Love You Queensland

We spent Xmas day at Adam and Barbara's house, swimming in their pool and eating ridiculous amounts of food, followed by a potent combination of beer, gin, pimms and homemade vodka (although not all in the same glass). If you got a drunken phonecall from us on xmas morning, now you know why.

After xmas, we drove down to Byron Bay with Adam and the three of us spent a couple of days there, hanging out on the beach, eating, drinking and bodyboarding. Surprisingly, our cheapo Woolworths tent survived a big storm on the second night, although the boys were a bit more worried about the snake that had taken shelter in the gents toilets.

We flew straight to Sydney from the Gold Coast and met up with Bobbie and Stuart and their friends Claudio and Sally, also ex-Brightonians, who very kindly let us all stay in their flat in Maroubra for New Year. The six of us headed into town to see the fireworks over the harbour bridge and met up with lots of our friends from Brisbane who were also in town and, by coincidence, had decided on the same spot to watch the show. The fireworks were great but we then spent three drunken hours wandering around Sydney trying to get home. On New Year's day, we were too hungover to do anything except stumble to the beach for our first swim of 2009.

On Sunday we had fully recovered and met up again with Paul, Simon and Atul. After a proper breakfast of bacon, eggs and a skinny latte (yes, you Paul), we walked along the beach from Bondi to Coogee, stopping off for a swim at the end. On that evening's news we heard that these beaches had been closed later that day due to a shark sighting.

Our New Year's resolution was to leave Brisbane and move somewhere different for the rest of our time in Australia. However, despite liking Sydney's beaches, we weren't really that taken with the city itself, and so we decided to give Melbourne a try instead. With only one month left in Brisbane we tried to visit all of the local attractions that we had missed so far. We went to the Lone Pine koala sanctuary and had our photos taken with one of the fluffy little guys, and Graeme also got a photo of himself with two kangaroos getting it on - possibly the highlight of his trip so far.

For the Australia Day bank holiday weekend we decided to hire a 4wd again with Adam, Paul and Paul's friend Billy, and go camping near Rainbow Beach. Being Australia day, and baking hot, half of Brisbane had the same idea and the 15km stretch of beach was packed. In the late afternoon, about half of the people on the beach showed up to watch two utes burn themselves out after their fuel tanks dramatically exploded; rumour had it that the owners had been trying to siphon petrol onto their campfire.

The next day we awoke at 6am to find the sun pouring into our tent (which we had cleverly pitched facing east), accompanied by armies of random giant biting insects that looked like they came straight from a 1950's B movie. It was hot and we were in desperate need of a swim but our cossies were locked in the car and no one knew where we had put the keys, so we decided to go bodyboarding in our pyjamas. After locating the car keys (in Debbie's handbag) we spent the rest of the day fanging around Rainbow beach, stopping for a last swim in the sea before heading back to Brisbane. Just after getting in the water, Graeme was swept off his feet by a huge wave and suddenly sucked out to sea by a rip tide. Luckily, after a minute the rip had taken him sideways to a shallower area where he could reach the floor again and walk back to shore. From now on, we are only going to swim between the flags!

We celebrated our last night in Brisbane with a BBQ at the house in Kelvin Grove. James and Dave had returned from Africa, and had invited some other friends, including Wookie, who we had also met back in Central American trip, and we worked our way through two crates of beer and played Guitar Hero Rock Band all night. We were so hungover for our flight the next morning that we accidentally packed a penknife in our hand luggage and Debbie looked so rough she was selected for 'random' explosives testing (damn, I knew I should have shaved my beard off!).
Since arriving in Melbourne we have managed to find a big, clean room which admittedly looks like it hasn't been decorated since the 70's, and we are looking for temp work. We have also been to see Rusko DJ in a club made from old shipping containers. Melbourne is currently in the middle of a heatwave and it was 46 degrees yesterday. The government is warning people to stay indoors. Screw that - we're off to the beach!

Happy Xmas everyone!

Love from Grom and Debs xxx

Brisvegas

For the last few weeks we have been settling in to the Brisvegas lifestyle. Staying in one place will never be as good as travelling, but we have managed to fit in some fun times along the way.

Not long after our last blog post our friends Bobbie and Stuart, the fellow-Brightonians who we met back in Canada, came to stay with us. They are travelling around Oz in a camper van which they parked outside our house for a week. The weekend they arrived we went to meet them in a town called Surfer's Paradise along with our friend Paul and a Chilean girl called Merasol who he works with. Disappointingly, Surfer's Paradise turned out to be nothing but a beach and some high-rise hotels, and when it rained in the afternoon there was nothing for us to do except go to the pub. Luckily it happened to be happy hour so we all spent the rest of the day getting so smashed that no one could remember the journey back to Brisbane.

The next weekend the four of us drove up Mount Coot-tha in Bobbie & Stuart's campervan, where we had a bbq and got some great views over Brisbane. On the Sunday we went to the Bowls Club for an afternoon of barefoot bowls - all that practice playing petanque in Brighton has finally come in useful! We also drank lots of dangerously alcoholic ginger beer, and lowered the previously refined tone of the bowls club by several notches.

Over the last few weeks the weather has been getting really hot, and in Brisbane hot weather also means big thunderstorms. A few weeks ago a really bad storm hit the next suburb to ours (the worst storm in 25 years, apparently), roofs were being ripped off houses and people lost everything to the floods. We got off quite lightly with just a little bit of flooding and a visit from a giant spider that took refuge under our front porch.


The beginning of summer also marks the end of the Australian school year. Coastal towns are invaded by a swarm of 'schoolies' – teenagers who have just finished school celebrating in time-honoured fashion by drinking alcopops until they throw up. The university year has also finished, and after finishing his exams our friend James has gone travelling to Africa for the summer break. The upside of this for us is that we have moved into his room in a lovely big old Queenslander house. So now we have a garden with a BBQ, a flatscreen TV and a lovely flatmate called Ellie whose band have just found out are going to play at Big Day Out (hooray, Ellie!).

Last weekend we decided to get out of Brisbane for a few days, and five of us (us, Graeme's sort-of cousin Adam, Paul and his sister Leanne) hired a 4wd and went to North Stradbroke Island (aka Straddie). On our first day we stayed in a campsite next to the sea and tried our hand at bodyboarding; the second day we took turns at fanging (driving really fast) along the beach, went for a swim in Blue Lake, then found ourselves a free campsite which was completely deserted except for a few kangaroos and lots of insects. Debbie had a big shock when she shone her torch at her glass of wine and saw a giant spider swimming around in it. It could have been much worse though - if we had been drinking red wine, she probably would have swallowed it whole.


Now we are just chilling out in our new house and looking forward to to a hot and sunny xmas. We hope you lot are all having fun and enjoying the winter. Brr!

Brisbanus

We spent our first week here in Brisbane staying with our friend James and his flatmates Dave and Ellie. We met James back in Central America in 2004, where we formed a bond when he lent us money for the bribe to get throuh the dodgy border crossing between Belize and Guatemala. We also shared one of the most surreal experiences of that trip, the bizarre Todos Santos drunken horse race.

James lives in a typical 'Queenslander' style house, made out of wood and raised off the ground on stilts, with a storage (party?) area underneath, and possums in the roof. We spent a few fun evenings with James & co, eating barbecue and drinking beer, playing guitar hero and Traveller IQ challenge while reliving our Guatemala experences.

After a few days exploring Brisbane, we went on a day trip to Steve Irwin's Australia Zoo. Australia Zoo is really hands-on and you are encouraged to feed the elephants (which slobbered over our hands) and stroke the kangaroos and wallabies which roam free in an open enclosure. You can also stroke the koalas, but they aren't as cute as they look – apparently baby koalas eat their mums' poo! The excuse for this is that they can't digest the poisonous eucalyptus leaves themselves, but still! As we were leavng, Graeme almost wet himself with excitement when he spotted the original 'Crocodile Hunter' Jeep.

With our savings rapidly diminishing, we registered at loads of employment agencies in Brisbane and quickly found ourselves work; Debbie found a temp job in local government and Graeme has ended up back in hospital admin. We also found ourselves our own little studio flat which is pretty small but is located in a leafy part of town called Ashgrove, with views over the whole of Brisbane. We have decorated one of our walls with a collage of pictures of lots of our friends printed out from Facebook.

There is a lot going on in Brisbane and we haven't had time to get homesick yet. Better still most of it is free. We have been to a couple of free screenings of old silent movies with live music accompaniment, a few free festivals, a free Operator Please gig, and we also got free tickets to see Queensland Roar FC. They were almost as bad as Spurs (only joking, they were loads better!). They are playing LA Galaxy next month, but sadly there are no free tickets for that, so no David Beckham for us. One weekend we went to a bollywood-themed party, where the guests were given bindis and bangles and a bollywood screen-name at the door, and the monsoon-style rains just added to the atmosphere. This weekend, we dressed up as Zombies for an early Halloween party.

A few weeks after we arrived in Brisbane we got a message from Graeme's aunt saying that he had some relatives in Brisbane – his Granddad's brother's daughter (Barbara), and her son (Adam). We met up with Adam for a few drinks during the week and then went to their house for Sunday dinner. It was really strange to discover we have relatives on the opposite side of the world, especially as they also live in Brisbane.

We have also been hanging around with Paul, a fellow Arsenal fan we met in the Whitsunday Islands who is also working in Brisbane, and the three of us discovered the Brisbane Polish club where we found decent beer at last. Since then we have visited the German and Irish clubs with the Czech club next on our list.

It was still officially 'winter' when we arrived in Brisbane, and the locals were complaining about the bitter 20 degree nights. However, as spring advances the weather is getting slowly warmer, and we have already had a few humid days and a couple of big thunderstorms. And it's only going to get hotter!

Kangabarberoobeque

By the time we arrived in Cairns we were running very low on funds, but after a week of jobhunting we finally accepted that there were no jobs. We spent a few drunken nights at the Dreamtime hostel, where we drank lots of goon and Graeme discovered the delights of kangaroo barbecues (kangabarberoobeques, or barberoos for short). Goon is really cheap wine that comes in 4 litre boxes and results in killer hangovers. The lesson - never to drink anything that says it 'may contain fish products' on the label. Despite being broke we also managed to afford a dive on the great barrier reef, which was amazing. Debbie poked a giant clam which slammed shut when she touched it, and we both swam with a sea-turtle.

We decided to head down to Brisbane and try to get jobs there, funding the trip with money borrowed from our savings for South East Asia and the bank of Graeme's mum. We bumped into a guy called Jonny who we had met before at Ayer's Rock and who also wanted to head down to Brisbane on the cheap. Between us, we managed to find the most battered rental car in Cairns, complete with two broken tents and half a sleeping bag, and, after loading up the boot with Coles' own brand pasta twirls we set off on the great road trip south. First we drove up to Cape Tribulation, a remote area of beaches which back onto tropical rainforest. To get there you have to take possibly the world's shortest ferry crossing, across a river no wider than the Thames; we have no idea why they don't just build a bridge. The river is teeming with crocodiles, which added a bit of excitement to help pass the long four minute journey. Safely on the other side, we stopped at a local 'family fun day' which consisted of a lot of bogans getting drunk at three in the afternoon while their children participated in a fish-throwing competition, where they took turns to chuck a rapidly disintegrating dead fish as far as possible, presumably gaining bonus points whenever they landed it on the head of one of the spectators.

Next we headed south and inland to the Atherton Tablelands and Lake Eacham, where we went on an evening walk along a riverbank and saw a platypus swimming around. We made our way back to the coast and caught another (considerably longer) ferry crossing to Magnetic Island where we spent some time lazing on the beach, and shared our food and our tent with a gang of possums. Graeme was also set upon by some very pretty multicoloured birds that he tried to feed who landed on his head and pecked at his ears instead.

We continued south down the coast to Airlie Beach where we embarked on a sailing trip to the Whitsunday Islands. On the first day we stopped at an island to go for a walk through the bush, where we were encouraged to lick a green ant on its arse. We were surprised to find out that the ant's backside tasted of intensely concentrated limes; apparently they are very high in vitamin C and the Aboriginal people used to eat them all the time, but we will probably stick with orange juice. Graeme also ate some termites, which less surprisingly tasted of wood. After a night spent sleeping on the boat, we sailed to Whitehaven beach, which has the softest whitest sand you can imagine and the bluest sea: in fact it looks exactly how a tropical beach is supposed to look. The only downside was that box jellyfish are a real danger here and everyone had to wear a rather unflattering 'stinger suit' whenever they went in the sea. Every 100 metres or so there are 'vinegar stations', where bottles of vinegar are provided in case someone gets stung.

Despite only camping in the cheapest places, we were always trying to save money wherever we could. We employed various tricks such as trying to hide from the park ranger to avoid paying, camping in a in car park, and pretending that there were only two of us in the car so we didn't have to pay for the third person. This succeeded once, but the second time we tried it the owner rode up behind on us on his bike and caught all three of us eating lunch together.

After a while we decided to head inland again to try to get off the beaten track. We visited the Gemfields area, where the towns have names like Emerald, Sapphire and Rubyvale, and you can go 'fossicking' – searching through bags of dirt to find precious stones. We found some small sapphires and bits of zircon – sadly not enough to pay off our debts. Other notable local attractions included a piano in a tree at Clermont, the world's largest Van Gogh sunflower painting in Emerald, a giant mango in Bowen and our favourite, a lifesize statue of a dingo in the town of Dingo, which was hidden behind a hedge and smelt of piss.

We travelled back to the coast and on a trip to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand island. Our hostel organised us into a group to rent a 4wd truck to explore the island together. This consisted of the three of us, four other Brits, three Americans and a German guy. The Americans were a bunch of stoners who lived up to every stereotype of their nation, and were known to everyone else on the trip as 'Team America'. There are no roads on the island, only bumpy 4wd tracks and beaches; driving on the dirt tracks was fun but scary, and the sound of everyone in the back screaming whenever we went over a big bump added to the fun. By comparison, driving along the beach was easy and much faster, although we did get stuck in some deeper dry sand a couple of times and had to enlist some passers by to help get us out. The first day was really beautiful and we saw a lot of the island and had a couple of good swims in lakes (you can't swim in the sea as it is teeming with tiger sharks.) However, after dinner we felt a few drops of rain which quickly turned into a torrential downpour. Everyone headed for the nearest shelter, and the storm quickly got worse with lightning bolts and thunder every few seconds.

The next morning we woke to blue skies. The atmosphere in the group was a little sour as lots of people's tents had collapsed and/or flooded in the night so they had spent a sleepless night trying to sleep in the truck. Matters weren't helped by the discovery that during the night, Team America had fed the rest of the group's meat rations to some dingoes that had been hanging around, so there was nothing for lunch. Miraculously our tent had survived the storm, despite us not having any tent pegs, although we must have blown about a bit as in the morning Graeme woke up lying on his shoes, which had somehow found their way underneath the tent.

Later that day we arrived back in Hervey Bay, had our first night's sleep in a bed for a fortnight, then took the coastal route down towards Brisbane, real life and jobs.

Beware of the Gingas!

When we arrived in Darwin we were very happy to discover that the temperature was over 30 degrees, a nice change from New Zealand. The only problem was that Darwin's nightlife is Australia's answer to Ibiza, full of club 18-30 types vomiting in the gutter. The one exception to this was our favourite Country & Western bar which lured us in by playing 'Achy Breaky Heart' and kept us entertained with their Guns n Roses pinball machine.


Despite the charms of the Country & Western bar, we didn't hang around in Darwin and instead spent our time in the nearby National Parks. On Debbie's 30th birthday she went back to her roots by visiting Litchfield National Park (OK so they spelt it wrong but full marks for effort). There we swam in some waterfalls, and went on a 'jumping croc cruise' where we saw saltwater crocs propel themselves out of the water using only their tails. You can't really swim anywhere in the Northern Territory because of the danger of becoming their lunch. They are so mean that mother crocs will even eat their own babies. We heard a story about a German woman who was recently eaten by one of them when she went swimming in a billabong with a group of friends while they were all drunk. Apparently one of the group felt something brush past their leg, then looked around and she was gone. The others quickly got out of the water and shone a torch back where they were swimming and saw a sea of eyes. The crocs had all been sitting there waiting for their chance. Debbie had nightmares for the next few nights and refused to go within a hundred metres of the water.

On returning to Darwin, we hired a battered old Nissan and drove ourselves to Kakadu National Park. We borrowed a tent and spent our nights camping in the bush, sleeping with the tent windows open so that we could see the stars. On our first night, we both woke up in the middle of the night, because the moon was shining right into our tent. Debbie needed to go to the loo, and bumped into a wallaby on her way back to the tent.


The next day we headed to Ubirr and saw Aboriginal rock paintings which are up to twenty thousand years old, although some were painted as recently as the 1960's. We camped out again but the experience was marred by the army of mozzies that descended on us, and we ended up eating dinner inside the car.


The following day we took a walk along a river bank and saw three big fat salties sunning themselves on the opposite bank, and trees full of flying foxes. Then we went on a cruise of the Yellow Water River which was stunning. Our aboriginal guide told us lots of fascinating facts about the local wildlife, for example, the aboriginal name for a saltwater crocodile is a Ginga. He also told us about the local Firestarter bird, which catches most of its food by hanging out around near forest fires and eating the insects and small animals that are driven out by the fire. When all the animals have been eaten it picks up a burning branch and carries it over to another section of forest where it will deliberately start a new fire to get more food. We also saw a mother bird feeding its baby chicks in their nest.


On Graeme's birthday we flew to Alice Springs and the following day we left on a three-day tour to Ayer's Rock/Uluru. Despite the temperature being over 30 degrees in the day, the temperature in the desert falls below freezing at night, but we were kept nice and warm by our swags (canvas sleeping bags with mattresses built into the base), and the fact that we all slept in a circle around a big bonfire. We could see thousands of stars as we went to sleep, and saw loads of shooting stars too. Thankfully no creepy crawlies got into our sleeping bags in the night, but our poor tour guide was woken up in the middle of the night by a kangaroo doing a dump right next to his head, and then he had to get up and move his swag as the smell was keeping him awake. After seeing the sun rise and set over Uluru, and doing the obligatory base walk in the baking 32 degree heat, we headed to the airport and caught our flight to Cairns.

Greetings from Brighton beach (NZ)

We had only planned to stay for one night in Queenstown, but overnight a blizzard covered the ground with a thick blanket of snow which even forced the ski slopes to close for the day. The snow also blocked all of the roads out of town so we were stuck with nothing to do except to sit in pubs drinking bad Guinness (and it wasn't just us; according to a newspaper article, 62% of people asked were 'very disappointed' by NZ Guinness).

When the roads were finally cleared we headed across the country to the east coast, which has some of NZ's rarest wildlife. Our first stop was the Otago Peninsula, home to one of the few albatross colonies outside of Antartica. Here we saw great fat (8kg!) albatross chicks, who grow to twice the size of their parents before they learn to fly. They sat stupidly on their nests, exposed to the freezing cold wind and looking just like oversized fluffy slippers. Afterwards we walked down to a small beach where we watched the resident Blue Penguins (the smallest penguins in the world) come out of the sea and onto land for the night.

The following day we stopped at a place called Moeraki (just down the road from Shag Point!) which has some perfectly spherical boulders scattered along the beach. They were just big rocks really, but made for some nice photos.

Further north we saw some Yellow-eyed Penguins which live in a colony near the town of Oamaru. They emerge from the sea in the late afternoon, but it takes them several tries before they make it ashore as every time they nearly get there they are swept back to sea by a big wave. Once they get onto the beach they then have to climb up a steep cliff-face to their nests, no easy task on tiny penguin legs. The first penguin to make it up there was a bit of a bully who then blocked the others' paths and attacked them when they tried to pass, tilting his head back and emitting a piercing scream from deep in his throat.

We took a slight detour en route to Christchurch to visit Brighton. Just like the British one it is a cute little seaside town, although the New Zealand version has a population of about 100 and their beach is sandy, and apparently their Pride parade isn't much to write home about.
After a day's shopping in Christchurch we headed north to a town called Kaikoura where we went out on a boat trip and saw four sperm whales. They were massive creatures, at least the size of our boat, and each one hung around for a few minutes blowing water out of its blowhole, before flicking its tail into the air and diving back to the bottom of the sea. We also saw some fur seals who swam past on their sides waving at us with their flippers, and a couple of adult albatrosses, no doubt out looking for more fish to feed to their fat chicks.

Our last stop in New Zealand was a spa town called Hanmer Springs where we spent two days soaking the cold out of our bones in preparation for the tropical heat of Darwin, in northern Australia, where we fly tomorrow.