Australia – Whitsunday Islands

So we left Cairns on Sunday evening to catch the overnight bus to a spot called Airlie Beach, jumping point for the Whitsunday Islands. There were mixed experiences in terms of sleep and sleep deprivation – an 11 hour bus journey with 2.5 hours worth of stops - grrrr. Still, we have a lot of ground to cover so overnight buses help keep our daytime Aussie experiences at a max.


Airlie Beach is a busy little place eh darls. The one main street is jammed with hostels, holiday apartments, tour operators, cafes and even a beauty salon or two where we indulged in a little TLC! I (SM) also allowed the tresses to be chopped (just a trim please… whoa, whoa. whoa, just a trim please! But of course, a bit more than a trim was taken….you know how it goes girls….). Apart from wanting to pamper ourselves after a few days in the rainforest and overnighter bus, it was also as misty as Dingle on a day in June so we kinda had nothing else to do mate! Our accommodation at “Koalas” was basic to say the least, so we were happy to spend little time there. Plenty of good cafes and touristy shops to take our cash anyway…

Up at the dawn on Wednesday for our three day sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands. We thought we had lucked out in Cairns when the boat we wanted was booked up. When we first saw our Tall-Ship “Defender”, we thought it didn’t look so ‘tall” but did we change our minds once we were out at sea, watching the sails go up over the cobalt sea. It was fab. The ship is the oldest commercial sailing boat in the southern hemisphere and can sleep 24 people on board . They allow 12 people to camp on one of the island: we weren’t exactly volunteering for that opportunity knowing that (a) there is sand and dubious ablution facilities involved and (b) we have to do the beach camp thing on Fraser Island, so why max it?!

Day one was spent getting out to Hook Island, snorkelling and diving around there – sailing past a few of the other islands. Day two was the rockiest wave wise, so most of the time was spent on deck trying to focus on the horizon and not on our queasy stomachs. The main aim of day two was to get to a beach called Whitehaven on Whitsunday Island proper. Whitehaven has the finest silica sand on the planet and is also one of the most photographed beaches anywhere. It was certainly stunning, but rather brisk and rainy at times (SM and MF are finding it hard to get used to 20C after all that SE Asia heat!!). Of course, the beach on the other island across the way had the sun on it the entire time, of course it did eh!! Day three started off lovely and sunny, perfect for our beach (coral beach, ouchee to walk on!) and snorkelling sojourn on an island called Hayman (also site of one of the top 10 resorts in the world apparently – 500 guests / 600 staff!!). The number of fish in the water was amazing; there is a resident called Elvis, a huge purple/green Wrasse fish – certainly the biggest fish we’ve seen so far, eh dolls!

We landed back at Airlie Beach around 3pm on Friday afternoon and pretty much headed straight to fight a laundry war with other likeminded people – it nearly broke into fisty cuffs around the dryers at one point! That evening, we met up with most of the people from Defender – each boat holds a table at one of the bigger bars. Strangely enough, it came down to the (mostly) large number of Irish Defender passengers to keep the party going until the wee small hours.

Saturday evening saw us take another overnighter to Hervey Beach – this time 13 hours. Again, mixed sleep quality experiences. Hervey Beach is the jumping point for Fraser Island which we head to at the crack of dawn tomorrow. Australia may well be the country where we get least sleep!!

Cairns and surrounding areas

We arrived in Cairns on Tuesday morning, Catherine (the new member of our touring party) arrived later that day and we slept for most of the day - didnt sleep at all on the flight from Singapore - did we mention that our original flight was with an airline that recently went bust (thats the second time that has happened to me [mf]) !!! so we were transferred to Qantas (fine) but that flight was via Darwin (2 hr stop over !! marvellous).

(Pic: Michelle and Catherine meet Kutie Koalas)

Hired a car the next day - did I mention that it has been rotating from drizzling rain to full downpours since we have arrived. I can see the tan fading as we speak and there was so much work went into that too - so depressing !!

So we headed north to Cape Tribulation, stopping off in Port Douglas for lunch but as it lashed rain all day we couldnt fully appreciate the town which would look stunning when the sun was shining. Sancha did contribute to the local economy though by purchasing several sets of earrings.

We carried on north and crossed the ferry (A$ 16 return for a 3 minute trip !!!) to get to the only road that leads to Cape Tribulation and about 20kms for our destination (through a rain forest) all the cars in front of us came to a stop. It was still lashing rain so we got out to see what the hold up was - the road was completely blocked - a local creek (Coopers Creek) had burst it banks crossing onto the road and was very fast flowing. Even the 4x4's and buses were backing up and turning around. So we had to do likewise but we had plans in Cape Tribulation so we didnt want to turn back. There was only that road into Cape Trib so after trying lots of B&B's etc in the local area - we ended up in a place called Daintree and got their last cabin for the night. All the local B&B's and motels did great business that night as the road was blocked with all the tourists stuck. (Pic: View from our Daintree Cabin)

The B&B lady rang the local ranger for us the next morning to check if the road was passable and it was ok - only 0.2m apparently (wasnt sure what that meant but she was confident a car could get through) - so we headed off on the road again. By the time we got to Coopers Creek - cars were crossing but it still looked a little deep - anyway we got through. We got to Cape Trib - which is nothing more than a village with a pharmacy(run by a yank), little supermarket and accomodation places. Its in the middle of a rain forest and we are staying in a cabin with a corrugated roof (noisy when it rains !!)

(Pic: Coopers Creek @ 0.2m )

We partook of the local craze and did some "jungle surfing" - up on platforms 22 metres above the ground in the trees, with harnesses and helmets and slid from tree to tree on steel cables (the guys running it had pulleys too to yank us along... the views were great but some of it was a little nerve wrecking especially when they stopped you in the middle of a big gorge and you were left hanging !! they got a good laugh out of that.

We took also took a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef - 45 minutes to get out to the reef where we went snorkelling, swimming and diving (SM) for the day and saw lots of coral and loads of different coloured fish ... it was very cool. The sun came out while we were on the reef but the minute we headed back inland the rain and mist came down again.

(Pic: Sancha on the boat back from Mackay Reef off Cape Tribulation)

The plan is at midnight tonight we get an overnight bus down to Airlie beach from where we will head out to the Whitsunday islands - did I mention that its an 11hr trip !!!! (well that still doesnt come close to the 18hr bus trip (from hell) from Laos to Cambodia - 11 hrs is just a walk in the park !)

Where we are now: en route to Chile, somewhere over the Pacific (crossing the international dateline!)

Read up on our next destination here!
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/worldguide/destinations/south-america/chile-and-easter-island?a=facts






Ireland - Hong Kong - Thailand - Laos - Cambodia - Vietnam - Thailand - Malaysia - Singapore - Australia - New Zealand - Chile - Bolivia - Peru - Argentina - Brazil - Ireland

Singapore

July 6th - July 10th

Thursday 6th July saw us on an express bus from KL to Singapore. The journey took approx 5 hours with a short stop at the border where we had to disembark with all our luggage - go through an arrivals hall - through passport control - have all our bags and ourselves scanned before being allowed to reboard the bus to Singapore. I'm not sure what they were checking for but the soldiers with the machine guns didnt look like the easygoing type.

(Ladies enjoying afternoon tea at Raffles Hotel)



Singapore is a lovely city: great shopping areas (Orchard Road), transport links are so straightforward (using the Ezlink card). We were quite busy taking in the Night Safari, doing a city tour and having afternoon tea at Raffles Hotel ( www.raffleshotel.com) and having the Singapore Sling in the bar where it was originally invented.

There is also a bar/club on the 71st floor of the Swissotel where you can great city views, watch a sunset and enjoy an apple martini or gin rikky at half price during happy hour (5pm-9pm).

Brian acted as our local guide in Singapore taking us to local eateries such as the Banana Leaf Apollo, the Rendez Vous and areas including Little India, Arab street and Clarke Quay - he and his friends were wonderful hosts.

Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur

July 1st - July 6th

Kuala Lumpur is a very impressive city - lots of shopping of all kinds can be done here. We also managed to fit in a small amount of sight-seeing.... as well a night out or two !!!

Pic: Malaysia loves Man Utd - Air Asia plane; hope Ronaldo and Rooney kiss and make up ;o)

The Gods were against us however as the two days we attempted to go up to the Skybridge on the Petronas Towers they were closed - the first day we tried was a Monday (closed on Mondays !). We tried again on Tuesday (4th July) and again it was closed all day "due to technical difficulties" (?) so we gave in at that stage and went off and got manicures and pedicures for the afternoon !!


Pic: the rather impressive Petronas Towers

We sampled much of the local cuisine here in KL, lots of chinese influences with plenty of chilli. Also in KL is an O'Briens sandwich bar !!!! it was quite a surprise to see it there and full of locals having lunch too !! We ordered sandwiches with everything in them..... :oP

We stayed with Sammi in KL who was a superb guide and hostess and who was kind enough to allow us the use of her car for our stay. The kamikaze style of KL drivers is one we won't forget too easily though; we will be cornering and cutting-in like women possessed on our return.