"Here.....put the ray bans on the kangaroo"...."Why?"...."Um, why not?"

So my next stop was Noosa. This was supposed to be my chilling out place, BUT, we all know how that turned out. I ran into almost everyone I went to fraser island with and it turned into a fraser island encore. But, the main reason I went to Noosa was to go to the Australia Zoo. It's owned by Steve Irwin's family, and as you all know, I am obsessed with him. STILL. I caught the bus out there and was in shock. CRIKEY, that's a big zoo. (yea, i did) But seriously, it's insane. We played with all of the animals for a while. I fed an asian elephant (for grace) and cuddled a tiger. (just kidding dad.) I was a ridic tourist that day and have the photos to prove it.......

I fell in LOVE with the kangas! They were so cute and fat, and kind of reminded me of

Mags-pie.....

A dingo ate my ba-bay...

The next little adventure was Fraser island. Fraser is the biggest sand island in the world and is covered with wildlife. It is a breeding ground for bull and tiger sharks, and it is overpopulated with dingos and snakes. Basically, it's a death trap. But it is beautiful. So, the tour goes a little something like this.....

First, you get split up into groups, then assigned to an SUV, and then you camp on the island for 3 days. YEA....i camped......AGAIN. So we have this meeting where we learn who is going to be in o

ur car for the week. The call out my group and we all introduce ourselves. I'm like, "Oh, hi, i'm anne, i'm from the states." Then the other 5 girls in my group do the same. Every single one is german......EVERY SINGLE ONE. REDIC. Then, I am informed that no one in our group can drive a manual, and they ask if I want to give it a shot. I literally laughed for a good 5 minutes. I told them the story of attempting to drive a stick shift in mission beach, and they promptly retracted their offer. Then we get put in the guide's car (who i realize will be my only mate on the trip, seeing as we are the only 2 with english as a first language.) We wake up bright and early where we are given the rundown. Basically it was a 45 minute lecture about how dingos can kill you. AWESOME.

We start to pack the car and i bend over, not 2 minutes into it, slam my bum into the trailor

and do a somersault onto the concrete. This then produces a baseball size lump on my head (on top of the one that is still there from the boom) and a 6 inch black spot on my leg. All I could do was assume it was a sign that this was going to go about the same as the rest of my adventures......with a 50/50 shot of me making it out alive. We get there, and again, we have to give up our shoes. I really don't get why these people are so anti-shoe. They were invented for a REASON. SO i give up my shoes, unwillingly, and jump into the car. Our first stop was lake Mckenzie and it was amazing. The clearest water I'e ever seen and the best part was, no fear of Jaws. We spend the day there and the head to set up camp. We get there and it is in no way a legitimate campsite. It is a beach, which they refer to as a campsite. We are told that we will not be showering for the next few days. Then someone asked about where to go to the bathroom. The guide picks up a shovel and shows us. THERE'S SOME GOOD NEWS. So if i wake up and have to pee at 2 a.m. i have to find a shovel, dig a hole, pop a squat, all the while fighting off dingos. I have literally never been more determined to be dehydrated. We put up our tents, which I can only assume were made for little people and throw our stuff in. I should probably mention that of the 5 germans I was with one of them was a 55 year old woman who spoke no english whatsoever. Guess who i got to shack up with. Not only was I in a tent with her, there was another girl in there too. So there are 3 people in a tent made for 1, and I am not exactly a short person. Somehow I get lucky enough to be in the middle wedged between the 2. I just don't understand how i am so blessed sometimes, really, i wish i could share the wealth. So Sylvia, the old german woman, continuously speaks to me in german. Obviously i don't speak german......but that does not stop this crazy old lady from asking me question after question after question. Finally I just started saying yes every time. I can only imagine the things i confirmed to good ole sylvia.....

We cook our dinner (on a portable gas grill with the shark infested ocean water to be used as

our dishwasher). Everyone starts drinking but because of my severe fear of having to pee in a hole that i dug myself and getting half my leg chewed off by a dingo in the process, i called it an early night. The next day was busy. We went to a creek, where we were told to "bathe with the sand" and then this huge cliff called indian head. There are these great views on top of it, but seeing as someone up in the sky has decided my life should be a joke for all of eternity, they didn't build a path. So i am shoeless, it's now raining, and i get to go rock climbing. Seriously? About 30 minutes and 4 falls after everyone makes it to the top, i finally get up there. And low and behold, i get about 5 minutes before it's time to get back down. And let me tell you, that was just as fun.

We repeat the campsite scene except this time, i decide alcohol will be my dingo defense. Well, it may have made me brave that night, but it crippled me the next morning. Contrary to popular belief, sleeping in a tiny tent with 2 other people on the hard sand without a pillow.......not equivalent to a great night's sleep. SO

we wake up and are taken to yet another lake. We get there and all I want to do is sleep. SO i'm excited to just lounge around. We are then informed that it's a 3.5 kilometer walk. I mean, why wouldn't it be? So i hike for a good hour and a half and finally make it there to discover blistering hot sand with a side of giant horseflies. FABULOUS. I give up and sit in the lake for 2 hours before heading back. Well we've been there for almost 4 hours and the sand got a little toasty, which would have been fine except that these people have stolen my shoes. SO I did that scenic 3.5 kilometer hike at a full speed run whilst sweating boxed wine from every pore in my body. Great day. We got back to the hostel and I went to bed at 6........then woke up at 10.....a.m. the next day. I have never been so happy to sleep in a gross hostel bed. Oh, and don't worry, they put sylvia in the room with me. Just to make sure i wasn't too happy.....

"It's just like riding a bike."..."I haven't ridden a bike in 10 years..."...."Oh, well then this won't be easy."

After I did my sailing trip around the whitsundays I headed down to the town of 1770 to chill out after my hectic weekend. A friend of mine here told me I HAD to do this thing called scooteroo. I assumed it was something where you drive a scooter around for an hour and go to the beach. So I book it and show up to the place. I start looking around and realize that there are no scooters whatsoever. Only legit motorcycles. Well, knowing my history with stability on the ground, you can understand my apprehensions. They give us all flamed helmets and leather jackets, (which by the way made me look like I was dressing up for a swap. I CANNOT pull of that look. I don't know how sandy went from preppy school girl to biker chick so fast, but am ill equipped.) Anyway, we get all of our gear on and we are informed that we each will be driving our motorcycle for 60 k around the town. I immediately saw my life flash before my eyes. No way was I living through this. (Oh and the best part was it has been raining all day so the roads were nice and slick.) I inform the lead guide that there is no way in hell i will be able to do this. He sees this as an opportunity to screw with me. I seriously do not understand why everyone feels the need to do that. It's seriously not cool.



So it's finally my turn to "practice" and I completely wipe out. The guy thankfully caught me before i ripped half my leg off, but still, I was NOT smooth. He the gives me this chat about how everyone gets it, it just takes a few tries. He then learned the hard way that not everyone gets it. He didn't understand that I'm Anne....i get scars from rafting, and fall down while I'm walking through the store. I slam my head on a boom more than once in 30 minutes even though I know it's there and trip over every root in a 3 mile radius. I AM NOT EVERYONE. Needless to say, I was a "koala" for the day and rode on the back of one of the guides which actually turned out to be better because 1. We got to go REALLY fast, and 2. I stuck to m,y one and only rule here in Australia...DON'T DIE.

After that little adventure I headed to Hervey bay to go fishing. So usually when you charter a boat, they do all the reels for you and you grab it when one is hooked. Not here. We get about 30 miles off shore, the captain (who was missing at least 8 teeth) hands me a rod and goes, "Have fun." Thank goodness I wasn't a total spaz and actually knew how to bait a hook. So i start fishing and everyone is catching stuff except for me. Of course they are. So I'm seriously getting bored and was about to give up when my line bends almost in half. I obviously turn around and explain that i have most likely caught the bottom, AGAIN, when the line just starts spinning away. Everyone starts freaking out and all I can do it hold on for dear life. 30 minutes later I have a bruise in my side and a sore back but this bastard just won't get tired. I finally get him close to the boat and it was a 40 kilo golden trevally, but when I tell this story later, he'll be 60. This fish was a beast. Then he takes off one last time just hard enough to snap the line. I was seriously distraught. But, I get everyone has a story about the one that got away. Most stories are are about their one true love, but mine will forever be the fish I caught on the Princess II......

I'm on a BOAT

So my Computer died a little bit and since most of the places I'm visiting are about the size of Folsom, Louisiana, I've had some difficulties getting it fixed! But ANYWAY, I just got finished with heaps of adventures so I'll try and blog one every few days to keep all you boring career folk entertained while you're supposed to be working!

So, just got finished sailing around the whitsunday islands. It was AMAZING, but it definitely didn't start that way. SHOCKER. So when I booked it, I assumed it was going to be this luxury catamaran where the crew sailed and the guests just lounged around and drank champagne. No such luck. The day we boarded, it was pouring.....and FREEZING. Not a great mix when you're sailing around the ocean. I was sitting on deck, because below deck was literally only beds and every time i was down there i got smashed up against a wall. (It's a wonder I returned with all of my limbs.) So we're sitting on deck and I'm shivering, and the crew is all like "Why didn't you bring a jumper?" (Oh that's the aussie word for sweater.....I'm learning and using one new aussie word every day.) But anyway, I was like, "Well, it didn't occur to me to bring ski clothes on a sailing trip in the middle of the tropics when it was 89 degrees this morning." Needless to say I was cold. So i went downstairs to take a warm shower and I opened the bathroom door. There's some good news. There wasn't so much a shower as a sink nozzle that only sprayed freezing cold water. So, showering for the next few days was definitely out of the question.

It finally stopped raining and I think everyone's immense misery really made us bond. We spent most of the night hanging out on the deck and drinking heavily with our captain. (Who, by the way, WAS Captain Ron. I have never seen a human with a larger beer belly smoke more cigarettes in and hour. But we love him.) The next day was much better. Except that they wake you up at 5:30 am with ridiculously loud music. We go up on deck and they want us to raise the sails. Well no one really wants to do it because, well, it was 5:30 in the morning and we had all been drinking until the wee hours. So they start calling people out and they point to me to grind. Of course they do. Because I am SUCH a morning person. But I learned how to sail.....so that was fun. We went to Whitehaven beach, which has ruined all other beaches for me, and went for a few dives. Then, Captain Ron, (His real name was Kane but I kept calling him captain ron. I don't think he had ever actually seen the movie because every time I called him that, he called me sarah. I assumed he thought we were just making up fake names.) let me drive the boat. BIG mistake....big....HUGE. But he ended up saving us from what most certainly could have been a horrible death. We continued on sailing with everyone running from one side to the other....Barefoot. I don't know what it is with this place and people refusing to wear shoes. But, given my reputation, i was certain I would be injured by the end of the trip. And, I WAS. I have a permanent lump on my head from nailing the boom about 7 times a day and a toe that sits just a little bit weird from one slight mix up in left and right. Oh well, at least I lived.

Oh and the best part was I brought Jimmy Buffet to Australia. The nation will forever be indebted to me for my cultural contribution. I mean as much as they drink, they needed a soundtrack for their lives......now I'm off to have a cheeseburger in paradiseeeeeee....paradisseeeeee. I finally made a good girl friend too. We talked about how awful the rain was.....her mom's shoplifting experience....and my dad's excessive need to make sure I have on comfortable shoes. It was an amazing trip to say the least, and the next few adventures were just as fun.

I say tomat-O, you say tom-ato......

My last week in mission beach was, well you know, about as fun as mission beach can get. I had my super awesome going away party at the resort where I was promptly lifted onto someone’s shoulders to ensure everyone knew that I was the one going away. This led to an unimaginable amount of people who I had never met buying me drinks. I love small towns! It turned out to be a great night with great friends. After the fun came the packing, also known as the unfun.

SO I came here with nothing but a giant backpack. Well the backpack turned out to be the source of every back problem known to man. And when you’re switching busses and flying around every 4 days, 50 lbs on your back is not such a great idea. So mom and dad, the adoring parents that they are, send me the largest rolling duffel ever, the duffel that most refer to as a body bag. And it is packed FULL. (and yes, I know it’s shocking to hear I over-packed….it’s so unlike me)

But today I got my giant duffel and got on a 10 hour bus to Airlie beach. The road trip begins. I’m travelling down the coast…then over to Melbourne…..followed by a trip to Uluru…..and then finally back to Sydney. So these little adventures will undoubtedly lead to some, um, remarkable stories. And so continues my Journey through OZ……