Becky & Becca in Australia: Hervey Bay & Fraser Island: The Land for Lots of Sleep

Our final blog post about our mid-semester break! It was a long break so it has lots of blog posts!

We awoke from our first night feeling very rested and to a tropical oasis! We looked out the window and were surrounded by green everywhere. We decided to explore the small town on the search for a grocery store so we could continue being economical travelers. We found a small grocery store and did our best to find foods that wouldn't be too much of a challenge for us to cook. We ended up getting spaghetti fixings, cereal, sandwich stuff, snacks, and what we thought were hot dogs. We decided to cook the "hot dogs" for lunch. Becky had the privilege of removing the film layer that wrapped the individual "hot dogs". We realized that these meat substances would not do well if we boiled them, so we busted out a skillet and did our best to work with the questionable meat. Because we are ninjas, we camouflaged the meat with bread and cheese so that our stomachs wouldn't be so mad at us.

After our delicious lunch, we decided to take a walk to the botanic gardens, which according to Becca's calculations weren't that far. They were farther than expected but only about a 45 minute walk. On the way there, we passed by a Woolworth's which we had to of course go into. We ended up getting some fruit because we didn't up getting any earlier that day due to the large amount of bugs and bruising on the fruit. Wooly's did have some delicious looking apples, pears, and bananas for us.

We then made our way to the Botanic Gardens which were very...green. There wasn't a lot of flowers, but more like a mini Ireland with green everywhere. Even the water was green! We decided to go ahead and begin our journey back before the rain came but unfortunately, we were too late. It began to sprinkle during the first few minutes of our walk back, and would go through waves of rain and pouring the whole walk back. Luckily, we had our rain coats which kept us quite dry. We got back to the hostel and decided to treat our stomachs to an actually good meal.

We decided that spaghetti would be perfect for dinner and waited what seemed like hours for the water to boil. The meal turned out delicious and we enjoyed every bite of it. After dinner, we went back to our room to make good use of the TV. We got to watch So You Think You Can Dance before passing out at 9 something.

We woke up bright and early ready for a long day at the beach! We packed some snacks and some sun screen and walked to the beach which was beautiful and remote. It was the perfect beach for Becca because there were no waves, the water was shallow and clear so she could see everything in it and didn't have to worry about drowning! We literally had the beach to ourselves the whole day until the creeper came along.

Suddenly, a 30-something year old man decided to come talk to us and we tried to be as short as possible so he would get the hint to go back to his friends. We were relieved when he left until he came back for a beer for Becca (Becky had already made it very obvious that she thinks it tastes like pee). He said, "Well if you won't come have a beer with me then I'll come have a beer with you!". Lovely. Becky immediately began packing up our things while Becca downed the beer as quickly as she could. We left bummed and decided to get ice creams to make up for the bad ending of the beach day. Becky's however, was horrible, so we ended up having to have Tim Tam slams to make up for that (rough, we know)!

We relaxed for a bit and then some of the guys who live at the hostel and work around the garden taught us how to play a new card game. Once we dominated the game, we decided it was time to start on dinner. Our (Well, Becky's, because she is the grilled cheese queen) cooking was going well until all of a sudden we heard something above our heads and screamed realizing it was a possum climbing up the side of the wall INSIDE the kitchen. The two other people in the room were equally amused. We ate our dinner watching the possum work his way around the beams of the ceiling until all of a sudden as he left through a hole, we heard a large crash. We didn't hear much more from the possum the rest of the night. We did however, make a dutch friend who sat down and had dinner with us. We were very entertained by his love of chick flicks despite his big muscles, and his impression of a crab that was trying to attack him at the beach.

He decided to take advantage of our DVD player with us, and we all watched Alfie together. It is always funny to watch movies with people from other countries. He liked to point out everything that Alfie was doing wrong, and if you haven't seen the movie, there is A LOT that Alfie does wrong. After the movie, it was once again an early night with fingers crossed for another beautiful beach day. This time, without a creeper.

We got lucky with the weather and rushed to the beach to enjoy the day. The forecast had been rain and to our surprise and enjoyment, there was none. We spent hours on the beach before going back to kick back with some Bananagrams before going to see the sunset. We walked to the pier for sunset but unfortunately, got cloud coverage and sprinkles instead. We started walking back to the hostel but got caught in a monsoon. Out of nowhere, it started to literally pour down rain and we had to run as fast as could back to the hostel. When we got back we were dripping wet and Becca's feet got stained by her brown leather shoes as a memory.

We had our reliable mac n cheese for dinner after drying off. We knew we had an early morning the next day, so we showered and laid in bed watching Billy Elliott before crashing at once again, 9-something.

The next day was a long but good one for sure. We had booked a day trip to Fraser Island, the worlds biggest sand island. We got picked up for our tour at 6 am and taken to a drop off where we would catch a ferry to the island. It looked like it was going to be a day filled with rain and that combined with how early it was made us quiet. However, once we got on the ferry, we saw a full rainbow which really woke us up. Neither of us had ever seen a full rainbow and both sides ended in the ocean. It was breathtaking.

We got to Fraser Island and got united with our group and on our way! Since the whole island consists of sand, it is necessary for all the vehicles to be 4 wheel drive. We got on a 4 wheel drive bus and were on our way on a road called the roller coaster to Lake McKenzie. Lake McKenzie was absolutely beautiful even with the sprinkles of rain. The water was beautiful colors and the water is so clean and fresh that they say you come out of it feeling like you have bathed.

From there, we headed to Central Station where we would have a hike in the rainforest. The tour guide told us she would meet us with the bus on the other side of the hike and warned us about how 4 out of the 5 deadliest snakes in Australia are in this rain forest. Perfect! She then proceeded to say that the 3rd person in line would most likely to be bit since the first person wakes the snake up, the second it hisses at and the third gets bit. Becky was third in line, but once again, being a ninja, hiked on. Our hike included seeing a fresh water creek, lots of green, and a 900 year old tree!

After our hike, we were on our way to Kingfisher Bay Resort where we would have a buffet lunch. Being the people we are, we enjoyed two plates of food before getting back on the bus to go drive on the 75 mile beach. This beach is known as a highway to the people of Fraser Island which we thought was so cool. While the beach was beautiful, it also consisted of huge waves, and lots of sharks. We drove along the coast and got to see plenty of dingos! We ended up seeing 9 total, and our tour guides record had been 5!!

We drove up to an area called the Pinnacles which included the Coloured Sands. We took some pictures with the cliffs that had tons of different colors sands in it before going to our favorite sight of the day, the Maheno Shipwreck! We got to the real ship wreck and were in awe. After being a legendary cruise boat, it was sold to the Japanese who removed the propellors from it before towing it back with them. Unfortunately, it got detached and without propellors, there was no way they could control it. It landed on the coast and has been there ever since. After taking lots of pictures, we headed to our last stop of the day which was the fresh waters of Eli Creek. Eli Creek is a creek that you can float down and will take you to meet the Pacific Ocean. While we didn't want to get soaking wet in the freezing water before our journey back, we did take the opportunity to take lots of cute pictures of a dingo who hung out around us!

Our bus ended up breaking down, but not to worry! Plenty of guys from our tour group stood around the mechanic under the bus as male supervision :). They ended up bringing another bus to us and when we finally got back to where I ferry left, we were very worn out from a busy day! Once again, the public transportation ferry didn't let us down and we got to sit outside and the clouds cleared and we got to see a beautiful sunset. Just when we didn't think things could get better, dolphins started jumping out of the water. A perfect ferry ride! The bus ride back to our hostel was long, and when we got there we were exhausted and ready for dinner and bed. However, lots of other people were ready for dinner too and we had a while to wait before we would be getting into the kitchen. We finally got to cook and used up the rest of our groceries by making buttered noodles and grilled cheese. It may not be healthy, but no food went to waste! As you would guess it, we showered and went to bed early.

Sunday was a very low key day. We got all packed up, checked out of the hostel, and just hung out in the hammocks reading until it was time to get a taxi to the airport. We laughed at how small the airport was. The owner of the hostel had said that the airport closes down between flights! Surprisingly, it wasn't the smallest airport we had been to during our traveling in the past few months. We got on the flight and were both happy to be heading back to our home in Sydney after two weeks of traveling!

DLC even had our favorite dessert for dinner that night!! Ice cream sundaes!! WOOO!!!