Kathrine Breivik

Back in Sydney again, to see and do a few of the things we did not get time to do last time. As well as being in the city center we also took a day trip to Bondi Beach, which was really beautiful. However, the beach was very busy with people which ruined the scenery a little, but overall a very good day out.

We stayed at some of my friends flat from Derby, which was really fun as I have missed them all a lot! And we went out for dinner and a few drinks after, was a very fun night!

Cairns! We did not know what to expect when we got here as we had heard a lot of different things from other travellers on our way up here. There is no beach here, but there is a big nice lagoon. However, this does not really matter as Cairns is not far from The Great Barrier Reef. So we booked on a boat to go out on a day-trip to explore the Reef, and the only way to explain it is AMAZING! The pictures really do not do the reef and the fish any justice, the colours were incredible. Please also excuse me looking like a large blue smurf, but it is stinger season so I had to wear a full body singer suit, lovely.

The fish below is a barracuda (left) and  was about 1.5 meters in length and had huge teeth. The other one (right) is a Maori Wrasse, which was bigger than me! I think it was just under 2 meters long and very fat. He came right up to us and let us stroke him on the back. The people working on the boat called him Wolly, he was cool.

John has been practising his filming under water, and I showed him a Nemo (Clownfish) family.

Mission Beach is where we did our SKYDIVE! It was the best location as we got to see some spectacular views and land on the beach! I was extremely nervous, but I am so glad that I managed to do it. It was a perfect way to celebrate John’s birthday.

The rest of the time we chilled on the beach. We were also lucky to see a cassowary and some wallabies.

We went on a little day trip to Magnetic Island from Townsville. Magnetic Island hosts a lot of beautiful beaches, including Alma Bay (picture above) and Horseshoe Bay where we spent most of our time.

Townsville had a stunning waterfront esplanade. The Strand is also situated by the waterfront; stretching 2,2 km long and has parks, pools and cafes by it. We walked all the way up The Strand to the Rock Pool (an artificial swimming pool surrounded by sandy beach). We got told to look out to the ocean just by the Rock Pool to see some turtles, and we were lucky enough to see some, coming up to catch a breather.

We also went up to Castle Hill, which is an 286 meter high red hill, which gives a great view of Townsville. We walked up via the ‘goat track’ 2 km uphill. It was a pretty demanding track as it is very hot in Townsville, however, it was worth it when we got up and enjoyed the views.

We welcomed the New Year in Airlie Beach. We spent the day of New Years Eve by the pool having a few drinks, then went to a few nice bars, finishing the night by the lagoon looking at fireworks. We can not swim in the water here due to it being singer season, so we relaxed by the pool and by the nice lagoon by the sea.

As Airlie Beach is a nice gateway to The Whitsundays, we grabbed the chance to go out on a purple catamaran called Camira for some sailing and some snorkeling. We also stopped off at Whitehaven Beach, where we went swimming in our lovely wet suits to keep the singers away and guess what? As we were swimming some Stingrays were swimming right next to us!

After our lovely day trip out on The Whitsundays we went for a Thai meal as Blaine is now sadly leaving us to go back home.

We did some surfing in a small place called Town of 1770, by Agnes Water. This was the last place where we could surf up the East Coast. This time we tried some hard boards, which were smaller than the boards we previously used, so it was a bit more challenging. However, it was still a lot of fun.

We spent Christmas Day on Fraser Island. Fraser Island is only a 40 minute ferry ride from Hervey Bay. It is the largest sand island in the world, and has a rain-forest. We did a 3 days and 2 nights camping trip with Fraser Roving, where we did a tag-along-trip, driving a 4 wheel drive throughout the dirty rain-forest tracks and on the beach.

We saw a lot of things on the way to the campsite, like the ship wreck ‘Maheno’, which was a former passenger liner that has been blown ashore by a cyclone in 1935.

We saw sand-dunes in contrast to the surrounding sea, very beautiful landscapes.

There is a lot of wildlife on the island. We saw spiders, lizards, birds and dingos and lots of bugs! Luckily we did not encounter any snakes on our trip, as 7 of the most dangerous snakes lives on Fraser.

We went to some of the beautiful lakes that are on Fraser, such as Lake Wabby (which is surrounded on 3 sides by forest), Lake McKenzie and my favourite Lake Birrabeen.

We had a competition of who could run the fastest up a sand dune and trekked trough the rain-forest.

We met this chap through spider alley…and had to go under the spider web to follow the path.

Every evening ended with setting up camp and making dinner. It was an amazing experience, where we met a lot of new friendly people and have a lot of new memories and experiences to look back on.

Brisbane was our next stop. This is a much bigger city than the recent ones that we have visited. The cities heart and soul is the scenic Brisbane River as you can see in the photo above.

We walked around the city visiting the different parts, such as the City Botanic Gardens, City Centre,  Fortitude Valley and Chinatown for some shopping and sightseeing. We also spent a day at the South Bank Parklands, where there is a funky artificial beach, looking a lot like a lagoon.

Our next stop was Australia Zoo, which was founded by Steve Irwin.

I saw a lot of crocodiles and other random animals like giant turtles.

I also fed kangaroo’s for the first time!

Next stop was Surfers Paradise, yes this is the actual name of the place. It was a lovely place, with a great beach. It is a little funny that it is called Surfers Paradise, as we did not actually see that many surfers there at all. It is definitely more of a holiday destination.

We spent most of the days relaxing on the beach, playing in the sand and jumping through massive waves.

We also went out for Blaine’s birthday! Was a lovely evening starting with drinks at some of the bars by the beach, then we went to a restaurant where they cook in front of us. Blaine had kangaroo and I got to taste some for the first time, and it was actually not that bad. The food at the restaurant was really nice and the chef entertained us with chucking food at us (into our mouths) and juggling salt and pepper holders. The night ended at the beach drinking a few beers, a very successful evening.

Byron Bay is a very relaxing town. We spent most of our days chilling on the beach. We tried body-boarding for the first time.

We went to a big market on the Sunday. Blaine ended up buying the most stuff, whereas I left with a small but nice bracelet.

SURFING! We also had a surf lesson, which was so much fun! I managed to stand up on my second go, very proud.