Life's A Beach

10/02/2012

History lesson for you folks… Most people believe that Australia was discovered by an Englishman, however they are wrong as the first person to set foot here [aside from the aboriginals] was a Dutchman. Unluckily for him, the ship landed on the west coast where most of the deserts and wastelands are so he came to the assumption after a brief exploration that the land was uninhabitable and left. Following this, Captain Cook took to the waters to explore the island himself and instead of travelling to the west; he took a slightly longer journey to the east coast [a place now called Agnes Waters to be exact] where the island flourished.

It was at this very location where Scott and I made our next stop. The area is a sleepy beach town, similar to a few of the others [aka; beautiful but dull in terms of things to do] and aside from its official name, it is more commonly known as ‘1770’, the date Captain Cook arrived here.

One of the most popular things to do here is a tour called ‘Scooteroo’. Basically it’s a tour of the area [beach, forests etc] on little, fake Harley Davidsons, which we had been told by many travellers “it’s awesome, you have to do it”. However we didn’t know about this when we booked our package and there was no time to fit it in, so we missed out on that one. The downside of having the trip ready-planned.

What we did do however, was some sea kayaking with Liquid Adventures which was just as fun [I'm guessing, as I obviously can’t compare]. We started off kayaking in the calm waters of the bay in hope to see a family of dolphins that live in the area, which apparently often come for a stroke and a swim. The instructor did warn us that they usually only appear once a day, and that he had already seen them in the morning, so his confidence levels of them making an appearance for us were slim. His concerns were unfortunately spot-on and no sightings were seen. Sad times.

The instructor was really good and kept us all upbeat and moving forward, so we made our way to the oceans shore. After our skit canoeing up the Everglades we were pretty much pros and made it there in no time, others struggled however.

I wasn’t really expecting to enjoy the activity as much as I did. We searched the seas for where the best waves were braking and made our way towards them, making sure we sped up to every approaching wave to give us some air as we flew over the top and crashed down again at the other side. We then had to judge which waves were going to break right behind us and which ones would provide the best push [just like surfing]. When we spotted one we had to quickly turn our kayak around 180 degrees [not as easy as it seems by the way] and peddle as fast as we could in the direction of the shore until the wave caught us, and pushed us on it’s break all the way to the beach. I won’t lie, it took us a while to get the timing right and we did find ourselves sideways onto a wave a few times, sending us into the waters below. But eventually we got it and there was a huge sense of accomplishment when we finally caught a few rides.

It was really tiring though, so after around 20 minutes we pulled us on a secluded beach and the instructor brought out some snacks and a glass of Goon for us all to consume while we watched the sunset over the waters beyond.

Later on that evening we just about had time to take a shower and dry off before boarding another trip on the Greyhound.

11/02/2012

11 Hours sat on a bus is a very long time! Luckily it was overnight so Scott and I managed to sit back and sleep through most of the journey. When we awoke in the early hours of the next morning we found ourselves in the picturesque town of Airlie Beach [which, until I saw the sign on the way in, always thought was ‘L.A Beach’ when I heard people talk about it… *facepalm*].  Surprisingly this isn’t really a beach town at all, but more of a mooring / docking area but equally as visually stunning regardless.

Later on that night we met up with a group of people from our Fraser trip [including the XXX Fraser slut Amy] and decided to have a bit of a night out. We started by going to a nearby bar called Down Under [three guesses why] where the drinks were cheap and the tunes were heavy; they also had quite a few games going throughout the night where bar-tab prises could be one. The first game was ‘toss the shot glass into the bucket’… we lost that one. The second was a male pole-dancing contest, Scott [reluctantly] entered and tried his best but also lost [total fix though, the guy that won just came with lots of very load mates].

The third was the female pole dancing. Obviously XXX-Amy begged to get up there to show her assets, despite the tough competition from some American hoochie-mammas. When it was her turn I was wetting myself from start to finish. She did everything she could possibly do. It was hilarious to watch, and the crowd loved it too. Needless to say she won the $40 bar tab which paid for the drinks for the rest of the night. Pure class.

The night continued from there with lots of drinking and dancing. Awesome night.