Back to Brisbane/Trapped in the Kuala Lumpur Airport

Unfortunately, skydiving day was our last day in Airlie. We had to go back to Brisbane so Jess could fly home and Katy and I could fly to India. For our day in Brisbane, we just ran errands and went to the young designers market on Southbank.

Because of stupid Lonely Planet, Jessica still hadn't had kangaroo or emu so we went out to a nice restaurant that was recommended by the owners of where we were staying. It was really yummy and a great last dinner in Australia.

Yesterday Jess's flight left at 11am but ours didn't leave until 11pm. Soooooo sad she left but we had a really good time. Katy and I got our flight to Kaula Lumpur last night and had a pretty bumpy ride. I didn't sleep well and the flight really wasn't long enough to make up for it. We got into KL at 5am this morning and don't leave until 6pm tonight. It's been a looooong day. I'm glad I got the time to catch up on the blogs I'm behind on but even doing that has been kind of exhausting since I'm half asleep while I'm writing them. Only a couple more hours here, then 3 1/2 more to Delhi.

Since we only have 2 weeks in India, it will be pretty non-stop but I will try to update as much as I can. And only a month until I'm home! So weird!


Sorry about the pictures screwing up on the last few posts...I will try again later

Last couple days in Airlie

The day after the boat trip, Katy still wasn't feeling good so Jess and I had eggs benedict like always and then decided to take a walk to find this restaurant that I read about in Lonely Planet. The book went on and on about how good it was and how it was their favorite restaurant in town, blah blah blah...and it was Australian cuisine so I thought it might have kangaroo and emu for Jessica to try. I sort of knew where it was, or at least which direction to walk, but we asked a couple different people who worked in the shops near by if they knew where it was. Neither of them were exactly sure but they thought it was a couple kilometers down the road so we started walking. And we kept walking and walking and asking people and walking. Finally we were in a grassy feild and decided to turn around. We stopped one more place on the way back and of course she knew where it was, it was really good but it shut down a long time ago. Awesome. This was NOT the first time Lonely Planet has done this to me. "Supposedly" they update their books every year but I have found more than a few instances when they haven't. When I get home and am unemployed with tons of time on my hands, I'm going to write them a long letter pointing out all their mistakes.

The next day was a big day because we were going skydiving!!! We picked the afternoon time so we could sleep in, but still woke up at a decent time so we could eat our daily eggs benedict early enough so we didn't barf all over our tandem buddies AND so we could have a couple little drinks to calm our nerves so we would REALLY want to jump out of the plane. After about 3 blueberry mojitos, we were quite excited about jumping. All that was left to do was check with the front desk and make sure we didn't have any messages from the skydiving people. Turns out, we did have a message and the message was that we couldn't go cause it was too windy! We were sooooooo sad. We spent the rest of the afternoon pouting because we were all ready to do it and cause we were half in the bag with nowhere to go. We rebooked for the next morning and tried to be excited about it again.

Conditions were good the next day so we were all set to jump out of the plane. But the bar didn't open until noon so we were forced to be all the way scared. The skydive people picked us up and took us out to the airport to get ready. Although they weren't required, we picked out awesome colorful jumpsuits to wear when we jumped. Then we met our tandem partners, Pauly and Dawsey, and they went over what would happen when we got up there. The plane we went up in was so small that it couldn't have fit one more person besides the four of us. I actually kind of wanted to jump out it rather than be flying in it. Of course the skydiving guys said the same stuff the bungy jump guys did; "We've only had a couple drinks today...I've done this at least 2 other times...What do these clips do?" Haha...not. Our jump was from 12,000 ft so we had about 45 seconds of freefall before the parachute. I went first...I kind of dangled on the edge of the plane for a couple seconds before he flung us all the way out. Once I jumped I wasn't scared at all anymore because it doesn't even seem real. It just feels like you're floating instead of falling. It was also A LOT different from bungy jumping...more than I expected it to be. And because of that, I can't really say which one I liked better. But overall it was awesome, worth the money, and if you've been thinking about doing it even a little bit, you should!

Whitsunday Sailing Trip

The boat trip we booked was kind of unique because instead of staying on the boat, we went out on two different boats with one day in between spent on one of the islands. The first day we took Reefquest out to the Great Barrier Reef where it docks up to a pontoon with all the diving and snorkeling stuff, a water slide, and a glass bottom boat. This was the big day I was going to try scuba diving again so I was a little nervous. But once they started explaining it, it already seemed like it would be a lot better than the last time. It was definitely the Kindergarten of scuba instruction...like, put just your face in...ok, now kneel down and breath. Very easy. So by the time I was actually all the way under water, I was used to it and it was easy. I really wish the other scuba trip had been the same way but I'm glad I got to do it eventually. My favorite sea creature I saw was the giant clams.

When we left the pontoon, the other boat dropped us off on Long Island where we would stay for two nights. Technically we stayed at a resort, but it was the backpackers part of it so there wasn't anything deluxe. And we were captive to their one restaurant which was overpriced and not that good. The island itself was pretty and it had a nice beach. We spent the next day there just hanging out...which seemed to go painfully slow because it's the resort's low season and there were only a couple other people there. I know, whaaa, we were stuck on a beautiful tropical island in paradise, poor us.

On the third day, we took there ferry out to Daydream Island where a catamaran called Camira picked us up to take us to Whitehaven Beach. Whitehaven is the most famous beach in the Whitsundays because it has pure white silica sand. It squeaks under your feet when you walk because it's so fine. Also, everyone who's been there will tell you something new you can do with it. I've heard you can make it into a paste and use it to clean your jewelery or brush your teeth...apparently it's used in some famous telescope lens...you can probably throw it up in the air and it turns into fireworks, I don't know, I'm not sure of all its magical powers. But I do know it was really pretty and the whitest sand I've ever seen. It would have been the perfect beach except it didn't have any palm trees.

Back to Airlie that night...

Airlie Beach

The next day Jess and I took the bus back to Brisbane and met Katy at the airport so we could fly to the Whitsunday Islands. The Whitsundays is a group of 74 islands off the coast with great beaches, diving and snorkeling, and boat trips. Most of the islands have nothing on them at all, and the ones that do usually only have one or two resorts that are really expensive...so we stayed on the mainland. That actually ended up being better because the hostel we stayed at was really nice and there was a lot more to do in town. Underneath our hostel there was a food court with really good restaurants and a run bar, which we soon found out made really delicious blueberry mojitos.

We had a couple days before our boat trip out to the islands, so we just hung around Airlie, went to the lagoon and the beach and tried to get rid of Katy's cold.

Old guy shows us his snorkel...

I have obviously been hanging around Katy too long because on Wednesday I dragged Jessica on a coastal walk to a beach on the other side of the national park. It was a good day for a walk because it was kind of overcast so laying out on the beach would have been pointless.

The beach I wanted to walk to was called Alexandria Bay and according to Lonely Planet, had the "best sand" in Noosa. The walk to the beach was along the coast and through the national park. It reminded me a lot of the coastal walk in Bondi. We took our time and when we got to the beach, just hung out and took pictures and wrote words in the sand. Since it was overcast, the beach was pretty deserted, but I did notice an old guy snorkeling by the rocks. Seemed normal enough until he got out of the water, came a little closer and I could see that his snorkel mask was the only thing he was wearing. He took his mask off and bent over to clean it, did some stretching, took some long strides up the beach...normal naked beach activities. Then of course, since Jessica and I are super mature, we started taking pictures of each other with naked old guy in the background. I'm guessing he either noticed this and liked it (eww) or just wanted to be super helpful, cause he came right over and asked if we would like him to take a picture of us. Of course we would! We were doing pretty well not laughing and acting normal until he crouched down to get a better angle...then we were pretty much done.

Old naked guy turned out to be really nice, and who are we to judge him for enjoying a little naked time on a public beach? I feel like I should do a Budweiser salute to him or something. What happened to those commercials anyway? They were the best.

That night we ordered a seafood tower for dinner. It was so tall we couldn't even see each other. We had to peak through the spaces in the tower in order to talk. Slightly excessive but overall good.


**UGHH uploading pictures isn't working now...I'll try again later

Australia Zoo!

For those of you who don't know, the Australia Zoo is Steve Irwin's zoo. He expanded it a lot before he died and they're still adding a ton of new stuff. Since it's in a small town, they send out free buses to pick people up from the surrounding areas so we caught one of their buses from Noosa and met Katy there. The buses are big and yellow with Steve Irwin's face on them and you get to watch Crocodile Hunter while you ride. Before we left, Jess and I literally ran to get coffee just to find out that you weren't allowed to bring it on the bus. But our bus driver said he "didn't see anything" so we got to bring it on anyway:)

After we found Katy, we started on our schedule of things to do. Australia Zoo is an all day thing cause there are so many feedings, shows, and things to hold or cuddle. The zoo pretty much specializes in native Australian animals but had animals from other places too. They have a huge arena called the Crocoseum where they do the crocodile and bird shows so we went to that. Then we petted a camel, some pigs and some goats. Jessica petted a little boy. After we ate our Bindi Burgers for lunch (they're not actually made out of Bindi, just named after her), it was time for our Koala cuddle session. Katy had already cuddled when we were in Cairns so she didn't want to spend the money to cuddle again. The koalas are so sleepy that their keeper just sort of flops them onto you and they go back to sleep. They're really soft and look like little old men. We also fed some kangaroos. One of them had a joey in her pouch and it kept jumping in and out. A little girl was poking at it and we were waiting/hoping for her to get boxed by the mom but it didn't happen.

All the Steve Irwin memorial stuff was still up. It was really sad. Then on the bus ride home, they showed a memorial tribute thing that was made after he died and that was EXTRA sad. Ugh, way to ruin my fun day at the zoo.

Jess and I still had one more day in Noosa so we went back there and Katy went back to Brisbane. That night we had an awesome dinner at a restaurant called Sails on the beach. We had really good food and more exotic cocktails. Then we went back to hotel and got in the hot tub...which was more like a warm tub so we didn't stay in very long. Fun day at the zoo so we went to bed early.

Jess is here!!!

Jessica FINALLY got here early in the morning on the 19th. I met her at the airport and we caught a bus to Noosa, which is about 3 hours north. Katy stayed behind in Brisbane to save some of money. I decided to splurge a little bit and got an actual hotel rather than a hostel. Hostels can be fun but after awhile you just want everyone to get away from you. That feeling happened sooner for me than most people, I'm sure. Our hotel was on the main street and directly across from the beach so it was perfect. Noosa is definitely a resort type beach town and kind of upscale but it has excellent restaurants and great beaches.

That first day was spent walking around town, checking out the beach and getting Jess addicted to the two best things in Australia: potato wedges with sour cream and sweet chili, and Tim Tams. For dinner that night we went to the seafood buffet at the Sheridan and ate our weights in oysters and shrimp. Always budget conscious, we went to the early bird special because it was $10 cheaper.

Monday we went to the beach in the morning/early afternoon and spent the rest of the day drinking mango daquiris by the water. Even though it wasn't a super eventful day, it was still a super awesome day.

Blog Constipation

Sorry I'm so backed up on my blog. It's been pretty non-stop the past 2 weeks. Trying to catch up now...hopefully I finish before I leave for India tonight!