Bundaberg: the town of nothingness

After our castaway tour we headed south and hit a few places on the way before our Fraser tour. One of them being a place called bundaberg. This town was full of nothing to do and very expensive hostels, lucky us! We found one and it was a converted old police station which was named the cell block.

It was delightful inside, complete with vault doors...

...and a lovely dorm

We were pretty glad to only be staying one night. Honestly I feel we could have happily of not stopped here at all, but you live and learn. Especially after our greyhound bus was 4 hours late when we tried to leave the place.

The only bonus of this place is we found a mini cinema/theatre that was showing the grace of Monaco film, although it's been hit hard by the critics, I exactly quite enjoyed it.

That's all for now, the next couple of days on our Fraser tour are much more interesting, promise!!

Castaway day 3: the rescue

Day 3: we hope to be rescued today by the one called Bruce, will be keeping an eye to the sky to see when his little plane comes in on the horizon. Plenty of time to kill before that happens, so time for breakfast first. The communal area is certaintly looking well walked and not by human footprints looks like our friends the goannas (big lizards) came back. The below is my trotters though, seem to forget I actually have a camera these days.

With not much else to do and supplies running low, to the beach we went. When all else fail sun in' ones self is never a bad plan. I did go for a little wander along the beach and found younger Ali's paradise, hundreds and thousands of shells all caught up between the rocks. Needless to say adult Ali killed a lot of time here.

Then like magic we heard the revs of engines and we knew all would be good!! It also meant time for group pics.

Soon we were back on plane being dropped, jiggled and wiggled all around. My that Bruce does like to have fun/scare the poop out of you in the sky.

Finally we were back on the main land and brought back to reality with a bumper load of washing...

So that's my first camping experience done and dusted, can't say I fell in love with it but fully happy that I survived it in one piece.

Castaway: 2nd day

Day two and I'd survived the night, most importantly no late night tent visitors. Food rationed are looking good, think we may pull through and survive being castaway. 

First on the agenda today was a trip to a lighthouse, meant a slightly early rise for us newbies to this camping lark.

A walk along the beach and onto a well hidden track we then had a nice little 2k walk through bush, so one eye on my feet and the other on the lookout for spiders and snakes. 

Survivor Ali pulled through and made it in one piece to the lighthouse. Where we met a very friendly tour guide who took us round. Him and his wife are the only 2 humans on this island other than our group, well that we know of.....

Very few lighthouses in oz are open to the public so we were actually really lucky to be able to go up.

The views were amazing and my fear of heights soon disappeared.

They had a little museum about the opening of the lighthouse and all the restoration that had to be done. Had a lot of stories about the lighthouse too, a lot of them pretty gruesome but the below one I thought was pretty cool.

After our tour we headed on further to find some caves. Going to spoiler here and say we didn't find them but the beach was nice to chill out on. After all we're castaway, not meant to be to strenuous for us. 

We may not have found the caves but I found a mini sand dune that kept me more than occupied.

Simple things...

A long walk back with a little stop at the cemetery (as I said a lot of gruesome stories that didn't end well for most people)

Back on the beach and heading back to camp.

The afternoon was spent sunning ourselves and keeping an eye out for rescue from this terrible place. (My tan is now much topped up due to this trip, hard life and all). Lunch was a little distrupted by this fella invading our camp kitchen for a while. He was massive and brought a friend to the party too. Normal service resumed once he'd gone and we all ate pretty sharpish after that.

The evening went along the same as yesterday although the 2nd day of home cooked beef stew is starting to wear thin. And after lizard gate earlier in the day we were a lot more aware of the noises around us, a little mouse managed to make the brawniest guy leap over the fire and push a girl to cover him. Guess it shows never judge a book by its cover and be grateful for mice as they provide lots of entertainment.  All for today, there may possibly be a rescue from the island on the horizon tomorrow.....

Time to be castaway

For my first camping trip ever, I decided doing it on a castaway island in Australia would be a good idea. So with the whole new camping thing I also had to deal with snakes, lizards and spiders. Such a good idea...

However I'm getting ahead of myself, firstly we had to get to the island and we jumped on a plane ride with our mate Bruce. He's been flying planes for a long time and is know for adding a little jazz to the flight. Dropping in the air, cutting the engine and lots of delightful scream worthy tricks.

This one was just after we'd dropped through the air and 'lost gravity' a really weird sensation. The flight might not have been for anyone with a weak stomach but contrary to what I'm writing it was amazing.

Flight over and we had arrived at camp, we were the last to get there but joined 10 other people who we were 'castaway' with for the next couple of days. Let's introduce you to the camp and our home for the next couple of days.

The toilet was a bit of an experience, a 50 metre walk up the beach from the camp. And then through some delightful long grass you came to the toilet throne. A completely opened toilet with a pretty good view as long as no one else was on the beach watching you.

But as I said a nice view... Although if you look too hard you can see a few unwelcome friends watching you

Back to camp and our luxury 5* accommodation, clearly kidding there as it was just a tent.

Plenty of room for getting in your sleeping bag though, not something I've done often so I needed the practise.

We played a game of volleyball, well i say 'we' played but it was definitely more the girls jumping out the waya me the guys running around a lot more.

Our first day ended with dinner and drinks round the campfire.