On the Wallaby

Cairns // Cape Tribulation

Townsville // What happened

Good evening Sir, Madame

Last night was just awesome, I had so good fun with these American guys I told you already I met in Airlie Beach, they were my roomates. At this point I have to correct myself: So Taylor is from California, Chris from ... ah shit Colorado? Not quite sure damn. But I'm a hundred per cent sure that Addison is from Detroit and Taylor from California. Before I talked to them I sat with Mat from Perth, Maddie from Sweden and Pascal from Germany (and some more...) But after a while I felt like sitting to another table. I saw the American guys in the kitchen so I sat to them. While talking to them I got to know Christine from New Zealand. She's originally from Taiwan, but she grew up in New Zealand and now she's here because of her studies in the hospital in Townsville. She's going back to Auckland next Monday. I told them a lot abou topics you can not talk about in Switzerland and they were kind of really scared... First the thing with how much you earn, tabu topic nr. one! They were all very surprised but Addison knew about it already because I talked to him about that the other day. We compared different accents and Christine did awesome in imitating the British accent, we laughed so much. Even Addison did quite well in imitating the redneck accent from America. 

We decided to go for a drink or so into Town. So we all got dressed and walked as a group of five looking for a bar. Nightowl (24/7 supermarket) obviously was open so we went inside and had a look, we found some fun drinks... one was 'root beer'. Thaaat was soooo disgusting... You know 'coughsirup'? That's the way it tasted like. Next thing to try was kind of 'Lakritzensaft'. You can imagine, I nearly threw up but I'd love to being able to show you what it tasted like, though. After standing in the rain we found an Irish pub which was quite empty. We talked about this and that and had a blast! All in a sudden this really drunk lad turned up and went to Chris and said: 'Are you Michael Cera? Can we take a pic together? I give you two dollars because you look like Michael Cera.'

So random we couldn't stop laughing. We walked back at midnight and changed contact details. I invited them to stay at my place if they feel like skiing in Switzerland and Christine was all excited about it and I really hope they'll visit me sometime!!! That would be soooo awesome. 

Townsville // photos

Great Keppel Island, Great Barrier Reef with GoPro

Airlie Beach // The main thing to do here!

I stood up at 7.30am, I just woke up because I went to bed quite early. But before I went to bed I had a nice chat with the boy from Detroit. I asked him too  if it was true that you can talk about how much you earn in the states and it is true! And he was sooo surprised that you can't ask your working mates how much they get. He was wondering why and I told him that I actually don't know, it's just our mentality... And I also told him that I think it is stupid not being able to ask or tell... So we had a really open conversation about how much his house costs, what he earned and what I earn. A nice change for once. I heard Kris coming home late at night and I don't know why but I could tell he must have been really drunk... Funny. When I stood up the other day, I forgot to tell you, that was so cute. Maybe Americans say that to everyone but still I felt very warm: The guy from Carolina said 'good morning sunshine'.

Awww that was so nice from him. These guys from the states made me all feel very comfortable the whole time. Even when I bumped into them in the kitchen they were like 'Hey how are you? How was your day? What did you do?'

Soo nice...

After I stood up I had breaki, grabbed my Camera and my towel and went to the busstation, where the guy from the tour picked me up. We went to the marina which looked very nice (you can see photos on my last post). The water is a really light blue but still you can't see the ground. It is not a dark blue but very strong in its light colour. Before I tell the following I have to let you know that I always act like I can't speak German. Our tourguide asked us to make groups, so he also asked who was travelling alone so he could put the alonetravellers all together. So I raise my hand and this German girl went 'Was, die reist echt alleine?' But in a negative way, kind of 'that girl has no friends'. Some people just can not imagine being alone for a while... for me that is strength and I'm proud of myself that I'm doing it alone, so all I had left for that mention fron her was a laughter. 

Anyway we went on that speedboat and drove an hour to the Whitehaven Beach. I really liked the Tourguide, he was fully motivated and had lots of energy and he was funny. Until now I made no bad experiences with tourguides.

When we ate lunch I talked to a guy from the Uk, he was sooooo beatiful I could only stutter... He had those flashing blue eyes, dark blond curls and his British accent is too sweet. He was so nice to me, when we finished lunch he took my plate and put it away and that stuff... You don't expect that kind of. He's been travelling 10 months already but he went on a world trip by himself, I was really impressed. When he told me that he was 19 I couldn't shut my mouth. I stared at him with an open mouth for about 20 seconds for sure. With his beard and the way he was he seemed like 25 or something. 

While having lunch we got surrounded by dragons (you can see photos on my last post), but it was strictly forbidden for us to feed them, what I can understand. By the way they're huge! They're at least 1m long and apparently they can bite you if you annoy them. To not take the risk our tourguide grabbed them on their tail (hahahhahaha that looked so funny) and threw them away from the campsite. 

Later in the afternoon we went snorkelling in the Great Barrier Reef, which was just amazing, I never did that before. In the ocean at the east coast there are many jellyfish, therefore they got us wetsuits. We jumped into the water from the boat fully equipped with fins, scuba mask, snorkel, wetsuit and I brought my GoPro, too.

By the way it is sooo hot and humid here, when you go outside you are completely wet after 1 minute. 

For our convenience they offered us swim-noodles, I put that one around my belly and swam around. That was just amazing, I saw a huge turtle under the water and I could follow him for about 10 minutes. The reef is not that colorful how you imagine it, it is awesome and you see some corrals in blue and red, but it is more impressive how many different fish swim around, the different and huuuuuge corrals which exist. I really enjoyed that. Totally tired I phoned with Michael back in the hostel, we talked about where I go next.

Whitehaven Beach // Speedboat Tour

Airlie Beach

By the way I got my money back from the cancelled tour. That was no problem. I booked another tour but just a day trip to the Whitehavenbeach on Saturday, which I'm looking very forward to it. 

So when I got in my room there were 4 other guys, three from the States and one from Germany. They were sooo nice, as soon as I got into the room they were so friendly, they said hi, introduced themselves and we shoke hands. 

After dinner I sat to them on the table and we talked a bit. There were two other people from the Netherlands. They guy from Carolina asked me uf I wanted to join them in watching a horror movie, of course I do! That was really funny. We watched Insidious 2 and Rush Hour 1. 

When I decided to go to bed I bumped into the German guy and he asked me if I wanted to go out with him and some of his friends... I actually was really tired und just wanted to sleep but I thought I know I won't regret joining them. So we sat in front of the hostel for a while and talked and than we (actually just Kris from Germany and Chris from the States) went to have a drink. We had a really good talk  and I drank just one beer and they had a few more... Kris wanted to go clubbing but me and Chris felt like going home. So Kris went alone and we walked back to our hostel. Apparently the Zyclon was meant to come that night but nothing happened. I said bye to Chris and went to bed. The next morning I slept until midday and than I got up. I went to an internet cafe and wrote some applications. After that Stephan texted me, he's in Airlie Beach and if I feel like going to the lagoon. Of course! That was a great reunion, too. We spent the whole afternoon with eachother, had dinner together and than we had to say goodbye. 

Today I'm going with a speedboat to explore the Whitsundays, that's going to be great!!! 

Rockhampton to Airlie Beach

Actually I'm so tired but I really want to write a bit. 

Rockhampton is scary. I can not really explain why but I just felt very uncomfortable. When I left Great Keppel Island and I went back to Rockhampton I felt like going to the cinema, which was located 30 minutes walk away from my hostel. Because of the fact that I felt very uncomfortable I knew that I wouldn't walk back alone in the dark, so I asked my parents if they would offer me the cab back and for my fortune they agreed! 

'The interview' started just in time so I grabbed a medium popcorn, which turned out to be my dinner, and enjoyed the film, which Tim highly recommended me. It was sooo funny even though I went alone (it was actually not the first time for me to go alone), I had a blast and a good night. Back in the hostel I was all alone in a six shared dorm first, but in the middle of the night two German girls arrived, Marie & Noemi. The next morning we had a really good talk, we discussed a lot about different unis, studying abroad and so on. These two girls are very smart and I really liked them. So we switched numbers as we went further in the same direction (Aurlie Beach). When they went for breakfast I got dressed and walked into town as I really needed some new trousers, I threw away a few because they had holes and that stuff. I bought some light green short jeans and I love them, they're soo cool. Anyway I walked a lot that afternoon, it took me 20minutes only to get in the center and than walking around another two hours or so. Back in the hostel I lied in my bed and read a bit in my book 'Game of Thrones' and I suddenly fell asleep. Honestly, now I feel like falling asleep again, I reckon as soon as I put away my phone I'll fall asleep... 

Funny. Thats just what happened after I wrote that, I put my phone on my belly and fell asleep for two hours. 

I woke up all dizzy and went to have dinner as it was already 6pm. Satisfied I went to sit to the reception as there were some other people sitting. A blond boy came and sat next to me and we started talking. He's from Holland and has been travelling already 11 months. Later on we changed seat and talked to one more girl, Julia from Germany. We discussed interesting topics, we talked about religion and in what we believe in. The Dutch guy believes in god. 

Julia and me took the cab to the busstation together in the middle of the night, where I waited for my bus another hour. Finally my bus was there and we drove 6.5 hours to Airlie Beach and I couldn't sleep a tiny bit as it was freezing cold in the bus and in general very uncomfy. The bus arrived perfectly on time (9.30am) and it was beautiful weather and so I just walked up the hill to my hostel, the backpackers by the bay. On the outside I saw four hammocks which made the hostel look very sympathic to me! At the reception there was a German guy, so I pretended not to be able to speak German and I spoke English, not sure if he noticed my accent but it didn't seem like. Maybe he knew anyway because at Hostelworld (the app) you have to give them your nationality. We spoke English and he gave me my. room key. I talked to another German girl called Eva and we had a good chat. I told her that I couldn't sleep the last night and would like to sleep a bit. So I started writing this blog and than I fell asleep like a stone.

You know how it is when you sleep during the day, it makes you feel dizzy and even more tired afterwards, so I got up, went to the kitchen and made myself a tea. With my book under my arm I went to the hammock in the hostels garden and sat to two girls, they're from Sweden. I am afraid I just remember one girls name... One was called Lisa and she was a really special girl as she had veeeeery short hair and she didn't shave. She had so much hair on her legs and under her arms. That was so funny and it was hard not to look at it all the time. We had a good chat, too. 

After my dinner I catched up with Eva again and we sat on a table and talked for hours... still very tired I went to bed early. Eva asked me if my tour at the Whitsundays was still taking place as it was supposed to rain heavily the next day and I told her that I haven't heard from my tour yet... Many people came back from their tours as it was supposed to pouring rain and the hostel was overcrowded. The next morning I could literally hear cats and dogs falling from the sky and I was very surprised that I haven't heard from my tour yet. I asked at the reception if they know something but nothing... So I grabbed my bags and went to the busstation where I was supposed to get picked up. The busdriver went: 'Are you Linda? The tour got cancelled I am afraid...' 

That was so annoying... But I decided not to go back to the Backpackers at the Bay as it was really bed smelling in the rooms so I called the YHA and they told me that they've got still beds left. 

Now I'm here trying to call my tour to get my money back. 

Great Keppel Island // Photos