Big Day Out

I went to Big Day Out, and saw Hilltop Hoods, Regurgitator, Midnight Juggernauts, a bit of Billy Bragg, Silverchair, Bjork and Rage Against The Machine. It was great to see Rage again. Bjork was outstanding, even though the fiercely Rock crowd didn't really want to see her. the guy from Silverchair was wasted, in some capacity. He talked too much and sang too little. But when he sang it was pretty good stuff. Generally, it was lots of fun.

Hilltop Hoods	Regurgitator	Elissa	Bjork	R.A.T.M.

Rockhampton, Great Keppel Island and back down again

So on we trekked to Rockhampton, and Yeppoon. Every opportunity we had, we joked about Yeppoon, as Elissa had decided that 'poon' had an alternative meaning, possibly one Ali-G enthusiasts would be able to discern more readily than me. Being a seaside town, I mentioned Yeppoon had an odd odour about it. Elissa said she liked the look of Yeppoon, it looked very well kept. It was raining a lot, so I'm sure you can invent your own smut from here.

The real reason for being there at all, though, was to get to Great Keppel Island, where we had booked a room at the resort for three nights. Boarding the boat tomorrow, still in the rain, we both realised it wasn't going to be a relaxing cruise across to an island paradise. Instead, it was the most unsettling, violent boat journey of my life, my stomach lurching up and down, waves practically breaking on top of the boat and at least two people's stomachs deciding they'd had quite enough. I pressed a pressure point in Elissa's wrists, inspired by these things to the right, and saved either of us having to see what we'd had for breakfast again.

Great Keppel Island was an island paradise though. Beautiful rainforests, clear tropical seas, white beaches and palm trees with gentle waves breaking on the shore. And the resort was, well, a holiday resort full of soulless whitewashed buildings, tacky bars and shops, but also lots of facilities for swimming, tennis, squash, golf, kayaking (all of which we tried) and a host of other activities. It was also home to these odd-looking birds, whose name I forget. And Elissa played golf, reluctantly, and collected gumnuts like she had done the last time she was there (some twenty-or-so years ago) and we had a great time, and felt very relaxed when we left. And the sea had calmed down a bit too, so the cruise back was much more bearable.

The drive back to the Gold Coast was an all day affair, and a bit more. We madeit as far as Gladstone, straight off the ferry, but found it to be a dull and expensive mining town, with nothing to see. We asked what there was to do in Gladstone the following morning. "Have you been to Rockhampton?" Yes. "Have you been to Bundaberg?" Yes. So we made the most of our driving time, and got going. And aside from stopping at the Bellingham hedge maze, we drove all day, covered about a thousand kilometres and spent the night at "El Rancho" in the Gold Coast. Specifically in Miami. Uh. Y-all feel that? Uh. South Beach, bringin' the heat. Uh.

Dayboro to Bundaberg

Elissa had booked accommodation for the next night, in Dayboro. It was a small town just outside Brisbane, and accommodation was a little further out of town still. It was a small cottage on a Llama farm! The cottage was beautiful, the view was incredible, and we spent an hour feeding the llamas in the afternoon! Their keeper, Miguel, was a professional footballer for a while, with Barcelona, and we chatted at length about how much hard work it was, how controlling the teams are of their players, and lots of other things. The evening in the cottage was so relaxing - all of our worries about the car, and about everything else, disappeared. If you are ever in Brisbane, I cannot recommend Dayboro Cottages enough.

The following morning we drove to Nambour and The Big Pineapple. I am even more disillusioned with big things now. And we kept heading north, hoping to get most of the way to Bundaberg. By 5pm, though, we had no accommodation booked, and things were getting a bit scary. So we stopped at an internet cafe in Gympie. After an our online we had booked the following night's accommodation, but still had nothing for that night. We trusted our luck, so we drove north some more. In a tiny country town, half an hour further north, we found a room for the night. It was in a wooden shack with a corrugated iron roof, in the back of a pub. We paid our $40, and got ourselves something to eat and drink, and had a couple of games of pool. Some of the locals came and introduced themselves, looking more than a little unsteady on their feet. At about 9pm we made our excuses and left to watch Four Weddings in our room. Popping out to the loo later I heard some heaving noises - probably on of our friends from earlier.

Bundaberg was another three hours north, and at last we had driven clear of the rain that had dogged our trip so far. The Bundaberg Rum Factory looked a bit expensive to tour, though it also seemed to be the only thing in Bundaberg we had heard of. But we went to the Mystery Craters, holes in the ground that had baffled scientists for years apparently, and saw them. They were rubbish. It was one of those things that was so bad it almost made it enjoyable! We took plenty of tongue in cheek photos and moved on.

By this time the creak in the car was getting pretty serious, so we had it checked out by the Toyota garage. They told us it was the rotor guard, and we didn't need to worry. So we checked into the B&B, pleased to have our minds put at ease. The B&B was lovely, and the welcome was very warm, so we settled in and prepared for turtle watching that night.

Mon Repos is very famous for turtles, apparently. Every year, from November to March, turtles lay eggs in nests on the beach, and later hatchlings run down the beach to the sea. At Mon Repos we learned all about the numbers of eggs in nests, the survival rate of the hatchlings, the time it takes for turtles to lay eggs and their migration up and down the East Coast of Australia. We were put into five groups, and told that we would be called when a turtle had reached the beach and was preparing to lay. The previous night, they had had four turtles, and the last one had arrived at midnight. We were lucky. Within an hour, four turtles had made it to the beach. We were in group two, so we went out onto the beach to see our turtle, a 30 year old loggerhead. We sat behind her, apparently invisible to the turtle (and there were 70 people in our group) while the tour guide shouted instructions. As well as having poor peripheral vision, it seems loggerhead turtles are deaf as a post.

While we sat behind it, the turtle dipped her back flippers into the hole she had made, scooping out more sand each time, and at the end, really having to stretch to reach the bottom. Then she stopped, and the eggs started appearing. At this point we were OK to come round to the front of the turtle. Once she starts laying she's not going anywhere, even with 70 tourists standing watching. After the first ten eggs had dropped, I did come round to the front, and watched as she continued to lay. Her eyes looked watery, and she looked very old, and almost like something Jim Henson could have made. We all stood a few metres from her as she dropped 108 eggs into the bottom of the nest, over the space of ten minutes. Then she began to sweep the sand back into the hole, which lasted another half an hour or so. And then she patted down the nest, roughed up the area to make it difficult for predators to find her eggs, and turned to head down the beach. We followed, on our guide's instruction, and watched as the turtle slowly disappeared into the breaking waves. There was a round of applause and our guide said "Didn't we get a good turtle?".

The experience wasn't over then, of course - our turtle had dropped her eggs too close to the water to be safe against Queensland's recently temperamental weather, so we had to move them. We lined up by the nest and our guide dug out the nest again, and one by one, handed an egg to us, and pointed us up the beach to hr colleague, who had dug a new nest. By the time I got there, it was clear there were more eggs than people, so I was given four of them to move. Part of me felt very proud that I was instrumental in the future of four turtle hatchlings, but given the survival rate, there's only going to be one two-hundred-and-fiftieth of an adult turtle that I've helped to live, statistically speaking. Even so I'll keep my fingers crossed for my four turtle babies.

After the night at the B&B, and an enormous breakfast, Elissa and I headed to Bargara and a campsite. Our previous camping experiences had not been positive, so once we'd booked our spot, we decided it was time to invest in our own welfare. A Bundaberg camping shop gave us $130 worth of welfare in the form of an air mattress, a new, larger tent, a tarpaulin and a few poles and ropes, and we set up camp under a tree back at the campsite.

Never set up camp under a tree in Australia. Your tent will be covered in bat shit. Ours was. And you could hear it coming down all through the night! And the noise from the bats!

That said, the camping experience really got us in touch with nature. Mid afternoon, we discovered a juvenile bird, still learning to fly, had fallen into one of the trees we were using as shelter (ha!), and was making a lot of noise. We tried to feed it bread. No. We tried to pick it up. Definitely not. So in the end, I ushered it onto a stick I was holding, and lifted it back into the tree. It fell down again. So I tried again. And finally it edged up the trunk, high enough for Mum to feel safe coming to rescue it. They tried a few little hops, and then flew off into the distance. That, the possums, the skinks, the giant ants and the bats and there was more than enough nature for one night.

The rest of our stay in Bundaberg was less eventful. We found a lovely little beach with just the right amount of surf. We went to the Bundaberg Rum Factory and did the tour, and they told a tour group with many children in it how great it was getting drunk. We did the ginger beer tour, and met a hologram of some hard-working-talking yeast. You know, the usual. And we stayed in town a little longer than we hoped, while the car got properly fixed. A second visit to the Toyota garage, with a sicker sounding car, made the mechanics change their mind, and they kept it in for observations overnight. A few hundred dollars later and it was sounding much better, but we were thoroughly sick of Bundaberg. Rockhampton beckoned.

Hawk's Nest to Brisbane

We were waved off at about 1.30pm, and headed north to Bellingen. Arriving at about 5.30pm, we set up the tent again, apprehensive about just how little sleep we were going to get. A local bar served us a slightly greasy but satisfying dinner and a couple of glasses of beer. Back at the YHA we met the chickens, billed as "punk chooks", who were pretty weird looking. One of the other guests picked one up and put it on a table in front of him, saying 'Chicken chicken chicken!' excitedly. We went to bed, and avoided eye contact.

The following morning, after a similarly terrible night's sleep, I got up at 6am and went for a quick swim in the Bellinger River. Elissa was still napping, but by 7am we were both up, and ready to go. Two nights of dreadful sleep soon caught up, though, and by 8am no one was going anywhere. Apple juice, Powerade and sweets motivated us though, and we drove over to Dorrigo National Park, over a winding mountain road, through verdant forests and past crystal streams. A lookout from the top of the mountain. A lookout in the rainforest canopy. A beautiful waterfall. It was a shame we were in such a hurry, we could only spend about 3 hours in Dorrigo and still make Lismore by nightfall.

Our stay in Lismore was uneventful, with the exception of meeting someone in the swimming pool with a few stories. He told us about visits to Nimbin, and some cookies he made once. He'd made a batch for himself with special ingredients, and some without for his three year old daughter. The daughter had got through them pretty quickly, and then she decided she wanted one of Dad's. Dad said no. Daughter made a fuss. Dad took a bite from his, and a large chunk of cookie fell off, bounced from his lap, onto the floor in front of him, and quick as a flash, the daughter had scooped it up and eaten it. An hour or so later, she wasn't feeling that good... He also mentioned he was no longer with the mother. I can kind of see why.

The following morning we went to Nimbin ourselves. It was market day, and the place was pretty crowded. It looked like a more permanent version of some of the stall areas at Glastonbury, but it was more of a theme park version of what I had expected. Elissa said it didn't used to be like that.

Anyway, after that we headed to the Queensland border, and Coolangatta YHA. We booked in, and then Clint and Ursh arrived. A shopping trip later and we'd stocked up on beer and wine, and then we went to the beach. Walking down in a bit of drizzle, all dressed in our swimming gear, a random stranger said 'You're going to get wet...'. Isn't that the point, I thought. But as we got onto the beach and looked to the south we saw what she meant. The sky was black, and the thick clouds and heavy rain was coming straight for us. When you're in that situation there are two ways to go. One: you can head back to the car and cower inside, whimpering pathetically. Two, you can run down the beach like a loon, with your board in one hand and a smile on your face. We went for option two, and had one of the best trips to the beach that I can remember!

On New Year's Eve, the weather was still dreadful, but we decided to go to Wet and Wild, a nearby waterslide theme park, anyway. The queues were short, and we were going to be wet anyway. We tried everything, swam in the wave pools, slid down the slides, raced down the wave racer, drifted down the river rapids. By 5pm we were pretty exhausted, and so we headed back to the YHA.

The plan to go to Coolangatta for New Year's Eve was to try to have two NewYears. Having had such a big day beforehand, we had thought about staying in the hostel, going to bed early and telling people we'd had two New Years anyway. But we were running low on drinks, so we had to find a bottle shop. The man at the hostel sent us down the road to one that was closed. It was raining. It was all too much. So we jumped on a bus and headed for New South Wales, a few miles south.

Twin Towns Services Club hosted the first part of the evening. We ate - my burger turned up with no meat in it originally, and one of Elissa's pieces of chicken was made of fish, but other than that it was good food at a good price - and watched a random local headbutting a balloon absent-mindedly. Then we headed outside and found a monument to the border, and stood by it until midnight. Lots of happynewyearing later and it was time to go north to Queensland. This New Year was a lot more exciting than the last - everyone was shouting "Woo!" for about half an hour leading up to midnight. In fact, we were by far the least excited people in there! Elissa bought a round of shots to liven things up, and I wrote "Woo" on a piece of paper. We gave it to a local to hold, and she shouted "Wooo!", and I only wish I had a photo of her face when she turned it round and read it afterwards...
On New Year's Day, the car problems started. A quiet creak in the left front wheel made Elissa and me a little worried. The RACQ came to check it out, but couldn't see anything wrong. And we checked it out on the morning of 2nd January at a place in Miami, and they couldn't get it to squeak. But by the time we got to Brisbane it was much more consistent. Much more about the car later.

In Brisbane, we didn't really leave the hotel until the evening, what with the hotel's spa and sauna. Walking into town we found Clint and Ursh's hotel, and we all went for a bite to eat and a drink. Various cock-ups with our food meant a lot of free drinks (due to Ursh's initiative - the rest of us were about to leave indignantly), but a slightly sparing feed. And Brisbane itself, we didn't see in much detail. But I did like the fact that the buses all had tunnels of their own. It was a bit like riding tiny trains!

Christmas in Hawk's Nest

Christmas in Australia is a strange affair. With a majority of Australians able to trace their ancestry back to the UK, or Europe certainly, Christmas still has the European feel to it. Fat blokes in warm red suits, snow, reindeer, that sort of thing. But usually the temperature outside is close to 40 degrees, and a roast dinner is the last thing on people's minds. Many Australians spend Christmas on the beach, which in the UK is the reserve of those nutcases who go swimming in the Serpentine on New Year's Day.

Elissa and I joined Emma and Iain, and Elissa and Emma's parents at their place in Hawks Nest. The few days around Christmas consisted of swimming in the ocean, fishing, playing golf, having a barbecue, and playing a lot of board games. The Game Of Life turned out to be much more boring than life itself. Rummikub and Uno were played quite a bit. We toyed with a round of Trivial Pursuit, but decided against it in the end. And everyone helped Elissa and me get ready for the huge road trip we were about to embark on.

Elissa's family were very welcoming - I think they're getting used to me now - and Vivienne had found me an excellent present, a jazz CD by a well-known Aussie. I felt as at home as I could, 12,000 miles from my friends and family.

On the last night in Hawks Nest we even tried sleeping in the tent in the garden. It was a bad idea. The local wildlife was particularly noisy, and it was a full moon, so most of them thought it was dawn all night. Kookaburras make a lot of noise when they think it's dawn. When dawn finally came they seemed to make a it of extra effort. Elissa and I retreated into the house and managed to grab three hours' sleep.