due to the rain there wasn’t much we could do apart from go out loads, so we did, and then I bought two pairs of shoes on sale. I tried for two months to not purchase shoes but I am blaming the rain for this one! We went to cocktail bars, small old man pubs, night clubs, sports clubs, and GAA clubs (during the day!!) then I went to Surfers Paradise. I don’t know if its nice when its sunny there, but it was lashing out of the heavens while I was there so I hated it. It is a beach with skyscrapers on it. And it rained constantly while I was there, not much of a paradise if you ask me, but then if it was sunny I probably would have loved it!

From Surfers I went on to Byron Bay which was beautiful and SUNNY and has a lovely vibe off it, small town, nice beach, the most easterly point in Australia is here and I went to Nimbin from here which was hilarious! Nimbin Museum, Rainbow Lane, Mingle Park, The Hard Wok Café, Nimbin Rocks!!

Sydney was next on the agenda. I sort of knew I wouldn’t like it before I even got there though I did have a great laugh with Zoe a girl who I met the whole way down the coast, we got a City Sights open top bus tour on the only sunny day that I was there and took loads of tourist pics at the bridge and the opera house and at Bondi and all that and then the highlight of my whole trip was visiting the set of Home and Away!! Being a life long fan and all, it just really made my day, the Surf Club, the Beach, The Diner. It amazed me. The people who really live there thought that the two of us were insane because we were prancing about taking pictures and the rain was dancing off the street.

I then went back to Perth, WA to see see my peeps have an actual holiday which didn’t entail me getting up at 6am every day to go do something. I loved it there first and second time round. Its small, the people are nicer, you have more time it seems to do everything, the beaches are nicer, its more chilled out, Western Is Best as they say. I didn’t do anything tourist orientated when I was there the second time, oh apart from buy a didgeridoo in a shop where they were mad into Planxty (!!) and I took lots of pictures of our shenanigans, made lots of nice food, sushi, curries, cakes, buns, muffins, bread, giant salads with everything you could possibly put in a salad in there, hung about with my friends who were there and who I met there, and stayed up really late talking shite a lot. It was great.

My last day there made me really really sad because it was so perfect that I didn’t want it to end. The sun was shining. We all sat outside in the courtyard drinking ice cold Tooheys and listening to lovely music and singing and then we went to the pub and got some nice grub and laughed till we cried oh and then I nearly got arrested!! Yes you read that correctly. Apparently to sit at the tables which are located outside the bar
and drink alcohol you must also be consuming a meal, there were no signs, we didn’t no that, and then these two undercover cops rock up, flash the badges and I did what any normal person would do, I laughed nervously. They thought I thought they were joking, this did not go down well, thank god for one of the lads who was there who told them it was my last day there and they sort of let us off with a warning, they would have gotten $250 out of each of us if the complaint went through though, oops! Then it was leaving on a jet plane yet again to go to Melbourne for a day and half of packing shopping and drinking with my friend Dunks who lives there. I slept for a few hours, we went for lunch, dumplings to be exact, then off to The Myer for some shopping and buying more flipper flops or thongs as they call them, and then made some curry, massive curry, and then off to meet the “stars” of Neighbours in a bar called The Joint. It was gas, we stayed for one drink, took pics and then got the flock outta there. Went to a place called St. Jeromes where there was some interesting graffiti including “kill yuppies not yuppies, c*nt” which I liked the best, oh and “Get Gnarly” and beside it a cartoon of a willy. Ew! We drank Melbourne Bitter Tallies and then danced to Informer and some other early 90’s “reggae” before heading off back to the apartment for some midnight snacks and dancing around, yes in the apartment, we were like children, it was fun! Sleep sleep sleep and then off to the airport to fly to Sydney where I was delayed for 6.5 hours. That was fun. The most fun part was that they were refurbishing the departures lounge so the duty free was crap and there was one place to eat which had shitty food. I was cranky, hungover, tired and hungry. And sad. Not a happy camper!

I finally got home on Wednesday afternoon and had what I can only describe as “cankles” my feet had swollen up by about 50%, it was not a pretty sight! Matt took pics but I don’t know what has happened to them.

We all sat around in my Mam and Dad’s kitchen and did some Tim Tam slammers, mmmmmm!! And then I was so tired that I can’t remember what else happened. I am home though and enjoying the rainshine that we are experiencing at the moment. It’s only delightful.

I want to go back, sob!!