Retards....

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  Caloundra, Queensland, Australia
Monday, August 17, 2009

Hey all,

On Saturday we visited Bundaberg which is a city located along our ever south facing journey!!! It is home to Bundaberg rum and ginger beer so we were obliged to go and visit the distillery where it is all made. It was a really fantastic trip and we got to taste all of the amazing drinks at the end! The apple ale was a definite favourite and sarsaparilla was a definite no go! (it is like a liquorice drink!!) We then drove out to a restaurant called Bagara berries for lunch. It had been recommended to us by the tourist information centre. It was a strawberry picking farm which had a cafe attached and all of the dishes contained berries. We went for puddings and Ben had strawberry and maple pancakes and Emma had 2 strawberry scones! We then went into Bagara itself which is a pretty little town by the sea and also the gateway to the reef. We went on a 12km walk through the National Marine Park which was amazing. We saw some fab creatures and we waited on a rock for 30 minutes as we had seen something run away from us. Our time was wasted as the little bugger stayed put!!!!

On Sunday we went out for breakfast (believe it or not this is the first breakfast we have ate out and boy did we make up for it!) We went to a place called Sizzler which does an all you can eat brunch on a Sunday. It was amazing and surprisingly Emma beat Ben 4 plates to 3 which counts as a serious loss of man points!!!!

We then travelled down to Hervey bay which is located close to Fraser island. This is where out tale takes a funny turn and the term 'retards' comes into play! We had booked the rest of our accommodation whilst up in Airlie. However, we had failed to write down where we were staying in Hervey Bay (in our defence we were tired!!). We said to ourselves 'we will be fine we will just check our email account when we get to Hervey Bay'. So the day arrived and we turned up to Hervey bay. Once again our naivety had beaten us as we thought Hervey Bay would be a bustling hub of young excitement .... how wrong we were!!! As we drove into town we soon became aware of the increasing numbers of people from the 'older generation'. Posters soon told us that we had arrived bang in the middle of 'senior fortnight'. This is where all the oldies in Aus get together and bash people's legs with shopping trolleys!! We thought we would find internet ... we didn't!!! So being ever positive we went to the tourist information centre and booked to go on what can only be described as the trip of a lifetime!!

Hervey bay prides itself on being the best place to go Whale Watching in the world. We heard this in Vancouver where we saw jack s#@t so we were a little dubious!! However, the Spirit of Hervey Bay offered a package where you would get a full refund if you didn't see a whale! We had nothing to lose and we were so right to go. We sailed out at 1:30pm and there were only 40 people on board a five tier ship (most were Japanese Tourists with big lenses!!) As we sailed out of the Harbour we were told by the skipper to remove hats as it could get a little windy! We were travelling at 21 knots and we were sat right at the front of the ship (outdoors). Emma's laughter then began in earnest as a man lost his hat... then his glasses... then his coat!!!!! We saw 3 dolphins which were amazing. We sailed close to Fraser island headed for Platypus Bay (about a 1 hour trip out). We then saw our first humpback whale!!!! It was about 400metres ahead of us and was playing in the water. The whales stop in the bay to give birth to their calves in warmer waters. Emma had took her hat off and had it on her lap... it didn't stay there for long as when she took the camera out of her bag the hat blew into the south pacific!! Some would say it served her right for laughing at other people but she also found losing her own hat extremely funny!!! We then sailed a little further where we were 'mugged by whales!!!'.

Three whales surrounded the boat and came within 6 ft of the sides. Mugging is the term used for when whales come really close to the ship and interact with the passengers. They apparently really like the sound of clapping so everybody on the boat had to clap. They stayed with the boat for 40 minutes. The ships are not allowed to move or have their engines on if the whales come with a 100 metres of their path so we were stranded. In the end the captain called another ship to come across to divert the whales attention so that we could continue to sail. We stayed on the water until 6:15 and saw about 20 pods of whales in the end. It truly was the most magical trip and would have been worth the journey to Australia just for this!!!!

We returned very relaxed and realised we still didn't know where we were staying. We checked out email at a cafe to find we weren't staying anywhere!!!!! Somewhere along the line we hadn't gone through the full process of the hotel booking so didn't have anywhere to stay!!! RETARDS!!! We went along to the closest set of apartments and asked if there was 'any room at the inn!' 'No' said the innkeeper. But fortunately for Mary and Joseph, sorry Emma and Ben he did suggest another resort along the esplanade. We drove to the resort and fortunately they had availability. We completely landed on our feet. It was called Peppers Pier Resort and was amazing. It was a two bedroomed apartment which was perfect! We wanted to move in!!!

Today we headed down the sunshine coast to Caloundra which is just north of Brisbane (the Aussies idea of just north is 100km away). Caloundra is a suburb of Brisbane and is home to lots of surfers! We walked down to the beach and watched the surfers for a while as the waves are huge!!!

Tomorrow we are going into Brisbane and will then continue to make our merry way to the Holy Grail which is Sydney and Dave's apartment.

We are miss you and love you all lots,

Em and Ben xxx

PS Mum, don't worry we didn't have any 'free love' with the hippies!! Gutted about the costumes - you would have looked fab as well! Enjoy the break. That chocolate stash needs to be a big one!!!! Love you lots xxxx

PPS Mum and Dad, we went past Kenilworth today - not a mobility scooter in site!! We have now done 2000km so you could say our ideas on distance have been somewhat altered! We have 1100km to go!!! Lucton will seem like it is next door! We hope the house viewing went well and that you had a great anniversary!! Love you lots xxx

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