Basirk in Australia

The continuing adventures of Chris Bassett

Latest entries are at the top

< Earlier
Later >

2003-06-21 04:49:10 - Whitsundays
- Airlie Beach

It was really good :)
The Apollo is beautiful yacht that won the Syndey-Hobart race in 1985. It is quite big - larger than the BT Global Challenge yachts. The first full day was overcast but we managed 8 knots. The rail on the low side nearly dipped into the sea, but not quite. We went snorkelling on part of the Great Barrier Reef which was incredible! Loads of fish swimming all around you and some were quite large. The corel was incredible. The colours are intense blue, yellows, reds and the surface sways in the currents. The water was quite shallow so I could easily swim down with the fish amongst the corel. Must have spent over an hour there!

We stayed the night at Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. This was another white sand beach (no really, it was) with clear warm water and very few people around. There were probably only about 10-15 boats moored in the bay. Today we did some snorkelling but it was a bit less interesting as the seabed was all sandy with no corel and few fish. Still very relaxing though :) I had a chance to do SCUBA but the guy wouldn't let me do it without a medical certificate (I have asthma).

We sailed back this afternoon but the wind died so we had to motor some of the way :( I got to do some crew work like play skipper at the helm and hoist the fore sail (quite a lot of effort involved there!)

Food was great, crew were fantastic. Other people were friendly and from varied backgrounds which always makes things fun! There were about 20 of us I think plus the 4 crew. Got an Apollo Crew shirt for next time I visit Los Marinos :)

Thinking of doing Sky Dive here at Airlie as free-fall over the Whitsundays would be very impressive!

Now going for after sailing drinkies with crew and other bods. Need to support England at Rugby too!

2003-06-18 23:25:27 - Airlie Beach

We're leaving at 5:00pm today (Thurs) on the 'Apollo' for a 2-day/2-night tour of the Whitsundays. The Apollo is a rather large racing yacht (81ft Maxi). See:
http://www.airliebeach.com/sailingadventures/apollo.html

This is going to be fun!

2003-06-18 04:02:35 - Eungella
- Airlie

We visitied Eungella National Park today. There's a great walk along the Finch Hatton Gorge with lots of cascades and rainforest type stuff (I actually got a 'B' for GSCE English lang. Honest). The walk was pretty easy going compared to some we've done, and quite popular also.

Whilst on the way to Airlie from Eungella, there was a nasty sounding flappy/banging noise (no really, it was a 'B') from the back of the van. We pulled over and found that one of the tyres on the back had started to fall apart. A big chunk of rubber about 5cm in diameter was hanging off. The previous owner had recently put remoulds on (YUK!). Fortunately we have 2 spares on the van, and it only took about 10 mins to change the wheel. We're getting a new (not remould!) tyre tomorrow which will stay on the van, as will the spare which is also not a remould. The tyres have taken a bit of a pounding in the last few weeks as we've travelled along a number of unsealed roads.

So now we are at Airlie which is the jumping off point for most Whitsunday tours. We'll book something tomorrow.

Forgot to mention, Stu did some work on the van while we were at Sapphire. He tested the water coolant sensor and it looks like its duff, so I've ordered a new one from a Mazda dealer up at Bowen which we'll pass through after doing the Whitsundays. He also added a shim to one of the gear shift linkages which means the gear you select now has better than evens chance of being the one you want. I feel this can only be a good thing. The warning lights are much better now than they were, but we still get the occasional flicker from one of them. We ran some injector/carb cleaner through the other day and the ol'gell seams to run better for it. Am I boring you? Ok...

It seems the further north we go the more possoms, parrots and roadkill we find. I've got some great pictures of parrots drinking Stu's tea. He was holding the cup at the time! I think you're all going to have to wait for the photos - it's just too much effort to try and get them onto the web when you don't have a PC.

Well I'm off to have a jug of VB. That's Victoria Bitter for those who don't know, but it's known by other names to locals of Queensland. The locals of Queensland being "Cane Toads". As apposed to NSW residents who are "Cockroaches". And you thought they spoke the same lingo. Cane toads inhabit the sugar cane fields which is the main crop in these parts.

Where was I? Are yes, BEER!

2003-06-16 21:48:08 - Rockhampton
- Emerald
- Sapphire
- Mackay
- Bucasia

Well haven't I been busy! Rocky didn't have much in the way of tourist stuff (except the usual "historic" buildings) but it is the beef capital of Oz. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity I purchased a Rib-eye steak - the most expensive thing on the menu, but still cheaper than a fillet steak back in Blighty. Naturally it was the best thing I'd tasted in over 2 months, but then that isn't at all surprising considering my recent diet has consisted mainly of pasta, noodles, cereal, sandwiches and the occasional pineapple.

Around this time we stopped off to get some supplies and wondered why all the shops were shut (there are a lot of bank holidays in Oz!). I asked in a bottle shop (off license) why everywhere was closed and the guy looked down at me and said, "It's the Queens birthday mate!" How small did I feel!

I dye cress. We went to Emerald which is a flippin long way from Rocky. The roads are very straight and go off into the horizon. Taking it in turns to do the driving is a neccessity as it gets hypnotic after a while. I think the route is about 300km and it's quite dull with very few towns to break the journey.

We passed through Emerald and stayed at a small town called Sapphire. Guess what you can dig up there? The next town is called Rubyvale! You can hire all the gear to go panning from the campsite which includes some pans (the same as we'd used at Boolabinda), a large pick, a small hand pick, shovel, water butt and 2 containers of water. We set off for a place down the road called Graveshill Fossicking area and met a bloke called Bob who'd been there since January. A very helpfull guy he was, and he let us use som of his equipment which was more advanced than ours. One handy gadget he had was a Willaby which helps with panning and meant we didn't end up with back ache at the end of each day.

Stu found 2 very nice rocks on the first day. One was a yellow and the other was a green (both Sapphires). The yellow was quite valuable apparently. I found nothing. In fact I found nothing (except some small bits of zircon) for the 4 days that I was digging! So I went "Specking" instead. The whole town has been dug up and there's lots of common land where you can go looking for Sapphs. Over the years the rain has washed away the lighter stones and dirt and occasionally you find Sapphs just lying on the ground. I kid you not.

I found some nice blues and a green by specking. There's a gem cutter at Sapphire and so I had my Boolabinda blue sapph, the green sapph and a zircon cut for 20 bucks each. The blue looks amazing - it's only about half a carrat but is worth upto 100 quid! The colour (cornflower blue) is just right apparently. The green was cut into an oval and is also about half a carrat. The zircon in a pinky red colour, and again was cut to about half a carrat. The green is probably worth about 50 quid and the zircon about 20 quid. So I didn't make my fortune, but it was great fun!

Another nasty drive and we are at Mackay (pronounced MacEye). Again, nothing amazing here, but we're staying just north of the town at a place called Bucasia which has a great beach. Once again we're camped right on the beach and the view when you wake up is great.

We'll soon be heading north along the coast again, but not that far as we'll be going on a tour of the Whitsunday Islands. Not sure what form this tour will take, but it will probably involve a group of people on a sail boat for 3 days.

2003-06-06 20:45:33 - Fraser Island
- Hervey Bay

Fraser Island was fantastic! We hooked up with a group of 9 people who were in a larger 4x4 (not as fun as each person can only do a bit of driving). We went over on the barge at 11am on Wednesday and then drove from Kingfisher Bay to Indian Head. The driving was really good fun. Our small Suzuki 4x4 was terrible on the roads but was a different animal on the soft sand tracks. About a quarter of the route was on these tracks where you can't really go over 35kmh (the speed limit!) but the rest of the route was up the eastern beach - an official highway (!) where the speed limit was 80kmh.

On Thursday we drove back down the beach stopping at the Maheno (an old shipwreck), the Pinnacles (different coloured sands), and Eli Creek. Eli Creek is a narrow freshwater stream that flows out onto the beach. Crystal clear water. You float down the stream for about 100m and get washed up on the beach!

We then continued to Wabbi Lake which is at the bottom of a large sand dune. Nice for smimming in (we did a lot of swimming!).

Then onto Lake McKenzie (sp?) which was stunning. Crystal clear water that no one had seen the likes of before, and and beautiful white sandy beach around it. We spend all of Friday morning swimming in it :)

We caught the barge back to River Heads (on the mainland) at 4pm. Wish I had more time to go into a bit more detail, but I'd recommed you do a quick search for Fraser Island on the internet and take a look at some of these places.

We're now heading up towards Rockhampton (colloq. known as Rocky) and then on towards Emerald and the Gemfields. Guess what we'll be doing there? :) Maybe I'll be a bit luckier this time...

2003-06-02 20:55:06 Just a quick. For the benefit of those who worry about me eating properly (hi mum) I'd like to provide some reassurance. We've found that pineapples only cost 15p each. Not only can we eat for a whole day for under a dollar, but we are also getting all 5 portions of fruit and veg (we can't decide if pineapples are fruit or vegatables, so we've classed them as both).

Oh, and I also cooked some really nice steaks last night.

Off to pay for the Fraser Island trip now.

2003-06-01 23:09:04 Back in Hervey Bay. Booked the 4x4 Fraser Island package again for Wednesday. Weather forcast looks promising.

Having parrot issues still. There you are, drinking your tea and eating your toast when a parrot swoops in from nowhere and lands on yer head. It's just not right.

The esky cooler experiment was a disappointing failure. The prototype looked really good but looks aren't everything. The gadget failed to cool the box - in fact the esky was warmer inside than out by the end of the day. I am not discouraged, and will endeaver to improve my design (more power Grommit!) I saw a "proper" powered esky for 100 dollars (about 40 quid). It was a bit power hungry though (50W) and left on overnight would probably flatten the van's battery! You can also buy a lot of margerine for 100 dollars.

The rum is now finished :(

My life is complete - I purchased a 12V soldering iron! Absolute bargain at 5 quid. I've already used it to modify the light above my bed to use bigger batteries. I can't beleive I'm writing this stuff down! Expect most of you have given up reading it by now anyway. Wouldn't blame you if you had - we've not done anything exciting for days! If I were you I'd stop reading this drivel now and check back in about a week after I've been to Fraser Island. Should have something interesting for you to read then.

As a little taster for things to come, the plan is to carry on North after Fraser and go via some more fossicking towns. I'm after emeralds now :)

2003-05-29 21:09:19 Now in Bundaburg. Been to the Bundaburg Rum Distilililierrry. Quite a good tour and got some free samples at the end. Also bought a couple of bottles to keep out the cold on the long dark evenings. That's my excuse.

I had the chance of doing a 3 day, 4 night SCUBA course at a rather discounted price. I turned it down as there is still quite a bit of a breeze here and the water looks quite choppy (small boat, big waves - not too pleasant). So I'll have to wait till Cairns. The water should be warmer there too.

We came across a HUGE spider in the ammenities block. It was called Harvey, and he was about the size of my hand. He was also hairy and looked at me funny. I left him alone as the recommendation here is that you shouldn't touch any spider bigger than your little fingernail. Fortunately he seemed content with preening himself so I didn't have to make any sharp exits. Saw 2 more possoms last night - they are quite fearless and would have climbed all over us if we'd got close enough. They have sharp claws though...

The parrots! The wildlife here is hardly wild! I've had parrots perched all over me at the last two caravan parks. They're very tame and extremely cute. Much nicer than pigeons. One polly drank some of Stu's tea, which was quite funny. I have lots of photos :)

On the mundane side, I had all the rear lights out on the van to try and cure a niggling electrical problem. We keep getting warning lights being displayed (Tail light fault, brake light fault, water low warning) but there isn't actually a problem with any of them. I cleaned the water sensor connectors which seems to have fixed that, and I've cleaned all the light cluster connectors which, for the moment, also seems to have worked. Fascinating isn't it!

Stu has been breath tested twice now! Clear both times of course (when you're not in a hurry to get anywhere, why take a chance?) but it's still funny. That's Queensland coppers and NSW coppers who've pulled him over :) They're trying to crack down on drink driving here as it is still part of the culture to have a few tinnies and not worry about driving afterward. I expect it is only a matter of time before I get pulled over too.

Don't think there's anything else to report. Miss you all!

2003-05-27 19:18:55 It's wednesday. It's clouded over and rain is expected. We cancelled Fraser Island trip and will instead head a little further north to Bundaburg (sp?) where the rum distilleries are :) We'll head back to down to Fraser when a) the weather gets better, and b) we're sober enough to drive. Dodgy weather is expected to last at least until Saturday :(

Eski cooler coming along nicely. Keeps me busy in the evenings.

2003-05-26 02:36:52 Still looks like it might rain for Wednesday :( May yet have to cancel the Fraser Island thing.

We are now at Hervey Bay and Fraser Island is visible from our campsite which is next to the beach. We haven't done much except go swimming in the sea - it's a tough life. I fed some parrots. One parrot decided he'd sit on my head to supervise the feeding. Saw some turtles in the bay.

On the way here we stopped at a place called Gympie :) Expect a postcard soon fellow workers! I also purchased a bread baking tin for use in the esky cooler. In was unfortunately too large, and so I must find something similar but smaller - possibly a disposable aluminium barbeque tray...

< Earlier
Later >

To contact me and express your profound appreciation of this site, use this e-mail address: auslog@basirk.com

2003-06-21 04:49:10	- Whitsundays - Airlie Beach It was really good :) The Apollo is beautiful yacht that won the Syndey-Hobart race in 1985. It is quite big - larger than the BT Global Challenge yachts. The first full day was overcast but we managed 8 knots. The rail on the low side nearly dipped into the sea, but not quite. We went snorkelling on part of the Great Barrier Reef which was incredible! Loads of fish swimming all around you and some were quite large. The corel was incredible. The colours are intense blue, yellows, reds and the surface sways in the currents. The water was quite shallow so I could easily swim down with the fish amongst the corel. Must have spent over an hour there! We stayed the night at Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. This was another white sand beach (no really, it was) with clear warm water and very few people around. There were probably only about 10-15 boats moored in the bay. Today we did some snorkelling but it was a bit less interesting as the seabed was all sandy with no corel and few fish. Still very relaxing though :) I had a chance to do SCUBA but the guy wouldn't let me do it without a medical certificate (I have asthma). We sailed back this afternoon but the wind died so we had to motor some of the way :( I got to do some crew work like play skipper at the helm and hoist the fore sail (quite a lot of effort involved there!) Food was great, crew were fantastic. Other people were friendly and from varied backgrounds which always makes things fun! There were about 20 of us I think plus the 4 crew. Got an Apollo Crew shirt for next time I visit Los Marinos :) Thinking of doing Sky Dive here at Airlie as free-fall over the Whitsundays would be very impressive! Now going for after sailing drinkies with crew and other bods. Need to support England at Rugby too!
2003-06-18 23:25:27	- Airlie Beach We're leaving at 5:00pm today (Thurs) on the 'Apollo' for a 2-day/2-night tour of the Whitsundays. The Apollo is a rather large racing yacht (81ft Maxi). See: http://www.airliebeach.com/sailingadventures/apollo.html This is going to be fun!
2003-06-18 04:02:35	- Eungella - Airlie We visitied Eungella National Park today. There's a great walk along the Finch Hatton Gorge with lots of cascades and rainforest type stuff (I actually got a 'B' for GSCE English lang. Honest). The walk was pretty easy going compared to some we've done, and quite popular also. Whilst on the way to Airlie from Eungella, there was a nasty sounding flappy/banging noise (no really, it was a 'B') from the back of the van. We pulled over and found that one of the tyres on the back had started to fall apart. A big chunk of rubber about 5cm in diameter was hanging off. The previous owner had recently put remoulds on (YUK!). Fortunately we have 2 spares on the van, and it only took about 10 mins to change the wheel. We're getting a new (not remould!) tyre tomorrow which will stay on the van, as will the spare which is also not a remould. The tyres have taken a bit of a pounding in the last few weeks as we've travelled along a number of unsealed roads. So now we are at Airlie which is the jumping off point for most Whitsunday tours. We'll book something tomorrow. Forgot to mention, Stu did some work on the van while we were at Sapphire. He tested the water coolant sensor and it looks like its duff, so I've ordered a new one from a Mazda dealer up at Bowen which we'll pass through after doing the Whitsundays. He also added a shim to one of the gear shift linkages which means the gear you select now has better than evens chance of being the one you want. I feel this can only be a good thing. The warning lights are much better now than they were, but we still get the occasional flicker from one of them. We ran some injector/carb cleaner through the other day and the ol'gell seams to run better for it. Am I boring you? Ok... It seems the further north we go the more possoms, parrots and roadkill we find. I've got some great pictures of parrots drinking Stu's tea. He was holding the cup at the time! I think you're all going to have to wait for the photos - it's just too much effort to try and get them onto the web when you don't have a PC. Well I'm off to have a jug of VB. That's Victoria Bitter for those who don't know, but it's known by other names to locals of Queensland. The locals of Queensland being "Cane Toads". As apposed to NSW residents who are "Cockroaches". And you thought they spoke the same lingo. Cane toads inhabit the sugar cane fields which is the main crop in these parts. Where was I? Are yes, BEER!
2003-06-16 21:48:08	- Rockhampton - Emerald - Sapphire - Mackay - Bucasia Well haven't I been busy! Rocky didn't have much in the way of tourist stuff (except the usual "historic" buildings) but it is the beef capital of Oz. Not wanting to pass up the opportunity I purchased a Rib-eye steak - the most expensive thing on the menu, but still cheaper than a fillet steak back in Blighty. Naturally it was the best thing I'd tasted in over 2 months, but then that isn't at all surprising considering my recent diet has consisted mainly of pasta, noodles, cereal, sandwiches and the occasional pineapple. Around this time we stopped off to get some supplies and wondered why all the shops were shut (there are a lot of bank holidays in Oz!). I asked in a bottle shop (off license) why everywhere was closed and the guy looked down at me and said, "It's the Queens birthday mate!" How small did I feel! I dye cress. We went to Emerald which is a flippin long way from Rocky. The roads are very straight and go off into the horizon. Taking it in turns to do the driving is a neccessity as it gets hypnotic after a while. I think the route is about 300km and it's quite dull with very few towns to break the journey. We passed through Emerald and stayed at a small town called Sapphire. Guess what you can dig up there? The next town is called Rubyvale! You can hire all the gear to go panning from the campsite which includes some pans (the same as we'd used at Boolabinda), a large pick, a small hand pick, shovel, water butt and 2 containers of water. We set off for a place down the road called Graveshill Fossicking area and met a bloke called Bob who'd been there since January. A very helpfull guy he was, and he let us use som of his equipment which was more advanced than ours. One handy gadget he had was a Willaby which helps with panning and meant we didn't end up with back ache at the end of each day. Stu found 2 very nice rocks on the first day. One was a yellow and the other was a green (both Sapphires). The yellow was quite valuable apparently. I found nothing. In fact I found nothing (except some small bits of zircon) for the 4 days that I was digging! So I went "Specking" instead. The whole town has been dug up and there's lots of common land where you can go looking for Sapphs. Over the years the rain has washed away the lighter stones and dirt and occasionally you find Sapphs just lying on the ground. I kid you not. I found some nice blues and a green by specking. There's a gem cutter at Sapphire and so I had my Boolabinda blue sapph, the green sapph and a zircon cut for 20 bucks each. The blue looks amazing - it's only about half a carrat but is worth upto 100 quid! The colour (cornflower blue) is just right apparently. The green was cut into an oval and is also about half a carrat. The zircon in a pinky red colour, and again was cut to about half a carrat. The green is probably worth about 50 quid and the zircon about 20 quid. So I didn't make my fortune, but it was great fun! Another nasty drive and we are at Mackay (pronounced MacEye). Again, nothing amazing here, but we're staying just north of the town at a place called Bucasia which has a great beach. Once again we're camped right on the beach and the view when you wake up is great. We'll soon be heading north along the coast again, but not that far as we'll be going on a tour of the Whitsunday Islands. Not sure what form this tour will take, but it will probably involve a group of people on a sail boat for 3 days.
2003-06-06 20:45:33	- Fraser Island - Hervey Bay Fraser Island was fantastic! We hooked up with a group of 9 people who were in a larger 4x4 (not as fun as each person can only do a bit of driving). We went over on the barge at 11am on Wednesday and then drove from Kingfisher Bay to Indian Head. The driving was really good fun. Our small Suzuki 4x4 was terrible on the roads but was a different animal on the soft sand tracks. About a quarter of the route was on these tracks where you can't really go over 35kmh (the speed limit!) but the rest of the route was up the eastern beach - an official highway (!) where the speed limit was 80kmh. On Thursday we drove back down the beach stopping at the Maheno (an old shipwreck), the Pinnacles (different coloured sands), and Eli Creek. Eli Creek is a narrow freshwater stream that flows out onto the beach. Crystal clear water. You float down the stream for about 100m and get washed up on the beach! We then continued to Wabbi Lake which is at the bottom of a large sand dune. Nice for smimming in (we did a lot of swimming!). Then onto Lake McKenzie (sp?) which was stunning. Crystal clear water that no one had seen the likes of before, and and beautiful white sandy beach around it. We spend all of Friday morning swimming in it :) We caught the barge back to River Heads (on the mainland) at 4pm. Wish I had more time to go into a bit more detail, but I'd recommed you do a quick search for Fraser Island on the internet and take a look at some of these places. We're now heading up towards Rockhampton (colloq. known as Rocky) and then on towards Emerald and the Gemfields. Guess what we'll be doing there? :) Maybe I'll be a bit luckier this time...
2003-06-02 20:55:06	Just a quick. For the benefit of those who worry about me eating properly (hi mum) I'd like to provide some reassurance. We've found that pineapples only cost 15p each. Not only can we eat for a whole day for under a dollar, but we are also getting all 5 portions of fruit and veg (we can't decide if pineapples are fruit or vegatables, so we've classed them as both). Oh, and I also cooked some really nice steaks last night. Off to pay for the Fraser Island trip now.
2003-06-01 23:09:04	Back in Hervey Bay. Booked the 4x4 Fraser Island package again for Wednesday. Weather forcast looks promising. Having parrot issues still. There you are, drinking your tea and eating your toast when a parrot swoops in from nowhere and lands on yer head. It's just not right. The esky cooler experiment was a disappointing failure. The prototype looked really good but looks aren't everything. The gadget failed to cool the box - in fact the esky was warmer inside than out by the end of the day. I am not discouraged, and will endeaver to improve my design (more power Grommit!) I saw a "proper" powered esky for 100 dollars (about 40 quid). It was a bit power hungry though (50W) and left on overnight would probably flatten the van's battery! You can also buy a lot of margerine for 100 dollars. The rum is now finished :( My life is complete - I purchased a 12V soldering iron! Absolute bargain at 5 quid. I've already used it to modify the light above my bed to use bigger batteries. I can't beleive I'm writing this stuff down! Expect most of you have given up reading it by now anyway. Wouldn't blame you if you had - we've not done anything exciting for days! If I were you I'd stop reading this drivel now and check back in about a week after I've been to Fraser Island. Should have something interesting for you to read then. As a little taster for things to come, the plan is to carry on North after Fraser and go via some more fossicking towns. I'm after emeralds now :)
2003-05-29 21:09:19	Now in Bundaburg. Been to the Bundaburg Rum Distilililierrry. Quite a good tour and got some free samples at the end. Also bought a couple of bottles to keep out the cold on the long dark evenings. That's my excuse. I had the chance of doing a 3 day, 4 night SCUBA course at a rather discounted price. I turned it down as there is still quite a bit of a breeze here and the water looks quite choppy (small boat, big waves - not too pleasant). So I'll have to wait till Cairns. The water should be warmer there too. We came across a HUGE spider in the ammenities block. It was called Harvey, and he was about the size of my hand. He was also hairy and looked at me funny. I left him alone as the recommendation here is that you shouldn't touch any spider bigger than your little fingernail. Fortunately he seemed content with preening himself so I didn't have to make any sharp exits. Saw 2 more possoms last night - they are quite fearless and would have climbed all over us if we'd got close enough. They have sharp claws though... The parrots! The wildlife here is hardly wild! I've had parrots perched all over me at the last two caravan parks. They're very tame and extremely cute. Much nicer than pigeons. One polly drank some of Stu's tea, which was quite funny. I have lots of photos :) On the mundane side, I had all the rear lights out on the van to try and cure a niggling electrical problem. We keep getting warning lights being displayed (Tail light fault, brake light fault, water low warning) but there isn't actually a problem with any of them. I cleaned the water sensor connectors which seems to have fixed that, and I've cleaned all the light cluster connectors which, for the moment, also seems to have worked. Fascinating isn't it! Stu has been breath tested twice now! Clear both times of course (when you're not in a hurry to get anywhere, why take a chance?) but it's still funny. That's Queensland coppers and NSW coppers who've pulled him over :) They're trying to crack down on drink driving here as it is still part of the culture to have a few tinnies and not worry about driving afterward. I expect it is only a matter of time before I get pulled over too. Don't think there's anything else to report. Miss you all!
2003-05-27 19:18:55	It's wednesday. It's clouded over and rain is expected. We cancelled Fraser Island trip and will instead head a little further north to Bundaburg (sp?) where the rum distilleries are :) We'll head back to down to Fraser when a) the weather gets better, and b) we're sober enough to drive. Dodgy weather is expected to last at least until Saturday :( Eski cooler coming along nicely. Keeps me busy in the evenings.
2003-05-26 02:36:52	Still looks like it might rain for Wednesday :( May yet have to cancel the Fraser Island thing. We are now at Hervey Bay and Fraser Island is visible from our campsite which is next to the beach. We haven't done much except go swimming in the sea - it's a tough life. I fed some parrots. One parrot decided he'd sit on my head to supervise the feeding. Saw some turtles in the bay. On the way here we stopped at a place called Gympie :) Expect a postcard soon fellow workers! I also purchased a bread baking tin for use in the esky cooler. In was unfortunately too large, and so I must find something similar but smaller - possibly a disposable aluminium barbeque tray...