We got the Greyhound!! :)

Well! The new year has started off pretty great! Celebrating new years in australia was a blast! 2012 has already seen us having a whale of a time (although sadly we havent seen any whales due to the wrong time of year :( ).
We caught the Greyhound Bus all the way up to Townsville (a nice 6 hour trip) where we were met by the owners of the hostel we stayed at. We were shown to our dorm where we literally dumped our bags and headed straight for Reef HQ.!!
Highlight there was of course the Turtle Hospital. In addition to seeing some very weird and wonderful creatures. We learnt all about Box jellyfish....one tip for u's: don't get stung!!

Proving we are backpackers, we spent as little as possible on groceries and made a quick pasta dinner....whilst navigating around all the other hostel dwellers making a pig sty of the steaming kitchen. Think it was only us 2 that were English at the time!  Before heading to our dorm we caught a glimpse of some other foreigners feeding a local greedy possum. Once we were refreshed, we took a stroll along The Strand to see the "happening night life" of Townsville....get those legs pumping runners and power walkers!

Wednesday
After an awesome nights sleep....ehem yea sure in a dorm of 6....we felt refreshed and alert for a ferry ride across to Magnetic Island...do u know why it's called magnetic island nick? No? Read it up online then. ;) oh ok it's because when James cook sailed past in 1770, the ships compass went a bit haywire and thus the island is known as magnetic (maggie) island. However there is no basis for the theory that the island is "magnetic".
Next up came the bus ride from the ferry all the way up the island to Horseshoe Bay. Seeing as how refreshed and awake we felt, we thought we would bee line straight to the coffee cafe directly next to the bus stop...and check out the local staff ;)

Went for a stroll along the bay looking at all the washed up coral and of course all the awesome (nick: disgusting), funny (nick: creepy) blue bubbler crabs :D (nick: :().
Unfortunately we didn't see any Rock Wallabies which we were hoping to spot. Nick-They don't come out till night time!! Haz-Ohhh ok. That would be why we didn't see them then!! ;). Lunch was a big thumbs up finding a place which sold great sandwich and wrap fillings! I know it doesn't sound that exciting but it is really when you add in Gluten Free Bread!

Next up...well....a bit of an adventure really...ehem yes that's right adventure Nick! Not a huffing and sighing walking trip!!
We got the bus back down to The Forts where we were told we could take a short walk down the road...across a bridge...follow the beach and end up at Arthur Bay. A great place for snorkelling.......we wouldn't know this of course because we never got there!!!  First up we started down the wrong track. The clue being that we were heading uphill and not downhill towards the beach...good going right? So backtracking led us to the only other trail obviously in the area. So by process of elimination: one uphill track...one downhill track, we took the downhill track. Steep steep hills down down down....ol' sporty nick here starts sighing and moaning already saying "oh my days we have to walk back up this!" Yes, yes we do but we're walking so hurry up.
On we trekked....in the best Duke of Edinborough hiking gear available...thongs. Sorry!! Meant Flipflops! ;) Aussie slang u know. Eventually we came across 3 puffing, wheezing beetroot tinged foreigners who basically answered our question "is it worth it?" with "we couldn't find it". About turn and heading back up the hill, with guess who being dragged up the hill? Hey now!! No not haz! Nick thank you very much!! You can tell who did Duke Of Edinborough now aye!! Powering through we got back to the top. A little adventure... Ehem. Ok so onto the next adventure...waiting for the bus back to Horseshoe Bay :D.

Whilst casually minding our own business waiting for the bus (and betting how long it would take for the 3 beet roots to get back up the hill) we witnessed a idiot on a moped decide to drive on the wrong side (so the right side) of the road, acting up in front of his pals and swerve head first into the rock verge to avoid an oncoming vehicle. Luckily no one was hurt badly. Few scrapes and bruises (which we later saw on the ferry).

Getting back to Horseshoe Bay we plonked ourselves back on the beach, had an ice cream and nice swim in the sea. Ahhh. Chilled and relaxed again at last!

Bit of a long blog for just a couple of days! Nice to see the bulk of it was basically explaining about us walking down a hill and back up it again....
Soooooo basically we had a good last evening in Townsville and are getting the bus in the morning to Cairns. Another epic 6 hour journey. Woohoo!!



Love Haz and Nick x x