West Coast & Fox Glacier

We headed north out of Queenstown along the west coast, and have now covered a total of over 3250kms (almost 2000miles). We stopped a few times along the way, mostly when we have been crossing the single lane bridges over massive gorges and rapids. We stopped early evening in the nice little town of Wanaka for some food and a sleep. I hope you're not getting bored with all the photos of lakes and rivers yet!

Yesterday we travelled further north towards Fox Glacier, stopping at Thunder Creek Falls and a beach. I'm not sure of the name of the beach but there were signs on the road leading up to it warning of debris in the road during storms. The sand was littered with masses of broken trees and smashed rocks. Our last stop for the day was Fox Glacier. There are day trips to walk on Fox Glacier, but we're going to hold off until Franz Josef Glacier which is another 30kms on.

Last night we slept in another free DOC camp site on Gillespies Beach, near Lake Matheson. The lake was perfectly still and perfectly reflected the mountains behind it. It's a shame it's been overcast because it would have looked even more impressive to see the snowcapped mountain tops that were hidden in the cloud. Today we have driven to Franz Josef Glacier, and fingers crossed it will brighten up a bit, so that hopefully we can take a walk on the glacier and see some blue ice.

Byron Bay

Luckily for us the Greyhound stops at the Zoo, so we left around 4:30pm and got into Byron at around midnight. Along our travels we had met quite a few people raving about a hostel called 'The Arts Factory', I can honestly say I have no idea why, because it's utter crap. It's quite run down, and in desperate need of renovation. I can see the hippy look they were going for, but they charge an obscene amount of money (even more then the newer, cleaner hostels in the centre of town and near to the beach). The staff were particularly rude and we've been quite unlucky with the people in our room. Last night at about 4am, two of them fell out and had a fist fight, and the night before they spilt wine all over another girl's bag.

The town itself is awesome, similar to Noosa in its chilled out atmosphere but with a bit more happening. The beach is perfect too, the water is crystal clear, but because there is no Great Barrier Reef in the way, it gets huge waves. We've been hanging out with James, Luke and Nicola (some people we met on our Fraser Island trip) on the beach for the last couple of days because we've been lucky enough to have clear blue skies.

Whitsunday Islands

Yesterday we had an early start to the day... getting packed, checked out of our hotel, store our luggage and then be collected for our tour of the Whitsunday Islands, all before 8am. We took the Whitehaven Xpress boat, which I had been on when I visted Airlie 3 or 4 years ago. I knew the day wouldn't consist of purely snorkelling, and would give us the opportunity to see Whitehaven beach. They started by taking us to Whitehaven Beach to chill out for a few hours on the beach before cooking us a 'traditional barbee' of steaks, chilli burgers and sausages (Whitehaven Xpress is the only tour company that are authorised to cook a BBQ on the beach!). The boat moored about 75 metres off the beach, and we could either hop on a smaller boat to be taken ashore, or we could hire stinger suits (to protect you from deadly jellyfish in the area) and swim. Izzy kindly took my bag in the boat, and I went on the roof of the boat to jump in and swim to shore. It was quite tiring work in a saggy stinger suit with no flippers!

Whitehaven Beach has pure white sand which is made up of 95% silica. It is so fine it is almost impossible to get off your body like normal beach sand, and it squeaks as you walk across it. Unfortunately the beach had a lot of natural debris on it that had been left from cyclone Yasi, but it was still very beautiful.

Next stop, the Hill Inlet Lookout. The boat moored up 75 metres or so off the beach again to take us to shore on the dinghy, where we could take a short walk through some rainforest to an amazing lookout over the clear waters.

Finally, we carried on further north to Rass Bay (named after the many Maori Rass that are seen in this bay). Back on with the stinger suits and back in the water, this time with flippers and a snorkel mask. Annoyingly on this trip, every time I go snorkelling my mask lets water in! Having a hairy upper lip stops the mask from creating a proper seal. It makes snorkelling quite difficult, especially while trying to take photos because I have to try and hold my mask tight to my face with one hand, hold my camera with the other and then I'm starting to run out of limbs to balance. The simple answer would have been to either have a shave, or as I found out after snorkelling put vaseline on my face to help create the seal.

It's just my luck that because I was worried about jellyfish I would see several! I jumped off the back of the boat and started swimming towards the reef, as I got closer I looked down at my hand to see what looked like lots of saliva on my palm. I paused for a few seconds to figure out what it was because I didn't think I had spit in the water. When I had stopped moving it started to swim and that's when I realised it was a jellyfish! Apparently it was harmless but still, I didn't like being anywhere near it!

Last night we took the 11:45pm Greyhound down to Agnes Water, which took 10 hours! It was pretty uncomfortable, as the chairs hardly reclined, the only saving grace was that some seats were free so you could lay across two of them. Agnes Water and 1770 are two very small towns (1770 only has 60 permenant inhabitants), but it's a good stopping point for a break between Airlie Beach and Fraser Island.

Airlie Beach

Annoyingly on our last morning in Townsville we found a really cool little cafe/local artist gallery that made great jaffles (toasties) and had some awesome artwork on the walls. If ever you visit Townsville make sure you go there, The Sweatshop is on Flinders St.

This mornings Greyhound coach from Townsville was fairly uneventful, taking around three and a half hours. We were greeted by sunshine in Arilie Beach which was good to see, and the forecast is for similar weather tomorrow so fingers crossed we're taking the Whitehaven Xpress boat around the islands for some snorkelling and a BBQ... Finally a chance to use my new waterproof camera underwater! Then on the 4th we're going to move on, probably to Agnes Water 1770.

We're not spending as much time in each place as we did in Thailand, partly because we only have five weeks in Australia and also because we want to try and get down to Melbourne early so we can hire a camper and drive the Great Ocean Road, before having to get back for the Formula 1 and our flight to Auckland.