So I know in my last post I said we were homeless, well technically we weren't homeless we were staying with Adriane and Jenny (two girls from Conn studying here) and their apt was right in the middle of the City so that was very convenient. Furthermore, we really aren't homeless in any capacity anymore because we found an apartment!!! Right when things were looking pretty grim for us we found not just an apartment, but a fully furnished cottage in Richmond. Richmond wasn't our first choice of suburbs, but it is ideally located one train stop from the CBD and it's in walking distance to Melbourne Park and all the stadiums, which will be very convenient for me if I get the job with the Australian Open I applied for. Another added bonus is that our landlord let us sign a 6 week lease, so if we find something better we are free to move. The only major downside to our apartment is that there is no heat and it is always ten degrees colder inside than it is outside and considering it's the middle of winter here so that means it's freezing inside. We took a trip to Ikea and spruced it up a bit and we have actually really been enjoying our little cottage. We have been keeping ourselves pretty busy in Melbourne and I will soon update the blog with all of the fun things we have been doing. I just wanted for now to make sure everyone knows we have a home and not to worry.
Cheers,
Laura
Monday, August 31, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Unemployed and Homeless
The task of finding an apartment has proven to be utterly impossible and extremely discouraging. We have run into an endless list of obstacles, so I will explain some of the main ones. The first problem we have is no one wants to lease and apartment to two unemployed American girls with very little money in their bank accounts, an obvious solution to this problem would be for us to get jobs before getting an apartment, but not surprisingly no one wants to hire a homeless person. In Australia the way apartments are rented is you find a property you like on a real estate web site, then there will be an open inspection time listed for you to come look at the property. The inspections only last for 15 - 20 mins, which is a problem when there are multiple inspections at the same time, or one right after the w other. What this all means is that Lindsay and I are literally running from one inspection to another in a city we don't know our way around at all. The next problem we have run into is that there are usually at least 15 other people at any given inspection. We figure any of these people with jobs are more likely to have an apartment rented to them than us. In Australia to actually get an apartment leased to you you have to put in an application. The application asks things like "where do you work", "what's your address", "how long did you rent at your previous property", Our applications look very weak when all of these sections are left blank. Also Laura Snow, who is moving here in a couple of weeks, isn't physically here to fill out an application, so we are trying to get all of her information from her, but it's difficult with the 14 hr time difference. The last obstacle we have run into is trying to find a furnished place, in Australia un-furnished apartments don't come with any appliances which means no refrigerators etc. We could deal with sleeping on mats if there are no beds, but we can't go buy all our kitchen appliances.
I have also ventured out beyond the traditional real estate websites to find an apartment and have been looking on gumtree (the Australian equivalent of craigslist). I found a couple of apartments that sounded too good to be true; fully furnished, 2 bedroom, in the CBD, with Internet included. Sadly they were too good to be true; I received basically the same email from all of them. They were renting their apartments because they were going to West Africa to do Missionary work, I couldn't look at the apartment because they were already out of the country, but if I sent them the money they would then send me the Key. I may be young and inexperienced, but I am definitely not that naive.
We are trying to remain optimistic, but it is honestly a pretty stressful situation. We haven't even had time to explore the city because we have spent every single day going to inspections.Hopefully our luck will change soon.
Cheers,
Laura
I have also ventured out beyond the traditional real estate websites to find an apartment and have been looking on gumtree (the Australian equivalent of craigslist). I found a couple of apartments that sounded too good to be true; fully furnished, 2 bedroom, in the CBD, with Internet included. Sadly they were too good to be true; I received basically the same email from all of them. They were renting their apartments because they were going to West Africa to do Missionary work, I couldn't look at the apartment because they were already out of the country, but if I sent them the money they would then send me the Key. I may be young and inexperienced, but I am definitely not that naive.
We are trying to remain optimistic, but it is honestly a pretty stressful situation. We haven't even had time to explore the city because we have spent every single day going to inspections.Hopefully our luck will change soon.
Cheers,
Laura
Seeing Sydney, Well Kind of
Lindsay and I have spent the past two weeks in Sydney and have been having a fantastic time and much of that is due to the fact we have had very gracious hosts. We have been staying with my friend Khadija, from Connecticut College who is studying abroad, and her three roommates. I think they were all under the impression we would be staying for a few days, as we were, but two weeks later we are just now getting ready to leave.
The apartment we are staying in is in Coogee so its actually like a 30 min bus ride (sometimes longer) to do see the touristy sights. The frist week we were here we didn't do that many touristy things, we did a little shopping, joined a gym for a week trial, and ate a lot, and we saw a pretty funny improv comedy show.
The second week we were in Sydney we went to the Sydney Opera house and saw a musical theater production called Poppea. It was an adaptation of the Opera the Coronation of Poppea. It combined the original songs of the opera translated into to German with songs by Cole Porter. It was interesting to say the least and gave us a lot to talk about after the show.
We also stayed to celebrate Khadija's 21st B-day which was a lot of fun. Lindsay and I were in charge of decorating the cupcakes and everyone was so impressed they thought they were store bought. Lots of Khadija's friends came over for cake and ice cream. We ended up staying in the whole night, a decision everyone was happy with.
The next day was our last day in Sydney and we were actually leaving at 9 pm for a 12 hr bus ride to Melbourne. I would not recommend a 12 hr bus ride to anyone especially since it's cheaper to fly, but we had bus passes we needed to use up, but if you do for some reason have to take a 12 hr bus ride absolutely do an overnight. It is certainly not the best conditions for sleeping, but we both slept most of the way and it made the time pass much quicker. Granted we woke up with immense neck pain and freezing cold (the bus driver had the AC blasting). It was 8 am on Saturday when we arrived in Melbourne and had the task of finding Adriane's (a friend from school who offered to let us sleep on her floor) apartment in a city we have never been to and with hundreds of pounds of luggage.
Cheers,
Laura
The apartment we are staying in is in Coogee so its actually like a 30 min bus ride (sometimes longer) to do see the touristy sights. The frist week we were here we didn't do that many touristy things, we did a little shopping, joined a gym for a week trial, and ate a lot, and we saw a pretty funny improv comedy show.
The second week we were in Sydney we went to the Sydney Opera house and saw a musical theater production called Poppea. It was an adaptation of the Opera the Coronation of Poppea. It combined the original songs of the opera translated into to German with songs by Cole Porter. It was interesting to say the least and gave us a lot to talk about after the show.
We also stayed to celebrate Khadija's 21st B-day which was a lot of fun. Lindsay and I were in charge of decorating the cupcakes and everyone was so impressed they thought they were store bought. Lots of Khadija's friends came over for cake and ice cream. We ended up staying in the whole night, a decision everyone was happy with.
The next day was our last day in Sydney and we were actually leaving at 9 pm for a 12 hr bus ride to Melbourne. I would not recommend a 12 hr bus ride to anyone especially since it's cheaper to fly, but we had bus passes we needed to use up, but if you do for some reason have to take a 12 hr bus ride absolutely do an overnight. It is certainly not the best conditions for sleeping, but we both slept most of the way and it made the time pass much quicker. Granted we woke up with immense neck pain and freezing cold (the bus driver had the AC blasting). It was 8 am on Saturday when we arrived in Melbourne and had the task of finding Adriane's (a friend from school who offered to let us sleep on her floor) apartment in a city we have never been to and with hundreds of pounds of luggage.
Cheers,
Laura
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Working? on a Farm
The bus ride to Mt. Molloy (where we are wwoofing) was miserable! The bus left at 7 am, it was hot (no ac or open windows), a lot of the people on the bus smelled BAD, the little girl sitting behind me had snot running down her face and she kept coughing and it was the windiest roads we have been on yet. I spent the two hour bus ride trying not to vomit. Thankfully we made it there throw up free and were greeted by Will (our new wwoof host) in his Yute. This property was completely different than the last place we wwoofed at. Where were this time was in a place called Maryfarms and it is was extremely rural, no internet and no cell phone reception. Maryfarms is also west of the great dividing range so they don't really get any rain in winter so it was extremely dry and extremely hot. They said in the summer it can get up to 120 degrees F. The property we were on is very flat and very brown but it surrounded by mountains and extremely beautiful. Our Wwoof hosts were a couple, Will and Jo who are in their late 30s/early40s and they have a 4 1/2 year old son named Sam and a dog named Chucko who is blind in one eye. They live on 250 acres and just opened a camp ground and a B&B. They expect to get mostly bird watchers staying because there are these huge Bustards that are everywhere on their property. Our accommodation here was really nice. We stayed in the B&B which is separated from the main house, but not very far, and we had our own very nice bedroom.
The first night we were there they had some of the neighbors come over for a sausage sizzle over at the campgrounds. They also had their first guests ever stay in the B&B so that was exciting. The B&B guests were a father and daughter from New Zealand, the 9 year old daughter Teal was very talkative and I think glad to have two girls in their early twenties to hang around with. The sausage sizzle was really delicious and it was great to meet the neighbors and some other wwoofers that they had with them.
The next day, our first full day wwoofing, Lindsay and I were eager to get to work and see what they would have us doing, but we soon learned that they were more interested in having us as babysitters for Sam than actually putting us to work. It was fine but we kind of felt uncomfortable that we weren't actually doing any farm work. We spent the morning playing with Sam, he is really into carpentry and has his own giant tool box. I was shocked that a 4 year old is allowed to use a real hammer and nails and a saw, Im pretty sure at times unsupervised. He was surpridingly very coordinated for a four year old and it was funny that he was teaching us how to hammer nails, he would say things like "ok ill just get this nail started for you". He was pretty cute he pronounced my name Waura and
Lindsay was "winsey", but he ran the house and controlled his parents. At times it was really uncomfortable when he was acting out and his parents were making excuses to us.
As far as the actual work goes we didn't do much as I said, we mostly babysat, one day we did some weeding, and we made dinner one night. While we were there we went on a hike with the neighbors and their Wwoofers. It could have been a really fantastic hike, the whole time we were in the rainforest we wanted to hike to a waterfall but the closest one was a day and half hike away, so this was finally our chance. Lindsay and I put on our jeans and sneakers for the hike but when we went to get in the car we told to put on shorts and flip flops. Lindsay and I assumed we must be driving to the waterfall because who hikes in flip flops, but oh no we hiked, not on a path, through long grass with stinging green ants, and over boulders. Neither of us were too thrilled about walking through long grass, especially after hearing snake stories for the past couple of days. We eventually got to the waterfall and it was really beautiful, I just wished I had been wearing sneakers the whole time. After the hike when we were all back in the car and driving through the woods (that had recently been burned) back to the farms, I noticed a large snake out the window. We pulled over and it was a ten foot black headed python, it was amazing, I had never seen a snake that big in the wild. Lindsay of course waited in the car, but was still brought to tears (she has been a very good sport about being in situations that make her very uncomfortable). The people that took us hiking who described themselves as "a bit alternative" (and they really were), told as that the black headed pythons are very aggressive so they thought it would be smart to throw rocks at it. Lindsay and I also encountered quite a few little creatures in our bedroom, such as the nightly huntsmen spiders (they are huge), and even a bat one night. We were supposed to leave on Friday but we found a cheap flight to Sydney on Thursday morning so we left a couple of days early (and we were glad to).
We left Wednesday evening on the same terrible shuttle we had taken a week earlier we got into Cairns around 7 pm and had 12 hrs to kill before our flight. We didn't want to spend the money on a hostel so we saw the Harry Potter movie then went to the airport around midnight. It was really creepy to spend the night in the airport because absolutely no one was there. We didn't get much sleep but we were excited to be going to Sydney!!
Cheers,
Laura
The first night we were there they had some of the neighbors come over for a sausage sizzle over at the campgrounds. They also had their first guests ever stay in the B&B so that was exciting. The B&B guests were a father and daughter from New Zealand, the 9 year old daughter Teal was very talkative and I think glad to have two girls in their early twenties to hang around with. The sausage sizzle was really delicious and it was great to meet the neighbors and some other wwoofers that they had with them.
The next day, our first full day wwoofing, Lindsay and I were eager to get to work and see what they would have us doing, but we soon learned that they were more interested in having us as babysitters for Sam than actually putting us to work. It was fine but we kind of felt uncomfortable that we weren't actually doing any farm work. We spent the morning playing with Sam, he is really into carpentry and has his own giant tool box. I was shocked that a 4 year old is allowed to use a real hammer and nails and a saw, Im pretty sure at times unsupervised. He was surpridingly very coordinated for a four year old and it was funny that he was teaching us how to hammer nails, he would say things like "ok ill just get this nail started for you". He was pretty cute he pronounced my name Waura and
Lindsay was "winsey", but he ran the house and controlled his parents. At times it was really uncomfortable when he was acting out and his parents were making excuses to us.
As far as the actual work goes we didn't do much as I said, we mostly babysat, one day we did some weeding, and we made dinner one night. While we were there we went on a hike with the neighbors and their Wwoofers. It could have been a really fantastic hike, the whole time we were in the rainforest we wanted to hike to a waterfall but the closest one was a day and half hike away, so this was finally our chance. Lindsay and I put on our jeans and sneakers for the hike but when we went to get in the car we told to put on shorts and flip flops. Lindsay and I assumed we must be driving to the waterfall because who hikes in flip flops, but oh no we hiked, not on a path, through long grass with stinging green ants, and over boulders. Neither of us were too thrilled about walking through long grass, especially after hearing snake stories for the past couple of days. We eventually got to the waterfall and it was really beautiful, I just wished I had been wearing sneakers the whole time. After the hike when we were all back in the car and driving through the woods (that had recently been burned) back to the farms, I noticed a large snake out the window. We pulled over and it was a ten foot black headed python, it was amazing, I had never seen a snake that big in the wild. Lindsay of course waited in the car, but was still brought to tears (she has been a very good sport about being in situations that make her very uncomfortable). The people that took us hiking who described themselves as "a bit alternative" (and they really were), told as that the black headed pythons are very aggressive so they thought it would be smart to throw rocks at it. Lindsay and I also encountered quite a few little creatures in our bedroom, such as the nightly huntsmen spiders (they are huge), and even a bat one night. We were supposed to leave on Friday but we found a cheap flight to Sydney on Thursday morning so we left a couple of days early (and we were glad to).
We left Wednesday evening on the same terrible shuttle we had taken a week earlier we got into Cairns around 7 pm and had 12 hrs to kill before our flight. We didn't want to spend the money on a hostel so we saw the Harry Potter movie then went to the airport around midnight. It was really creepy to spend the night in the airport because absolutely no one was there. We didn't get much sleep but we were excited to be going to Sydney!!
Cheers,
Laura
Where the Rainforest Meets the Reef
We were up bright and early, which is starting to be a trend for us, to catch our shuttle to Cape Tribulation. We unfortunately were the last three people to get picked up by the shuttle so we weren't sitting together and Lindsay and I were in the last two rows of the bus. We both get motion sickness and the road up to Cape Trib is extremely windy and through the mountains, but we took bronine which has saved the day numerous times so far on the trip. We had booked this package on the first day we arrived in Australia so we knew that the trip up included a crocodile cruise, but other than that I thought it would just be transportation, but the shuttle was actually more of a tour. The bus driver was extremely informative about the area and we even pulled over for a rain forest walk. On the way back the tour included a brief stop at Mossman Gorge to go for a swim and a stop in the town of Port Douglas.
The crocodile cruise was interesting for the first 10 minutes and the first couple of crocs we saw were exciting, but being from Florida and having seeing countless numbers of alligators it wasn't really that thrilling. After the cruise we were back on the bus and headed up to the rainforest, weed stopped for about a twenty minute walk where we were looking for the endangered Cassowary (a giant flightless bird), we didn't find one but the walk was still beautiful. We arrived at our hostel around 1 pm, it was also called the Beach House but was much nicer than where we stayed in Cairns. We stayed in little cabins, our room was a six person share, it was pretty rustic but still nice. We headed over to the restaurant for some lunch and were a little disappointed because everything was really expensive and we didn't bring any of our own food and there wasn't really anywhere nearby to buy groceries. We would only be there for a couple of days so we figured it wouldn't be too damaging to splurge on food a bit. After lunch we walked down to the beach which was literally a 30 sec walk. The beach was absolutely beautiful, it is one of the only places in the world where World Heritage rainforest meets the Great Barrier reef. The beach was almost completely deserted, and to make it even better its surrounded by cloudy rainforest mountains. I was happy to sit in the sun and read my book for hours. We didn't go in the water because there were warning signs about crocs. They said we could go in the water as long as you can see in the water so you know if something is coming for you, but I decided I wouldn't take my chances. Lindsay and I went on a very long walk down the beach and on the way we found (or rather she found us) the most lovely dog. She was an extremely friend and huge Great Dane that we named pony. Lauren was taking a nap when Linds and I left for the walk, she woke up looking for us and saw two people that looked like us down the beach but these people had a giant dog so she figured it couldn't be us, but it was and Lauren was happy to meet our new friend Pony.
After meeting up with Lauren we decided we might as well walk down the beach in the other direction towards a small convenient store at another hostel that we had seen when we dropped people off the bus earlier that day. It turned out to be a pretty long walk, probably about 5 miles to get there. Five miles isn't really that far but we also had to walk back and it was starting to get late in the afternoon. The little grocery store was also WAY over price, but I suppose supply is extremely low in the rainforest so they can get away which charging exorbant prices. We just bought food for breakfast basically and then headed on back to our hostel. We decided to walk down the road instead of along the beach because it would be more direct and quicker, the walk was still pretty though because it is in the rainforest. After about 20 mins of walking back my feet were starting to kill me because I was wearing flip flops, but then we saw a sign that said "Beach House Keep Out", we figured this must be the Beach House we are staying in, how many beach houses can there be in a 5 km stretch, we also figured it said keep out because it was prob the service entrance. We walked down this really long road and as we got down it we started to notice it looked more like a junk yard than our accommodation, then we saw a really ramshackled looking house, then we saw and heard the three very angry looking guard dogs running out of the house at us not on chains. Our first instinct was to run, so that made there instinct be to chase us. We turned to face them and slowly walked backwards and they backed off, but it was terrifying and we thought we would be attacked by dogs on this really scary property that looked like it could be in a horror movie. After we got back on the road it was only another ten minutes back to the "real" Beach House. By the time we got back it was already evening so we showered and ate at the restaurant which turned out to be one of the best places we have eaten the entire time we have been in Australia. Lauren finally got to have Kangaroo and it was delicious, it pretty much tastes like steak. We again were in bed an asleep by 9 pm.
The next day we went on an exotic fruit tasting at a farm a couple of minutes from our hostel. This was so much fun and we of course loved it because we all love food. We tried ten different fruits and they were all delicious. One of my favorites was the custard apple, and I also really liked the sapotes. Unfortunately a lot of the fruits we tried aren't sold commercially, because either they are really ugly, they don't ship well, or they are ugly AND don't ship well. After we got back to our hostel we spent the rest of the afternoon sharing a beer and playing boggle, it was a great way to end a very relaxing day, and again we were in bed nice and early, but this night we had a surprise visitor in the middle of night. Around 1 am we are all awaken by Lindsay standing on the opposite side of the room to her bed freaking out about the GIANT rat that is by her bed. We turn on the light and sure enough sitting on her purse is a rodent, but it's just a mouse although I give it to her it was large. At first we are all staring at it quite confused because we can't figure out why the mouse is eating her purse, but then we realize he isn't eating her purse he is eating the banana she accidentally left in her purse. He chewed a pretty decent size hole in her bag which will probably serve as a nice reminder to her the next time she is in the wilderness to not bring in any food. Lauren was the lucky one who got to share her twin size bed with Lindsay because she had the top bunk which was furthest from the mouse.
The next day we left Cape Tribulation, I had a great relaxing time but I think Lindsay especially was eager to get back to civilization where there aren't mice etc. Our shuttle on the way back only had 12 people so we had plenty of room and our bus driver was really nice. We stopped at Mossman Gorge to go for a swim but the water was freezing so I actually didn't go in and then we stopped in Port Douglas which is a really pretty and quite fancy resort town. We arrived back at our hostel around 6:30 and were extremely rushed because we had to take a 7:00 bus into Cairns for our "Ultimate Party" pub crawl. We probably wouldn't have sought this out on our own but it was included in our package and dinner was included. We also had the best free dinner we have had so far, and it turned out to be a really fun night. There were also two Danish boys that Lindsay and I had met in Noosa that were on the pub crawl with us, so it was really fun to randomly run into friends we thought we would never see again.
We finally let ourselves sleep in, and then walked over to the lagoon to spend the afternoon. It was Lauren's "last night" in Australia so we decided we should go out for a nice dinner and have a fun night out together. We ate a Thai restaurant on the pier which I thought was delicious, I had a spicy green curry (which was really spicy) Lauren was supposed to have the mild green curry, but it was pretty much as spicy as mine and she didn't really enjoy eating it. We had another very fun night out in Cairns and then headed back because Lauren had to catch a very early bus to the airport for her 6:20 am flight. Unfortunately she woke up at 6:30 and realized her "flight" had already left. She packed up everything an headed over to the airport anyways to see if there were any other flights she could get on that day, but when she got to the airport she learned her flight wasn't even that day, it was the next day. She was so lucky!!! and we got to spend another day with Lauren. For our last night we checked out of the beach house and stayed at a really nice hostel called Gilligans which was pretty fancy as far as hostels go. This time Lauren didn't over sleep and got on her real flight no problem. .Lindsay and I had a great time with Lauren and were sad to see her leave, at one point I think we came close to convincing her to postpone med school and stay in OZ for a year. Linds and I were also gone by 6 am because we had to catch a bus to Mt. Molloy where we would be wwoofing for the next week. Hopefully we will have a similar experience to the last time we wwoofed.
Cheers,
Laura
The crocodile cruise was interesting for the first 10 minutes and the first couple of crocs we saw were exciting, but being from Florida and having seeing countless numbers of alligators it wasn't really that thrilling. After the cruise we were back on the bus and headed up to the rainforest, weed stopped for about a twenty minute walk where we were looking for the endangered Cassowary (a giant flightless bird), we didn't find one but the walk was still beautiful. We arrived at our hostel around 1 pm, it was also called the Beach House but was much nicer than where we stayed in Cairns. We stayed in little cabins, our room was a six person share, it was pretty rustic but still nice. We headed over to the restaurant for some lunch and were a little disappointed because everything was really expensive and we didn't bring any of our own food and there wasn't really anywhere nearby to buy groceries. We would only be there for a couple of days so we figured it wouldn't be too damaging to splurge on food a bit. After lunch we walked down to the beach which was literally a 30 sec walk. The beach was absolutely beautiful, it is one of the only places in the world where World Heritage rainforest meets the Great Barrier reef. The beach was almost completely deserted, and to make it even better its surrounded by cloudy rainforest mountains. I was happy to sit in the sun and read my book for hours. We didn't go in the water because there were warning signs about crocs. They said we could go in the water as long as you can see in the water so you know if something is coming for you, but I decided I wouldn't take my chances. Lindsay and I went on a very long walk down the beach and on the way we found (or rather she found us) the most lovely dog. She was an extremely friend and huge Great Dane that we named pony. Lauren was taking a nap when Linds and I left for the walk, she woke up looking for us and saw two people that looked like us down the beach but these people had a giant dog so she figured it couldn't be us, but it was and Lauren was happy to meet our new friend Pony.
After meeting up with Lauren we decided we might as well walk down the beach in the other direction towards a small convenient store at another hostel that we had seen when we dropped people off the bus earlier that day. It turned out to be a pretty long walk, probably about 5 miles to get there. Five miles isn't really that far but we also had to walk back and it was starting to get late in the afternoon. The little grocery store was also WAY over price, but I suppose supply is extremely low in the rainforest so they can get away which charging exorbant prices. We just bought food for breakfast basically and then headed on back to our hostel. We decided to walk down the road instead of along the beach because it would be more direct and quicker, the walk was still pretty though because it is in the rainforest. After about 20 mins of walking back my feet were starting to kill me because I was wearing flip flops, but then we saw a sign that said "Beach House Keep Out", we figured this must be the Beach House we are staying in, how many beach houses can there be in a 5 km stretch, we also figured it said keep out because it was prob the service entrance. We walked down this really long road and as we got down it we started to notice it looked more like a junk yard than our accommodation, then we saw a really ramshackled looking house, then we saw and heard the three very angry looking guard dogs running out of the house at us not on chains. Our first instinct was to run, so that made there instinct be to chase us. We turned to face them and slowly walked backwards and they backed off, but it was terrifying and we thought we would be attacked by dogs on this really scary property that looked like it could be in a horror movie. After we got back on the road it was only another ten minutes back to the "real" Beach House. By the time we got back it was already evening so we showered and ate at the restaurant which turned out to be one of the best places we have eaten the entire time we have been in Australia. Lauren finally got to have Kangaroo and it was delicious, it pretty much tastes like steak. We again were in bed an asleep by 9 pm.
The next day we went on an exotic fruit tasting at a farm a couple of minutes from our hostel. This was so much fun and we of course loved it because we all love food. We tried ten different fruits and they were all delicious. One of my favorites was the custard apple, and I also really liked the sapotes. Unfortunately a lot of the fruits we tried aren't sold commercially, because either they are really ugly, they don't ship well, or they are ugly AND don't ship well. After we got back to our hostel we spent the rest of the afternoon sharing a beer and playing boggle, it was a great way to end a very relaxing day, and again we were in bed nice and early, but this night we had a surprise visitor in the middle of night. Around 1 am we are all awaken by Lindsay standing on the opposite side of the room to her bed freaking out about the GIANT rat that is by her bed. We turn on the light and sure enough sitting on her purse is a rodent, but it's just a mouse although I give it to her it was large. At first we are all staring at it quite confused because we can't figure out why the mouse is eating her purse, but then we realize he isn't eating her purse he is eating the banana she accidentally left in her purse. He chewed a pretty decent size hole in her bag which will probably serve as a nice reminder to her the next time she is in the wilderness to not bring in any food. Lauren was the lucky one who got to share her twin size bed with Lindsay because she had the top bunk which was furthest from the mouse.
The next day we left Cape Tribulation, I had a great relaxing time but I think Lindsay especially was eager to get back to civilization where there aren't mice etc. Our shuttle on the way back only had 12 people so we had plenty of room and our bus driver was really nice. We stopped at Mossman Gorge to go for a swim but the water was freezing so I actually didn't go in and then we stopped in Port Douglas which is a really pretty and quite fancy resort town. We arrived back at our hostel around 6:30 and were extremely rushed because we had to take a 7:00 bus into Cairns for our "Ultimate Party" pub crawl. We probably wouldn't have sought this out on our own but it was included in our package and dinner was included. We also had the best free dinner we have had so far, and it turned out to be a really fun night. There were also two Danish boys that Lindsay and I had met in Noosa that were on the pub crawl with us, so it was really fun to randomly run into friends we thought we would never see again.
We finally let ourselves sleep in, and then walked over to the lagoon to spend the afternoon. It was Lauren's "last night" in Australia so we decided we should go out for a nice dinner and have a fun night out together. We ate a Thai restaurant on the pier which I thought was delicious, I had a spicy green curry (which was really spicy) Lauren was supposed to have the mild green curry, but it was pretty much as spicy as mine and she didn't really enjoy eating it. We had another very fun night out in Cairns and then headed back because Lauren had to catch a very early bus to the airport for her 6:20 am flight. Unfortunately she woke up at 6:30 and realized her "flight" had already left. She packed up everything an headed over to the airport anyways to see if there were any other flights she could get on that day, but when she got to the airport she learned her flight wasn't even that day, it was the next day. She was so lucky!!! and we got to spend another day with Lauren. For our last night we checked out of the beach house and stayed at a really nice hostel called Gilligans which was pretty fancy as far as hostels go. This time Lauren didn't over sleep and got on her real flight no problem. .Lindsay and I had a great time with Lauren and were sad to see her leave, at one point I think we came close to convincing her to postpone med school and stay in OZ for a year. Linds and I were also gone by 6 am because we had to catch a bus to Mt. Molloy where we would be wwoofing for the next week. Hopefully we will have a similar experience to the last time we wwoofed.
Cheers,
Laura
Saturday, August 1, 2009
Finding Nemo
We arrived in Cairns about 10 am after a bit of drama in the Gold Coast airport which ended in Lauren having to pay an additional $80 for her bag, but that was behind us and we were looking forward to an eventful week in Cairns. We arrived at the Beach House (the hostel we were staying at) and were greeted by the worst receptionists I have ever encounter, not only was the service bad at this hostel but it was also a 20 minute walk to the town center, if you ever in cairns DO NOT stay here. We dropped off our bags and went to grab a bite for lunch as our room was not ready yet. We had a delicious cheap lunch of fresh fish and chips. Around one pm we got to check into our room, which wasn't very nice and extremely hot, but we were grateful to have a four share all to ourselves. Needless to say we didn't spend long in our room and headed off to the lagoon, which we had heard from other travelers was where everyone hung out during the day. We were a bit confused how people could swim in the lagoon because you can't go in the beaches there because there are crocodiles. We soon (after a 20 min walk) learned that people can swim in the lagoon because it is not a lagoon at all but rather a chlorinated pool surrounded by grass. Regardless we still had an enjoyable afternoon lounging by the "lagoon" and reading. We headed back to our hostel to get changed for dinner, which was included in our travel package while in Cairns. You would think that by now after constantly being disspaointed by things that are free I would have lower expectations, but once again I was dissapointed by the gelatin consistency of my free curry. That was the first and last time we took advantage of our free meal. Cairns is notorious for being a party spot for backpackers, but we had a low key evening and were in bed early because the next day we were going out to the Great Barrier Reef to dive.
For our dive we had to be at the pier at 7 am so we were up bright and early, but we were all pretty excited. We went out to the reef with the company Passions of Paradise and I strongly reccommend this company to anyone looking to spend the day on the reef. There were only about 50 passangers on board (some boats take 200) and the day included a great lunch buffet. Lindsay and Lauren aren't dive certified but Passions offers an introductory dive to non divers so they had the opportunity to have the dive experience on the reef. I actually can't believe they can legally do this. I was shocked that on the entire boat only three of the passangers including myself were dive certified, but I was actually really glad because there were only four people total (including the dive master) that went out with my group. We had brand new equipment that was only a week old and they gave us wet suilts, unfortunately only shorty suits and I ofcourse got stung on my arms and legs where I had exposed skin. We got to do to different dives at tw o different sights and both were breathtaking and unbelievable. My group of the certified divers got taken from the large boat where everyone was diving and snorkeling to a separate location in a little motor boat, and the entire time we were under the water we didn't see another person. What I found to be the most spectacular part of diving on the GB reef were the huge coral shelfs, I just haven't seen this diving in Florida. On the first dive we swam through cave like crevases in the coral and saw a sea turtle, the first dive was about 40 mins then it was back on the boat for lunch and to travel to our next dive location. I was happy to reunite with Lindsay and Lauren and so happy they had a good experience diving, even so much that I think they are considering getting certified. Lauren decided that she would do a second dive but Lindsay was happy snorkel the reef and take some photos. The part of the reef we were on was shallow enough that Lindsay could pretty much see everything without having to swim deep at all. The second location we went to was pretty cool because the boat we were on has special liscence to dive there so there was not a single other boat in sight. On the second dive I got to see a sting ray which was one of the things I was hoping to see. I didn't see a shark and believe it or not I was kind of hoping I would. Back on the boat on the way back to Cairns we saw another sea turtle and a dolphin.
I don't remember what we did for dinner that night, but we did get dressed to go out for the night but all ended up falling asleep by 10 pm which honestly was for the better since we had to catch a shuttle to Cape Tribulation (the rainforest) at 7:30 am. Cairns was surprisingly a much nicer city than I had anticipated and I am actually looking forward to the two nights we will spending there when we get back from the Cape.
Cheers,
Laura
For our dive we had to be at the pier at 7 am so we were up bright and early, but we were all pretty excited. We went out to the reef with the company Passions of Paradise and I strongly reccommend this company to anyone looking to spend the day on the reef. There were only about 50 passangers on board (some boats take 200) and the day included a great lunch buffet. Lindsay and Lauren aren't dive certified but Passions offers an introductory dive to non divers so they had the opportunity to have the dive experience on the reef. I actually can't believe they can legally do this. I was shocked that on the entire boat only three of the passangers including myself were dive certified, but I was actually really glad because there were only four people total (including the dive master) that went out with my group. We had brand new equipment that was only a week old and they gave us wet suilts, unfortunately only shorty suits and I ofcourse got stung on my arms and legs where I had exposed skin. We got to do to different dives at tw o different sights and both were breathtaking and unbelievable. My group of the certified divers got taken from the large boat where everyone was diving and snorkeling to a separate location in a little motor boat, and the entire time we were under the water we didn't see another person. What I found to be the most spectacular part of diving on the GB reef were the huge coral shelfs, I just haven't seen this diving in Florida. On the first dive we swam through cave like crevases in the coral and saw a sea turtle, the first dive was about 40 mins then it was back on the boat for lunch and to travel to our next dive location. I was happy to reunite with Lindsay and Lauren and so happy they had a good experience diving, even so much that I think they are considering getting certified. Lauren decided that she would do a second dive but Lindsay was happy snorkel the reef and take some photos. The part of the reef we were on was shallow enough that Lindsay could pretty much see everything without having to swim deep at all. The second location we went to was pretty cool because the boat we were on has special liscence to dive there so there was not a single other boat in sight. On the second dive I got to see a sting ray which was one of the things I was hoping to see. I didn't see a shark and believe it or not I was kind of hoping I would. Back on the boat on the way back to Cairns we saw another sea turtle and a dolphin.
I don't remember what we did for dinner that night, but we did get dressed to go out for the night but all ended up falling asleep by 10 pm which honestly was for the better since we had to catch a shuttle to Cape Tribulation (the rainforest) at 7:30 am. Cairns was surprisingly a much nicer city than I had anticipated and I am actually looking forward to the two nights we will spending there when we get back from the Cape.
Cheers,
Laura
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