Whistler Turkey Sale 2012

The Whistler Turkey Sale is coming up soon, and is one of my favourite sales in terms of selection and price for all sorts of snowboarding gear. This is a personal reminder to myself haha!

http://www.whistlerblackcomb.com/events-and-activities/events-calendar/events/2012/10/whistler-blackcomb-turkey-sale.aspx

Canwest Vancouver Snow Show

I'll pretty much go anywhere with the promise of free stuff or samples, so I'll definitely be heading over to the Canwest Vancouver Snow Show October 26-27th at the Forum @ the PNE. Seems like a smaller venue than the other years I've gone... but it's always a fun event, checking out all the ski resort's booths to get info and potential free stuff. They also have a ski and snowboard swap, so if you're looking to sell your old board or get a cheap deal on someone else's old board... this is the place!

For more info, check out http://www.canwestproductions.com/Snow---Vancouver

Winter is Coming: Snowboard Movie Premieres Vancouver

 

It's always around this time in the year when all the snowboard/ski movie premieres head to Vancouver to get us super stoked on the upcoming season. I'm just noticing that I've already missed a shitload of them which sucks... but here are a few I've heard of recently that are coming our way in the future:

 

 

*Found on Mt.Seymour's e-mail newsletter http://www.mountseymour.com/home

STEPCHILD SNOWBOARDS PRESENTS THE VANCOUVER VIDEOGRASS PREMIER FOR
"THE DARK SIDE" & "ENLIGHTEN"Stepchild is excited to announce they will hosting Vancouver's premier for "The Dark Side" & "Enlighten" Tuesday September 25th at 9pm at the RIO THEATER (1660 East Broadway).

Tickets can be purchased in advanced at the following locations:

• The Boardroom: 604-734-7669
• Stiffys Boardshop: 604-941-0422
• Coastal Riders: 604-888-5380

"The Dark Side" follows 2011's "Shoot the Moon" and is an early season teaser featuring stylish moves from some of your favorite snowboarders; Ben Bilocq, Chris Grenier, Danimals, Darrell Mathes, Gus Engle, Harrison Gordon, Jake O.E., Joe Sexton, Johnny Miller, Jon Kooley, Jonas Michilot, Jordan Mendenhall, Laurent-Nicholas Paquin, Nick Dirks.

For a preview, check out https://vimeo.com/36181287

"Enlighten" comes from the same crew that brought you Videograss "Retrospect" in 2011. A snowboard video for snowboarders! The video features snowboards Frank April, Matt Belzile, Alex Cantin, Dustin Craven, Bryan Fox, Will Jackways, Phil Jacques, Jake Kuzyk, Danny Larsen, Bode Merrill, Eero Niemela, Benji Ritchie.

For a preview, check out https://vimeo.com/37744008 

 

 

Awesome list from http://www.shredbc.com/news-events/vancouver-ski--snowboard-movie-premieres/ :

 

RE:SESSION by Teton Gravity Research
October 15 (Thursday)
@ Library Square

ELEKTRO by Alterna Films
October 22 (Thursday)
@ Library Square

OUTDOOR GRADUATION by Voleurz
October 24 (Saturday)
@ Studio 538

EVERY DAY IS A SATURDAY by Poorboyz
November 7 (Saturday)
@ Granville 7 Cinemas

DYNASTY by Warren Miller Entertainment
November 14 & 15 (Saturday, Sunday)
@ Queen Elizabeth Theatre

 

 

If You're Up In Whistler check out this site for a bunch of premieres coming up:

 

http://www.modernaccommodations.com/a-guide-to-whistler-ski-snowboard-premieres/

Best Ever Carrot Cake Recipe!

So my new favourite thing is Pinterest. It's so easy to spend a good hour (or two) browsing through all the pictures people post and repin on their boards. I typically find myself looking through the Food & Drink one though, which is where I found this recipe for Carrot Cake.

Most of the posts in the Food & Drink categories are for chocolate desserts, but it was nice to see that the Carrot Cake made it into the top category. I love carrot cake! And this recipe honestly makes the best carrot cake in the entire world...

Best Carrot Cake! from Jamhands.net

Makes one three layer cake or around 30 cupcakes


Cake
2 cups All purpose flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
2 tsp Baking Soda
2 tsp Cinnamon
1/8 tsp Nutmeg
1/8 tsp Cloves
1 cup Walnuts
1 cup Olive Oil (I just used regular Canola Oil and it was fine)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
4 eggs
3 tbsp dark molasses
2 tbsp maple syrup
One 16oz can of Crushed Pineapple, drained
3 heaping cups shredded carrot

Frosting
Two 8oz packages Cream Cheese, softened
1/2 cup butter, softened
2 cups confectioners sugar
1 tsp vanilla (I used caramel flavouring... yum)

For the cake:

1. Preheat over to 350-f degrees. In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and walnuts and mix very well.

2. In another large bowl, combine the olive oil, sugar, butter, brown sugar, eggs, molasses, maple syrup, pineapple and carrots and mix well. Add them to the dry mixture. Mix very well.

3. Generously butter three 9-inch cake pans and dust with flour. Divide the cake batter evenly into the cake pans

4. Bake for 20-25 minutes (I had to bake for 30! But double check at 20 mins)

5. Insert a toothpick into the cakes to make sure they are done. The toothpick should come out clean. Cool in pans for 10 minutes. Remove and cool completely.

To make the frosting:

1. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

2. Use the frosting to fill and frost the cooked layers.

Back to Vancouver

So after our South Island trip and Christmas at the bach, we went down to Raglan for New Years with six other friends. We stayed at the newly opened Raglan Farmstay, and pretty much took over the place haha. It had an awesome view and a hot tub... the only thing missing was nice weather!! It poured all weekend but still found lots of games and cards to play.

Back in Glenfield, Auckland now counting down the days til we fly back to Vancouver! We have a pretty hectic flight... Auckland--->Sydney--->San Francisco--->Vancouver. 26 hours! They better have free movies and snacks.

Anyways, see you guys soon and I'll do a list of my top ten picks from my trip eventually!

South Island Trip II

After going to the Livingstone Christmas Party (Glen’s dad’s side of the family) we flew out a few days later to Nelson at the top of the South Island for a quick trip before Christmas. When we got there the weather was terrible… rainy and miserable. Not cool for the “sunniest place in NZ”. We took a bus to Motueka, about an hour from Nelson, where the Abel Tasman National Park begins. We had been planning on doing the Abel Tasman 3 day kayak trip but the weather was terrible and turning worse by the hour. We decided instead to just do a day tour with a guide, who took us out in a water taxi, dropped us off then allowed us to kayak for 5 or so hours until the water taxi picked us up again and took us back. We went with a company called Kahu Kayaks, and they were really good. They made us lunch and had a lot of snacks and even made us cappuccinos in a tiny sea cave haha. Glen and I were in a double kayak and had two guides, pretty much a private personalized tour since it was just us on the trip. Saw lots of seals and got to go into a bunch of little harbors. It was rainy for most of the time but you couldn’t really notice. Would have been better if the sun was out for us but the day was still lots of fun.

Shag Harbour in Abel Tasman Ntnl Park

From Motueka, we caught the bus back to Nelson, picked up our rental car and began driving down the West Coast. We drove through Westport, Greymouth, Hokitika and camped out in our car for a couple nights til we got to Franz Josef. We stayed in a hostel called the “Chateau Franz” in a trailer they called the Love Shack (it was the cheapest double room… don’t worry, it was clean haha) and it had red velvet ceiling and everything was decorated in red… it was sweet haha. The weather was still quite dismal, but understandably Franz Josef is the rainiest place in NZ, getting over 9m of rainfall a year. We drove up to the parking lot of the glacier and took a 45-minute walk until we reached within 100m of the glacier. There were quite a few people there, and the rain had stayed away right until we got up close to the glacier then it started to pour. Pretty massive though, there were markers so you could see where the glacier had been many years ago and how much it has retreated today.

"Love Shack" hahaha

Franz Josef

From Franz Josef, we continued on to the next glacier down the road, Fox Glacier. The weather had gotten worse and you couldn’t walk close to the glacier since the river had overflowed. We didn’t stay too long, snapped some pictures then drove further south towards Wanaka. Once we got there, we hung around town for a while (I love Wanaka), made dinner at one of the hostels then headed towards Rob Roy Glacier, about an hours drive on mostly a gravel road. We slept in the parking lot there overnight so that we could get up and go on our hike early so that we could get back to Queenstown and down to Milford Sounds in time for our cruise the next day. We did the Rob Roy Glacier hike, which took about an hour and a half and it was so nice! I thought it was a much prettier glacier than Franz Josef and Fox, but then again when we did this hike it was the first beautiful day we had since we arrived in the South Island. There were lots of waterfalls and a good lookout spot where we joined a bunch of other people who also did the hike. A kea turned up when everyone started eating their lunches hoping for some scraps. There and back, the hike took us about 3 hours, but it was such a good one. It’s so nice being able to go on a hike without worrying about any dangerous animals… After the hike, we booked it past all the sheepies and cows and began our big drive towards Milford Sound (about 7 hours away). We stopped in Te Anau, the last biggish town before Milford Sound. Had such a yummy dinner there at an Italian restaurant… it was sooo good we were sad it was only open for dinner. The drive from Te Anau to Milford sound was around 3 hours so we wanted to get most of that done that night since the next morning at 9:15am we were going on a cruise down there. Parked at a campground on the way to the Sounds to sleep for the night (this saved us quite a bit of money, but it was a bit uncomfortable).

Kea waiting for scraps

Rob Roy Glacier

Went on our Milford Sounds cruise that morning, I got the tickets off a site called BookMe and paid only $30 per ticket, compared to the regular price of $65. It was an hour and a half long and took us down the Sound to where it meets the ocean. It was such a beautiful day, which is rare apparently since they get 200 something days of rain a year, so we were really lucky. Saw a bunch of seals but no dolphins unfortunately… they’re rarely in the Sounds (damn ads). After our cruise that was quite quick compared to the hours of driving it took to get there (but it was so worth it), we drove on back to Queenstown where we stayed for the night at Bumbles Backpackers. We exchanged our rental car the next day for a campervan relocation… it was so sweet! It was giant and was four berth, and had a kitchen, bathroom/shower and big dining area! We got it for cheap since we were relocating it from Queenstown to Christchurch, but were allowed three days to get there so our first stop was Dunedin on the east coast.

Milford Sound Cruise

Got to the college town of Dunedin, and had a pretty hard time navigating around in our giant camper, so we just stopped there to go to the information center and to the library then headed out towards the peninsula where all the little penguins are! We drove out to a spot called Seal Point, and waited until dusk when the penguins emerge from the sea and make their way up the sand dunes to their nesting spots. We got down there and spotted two yellow-eyed penguins right away, climbing up the dunes with their little legs. Spotted another one up on the top of a dune hill and one on the rocks. Lots of seals there too. From here, we drove North of Dunedin and camped next to the ocean in a park, luckily no one noticed.

Hot Brekkie while camping... aw yea

Moereki Boulders

From here, we kept driving north and stopped to look at the Moereki Boulders along the way. They’re weird limestone rocks that are perfectly round and have shiny hard volcanic stuff in the middle… I’ll have to look up what they are again. Got on the road again and drove to Lake Tekapo. The water is soo blue there and we spent most of the day there just to take a break from driving so much. Continued driving since we had to have the campervan back in Christchurch the next day. Camped overnight in a rest area and the next morning drove through all the ski towns in that area and finally arrived in Christchurch.

Lake Tekapo

Had to return our awesome campervan and exchange it for another one… our other one was a Maui (super awesome) and this new one was a Britz (still pretty good). This one was also a relocate so we got it for super cheap. Didn’t stay in Christchurch for too long… just went to the supermarket. Did drive past where all the buildings had been destroyed in the earthquake earlier in the year… it is totally blocked off with fencing and all the buildings are crumbled. Continued driving towards our next destination, Hanmer Springs where we went to the thermal springs for a soak… it costs $18 to get in but it’s really nice. There are about ten pools at different temperatures along with a lazy river and some water slides. It was a really nice night… nice and relaxing. Though we had to hit the road again that night to have enough time to make it to the Interislander ferry that we were catching the next day to get back to the North Island.

Kaikoura Penninsula

We drove throughout the night and camped in Kaikoura, and explored a bit of it the next morning. We did the peninsula walk that took over an hour along the beach and on the cliffs above… it was quite nice, and the weather was good. We lucked out with the weather the whole time except for those first few days in Nelson/Franz Josef. From Kaikoura, we kept driving up and stopped in Blenheim to do some Malborough wine tasting. We went to four wineries: Lawson’s Dry Hills, Wither Hills, Cloudy Bay and Saint Claire. I’m pretty sure we bought wine at all of the wineries except for Cloudy Bay because they export their wine to Canada so we can just get a bottle there. They were all really nice and didn’t charge much of a fee for a tasting, and most of them were free. After our wine tour, we had to keep driving north to Picton so that we could catch our ferry back to the North Island. The ferry took three hours to get over to the other side, so we left at about 6:45pm and didn’t get over til 11:30ish. We had to be back in Auckland the next day before 3pm for a Christmas party so Glen drove throughout the night while I sort of slept in the back, and we ended up parking around 4am at Lake Taupo to sleep. It took us 8 hours from bottom of the North Island to the top, big drive but such a good trip! Were able to do so much in less than two weeks.

Just finished celebrating Christmas at the bach at Grahams Beach with Glen’s mum, brother and sister. Glen’s mum’s cousin Judy and Dave live two doors down so we all had a big Christmas dinner with them and their daughter-in-law and her kids… had a big chicken, lamb and pork with all the fixings and “pudding” (dessert). Very yummy and had lots of leftovers for lunch the next day. Glen and I stayed down a few days longer and now we are heading down to Raglan for New Years with some of his friends!

Tongariro Crossing

After driving down towards Whakapapa and sleeping in the car overnight, we woke up early to get hiking the Tongariro Crossing. The T.C. is one of New Zealand’s “Great Walks” and I think is the shortest… 19.6 km (about 6-8 hours to complete). I’d never done a hike that long before, but was looking forward to some exercise (free too ;) ). It seemed like a pretty popular hike since there were busloads of people getting dropped off by the half hour, and you were never far from someone else on the trail. Quite comforting, though sometimes tricky to get a photo without someone in it.

"Mt. Doom"

The hike was totally worth it, and ended up taking us only 6 hours to complete (that’s including stops for lunch/photo stops). The scenery is really different from what I’m used to… you’re hiking up volcanoes and rocky terrain, vibrant blue lakes, craters, and even steam being released from the earth (not sure of the scientific term for that but… it was sweet). Parts of the Lord of the Rings movies were filmed here, Mt. Ng…. was the fill in for “Mount Doom” where the ring gets dropped in… I overheard that part from someone else, it’s been a while since I’ve tried watching those movies. 

Stteeaammm

We started the hike at 8:25am, finished at 2:30pm… then drove 4 hours back home. Such a looong day and we could barely walk after haha so tired! Passed out pretty early that night… Things aren’t feeling overly Christmasy around here. It’s just not fair when there’s so many treats around that you have to eat then you’re expected to sit on the beach in a bikini rather than cover up in a layers of clothes like back home! The malls are jam packed and crazy Christmasy though, I think I’ve got everything finished though thankfully! In a couple days were heading to the South Island for a little less than two weeks, were flying down then driving back in a rental car relocate (free! Except gas) so I’ll keep ya posted!

Snoowwz

Bay of Islands/Northland

After getting back from Australia and relaxing for a day at the house, we headed out again this time for the Bay of Islands and the upper part of the North Island. We stayed at the farm for a night then began our drive up in the morning… not too long a drive (only a couple hours) and we had to fit in a stop at Puhoi Cheese for some coffee, ice cream and… cheese. 

Ballin

We got into Paihia (the gateway to the Bay of Islands) and got ready to board the Ipipiri, an overnight cruise that takes you out around the Bay of Islands and drops you off the following morning. We were amazed when we saw the boat… it was huge!! Like a mini cruise ship with your own ocean view room and your own bathroom… it was so flash. We bought our tickets from Groupon a couple of months before, which saved us a couple hundred bucks. Definitely not a backpacker/budget boat, and had a totally different crowd than what were used to when doing tours (older couples).

Look! Dolphins jumping!

 

View of the Bay of Islands... too bad about the clouds

The first day, we cruised out to an island and got to decide whether we wanted to go on a hike, go kayaking or go snorkeling… or all three. We did the hike and it had a good lookout to the beach and the other side of the island and lurked out onto a resort called “Eagles Nest” which apparently costs $8000 a night to stay there… hmm… went kayaking next and got lucky since a baby whale decided to pop up next to us/underneath our kayaks a bunch of times… kinda scary! But really cool… he seemed lost though and was all alone so that was a bit sad. Decided not to go snorkeling since the water was quite chilly and the weather wasn’t too nice to visibility was meh. Time to get back on the boat…

Our place in Paihia

Cruised along further and caught up with a big pod of bottle-nosed dolphins. They were jumping around and were everywhere you looked! When we left that spot they followed the boat, surfing on the waves… cuuutteeee. They had a bar on board and brought out snacks… it was all very luxurious though I think we were the youngest people on board, but it was relaxing. One of the best parts was the food! Big buffet dinner and dessert… so good… same with breakfast the next morning… ooh yeah. I was really sad to leave that boat and wish I could’ve stayed a couple more nights hahah.

Mangrove Boardwalk on the way to Haruru Falls

...Haruru Falls

We stayed in Paihia a couple more nights at a hotel we also got off Groupon, and did a couple more hikes on those days. We hiked up to Haruru Falls (1 ½ hours… really nice), hitchhiked back and drove out to some wineries in KeriKeri (15 min drive away). We went to Pukeko Vineyards, Fat Pig and Marsden… I bought wine at all three wineries… all the people were really nice and non-pretentious and they all had dogs. We also stopped at the chocolate shop in KeriKeri called Makana… they gave out lots of samples that were soo good we had to buy some… the butter toffee macadamia chocolate things were so amazing! But expensive… $25 for three slabs but ohh it was just so good… 

Winery Doggies

See when it clears up... nice blue water!

The next day we did a huge hike from PaihiaàOpuaàferryàthen all the way to Russell, a place once known as the “hellhole of the Pacific”, it was one of the earliest towns in New Zealand and had NZ’s oldest pub “The Duke of Marlborough”… so we had to go there of course. The entire walk took about 4-5 hours and we were pretty tired and surprisingly sunburnt after (even though it was cloudy… gahhh) so we had some beer and cider at the pub and took the other ferry back into Paihia right before it started to downpour! Went to the local RSA club for dinner and ate with the old peeps… but it was so yum.

Walk to Russell, not knowing that my arms/neck would be super sunburnt later

NZ's oldest pub, The Duke of Marlborough

We drove out the next morning for Kerikeri again to hit up to Farmers Market, but it was downpouring so we didn’t last too long. We drove and drove and got all the way to the very top of New Zealand at Cape Reinga. It had rained so much that a creek overflowed onto the road that stopped a bunch of cars but we drove on through… was a bit sketchy but in the end it was alright. The weather was still crap when we got up there… really foggy and rainy (and you can see in the pic) but started to clear up when we were leaving, so we managed to get a few good shots in. Glen did a huge drive from Cape Reinga back down to the farm, it took about four hours or so but it was good to be back there and not have to camp out somewhere.

Cape Reinga - Vancouver 11,000 kms away!

Road floodage

We’ve just been hanging out at Glen’s mum’s house the last couple of days, and now were just about to head down to do the Tongariro Crossing and are planning a trip to the South Island for next week, so I’ll keep you posted!

Cairns + Sydney + Bye Australia!!

For our last leg of the trip, we drove from Airlie Beach up to Cairns. We took a break in Townsville at the library for a bit, then had to pass out in a rest area for the night before actually making it up there. When we did get to Cairns, it was so hot and tropical so we headed up a little further into the Daintree forest for some shade. We ended up going to the Mossman Gorge and going for a short hike in the rainforest and a dip in one of the creeks (no crocs woohoo!). They definitely don't call it the "wet tropics" for nothing... there was always a shower seeping though, nice and refreshing when it was super hot out. The city itself is really cute, lots of nice shops and markets. We ended up driving up a bit further and sleeping in a rest stop right next to the beach... soo hot and hard to sleep whew!

Got up early the next morning because Glen was going on a scuba diving day trip that day. I ended up going to the outlets and to the mall haha... but the scuba diving trip sounded amazing and I wish I went but I backed out:( I'm lame. He saw nemos and sharks and got to pet a giant fish... he said it was the highlight of his Australia trip. So! If you come to Australia... Cairns is the place to go diving. I'll let you know which company he went with. I met him at the lagoon (another public swimming pool down by the beach... so nice!) and we went for dinner at The Green Ant Cantina for some Mexican food... it was yum but a bit pricey, but they have 2-for-1 days during the week so those are deffs the days to go. We had to return our rental car so we didn't have a place to stay that night and didn't want to get a hostel/hotel since our flight was leaving at 6:30am to go back down to Sydney sooo we slept at the airport. It was actually pretty nice, the arrivals area had a shower and there were some other people sleeping there too, but I probably only slept a couple of hours then hopped on the plane!

Met up with Stew and his girlfriend Hayley at the airport in Sydney and went to the "Rock n Roll" Markets at a local lawn bowling club. Lots of cool accessories and clothes, and of course cheap beer haha! They had a band too and food... it was awesome. Hope Vancouver gets into the market thing... I love them!!! Later that night, we went to Stew's friend Arif's place for a legit Aussie Barbie (finally!) and we ate kangaroo! It was so delicious I was surprised! Mmmmm... stayed over at Stew's apartment in the city where I am now... our flight leaves at 6pm for New Zealand. I'm so sad to leave Australia! It's been so awesome and lots of beautiful weather. Hard to believe a month has passed... we've done so much since we've been here! But I'll be back for sure... here's a list of my favourite things while traveling from Melbourne all the way up to Cairns:

• The Blue Mountains (about 90 mins for Sydney). Awesome hiking and beautiful sights! Stop at the Jenolan Caves too but don't bother doing a tour... you see lots of cool stuff for free anyways.
• The City of Melbourne! Go to the Victoria Markets for lots of awesome food, and take the free tourist bus that goes all around the city... fo free! If you have a bike, cycle the Yarra River and trails. And go down Brunswick Street for awesome food like pizza at Bilbo's or vege burritos at The Vege Bar.

Whitsunday Islands

After our trip to Fraser Island, we had one and a half days to get up to Airlie Beach for our Whitsunday Sailing trip... about an 8 hour drive. We stopped at Noosa for the day since everyone had been talking about it and we didn't want to miss it. Sounds like it used to be a quaint surfy hippie town like Byron, but now it looks pretty expensive and a vacationing/retirement spot for the wealthy. Lots of nice bars, restaurants and designer shops. The beach looked really nice too. From here, we drove to Rockhampton to take a break from driving and try out some of Australia's best beef. It's a cool little town that is kind of like the Alberta of Australia... they have rodeos and cowboy bars and lots of cows. One place in town, The Great Western, has rodeo practice on Wednesdays and Fridays and a cheap food menu so that's a big tourist stop in town. Sadly, we were there on a Monday. If you have to use the computer while in Rockhampton, go to the library... one of the nicest I've ever seen! And the internet is fast hehe... We finally got our beef after waiting a while for the dinner menu to come up, and it was alright, I don't think we went to the right place though, we ended up at an Irish bar. Oh well.

We drove for a bit longer into the night until we almost ran out of gas and decided to sleep overnight at a gas station that was closed to wait til it opened in the morning so that we could actually make it to Airlie Beach. The next morning, we got a phone call from the sailing company saying that our boat had broken down and that we would be taking another boat... that left in 45 minutes. So, we had to race down to the dock and get everything packed while we were still driving, but we ended up making it there on time thankfully! Recognized some people from our Fraser Trip, there was about 23 people in total with 3 workers, and we set out on the Avatar... a catamaran instead of a sailboat.

The weather wasn't looking too good when we set sail, and indeed it started to downpour. It only lasted a little while (thankfully!) and we were able to make it to our first snorkelling spot without rain. Saw lots of different colored corals, lots of different fish and Glen spotted a turtle sitting down between the coral. On this trip, the food was made for us which was really nice... sailed for a bit longer then set anchor and drank more goon.

The next day we set sail for Whitehaven Beach, which was named "The World's Best Beach" and "Top Eco Friendly Beach". Our deck hand drove us in on a little tinny to a trailhead that you could walk up to a viewpoint or down to the beach. The viewpoint was amazing! The sand is so white and created these cool patterns against the bright blue water... really cool. When we got down to the beach, the water was so clear that you could see little sharks and the sand was so fine... unlike any sand I've ever seen/felt before. We spent a couple of hours here then set out for another snorkel... didn't see much this time. There was one more snorkel I didn't end up doing (but Glen did) and he said it was a bit better... but he didn't find any Nemos. Ended up putting down the anchor at the snorkel spot and had a relaxing evening playing cards with peeps and dying of fullness after eating a huge dinner.

The final morning, we set sail early in order to get back to the marina by 9:30am. Got onto the mainland and headed to the Lagoon... a public pool area where you can swim without stinger suits woohoo! Had a quick dip before getting on the road again to drive up to our final destination on our trip: Cairns.

** For our sailing trip, we went with the company Oz Sail. It was $290 + $60 fees for two nights and 2 days. If you go on a Whitsunday sailing trip, I suggest you bring:

• sea sickness pills hahaha... I didn't actually get sick but I felt like I was going to... it was really rocky in the beginning.
• your own snorkel/mask/flippers since the ones on board were pretty ghetto.

Fraser Island

Just got back from our trip over to Fraser Island and staying at a backpackers overnight in Hervey Bay. It was so beautiful! We stayed two nights and 2.5 days over there, and though it got off to a bumpy start, it was good times.

rainforest walk near central station

Woke up and met everyone at 6:30am but there was a group of guys who got their dorm broken into while they were sleeping and the robbers got off with passports, cameras, money, etc. The theif also came into the dorm Glen and I were staying in, and I was awake but just thought it was someone coming in late to sleep... he just stood in the doorway until one of my dormmates shifted in his sleep and the guy got out of there. Thank God because we were charging my laptop/ipod/cellphone right near the door oh jeez that would have been so bad.... So everyone was freaking out for a few hours. Luckily, the cops came and they found some of the stolen things stashed somewhere, but one guy still has nothing. After all that drama, we loaded into four 4 wheel drive trucks (there were 23 of us) and began the drive down to the ferry barge... well, almost. One of the trucks got into an accident (the gears weren't working) and a car hit it from behind. The truck was fine and so was everyone in it, but the other cars hood was totally smoooshed. So, we had to delay getting on the ferry for another hour and a half... so dramatic...

dingo!

 

Finally we got over to Fraser and dropped everything off at our camp. Fraser Island is one big world heritage site, and the largest sand island in the world. Driving on the island is really cool, well, I didn't drive but it was almost like driving in deep powder... you had to deflate your tires a little bit to get traction and it got pretty deep at some points. It was right by the beach, and a bunch of tents were set up before we got there. We then drove to a trailhead that led us down to Lake Wabby. Is is perched below a big sand dune, so you could run down the dune and into the lake... really nice. A bunch of cockatoos were hanging around the lake too... weird to see when you usually only see them at the zoo/exotic pets but here they're just like crows hanging out on the sides of highways and on telephone wires.

view from indian head

After Lake Wabby we drove back to our camp, cooked dinner and sat around chatting with everyone and drinking goon (cheap boxed wine). From the beach you could see sooo many stars it was awesome, but whenever you ventured out to go pee/go on a walk at night, you had to bring along a "dingo stick" aka a long branch to ward off dingoes in case they got too close...they really don't seem to bothered by humans and got pretty close but not aggressive or anything, we saw one outside out tent while we were sleeping... searching for scraps I guess! Saw quite a few on the trip...

champagne pools

The next day after sleeping horribly (the guy in our tent snored like a freight train... all night long) we all got up super early to drive up to Indian Head at the top of the island. It took about an hour and a half to get there, but the sights from up top were beautiful. You could look down and see sting rays, turtles and dolphins from the top of the hill... so cool.We then drove out to my favourite spot on the island... the champagne pools. They were right on the edge of the ocean and were made from the waves crashing against the rocks and forming these little swimming holes, they were really pretty. From here, we drove back down the beach, stopping at the colored sand formations and the shipwreck "The Mahano" and onto Eli Creek, which had a nice boardwalk and the water was surprisingly quite cold! After a long day (we left at 6:30am and got back just after 5pm), it was back to the campsite for dinner, goon, and swatting flies.

The final day, the group got packed up and we drove out to Lake McKenzie, a popular spot for tourists because of its white sand and clear blue waters. Unfortunately, it was cloudy for most of our time up here, but the sun did manage to come through so we could see the real life picture of what we saw on all the brochures. Back down the the barge we went and back to the mainland to the hostel for one more night. Tomorrow we head out for Airlie Beach, where we will be taking a sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands!

lake mckenzie

**The tour company we went with for our Fraser Island trip was Palace. We got it from Indie Travel in Byron Bay, but you can also get it from Wicked Travel down there too. The price was $299 per person, plus $60 for park fees, petrol, and insurance. If you decide to go with this company, they also offer a Fraser Island + Free Canoe Bush Trip in Noosa + Whitsundays Sailing Trip = around $650, but that doesn't include the park fees so it ends up being maybe $700-$750. We didn't get it as a package and we didn't go on the Noosa Canoe Trip, and we ended up paying about $700ish for both. The trips are quite pricey when you add in all those extra park fees you have to pay, but I guess they are once in a lifetime things to do and I'm glad I got to experience them, though I don't think I would do them a second time if I come back to Australia. I'm not sure if there are any cheaper options for these things, since everyone on our trip was backpackers. If you go to Fraser Island, make sure to bring:

• a flashlight
• long pants for in the mornings when the flies are everywhere
• closed toe shoes for the walks... flip flops get annoying when they flip sand up at you
• don't bring anything you don't want to get sandy... there is sand everywhere

Brisbane

Arrived in Brisbane early and got picked up by Glen’s cousin Steph, who drove us over to Glen’s uncle’s place where we were staying for the next few days. Neil (Glen’s uncle) lives in a suburb called Birkdale with his wife Hamida and two kids Lucy (14), Angus (11) and Archie the dashound… all so nice!

Bribie Island

We went with Steph and her boyfriend, Mitchell, and friend Katrina down to the Gold Coast for the night to go see Steph’s brother (Glen’s other cousin) Kyle who was visiting from New Zealand for the weekend. We planned on staying the night at a motel but plans fell through and we ended up hanging out with Kyle and his friends at their apartment then driving back to Brisbane to Katrina’s (about an hour away). Gold Coast looked pretty cool from what I could see at night haha… a pretty big party town it seems like with lots of clubs and bars and young people.

Glen and his new best friend Bailey...

We went to Bribie Island the next day with everyone, over an hour away and is attached to the mainland by a bridge so you don’t have to take a ferry over or anything. The beach there was really nice and the ocean was so warm! Ended the day by going to this place that serves $2 steaks on Sundays hahaha it was awesome!

The next day, we were able to borrow Neil’s car and we drove up to the Australia Zoo with our friends from the Netherlands, Stephanie and Sanne. The zoo was awesome!! We were able to feed kangaroos and elephants, and pet koalas for free! Lots of crocs… naturally… since it’s Steve Irwin’s zoo, and lots of pics and souvenirs of Steve everywhere. They had a bunch of different shows you could see too, but we only caught the crocodile/bird show which was really cool. The day after we went to the zoo it was Steve Irwin Day, apparently you got in for a discount price is you wore khaki and the special guest that day was Kate Gosselin… ugh haha glad we weren’t there for that! If you paid an extra $2 at the zoo, you had access to the zoo hospital located across the parking lot. It was so sad! There was a little joey with a cast on his leg because a dog attacked him and they were operating on a koala that got hit by a car. Wah! But it was good to see what they were doing for the animals J Overall, it was an awesome day and I’d highly recommend going to the Australia Zoo if you come down this way!

We just got back from a two-night stay on Coochiemudlo Island, which is only a seven minute ferry ride from the mainland. It was really nice and relaxing, just spending time on the beach and by the pool. We walked around the island too, it should only take less than an hour but we must have taken a wrong turn and ended up in the bush and saw some big spiders and snakes… blaahhhh I was glad to get out of there!

We just picked up our new ride… a “spaceship” aka a tricked out minivan that has a bed in the back, fridge, all the cooking stuff you need, locked storage space and a DVD player! It’s so cool! Were on our way now up to Noosa for lunch then to Hervey Bay to meet up with our group for our trip over to Fraser Island. We stay tonight at a hostel with everyone, then tomorrow get up early and take the ferry over to Fraser and get our 4x4 vehicle and drive all over the island with a group of about 25 people! Were on the island for two nights, then to the hostel for one more night then were off again up to the Whitsundays.