Great Barrier Reef, Fraser Island and family!

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  Noosa, Queensland, Australia
Friday, February 10, 2012

G'day sweethearts!

Well, we did quite some things in the past few days so we have lots to tell ya'll!

Tuesday
Scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef!!!! It was sooo great! Niek has her certificate, but has not been diving in four years and wanted to withness fie on her first dive, so we did an intro dive together. Fie also wants to get her certificate now, cause she loved it!! From our boat we were led onto a platform in the middle of the ocean, which is always located there. It's a place with different attractions in the water, so you can go scuba diving from there, snorkling, see the fish from an under water observatory deck, or go with another smaller kind of boat to see fish in different spots of the ocean and the platform also has a cool slide. We were placed in the first groupd of 8 to go scuba diving, we were super excited!! Once we had put on our diving gear, we were led down a stairs and from a small plateau we could practice breathing under water and some other exercises. After a couple of minutes we were all able to do it so it was time to go under! And what an amazing feeling it was!! We both had to hold the instructors hand and after a little while Niek could let go and see if she's still got those diving skills! And yeah, she did! ;-) The water was pretty clear (12m) so we saw many kinds of fish, even a few really big blue ones of almost a meter in lenght with which we got pictures taken with! After about 20 minutes of amazement of all the beautiful coral and creatures in the warm water (28 degrees celcius mom, even you would have loved it ;-)) Fie's regulator (mouth piece) got kicked out of her mouth by another diver's flipper!! At first, she thought she would panic but she actually stayed cool and just put it back into her mouth. (right on sis! nikky's proud!) Another ten minutes later we all went back to the surface. It was awesome, too bad though we didn't see any turtles or sharks...
It was her 11th dive and was doubting to go for a second, didn't cause the first dive was cool, but not more amazing than others she has done before and you had to pay anotother $55. Later she heard from a guy that did go for the second dive that it was wayyyy nicer than the first, they even saw a seecow! So that was a pity...
But after that we went snorkling and that was even greater than the scuba dive, because we saw way more big fish! Nikky aslo saw some Chinese people kicking the coral with their fins! Think its terrible that they are even allowed to get that close to the coral... =(
Within no time we were quite known amongst the crew on the boat. As the two Dutch ladies and Cheese heads! Lol. They were all super nice and in for a chat at all times. They even came to us with a rope game and books about what fish we saw on our dive.
After that awesome day we returned to Airlie Beach and had some awful dinner because we are practically out of money already. Aussieland is soooo expensive!! =( we bought garlic bread and two kiwis each, then we saw a girl in the kitchen who was about to chuck her rice. We were able to stop her and got her leftovers. Haha, worst dinner ever. But we did meet a Dutch couple, Esmee and Derek, and they were super nice! We talked to them for a while and then we saw a huge beatle! It was about five cm long and had a horn on his head. Freaky as! Haha
We went for a beer with the Dutchies and then we had to get packing. We took the nightbus to Hervey Bay!

It was a 14 hour drive so we were quite exhausted when we arrived in Hervey bay the next afternoon. We were able to sleep a little bit though, so that was alright.
We had to find our hostel, the lady in Cairns had already booked one for us. When we arrived at the hostel it appeared our names weren't on the list! Oooooh boy... So they called the number we had of that hostel, to find out that we were booked in a hostel in Noosa! Thats about 450km away from here! Luckily we were able to cancel that and found a new hostel where we stayed for three nights.

Wednesday
On the second day in Hervey bay we had our third big tour: the beautiful Fraser Island!! It was not as easy to actually get there tho... We were told to go to the bus stop to catch the bus to the ferry. The stop would be on the opposite of the Nomads hostel. So we were 20 min early when we started looking for the bus stop. After 10 min of walking in the direction we were given, still no sign of the nomads hostel! We could NOT miss this bus because then we would miss our whole tour! So we went back in a hurry, asking people on the streets for directions, but everyone sent us somewhere else! So finally Fie dropped all her stuff and ran to our Roving hostel to ask again. Then they told us the bus stop was right in front of the hostel! there wasn't an actual bus sign but it would stop there. So we were relieved, Nikky walked up there with our bags and we waited for the bus to come. We kept looking to the left because in holland cars drive on the right. But all of a sudden the bus came from the right and totally drove by us!!! We forgot that aussies drive left! Haha, so we ran after it as hard as we could but of course we couldnt catch up. Luckily we saw a taxi standing at the side of the road so we asked him if he could follow the bus. So he did, and 2 blocks away we saw the bus stopping at another stop! Yaaay!! So we got out and ran towards it, and we made it!! Hooray!
Thats actually the story of our lives since we've been in Ozz: everything goes wrong at first, but it all works out well in the end, sometimes even for the better! So our new motto really is: No worries mate....!! We say that all the to each other now :p
Well, then it was onto the ferry, where we saw our canadian friend again which we met at the whitsundays tour, and she brought another friend from Germany so it was the four of us the whole day. The ferry was really slow, so it took about an hour to get to the island. It is illegal to swim in the water we crossed because there are many sharks in it. We didn't see one unfortunately.. Once on the island, we went on a tour bus which would take us over the island. We had a very funny bus driver who told us all about the island. Did you know that some dutchies actually found it and placed the dutch flag in it as if it was theirs? Even while there were already aboriginals living on it! The island is 123 x 22 km in size and it holds five different types of ecosystems. This was really cool because at one point we were driving through a rainforest and the next we were going over a desert like environment. First thing we did was going to lake mcKenzie, which was our favourite thing on the island! It is a lake with acidic water, a pH of 4. This is the same as your skin so it felt like silk! Your hair also got super smooth! Because of the low pH there were hardly any fish, and only some acidifilic frogs. The water was really clear and it was such an amazing place to be! It was love at first sight! Unfortunately, we had to go back to the bus after an hour and drove to another spot where we got a little walking tour through the rain forest. We heard so many animals but unfortunately didn't see any, besides a white cacatoo! But there was a little creek with water that is so clear and clean you could drink it! Best water in the world, our guide told us.
After this, we went to a resort where we had a fantastic lunch! That was very welcome after all our crappy meals.... ;-) Then we started driving over the beach, which is actually considered a high way! There were speed signs and everything! So funny! We drove a while and were able to enjoy the most amazing views. We then saw 2 small air crafts and were asked to go on it to see fraser island from bird perspective! After a few doubts we decided to just do it! I mean, how often are we here, right?! And cheaper than this we weren't gonna get it anywhere else.
We jumped on, only two seats left, so it was meant to be! It was pretty sweet to see the island from up high! We saw the rainforest and it looked like a bunch of broccolies. We also got a good look at the sand dunes and the see. Unfortunately no sharks or turtles... =(
We landed where the others on the bus had gone to, the marine shipwreck on the beach. It was massive, very beautiful. Then it was time to drive back to the ferry. Later in the evening we went to bed early. An intense day like this is quite tireing =) oh, and this time no screaming gals and guys in the dorm so we actually had a proper night of sleep, yay!

Thursday
This was our third day in Hervey Bay. Today we had a bit of a stressfull day because we spent so much money already, that we needed to make a plan how to save money. We talked to a guy in the hostel and he was hitch hiking and told us his stories. He had been on the road for two weeks and only spent 300 bucks so far! Sounded pretty good to us. We updated our couchsurf webpage plus we found out a cheaper way to eat... Starting in Brisbane we carefully want to try to hitch hike. Only if we both have a 100% good feeling about it, we will get in the car. Should be fine, no worries folkes!
Later that day we hung out at the pool of the hostel and booked our bus tour to Noosa.

Friday
We are in Noosa! We were on the road for almost five hours today. Our family members Kim and her 12 year old doughter Matilda and uncle Ben were waiting for us at the platform! We were very excited to see them! Staying here for a couple of days and we'll also get to see and stay at the rest of our family.
We feel very welcome here and they organised an aussie bbq at the river for us!! So sweet! We had this aussie thing where u have a peace of bread with a sausage, ketchup and onions and in our case also sweet potatoes. It was really good! We also had salad and a steak and kebab and some other snacks. Kim's partner Chris cooked for all of us, real nice! His daughter and her boyfriend were also there. Also very nice people! Adam, the boyfriend is going to teach us how to surf on wednesday! =D
On our way to the river we stopped to see some kangaroos! We saw three of em and we got very close. They are such funny animals!! Haha
Also, in the park we saw a boy with a pet parrot and he let us go take a picture with it! Sweet!
Tomorrow we are going to the beach and national park and in the morning we will have coffee with uncle Ben and aunt Billie. We can't wait!

Well, it's 11.30pm so we are off to bed!

G'night gals and guys!

P.S. We will upload some photos soon!! We've got hundreds already ;-)

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