June 23 – Dolphin Feeding
We were awoken this morning by my alarm
going off at 7am. We wanted to get down to the boat ramp by 7:30
which is when we had been told the dolphin feeding was. We had a
granola bar and unloaded the bikes. There was a little bit of rain
this morning so we had to wipe down the seats, it was also very
overcast and grey so we made sure to wear our raincoats. We arrived
at the boat ramp and there were some people milling around waiting
for the dolphin feeding. Around 8am one of the volunteers got on
the microphone and told us a bit about the dolphins we would be
meeting. They are Indo-Pacific Humpback dolphins and the alpha male,
Mystic, is a third generation feeder and comes almost every day,
sometimes with members of his pod to get some free fish. He is 21
years old. While we were waiting it started to rain, most of us took
cover under the neighbouring cafe's awning. 8:30 rolled around and
still no dolphins. Many people grew impatient and sick of the rain
so they left. Probably about 9 o'clock Mystic showed up with one of
his pod, Patch. She's the oldest in the pod at 25 and was recovering
from a shark bite she received from a bull shark about 2 weeks ago.
Those of us left came down to the waters edge to get the dolphins
used to us before the feeding started. The volunteers had
a look over the dolphins to check for new scars or injuries. Once
that formality was completed we got our little buckets with two wee
fish in them. Beau fed his two fish to Mystic while I took pictures
then I pulled a butterfingers trying to juggle the camera and my fish
bucket and dropped the bucket. A cheeky pelican scooted in and stole
one of my fishes but I didn't let him get my other one. I fed my
little fishy to Mystic and the lady told me to go get another fish.
So I got another bucket of two fish and fed them to Mystic too. It
was super cool. You just held the fish in the middle and the dolphin
gently took the fish from your hand. When I went to return our fish
buckets the one lady asked me how I liked and I said it was amazing.
She said have another bucket so I got two more fish. This time I fed
them to Patch. Afterwards the fish were all gone and the rain had
let up once again so we biked back to our park. We made breakfast
now and enjoyed it with some coffee before set out again. We were
driving up to Hervey Bay and stopped in Maryborough along the way.
This town is home to the writer of Mary Poppins and when we went into
the visitors there was a lady dressed up like Mary Poppins. They
also have an annual Mary Poppins festival. Crazy. We went to the
grocery store, then got some lunch at subway before driving onwards
to Hervey Bay. We took a little drive through town before going to
our holiday park. They had free wifi as well as a hot tub. We took
advantage of the hot tub and went for a little soak in the rain.
Unfortunately 35 deg was not quite as hot as it initially sounded so
we didn't get the hot soak we were looking for. We had a shower
before relaxing in the van before dinner. This place also boasted a
pizza oven, while we didn't have a pizza base we decided to make flat
bread (or tortilla) pizzas which worked out deliciously. We spent
some time in the rec room on the internet before getting kicked out
at 9:30. Back in the van we spent some time writing up before bed.
June 24 – Hervey Bay
It was still raining when we awoke,
much to our disappointment. We made a yummy breakfast of sausage and
egg taco's with potatoes on the side. I finished updating my blog
while we were cooking/eating then we got packed and out of there. We
headed down to the jetty to have a look at the bay and Fraser Island.
It wasn't really raining at that time so we went for a walk along
the 800m historic jetty. There were a bunch of people fishing off
the end of the pier. We could see Fraser Island easily from here but
we were both glad we hadn't booked a tour since the weather is
supposed to suck till Wednesday. Back at the van we looked at the
map and decided we would head towards Bundaberg. It looked like
there might be a rest stop along to way to stay at tonight. Since we
had nothing better to do and since the library was closed today we
set off on our way. We stopped into a gas station and Beau adjusted
the air in the tires. We found our rest stop about 20km outside of
Bundaberg and pulled in. It was only about 2pm at this point but we
didn't really know what else to do with ourselves so I read while
played guitar. We had some guacamole with chips for lunch and a side
of knock off peanut M&M. Then we read some more till we made
dinner. It was still raining but it's very fine although there's
quite a bit of it. We sat around for the rest of the evening too and
in general had a very boring day.
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| Historic Jetty |
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| Fraser Island |
June 25 - Bundaberg
We were pretty slow moving this morning
but it was still raining so we didn't have much motivation to move
quickly. We made oatmeal for breakfast and Beau played some more
guitar. We finally made tracks around 11:30 and headed into
Bundaberg. We went into the info center and found out about a rum
distillery in town as well as the location of the library. We went
to the library first but the internet was painfully slow and Beau
couldn't update his site. We left the library and headed to the
distillery. The Bundaberg Distilling Co has been around since 1888
and was opened in order to use up excess molasses created from the
nearby sugar mill. We got a tour of the distillery and a couple of
taste tests. I tried a “Dark and Stormy” with the original rum
and local ginger beer. My other taste test was the Royal Liqueur on the
rocks that had a coffee, chocolate, rum flavour. It was very
nice. After our tour and tastings we popped into McD's for a snack.
We then headed out of town to another free rest stop for the night.
Over the course of the evening we discussed our plans for the next
two months including when we might go home.
June 26 – Agnes Waters
We attempted to make pancakes for
breakfast but the bbq was a little too hot and made it very
difficult. They turned out a little more crepe like which was fine
and this time we had syrup to go with, yum. Beau made friends with a
french couple who had a guitar and ukelele. They jammed for a little
bit and Beau showed them some new songs. We hit the road and
continued to Agnes Waters. It was pretty gloomy out today and rained
some on our drive. We headed to the information center when we
arrived and it was raining pretty good by that time. The library was
right next door but was about to close for lunch. In the info center
we got the low down on the area and heard about some nice walks and
views which unfortunately we wouldn't really get to enjoy. We asked
about any reef trips since we are at the southern most tip of the
Great Barrier Reef. They told about the day trip to Lady Musgrave
Island and also about overnight trips to Heron Island. The more we
heard about Heron Island the better it sounded. We decided on a 3
day 2 night trip for $318pp (ouch) but it is a 5 star hotel, with all
food included. We can go diving off the island for about $60/dive
and all the snorkeling we can handle. Normally the boat trip out is
$300 but it was included since there was a deal going on via the info
centers. We bit the bullet and splurged. We were pretty excited
about our trip coming this weekend. After booking the library had
reopened so we headed over and Beau updated his site. Then we
started looking at flights. The best deal was still JetStar to
Honolulu and then WestJet to Kelowna. The prices had gone up from a
couple of weeks ago so we decided it was time to giver. We bit
another bullet and got flight direct from Sydney to Honolulu on
August 13th for about $700pp and then a flight from
Honolulu to Kelowna via Vancouver on Aug 20th for about $300pp. So
we'll be getting to K-town for just over $1000 each which is pretty
good considering the cheapest I saw previously was Sydney to
Vancouver via Seoul for $1200. This way we get to stay in Honolulu
and go directly to Kelowna. After we finished maxing out our credit
cards for the day (jk) we head up the road to the Cool Banana which
is a hostel that lets you stay in your van and have full use of their
facilities for $10pp; we were in desperate need of a shower. Since
we had kind of skipped lunch we opted an early dinner and had a
loaded curry. Afterwards we had nice hot showers and then lounged
around in the lounge. Sadly it still rained on and off for most of
the evening.
(I picked up some Aussie pronunciation
at the library today apparently crocheting is pronounced
crochering....wtf)
