Certified Divers and the END of Oz!!!

Oh Warren!!! We LOVE Warren!!! He's pretty much THE best dive instructor ever and we miss him already!! K time out...we'll backtrack a little here....last stop on the Oz Experience bus and the END of our east coast travelling!! SO sad!! First things first, just before getting into Cairns we made one last adventure stop at Mick's Croc farm - the man believed to have been behind the Crocdile Dundee film. Wouldn't be hard to believe! He has NO problem sitting on the back of a 3m long crocodile! We also saw some emus, cassowaries, kangaroos..got to hold a mini crocodile and SNAKES!! Although LH didn't actually hold one of the pythons, she did very well being around them!!

The arrival in Cairns was quite a big one...tables were reserved at a bar in town called The Woolshed for us Oz finishers. It was kind of sad actually because it was our last night celebrating with Team Canada!! :(

We had a good 7 days in Cairns and we wanted to see Cape Tribulation and take our dive certification course so we were busy girls!! Cape Tribulation itself was gorgeous, but the day trip was really long...I think an overnighter would have been better. We did get to swim in Mossman Gorge (see pic) though and do a rainforest walk. Cape Tribulation Beach was up there for pretty as well:)

Our dive course was senSATIONAL!! We spent 2 days in the classroom and pool in Cairns with Ron, our on-land instructor. We learned about our gear and the skills we had to perform in the pool before writing our exam and heading to the reef! We learned how to take off our masks and put them back on under water..clear the water from them too, take out our breathing regulators, take off our vests and tanks..AND what to do if we run out of air. This included Lauren and I in hysterics at the bottom of the pool trying to both breathe out of my tank and kick up to the surface:)

Now, because we're backpackers and we're cheap, we chose the "budget"option which meant that we didn't stay overnight on the reef and just did 2 day trips. This seemed to be quite the inconvenience because it's really just easier if the class sticks together...so we had to switch instructors for the open water portion. Enter Warren!! With the budget course, you're only supposed to get 4 15 min dives...I don't konw why or how, but we got at least 25 minutes on every dive and it was just the 3 of us every time. We liked him so much we bought him breakfast (brownie points!) and he stuck with us for day 2. The boat ride out to the reef is about 2 hours and it was SUPER wavy which made for murky water and lots of seasick people!! Thank goodness there was an upper deack! It was just our luck that for the only 2 days we were out there the visibility was pretty limited so we di'dn't see any big fish...or sharks :) We did find some nemos, touch some anenome and saw a turtle! Warren also took us through some cool caves and pretty small openings! SOOO we're now certified open water divers!! Yay!! As soon as we save up for the gear we can do some great diving..Mable Lake maybe? Okanagan?

Unfortunately, during dive courses, you get TIRED and we missed out on Halloween :( So we decided to make our own..and did some "creative backpacker costume making". The result was a couple of makeshift gypsy costumes from asian scarces and the accumulation of our silver jewlery....haha...oh the Laurens!!

Off to Sydney for a couple days (laundry time!!!) before we head off to New Zealand for our LAST leg of the trip!! LT gets 20 days south to north and LH gets a month and a bit. So exciting!! Part III: The Laurs in NZ!!

Love and misses,

L and L

The Homestretch and an older LT

Ola!!
We left our canadian team in Airlie Beach to visit Jessica, a friend of LH's, who's living and working in Townsville. Townsville is a few hours north of Airlie and we spent 2 nights there and got to celebrate Jessica's birthday with her. Once again, having connections pays off...it was fantastic to stay in a house with a kitchen and TV and MOVIES all to ourselves!!! For free!!! Then we jumped on the ferry to Magnetic Island - and us being used to Canadian ferries (slow and easy) did NOT expect the launch from the dock across to the island in a mere 20 minutes! Like seriously...no standing allowed!
We were pumped to stay on the island because it is one of the sunniest places in Oz (300 days a year on average) but arrived to the isolation that was our hostel!! Don't get us wrong, the hostel was sensational - super clean, huge, right on the beach, pool, bar and fantastic music all day. At night it turned into a bar of sorts, which was cool. However, the "strip mall" (grocery store, liquor store, coffee shop) was a good 15 minute walk on the one main road! Needless to say, we got some walks in ;)
LT got to spend her 23rd birthday on the island..reunited with team canada, we decided to rent a "topless mini" car for the day to do some touring!! LT didn't mind being the only driver :) The only inconvenience was that you're only allowed 4 people in the car at a time so we had to do a few trips for everyone to see everything. We DID get a chance to do one of the many hikes on the island - it took about 2 hrs but had perfect weather and got some really pretty views! That night, all the girls got together and bought LT a birthday cake (with candles!!) and some paper maskd to celebrate the occasion :) For a change, we got to enjoy some Aussie-made Bundaberg Rum instead of our typical "goon" (remember the boxed wine?). The free "hangover" breakfast was a good treat the next morning ;) We also managed to fit in a kayak, and some sun bathing by the pool.
Zooming back to mainland, we headed up to Mission Beach, famous for its skydiving and white water rafting. Our bus driver, Trigger, for this part of the trip suffered, we think, from severe ADH...H...H..HD. We've never heard somebody talk so much into a microphone!! Aussies aren't very good with road signs either...the "attention to wildlife" signs were a little different than at home...
Mission beach was a little bit like Magnetic....fantastic hostel, but not much around. Our hostel had a bar attached to it so we managed to keep ourselves busy - I think we like our shirts too much :) We DO have to brag about the beach here though, because it was one of the prettiest we've ever seen! We're going to go through beach-walk withdrawal when we get home!!
Homestretch!! Only one more stop on the OZ experience - onto Cairns for diving!!! Eeeeeeee!! We have a good 8 days in Cairns..hopefully a trip up to Cape Tribulation (the rainforest of the north) and then our dive certification course and then we fly back to Sydney!! We will for sure update you with some diving pictures!
Misses from Oz!!
Love the Ls

Coffee and Sunsets: Whitsunday Islands

Sailing on the Whitsundays was definitely one of the highlights of our east coast trip. "Broomstick" is an ex-racing yacht that we were lucky enough to spend 3 days & 2 nights on. There were 26 of us and 3 crew members on a relatively small boat so it was pretty snug. We slept 6 to a cabin and ate all our meals on the top deck because there wasn't enough room beside the "kitchen". That being said, the food was sensational and we got as much coffee and teas as we wanted...mmm ;) Because the crew was so small we also got the chance to help put up the sails, so we got that true "sailing" experience!

Day 1 we took off from Airlie Beach around lunch and did some sailing to our first night's stop. In the morning we got to snorkel (very cool!) and made our way to White Haven Beach for a couple of hours in the afternoon. We should point out that White Haven Beach is the 6th prettiest beach in the WORLD- not hard to believe it! It did start to rain a little while we were there though, so we didn't get to lay on the white sand as long as we wanted. Later on that day we got to do a second snorkel. We saw TONS of cool tropical fish and even managed to find a sting ray!!

Nights on the boat were fun, they played fantastic music, we enjoyed some wine and we got to watch the crazy Italians on our boat do some dancing. On the last day we got the chance to do one more snorkel before we sailed back to Airlie.

All in all it was a great time, really relaxing and refreshing from all our bus travels! We were really lucky to have lots of sun for our trip which also made for some gorgeous sunsets :)

That evening, once we were back in Airlie, one of the backpacker hostels reserved us a table with free beer so we had one last chance to hang out as a group before we took off to Townsville.

Love and hugs,

L & L

Kroombit (Cattle Station) and Airlie Beach

After one night's recovery from Fraser Island and a FANTASTIC sleep in a dry bed, we had an early morning off to Kroombit, otherwise known as the Cattle Station. Lucky Carmen (one of our canadian girls) got to spend half her birthday on a bus! We got there mid-afternoon in the sun and were checked in right away so we could begin some real "cowboy" activities. As you can imagine, us Calgary/Alberta girls were right at home :) Our first activity was goat mustering on horseback, which basically means us herding goats from a huge field into a small pen by yelling at them. Picture this...oh and we were wearing helmets :) Just when we were finishing, we realized that ALL the gates were open, so we really weren't herding the goats into anywhere at all...it started to POUR, we got drenched, horses got spooked..it just really wasn't a successful mustering attempt at all!! We weren't too keen on anything being soaked and all, but onto other activities such as firing a shotgun, learning to lasso (which has proven to be quite difficult!), goat wrestling and learning to crack a whip (also harder than it looks). Dinner was so yummy and after we all sat and watched people attmept the mechanical bull - sorry to say that neither of us tried it to save ourselves the embarassment of falling off after 2 seconds:) yay Sam!!! As it was Carmen's birthday, the crew at Kroombit made her a cake (along with the other birthday guests - there were 3!) and we all sang them happy birthday around their oil drum fire!

Another early start the next morning off to Airlie Beach which was the longest bus we have had to endure on the east coast route! 7am to about 4:30....ugh. Good thing we have ipods! Airlie beach is the starting point for the Whitsundays Sailing trips and we didn't spend too much time there. The town is pretty cute though, a lot of cafes and tons of bars to suit all the backpackers going through there, not to mention the 80% male population...a lot of "footy" teams I think. Not that we're complaining..;) We got a chance to do some walks on the boarwalk along the coast..check out the colour of the water!!! Then we set off for the Whitsundays!! BUT...we'll save our sailing adventures for another time because it definitely deserves it's own blog!!

Until then...

Laur and Laur

Fraser Island

Fraser Island DEFINITELY needs its own blog. What a beautiful, fantastic place!! It wasn't ideal because we DID get rained on and pretty much slept in a puddle the second night...it's tough when Australia chooses to end it's draught when we're CAMPING...yeah...thanks.

Group dynamics are an interesting thing...our group consisted of 10 people...us 5 canadian girls (with kickass handmade Team Canada shirts we might add), one canadian guy, one american guy and 3 swedish girls. There was some tension, no doubt about it, which happens when groups are thrown together and have to navigate, drive and set up camp together...but by the end of the 3 days, we knew each other fairly well:) Only LT and the american guy were over 21 and able to drive a stick, so LT pretty much drove the majority of the time on the island! Didn't matter that they drive on the other side of the road...AND the car...AND the stick shift is in the other hand, AND we're in 5 feet of sand...no prob!!!

First day we arrived via ferry in the afternoon and the adventure began! We had to do a grocery shop before we left and load in all our gear, and even though no one had anything bigger than a backpack for the 3 days, we were FULL. Small reminders of being jammed into tuk tuks in Asia....ANYWAY, driving in the sand is harder than we thought!! We stopped at a VERY cool lake called Lake Mackenzie, which has gorgeous white sand without the salty ocean water. We made our way to the other side of the island to set up camp for the night on the beach!! It was SO weird driving a 4x4 on the "highway", or the beach!! Team Canada, aka the 5 canadian girls, crammed into one tent, so it was a little squishy, but we managed.

Day 2 was a LOT of driving...up to an old rusty shipwreck, and then up to Indian Head, a lookout point on the northern part of the island. In the afternoon, we went to Eli creek, which is a flowing fresh water creek that you can float down..luckily it got sunny for that!

Night 2 was a bit of a challenge because of the rain, so we got a little wet....and so did ALL the camping gear we had to pack into our truck the next morning..ugh. The last day we hiked 45 min in to Lake Wabby, which is a really quiet Lake that is slowly being filled in by the giant sand dunes pouring down into one side of it. Interesting bit of info for ya; the lake is actually so deep that they can't find the bottom of it...kind of eerie! Definitely a unique scene! We had to make our way back to the ferry, so we decided to stop off again for lunch at Lake Mackenzie because we liked it so much :)

And that was it!! We survived Fraser Island, SO happy we did it, had a great experience! We leave for Whitsundays tomorrow, yay!Wish us well and good weather!!

Love and hugs,

L and L

Noosa Heads and Rainbow Beach

Up the coast we go!! First stop after Brisbane was in Noosa heads, a ritzy little beach town with a relatively small beach. Not much to do, and what there was to do was too expensive for backpackers! Although, we spent 2 days there and managed to get in some surfing, some beach time and a hike in Noosa National park. Oh and we went to Australia Zoo!! The hostel was the cutest thing EVER...we just didn't really "fit in" with the age of the people that were staying there...they were a little older than us for some reason. There weren't a ton of people our age there either, which is why we packed up and went to Rainbow.

The good thing about our hostel was that they had a free shuttle to Steve Irwin's Australian Zoo, which was AWESOME to see. We got to pet koalas!!! And kangaroos!!! AW! We also saw Bindi Irwin and the Croc Men....aside from the fact that the show was probably for 6 year olds, it was a good time! Terry came out and did a croc demonstration...it would have been very cool to have seen the show with Steve there. We couldn't imagine the energy had he been there!!

The coastal walk through the National Park was GORGEOUS, great views of some quiet beaches and cliffs. We should mention that we ended our hike on a really nice beach...that happened to be a nude beach:) LH stopped to take a picture and LT kept walking...and along comes a nudie man just givin'er on the sand...completely naked except for a ball cap and sunglasses. LT got quite the surprise when he stolled up beside her...the picture says it all :)

Rainbow Beach was probably the smallest place we've been yet...it was seriously one street long, but it was so relaxed and SUCH a nice break from all the craziness and havoc that is the Oz bus. Again, not much to do there, except for surfing/body boarding, parasailing and hanging out at the hostel! It is another take off point for Fraser, so lots of people are on their way somewhere. There was a hike up to a sand dune...and when we say sand dune we mean a HUGE sand dune. We hiked up to it in time for sunset and got some really pretty views of the ocean and the city...and we pretty much looked like giant kids because we were running and leaping down the massive hill.

That about covers it for those two stops! Sorry we're getting so behind, but it's been a bit of a whirlwind and we leave tomorrow for Whitsundays, so we'll do our best to keep up!!!

Still missing everyone lots!!

Lots of love and hugs,

Lauren and Lauren

Surfer's Paradise and Brisbane

Hi all!!!
We've officially finished our fourth stop on our OZ experience adventure up the east coast! We made our way from Byron Bay (which we loved...did we say that already?) to Surfer's Paradise, a somewhat Vegas of the east coast. It had a gorgeous beach...but a thousand million people to go with it, so not quite as comfortable as Byron :) We got there just in time for their version of Kin Games in Canada....a bunch of Australian universities gather at Surfer's and compete in sports and non-sports representing their university. We walked into a room full of smelly basketball players for our first night in our hostel! It was a disASTER area and it smelled like feet...we were like, we are definitely staying with boys!!! Luckily they left the next day so we only had to put up with the smell and the snoring for one night. We watched a lot of beach volleyball (see pic) and laid on the beach for a couple days and even made it to a water park (see pic)!!! We also did a pub crawl with our canadian friends and had a good time doing that :) One highlight was going up to the top of the Q1, which is the tallest residencial building in the world!!! We got a fantastic view of Surfer's from the 77th floor (see pic). Surfer's was a nice place to hang out for a couple days, but not a favorite necessarily...too many people and too plastic :)
Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Brisbane at the cutest hostel ever!! It's right in the middle of downtown Brisbane, so close to everything...most importantly Starbucks:) Our room is super clean, and there's a bar right downstairs. The other Canadian girls got a better room with a balcony so we hung out in there :) (see pic). LH wanted to dye her hair and actually LET LT dye her hair last night! I mean, we ARE on a budget...BUT we're still talking, so it went ok!! We only have one day in Brisbane because we leave super early tomorrow morning for Noosa. We don'mind though because there's not a TON to do in Brisbane...it's just another big city, and there's no beach!! We're pretty pumped because today we booked our Fraser Island and our Whitsunday Islands Sailing trips!! All of this is happening in the next couple weeks, so it's gonna fly by! Before you know it we'll be back in the snow!!

Miss you lots!
Love L and L