The Wonderous adventures of Mik and me.

Hello again, so soon? that's surprising i usually don't update in such quick succession, that's because I've been lazy and I'm still catching up. Well it'd down to just two of us, Nels and Heffie are back in Wagga Wagga going to weddings and what not, leaving me here with Mikki G and the Eyre peninsula. I arrived here on thursday 11th around lunch time hung out with Mikki G and we drank some Stones and went to bed. The following day i used to drop resumes around, as soon as i set off i got a call from supercheap auto informing me that i had an interview on Wednesday 17th WOHOO i thought. I had applied for the position online whilst in Port Lincoln. This could be good. Anyways i continued around town and dropped a few resumes off. finished mid afternoon and returned to the caravan park we are living in (and as yet haven't paid a cent for). Mik formulated a plan for the weekend, we would go on an adventure around the Peninsula and aim for Port Lincoln on Sunday to catch the Sunday session, then head back too Whyalla on Monday excellent!

Click here for travel overview

If you click the link above I've put all the spots in where we stopped, Starting obviously in Whyalla on Saturday we made a beeline for Iron Knob, apparently if you can get a look at the size of the hold dug there its amazing, unfortunately they only run tours during the week. That didn't stop s from taking bumblebee up some dodgy track up the side of the quarry trying to get a glimpse over the top unfortunately we couldn't get to the top despite driving all over it, the top area was fenced off. Defeated we left the man made hill and found somewhere less hilly, wasn't hard because there were no other hills around and made some sandwiches for lunch. Stupid Iron Knob, the only time anyone would come and visit is on the weekend you knobs, why not run a tour on a Saturday! BAH.
We promptly left that shit hole behind us and headed for the town called Kimba. Kimba is quite proud of the fact that its the halfway point across Australia GO Kimba, also it had a giant Galah so Mikki G got to tick that off the list of big things, yay progress.

Flamin' Galah!

We bought a coffee from the local cafe and clambered back into ol bumblebitch, kicked her in the guts and we were back on the road again, the next destination was Buckleboo. Halfway there the road became dirt, which is awesome because bumbles loves dirt roads so she was happy, i was happy and I'm fairly sure Mik was also happy. Just a Big yellow truck of happy thundering across some terrain in the middle of nowhere.
I think it was around this area we saw pildappa rock which is SA's largest monolith or so my lovely navigator / tour director told me. so we checked it out here are some images for your eyes to look at.

1500 million years ago water smashed into this on a regular basis
thus forming its wave like structure hmmmm. PS that guy in the image was weird.

On top of pildappa, there was a 500mm deep hole full of water.

 We got to an area named Buckleboo which i think turned out to be a homestead of some description. We kept on down the dirt track joking about not really knowing where we were going. I was loving it, the road was getting rougher and i thought it would be a good opportunity to test the 4wd functionality of Bumble bee.
So i pulled over and locked the front hubs in and put the 4wd selector into 4L which is 4wd low "for maximum traction" In 5th gear ol bumbles was doing about 55kms/hr but it felt like we could tow a continent behind us. I opted for 4H next seeing as though 55kms/hr max speed wasn't doing it for me. 4H is the same as normal 2wd mode except all wheels have drive so that was good, we got back up to a cruising speed of about 80-90kms/hr and it felt great, the steering was much more direct and there was no more slipping in the sandy parts of the track WOOOOW i love Bumblebee! It wasn't long after this we saw a sleepy lizard which we avoided as Mik had recently informed me (reading from a brochure) that they mate for life, which is lovely but sad because you do see them on the road quite a bit. and next in our safari was a group of emu's running for their lives at the sight and sound of Bumblebee smashing down the road, what was extra cool was the baby emu running behind the two adult ones it was very cute and terrified awwww. We also spotted a couple of snakes along the track i think they were brown snakes can't be too sure they came and went pretty quick.
The road was great fun, it would have been a pain in the but for anything but a 4wd but for us it was great fun, we felt like we were legit explorers trekking through the outback when suddenly there was a speed limit sign. 40km/hr WHAT??? i considered it for about half a second and said F**k that and continued at our thundering pace which was actually quite comfortable as it was just fast enough to skim over the corrugations in the road. I said just my luck there will be a highway patrol car behind a bush out here. There wasn't.
The scrub opened up into a clearing which contained a self pay permit allocation station. We put some cash in an envelope and stuck a sticker on the window and we were good to go again. The are was a farm station to so long ago so there was still some hints of that around. After about 20kms of track we came across another car, enthusiastic waves all round and we were off again, we stumbled across old paney homestead so we stopped and investigated. It was slightly creepy really the fireplaces all looked like they had burnt up the walls. There were rotten mattresses on old beds lots of random old stuff like lanterns and kettles. Interesting though.

Ol' Paney Homestead front

Bumbles covering the rear

 Onwards and upwards along some more dirt road we saw an old water tank and a couple of stone walls all quite historical and interesting. T intersection, and the end of the National park we passed a couple of 4wd's entering the park gave them waves and continued full steam left. On our way out we saw a sign for Murphy's Haystacks so we went and explored them as well unfortunately my camera was flat and on the charger so here is a picture i have stolen off the net.

Legend has it an idiot on a coach thought they were haystacks hence the name

After the haystacks we drove to Streaky Bay, we were hoping we could watch the sunset over the ocean, no such luck as the bay curved around and so the sun went down behind the land, not good enough. We stopped here and had tea at the local pub. Streaky bay was gorgeous, but again my camera was flat so here is another flogged image just for your reference.

Photo doesn't do justice 1 because i didn't take it 2 because Streaky Bay is beautiful

We tried the caravan park at streaky bay, but it was closed, the sign on the door gave us the option of staying in the car park and paying in the morning, but that sounded like a bullshit deal to me so we got out the Camps 5 book and found Sceale Bay and thought we'd try and locate that. Ended up just heading inland to some tiny little track that looked like no one had ever gone down it, HMMMM no good back into streaky and heading towards Port Lincoln now, I was completely bushwhacked by this stage it felt like we were driving towards Alice Springs but we should have bee going south. The road signs said we were going the right way so we plundered on.
We saw a sign that said Baird bay and we had noticed that in the Camps 5 book earlier so we took that road. After some confusion (because the signs in SA leave a lot to be desired) we made it to a campsite, set up the rooftop tent, took a bottle of stones up in there with us an drank it until we could sleep. (the tent is very floppy when its windy, sometimes sounds like 27 ducks are stuck to the outside of it flapping as hard as they can.) Next morning we woke up with a surprise noting that we had driven past a large body of water and not noticed it at all... Weird ... It's like the Bermuda triangle i swear just less dangerous... so far.
Next up was a high speed burn to Elliston. The scenery down the west coast of the peninsula is amazing, everything from white sand dunes contrasting against the sky to sheer cliff faces plunging into electric blue waters, The water is so clear and beautiful here its hard to fathom, it's so bright in some parts it looks like the colour of blue neon, very awe inspiring. Which brings us to Elliston a cruisy little country/beach community with a thriving art culture, we cruised along a cliff face drive and to our surprise it was dotted with different sculptures all along it. Here are some images to tickle your brains.

"Hey did you see that yellow 4wd"
"nuh"
"oh, maybe I'm imagining things again"

Crappy lil camera phone can't capture the brilliance of the blues



"Nah look there it is!"
"Oh that one?"
"Yeah"
"Yeah what about it?"
"OI YELLO.."



"Shut up blockheads! Your comments are irrelevant because you and i are inanimate"

Anyways back to the story. After Elliston it was about an hour and a half back down to port Lincoln, a beautiful big inland salt lake stole our attention for a little while and soon we were arriving in Lincoln. We pulled up out the front of Amber's house and i was just telling Mik about how Amber said she can always hear us coming, so i gave the engine a little rev, and sure enough Amber popped out the front all excited that we had come to surprise her. We talked crap for a couple of hours and then headed down to the good ol Boston for the Sunday session.

Nick and Steve (respectively) playing some awesomeness.

Mik and i had a bit to drink and ended up getting invited to some randoms house, which we didn't end up doing, but i some other people to go, even Ricardo was going if he could get a lift. We ended up chillin at Toohey's house again while amber used his oven to cook some killer pizza. After catching up we went back to Amber and Steve's and caught some zed's. Next morning we woke up late, as you do in Port Lincoln and cruised back up the eastern side of the peninsula. We checked out a couple of the little townships along the way but nothing was as pretty as the western side.

Mikki enjoying a scenic lookout

This is what Miks eyes saw (roughly)

Eventually we made it back to Whyalla and had a great sense of accomplishment we'd done over 1000kms in a couple of days and enjoyed every minute. Thanks for reading :)

The Eyre Peninsula

Oh Hello and welcome to another brain leak detailing my travels with the Wolfpack. This could be a long one so make yourself a cuppa or stiff drink I'll wait here.........
Cool well the best place to begin is where i last finished so lets do that shall we. In the last episode we had just arrived in Port Lincoln and helped Amber celebrate her birthday. The next day was a Sunday so we enjoyed a nice sleep in and prepared ourselves for a day of strenuous rest. We were all still quite buggered from the large drive the day before and our brains were not firing on all cylinders but that's cool, because all of pt Lincoln seems to be like that the place is a damn time warp, impossible to wake up in the mornings and then when you do the time flys by without much happening at all. (I think the Eyre Peninsula is like the Bermuda triangle some places the time isn't constant, the sky is massive and other places your sense of direction is completely bushwhacked.) Amber was telling us about the Sunday sessions down at the Boston Hotel, good tunes supplied by Steve, Nick and other local with musical bones. This sounded like a great idea. Amber also forewarned us about a character named Ricardo, apparently he is quite the interesting character and usually indulges himself in a hefty dance and tambourine play along. Nick (one of Amber and Steve's friends) added that he had already hidden the Tambourine so that Ricardo couldn't have it. Quite the funny story and i was interested to go to the Sunday session for a number of reasons now.
Enough time had passed that we were invited to join our new Gracious hosts Amber and Steve for a Sunday session at the pub, need i say more? an invitation to a pub we're there. We arrived and watched a few different people play, whatever they felt like on the stage in the back corner of the pub, It was beautiful, a great vibe, great tunes and the view from the back area of the pub is spectacular, It looks right over the water in the bay. After a few drinks we went to the smoking area and continued to listen to the tunes and drink a bit more. Approaching us from 1965 was a man who walked with a swagger not unsimilar to Johnny Depp as Hunter S Thompson (or any other of his characters really) and looked alot like your stereotypical fisherman. No prizes for anyone who can guess who this cat was....... Yup Ricardo the man who's reputation lived up perfectly to his physical embodiment. He swaggered his way over to our table and plonked himself down and introduced himself,
"G'day I'm Ricardo" he said with his hand extended, I'm not sure if i thought or replied with
"of course you are". He continued to tell us a story about how the whales had come into the bay to see that the signs on the silo's had been changed to sport the Viterra logo "oh they've changed the signs" is apparently what the whales thought. His ramblings wandered more than his swagger in the beer garden. The notable story was that he was looking for his Tambourine that he had misplaced somewhere. he said something like.
"I had a Tambourine man, It was just out here, but now it's gone, how do you make a tambourine disappear man, that's crazy." Yeah that's whats crazy Ricardo...
We snuck back inside to catch some more tunes, Nick and Steve are amazing musicians and are excellent to watch. Ricardo was enjoying the tunes too, you could tell by the weird click, clap touch the ground dance he was doing, I don't think the 60's have ended for this man. After a fun afternoon we went back to Amber's for tea, can't remember what it was but it was delicious Amber is an awesome chef these days.
Monday was spent hunting for work, dropping resumes off where ever we could. Mik applied at all the pubs around town and needed work A.S.A.P. Unfortunately nothing happens fast in Port Lincoln and there were no real bites for jobs that day or as it turned out that week. After that day of hunting about we were invited for tea at another of Amber and Steve's friends house.
Amber had told us of Toohey's (not sure if that's the right spelling but that's what i gather his nickname is :) )cooking and he did not disappoint. That night we also met Toohey's housemate Heidi and some other lovely people who's names escape me :s sorry guys. Toohey had prepared an unbelievable feast for us. All made from a large fresh tuna he had procured. The first course was sushi mi, Raw tuna with some dipping sauces, one of which was wasabi. To my surprise i quite enjoyed sushi mi and had tried all the sauce except for the Wasabi that had everyone scared. One of the other girls that was there tried it first and seemed to enjoy it so i thought "oh well, she's not dead i guess I'll have a go" so i picked up a piece of tuna and dunked it in the wasabi sauce put it in my mouth and braced for the incoming pain........... oh that wasn't so bad really bit of a kick that only lasts a second and then the spicy feeling is gone. I quite enjoyed it and went back for more.
The next course was cooked as a roll seasoned on the outside and sealed on a hotplate, the fish was beautifully presented sliced up on a plate with 3 more dipping sauce. The verdict around the table was that the taste actually resembled roast lamb, and it did strangely enough it was delicious. After devouring that plate and some Sav. Blaunc Toohey had commenced the course that was to be the grand finale. Tuna Steaks on the BBQ. They took very little time to cook and were amazing, fresh tuna does not taste fishy at all the meat is read and more resembles beef or lamb but breaks apart as you push your fork through and dissolves in your mouth. Unbelievable and so damn delicious. Now we all sat around for a while chatting joking and nursing our swollen stomachs. After a great night we headed back and hit the hey.
The rest of the week was filled out by looking for work and catching up with Amber. Mik was at this point getting quite stressed, she really needed work and wasn't getting any love from Port Lincoln unfortunately. After a week of trying she headed up to Whyalla to drop some resumes off, we all wished her luck and hung back in Port Lincoln as Nelson and Heff had a flight booked from there leaving on the following Wednesday.
Meanwhile Amber and Steve had started a communal painting in the kitchen i added a bit to the bottom right corner and this is where it was up too last time i saw it.



a journey through time if you left for the 80's and the future is now...

I painted the weird pelican looking thing, not sure what it is but it's name is admiral Percival. It was now Sunday again and Heff, Nelson and i decided we should go and surprise Mik in Whyalla  for the day as she had been alone for a couple of days now and had just stared work at a pub. So we left in the morning found her at about lunch time and totally surprised her it was awesome. We had a look around whyalla at the beach and such had some tea with mik and headed back to Port Lincoln. This is what we come up with from that trip.

Old Refinery in the middle of town looks interesting in black and white

Gnarly kite surfers on the beach

After getting pack to Port Lincoln, we hung out for a couple of days until i dropped Heff, and Nelso off at the Airport and said goodbye. I spent that night in Port Lincoln and then headed up in the morning to go and stay with Mik and look for Work in Whyalla. and i'm still looking :s

Broken Hill and Port Lincoln

One very average sniffle filled sleep later it was day again, time to continue to Broken Hill. I took the reigns of Bumble bee for a while and we drove to Wilcania. If you ever get the chance to stop and have lunch there like we did, DON'T its a decrepit old town and hasn't got much to offer eccept boarded up windows and a disgusting pond like creek. I didn't like it and i was scared Broken Hill would be much the same.
Wrong!! Broken Hill was a great place. We arrived there at night and set up base in Kathini's Living room, Kathini is a life long buddy on Mik's and she was a very gracious host and tour guide. After another snuffly sleep i woke up early and went for a drive. I ended up at Macca's and had a coffee, i then decided i should go to Big W to buy some undies (say no more) and turns out i was too early for Big W to be open. I waited out the front like a looser until the store opened and i got what i was after. By this time Heff and Nels had found me and we all went back to the house.

After we all were ready we piled into Thini's car and began the tour. First stop was the top of the line of lode, i think its a pile of dirt dug out of the mines. Its in the middle of town and has an oversize bench seat i didn't get any photos of this but i probably should have, meh oh well. The next stop on the tour was another area of dirt just out of the town. It is in this position that i took the following panorama image.



oooooooh dryness (click to enlarge)

Next stop Silverton, this place is where alot of films set in a desert are filmed, Mad Max, Priscilla and lots more we stopped in at the silverton hotel to check it out. Mik Heff and Nelson were all up for the free beer challenge at the bar i opted out because Partially because i still didn't feel well and i knew what was coming, And partially because I'm a party pooper.
Anyways the point of the challenge was this, the bartender put a funnel down the front of their pants and a potato on their foreheads. They had to move their heads down so that the potato would fall into the funnel. The trick of it all was that when they had the potatoes balancing on their heads the bartender poured water into the funnels. HAHAHAH i laughed i think they knew what was coming but did it anyway in good spirits, they all received a certificate and a free beer, mind you the free beer was poured into a shot glass, just the final nail in the coffin of humiliation they were being buried in.

Some replicas of of the interceptor and another Mad Max Esq buggy

The love child of the interceptor and a vw beetle

After the silverton hotel we went and checked out an art gallery still in silverton, had some pretty cool art i bought a couple of postcards. When we had concluded oogling the pretty pictures we clambered back into Thini's car and headed for the next part of the tour LUNCH. Chips and gravy were the order of the day and boy didn't the troops love it. Nelson and Heather opted to stay home for the next part of the tour, because Nelson was feeling crook. It was quite unfortunate for them because they missed some truly inspirational art.
Thini's took Mik and i to the tourist info centre to hire a set of keys for the sculpture symposium, sounds awesome and it was. The statues were created as a workshop by artists from all over the world, I think the workshop ran for about a week and the end result was these monolith type sculptures standing proudly in a high point of the desert. The seemingly random location and baron landscape really make the sculptures stand out, almost give them some sort of significance separate to what the sculptures had intended, or maybe my bullshit gland is in full swing, irrelevant really fact of the matter is i enjoyed the sculptures alot and i wish Heff and Nelson had seen them.

Family portrait

I think this one was called horse head, dunno why?

This one was by an Aztec sculptor and was my favorite

You can fit your arm through that whole, in case you were wondering.

 Hmmm were did we go from there, only the biggest canvas painting in the southern hemisphere, i took a sneaky video of the room it was amazing. We walked through the gallery and into a cave like area, it had some indigenous Australian style art on the walls, once we were through the cave the was a deck, kind of like a patio with a roof the deck lead to a rotunda and the view was an almost 360 hand painted canvas of the broke hill area. In the foreground in front of the canvas was some taxidermificated animals and various pieces of nature found in the area. If you have a look at the video you might figure out what I'm talking about.

It was awesome, again it was a shame Heff and Nelson missed out, tut tut tut.

After the massive canvas viewing we were ready for some snacks so we headed to the other side of town, on the other side of the line of lode and found "Bells" it's a 50's style milk bar that still make authentic 50's style drinks and treats i had a Cream soda spider i think it gave me diabetes but it was delicious. After the drinks we were ready to call it a day and headed back to Thini's for some Bourbon and a viewing of the Repo Man movie.

What an awesome surprise Broken Hill was i am really happy we spent a couple of days there and it's somewhere i could easily go back to. Sturt desert pea anyone?



vibrant no?

 The very next morning the wolfpack arose to the smell of bacon and eggs, Kathini is an awesome hostess. After breakfast and goodbyes we hit the road again. This time we thought we could do an all day burn all the way to Port Lincoln. It wasn't very hard except for the boringly straight roads of S.A. the highlight of the trip was crossing over the Finders Range it was really cool. The view looking out after the range onto the ocean was spectacular. Down here in S.A. the outback runs right up to the ocean, very different to what I'm used to grain fields running right up to the sand of the beach, a vast contrast to the Lush density of North Queensland. We kept on trucking through the afternoon and part of the night until we arrived in Port Lincoln. Just in time to help my bestie Amber celebrate her Birthday, we partied for a little while and then collapsed after a big day of driving. Cheers.

Gold Coast to half way between Nyngan and Cobar (bum f^ck nowhere)

Hello anybody. Where were we last time... hmm just leaving the Gold coast if i remember correctly. After sleeping off the amazing time we had at Movie world it was time to embark on the next cross country run. Our Eventual destination was Port Lincoln but we had to take a few days to do so obviously. We also had a planned stopover in Broken Hill. So thats the basic rundown, now for all the details this brain retains.

It was my birthday on this day, the girls left us early whilst we were still packing up our site (which i thought was a bit rude but anyway) they were going to get some "supplies" for lunch. Nels and i packed up the rest of the camp site and then headed off, Perfect timing as the girls had just finished their rrands and we were ready to go. Its always a good feeling to get nack on the road again and it's amazing how much ground you can cover when you put your mind and foot to it. We were aiming for tamworth or Armidale two places we thought would definently have a steak available, becasuse thats what i wanted for my birthday dinner. mmmm Anyways after driving for a bit we pulled over at a service centre and i got out of the car. Mik came running over to me with a straw hat with a feather boa in the top of it, apparently it had been decided that this was to be the birthday hat and everytime i was out of the vehicle i had to wear it. Woohoo just what i wanted, hahah it was all in good fun, though i did feel like a goose everytime someone looked at me strange, i could see what they were thinking "Nice hat dickhead" or something along those lines. This happened a few times, we would pull over for a quick break and i would get out of the car forgetting to put the hat on, untill i saw Mik's dissapointed face then i would put the crown back on, It was embarrasing but fun.
Eventually we got to Armidale, found a caravan park to stay in (even thought it seemed like a problem for the owner to take our money, what a wanker) and then we went to the RSL club for a steak dinner. Upon arrival we were informed that the stove had been turned off (even though the sign said they would be cooking for another 45mins.) so we had to order a roast from the carvery. Good thing it only cost $10 because it was pretty average. After we finished dinner, Mik went "to the toilet" or something and i was talking on my phone. Then the lights in the dining room were turned off, i thought "you rude bastards" then i noticed Mik had found me a piece of Black Forest Cake and had organised to have the lights turned off for effect. That was awesome, I felt very spoilt. The lights came back on after the guys had finished signing happy birthday to me. The Black Forest Cake was delicious and Mik and Heff revealed to me that they had been looking for a cake all day, thats why they had snuck off early that morning and gone awol in the small towns we passed through, i suspected nothing and realised how lucky i was to have such awesome friends. Love you guys.
After a few drinks and conversing with the locals (by locals i mean a bloke by the name of Bevo) we went back to the caravan park and slept the night away.
The following day We were all up nice and early ready for another days travel. Today out target spot was a rest area camp site half way between Nyngan and Cobar. I travelled with Mik that day in Smadaity as Nelson was punishing Heather with some Metal in the Troopy. As the day progressed i was getting ill, some sort of man cold (the worst kind) Mik put up with my whinging between games of who can guess the song first. We made it all the way to the rest area and set up. Its amazing how much scenery can change in a day of driving, The lush greenery had been left behind and had made way for thebarron landscape of central Australia. It's still pretty but in a different way. By the time the Camp was established there were mozzies everywhere i had some tea and promptly went to bed.

A lookout with particularly smelly drop toilets. Nice view though

Scenery change

From Townsville to the Gold coast (more photos to come)

We said our good byes to the awesome Norwegian friends we made in townsville and headed back onto the road. It was a good feeling to start travveling again the excitement and reality of our adventure was reawakened. Heather, Nelson and myself would be driving from Townsville to the Gold Coast where we were going to collect MikGater and continue our voyage into the unknown.
This recollection may be a little sloppy because I'm writing it after the fact. But I'll do my best to recollect accurately, and you don't know the specifics so you'll just have to take my word for it i guess. :) Anyways we left Townsville and drove to Mackay, Heather took the opportunity to have her eyebrows ripped off, as girls do apparently. Nels and i went for a stroll down the street and decided we didn't like Mackay, by the time we finished our summary on how average we thought the town was Heather had finished having her face modified and we were good to go. As i recall we also had subway mmmm mm. Anyways we drove from Mackay to a place called Ball Bay, we found it listed in the Camps 5 book that Mattie and Jeannie had kindly donated prior to our departure from wagga. Anyways we arrived at Ball Bay after getting slightly lost. And it was amazingly awesome. The bay had a view of Brampton Island, that for some reason i was calling Bradbroke, possibly because I'm stupid but i could have sworn that Dougie Doug the campsite booking master called it that. anyways we set up camp between two palm trees and stayed there for 2 nights, we did some fishing, nelson caught a couple and through them back, thinking we would do better, i hooked something big but it broke the line.... ahhh the one that got away. After our second lovely night at Ball bay it was time to depart. Our next destination was further south.

campalicious

Ball bay

It was night time by the time we arrived in Yeppoon and Heather had found a campsite listed in her copy of camps 5 so we sought it out. Turns out it was a shitty site in the middle of a mozzie infested forest and Heather was scared because there were crocodile warning signs on the entry. We set up a brief camp and cooked some steak sanga;s and went to bed.

We awoke early the next morning eager to leave this site behind us so we ventured forth to the illustrious precinct of 1770 and Agnes Waters. We tried our luck with another camps 5 site, this one i can remember the name of because it was a cool place. "Workman's Beach" we set up camp and marvelled at the seemingly feral children that were inhabiting the area. One of the children had fashioned a fancy wind toy out of a stick and a plastic bag and was running around quite proud of itself. We received some complements on our handsome vehicle from a fellow troopy owner, watched some shows on the laptop and went to bed.
I woke up that morning to the sound of talons on the roof of the troopy, a bush turkey had clambered onto the roof and was scratching around, i then witnessed it jump from the roof onto our rubbish bag we had tied up in a tree it proceeded to destroy the bag and everything in it, thanks turkey. Anyways we packed up camp and hit the road again, this time we wanted to stay in a caravan park because we all stunk from not showering and we had heaps of washing bulit up.
Gympie was the choice of destination and the caravan park was our x on the map. We set up camp and enjoyed overdue showers; showers i have learnt are a very underrated luxury and should not be taken for granted, standing in the shower and watching days of dirt go down the drain and hobbit feet become clean again was a massively rewarding experience. The following day we woke up and did some more washing and then set off in search of the Alpaca farm, Heff loves Alpacas because her head is fluffy like one, so we found the farm and fed some camel sheep. I discovered i can speak alpaca, and the owner of the farm was more than keen to discuss the mating procedures that the Alpacas indulge in. After the Alpacas we went back to the van park and had some tea and chatted to our new neighbours. They were headed for Brisbane and told us that there was to be a zombie walk there. So that's where our next stop would be.
Next morning we packed up camp with amazing efficiency and drove to Briz vegas. We chortled around the city for a while untill we found the zombie walk, they blocked the intersection for at least 20mins and all the taxi drivers around us were irate which i found amusing. Our evening destination was the Treasure Island Caravan Park. Nelso and i realised we had stayed there before whilst on a High school trip to great Keppel Island HAHAHAHAH, not funny. We set up camp bitched about our British Neighbours and waited untill we coud collect Mikki G from the Airport. Heff arrived back at camp with Mik in the Van and there was much rejoice, the wolfpack was reunited and rainbows spilled out of the clouds carrying butterflies and gold. After collecting as many butterflies as we could and catching up with Mik we went to bed and mentally prepared ourselves for the following days Theme park bonanza.  That night i was a little concerned as a massive thunderstorm was rolling in and i was sleeping in my roof top tent on top of the bumble bee watching the storm approach. I updated my status on facebook just incase it was my last, closed the windows in the tent and thought happy thoughts untill i fell asleep.
Woohooo Movieworld day, we caught the bus to Movie world and made a beeline for the superman ride. Its the newest roller coaster at Movieworld and is really fun. Unlike most roller coasters that winch you up an incline before starting this one launches you fast... Superman fast as the voice over will tell you. 0 to 100+ kms in a couple of seconds its awesome but its so fact that the ride is almost over by the time your brain catches up wit your head, hence why we rode it multiple times in the day. The other multi time rides were the lethal weapon and the scooby doo roller coaster. All the rides were mega awesome we had  a ball.
Stay tuned for the next chapter that will include my birthday and Broken hill. Peace.

FATBOY

What an awesome experience, this post is a little late, but better late than in a garbage bin... Right? The experience i speak of is that of riding a harley davidson. It was a fantastic weekend, i did at least 700kms on the bike and loved every minute of it.


I stumbled across the website when i was looking at rentals for something to do, i think it was because i had recieved the money from selling my statesman and the money was burning a hole in my pocket, that and i'm still in holiday mode, and i don't have to justify my actions so give me a break. Point of the matter is i got the idea of riding a harley in my head, then i couldn't shake it, it was haunting me like a stain on my brain. The only option was to fulfill the desire and go and hire one.

After 2 or 3 phone calls getting diverted to other people finally i got into contact with someone that was at the office, i organised to hire the bike for the weekend, which meant i could pick it up at 4 o'clock that day (friday) and drop it back at 10am monday. Waiting for 4pm to arrive was so hard the time was standing still. At one point i could swear it was going backwards.

Eventually the time came to go and find the promised harley, i was excited and nervous, a similar feeling to when you go for a licence test. I was nervous because the biggest bike i had ridden previous to this was my gpx250 which is a learner legal bike with a 250cc engine the harley had a 1600cc engine . Quite the difference. And after signing over $2500 in case i crashed the magestic steed i was given an introduction.

"it likes to be ridden hard, this is how you start it, i'm sure you know you've risdden before". With that the keeper of the steed handed me the keys and went back inside. I jumped on and started it, the gurgle of the engine was awesome, makes you feel like you're sitting on an angry monster, turns out that feeling is correct. I started off down the road and was immediatley greeted with an excess of power under my control. After some gentle riding to get to know it i started to relax and enjoy myself. That afternoon i picked Mikyla up from her work, she was excited to see her night in shining armour ready to go for a ride on the noble steed, i was thinking more like a bogan on a big bike but whatev's we went for a ride into the city and got some supplies and went the long way home, pretty sure we were both sporting goofy grins, something will need to be done about that you can't look like you're having fun on a bike like that. Anyways after some fun overtaking and taking off from the lights quickly we went home. That night i dreamt about riding the harley and when i woke up it was still there, gotta love that. (i hate those dreams where you dream of having something awesome and look for it when you wake up only to be dissapointed.) i was definently not dissapointed upon waking up i got straight up and dresses and went for another ride. I rode to the dam at townsville and had a look it was ok but not as cool as the hog so i got back on it and went for a fang on a back accesss road around the dam wooohoo. I got back home and Heather and Nelson were awake Mik had gone to work. Heather was all but ready to go for a ride. So we saddled up and decided we would go for a ride up mt stuart.... We rode for about 20mins in the opposite direction, Heather told me to go that way, pretty sure she just wanted to be an exhaust babe for as long as possible. We stopped and had a look around for mt stuart (which is hard to miss because its huge and has reception towers on top of it) it was behind us in the opposite direction so we spent half an hour driving back through the city, a few squeals from Heather later and we were at the base of mt stuart, it is an awesome windy road up the back of the mountain, rewarded by an amazing view of townsville and magnetic island. A little parched we headed of back down the mountain, stopped at a servo, read the news headline that backpackers are being condemmed for gettin naked on the strand, had a drink and headed back home. Later that arvo i went to get some fuel and Heather insisted she come with me, we found the furthest servo possible and topped up the tank ready for my big ride on sunday. When we got home we went for a swim in the pool garden paradise and then veged for the evening.

Sunday morning i set off for ayr to meet my uncle at a rest stop called sandy corner. By this time i was donning a bandana to cover my goofy grin and keep bugs out of my teeth and beard, there were lots of bikers on the road i think there must have been a ulysees ride on, when i pulled into the rest stop my uncle was not sure it was me, so i played on it a bit. After i revealed myself i was greeted with a handshake and a hug and a brief conversation, then we set off for my uncles house. We went on the back roads which was cool, got to open up the bike a bit, the power was awesome. We had a drink at his house and fixed the blinker on the harley which had vibrated itslef loose. We then went for a scenic ride along the backroads between sugar cane fields, that was cool the smell of sugar cane burning off is intoxicating i loved it. We rode around the western side of the mountain range near Ayr and made our way back to the higway leading to townsville. We had a kebab on the strand and chatted and caught up for a while, then my unc decided we should check out rollingstone beach which is about 70kms north of townsville. It was an awesome spot and i took the wolfpack (albeit speparatly) later. After checking that out unc escorted me back to my house and we bid our farewells. It was an excellent day of riding i did over 500kms and had numb hands and a numb bum. Mik finished work at 9pm and we decided we'd go for a ride back to rollingstone beach in the early morning and watch the sun come up.

Monday morning with a refreshing 4hrs sleep i picked mik up despite the sprinkling rain. We set off in the dark in search for a rising sun, once we hit the highway i was having difficulty seeing due to the open face helmet rain and lack of light, i pulled over and put my sunnies on to stop the rain stabbing my eyes, it helped somewhat but all i could see was the lines on the road and the lights of oncoming and cars in front. But we pushed on, by this time we were pretty wet (from the now quite heavy) and it didn't matter. We got to the beach just as the sun was coming up just in time to watch the clouds light up, but not the epic sunrise we had hoped for.

The ride home was better and worse, i could see at least but it was pissing down, by the time we got home we were drenched to the bone, i had water leaking into my boots through my pants. But it was still a good experience and as Mik said " things don't have to be perfect to be good". Awesome quote Mikki. :) we had showers and stuffed around for a bit and the time had come to take back my new love. I enjoyed the ride back to the hire place and dropped it back to them with a heavy heart. But at least i can now say i've ridden a harley and was king of the road (for a brief time).

Please donate to the Craig wants a harley fund, everyone who donates i'll take for a ride. :) thats a good deal yeah?

Is this right?

An ill fitting helmet could not ruin the experience

off we go

Mutherf*cker on a motorcycle

Total Badass

awwww :)

Cairns and Friends

Waaa woo wee wah what an amazing few days we have had. It has finally and fully sunken in the gravity and awesomeness of this adventure in which i am part of. The Wolfpack are an awesome group of people and North Queensland is a mind blowing part of this country.
A brief overview of the last few days: we travelled from Townsville up to Cairns stayed a night, drove back to Paronella Park and stayed there a night then on the way home visited a waterfall.


View Larger Map
There you go some sort of layout of our Trip

A: Townsville
B: Ingham
C: Cardwell
D: Cairns
E: Gilligans Backpackers Cairns
F: Josephine Falls
G: Paronella Park
H: Wallaman Falls
I: Townsville

Now for those who want the full story in gory detail...
It was a beautiful day in Townsville (i think... I'm becoming kind of bias and every day regardless of weather seems to be excellent). We drove to Ingham to pick up Mik who had been fishing with some friends she has made in the area (she's totally a local now). We met Mik at the McDonalds in Ingham and she was impressed that we were reasonably on time, which is always nice so we continued on our merry way to Cairns, i was driving until we reached Caldwell unfortunately i didn't get any photos at Caldwell but i did take some footage which will be in the first episode of (unnamed- suggestions?) soon to be edited. Anyways the drive was amazingly scenic and it was about to get even more amazing. Nelson took over driving so i started taking photos, below are some from the trip between Caldwell and Cairns.

Selfie with the Girlies in the back.

these photos don't due justice to the size of these mountains.

I thought it was sad for such a beautiful place to have a refinery, So i took a photo.

The density of the lushness just kept on increasing.

When we arrived in Cairns we checked into Gilligans which is like the backpackers to end all backpackers my phone was flat so this part of the journey isn't documented in my photo's sorry, after we checked in we went to AJ Hackett and watched Heather and Mik go on the Minjin Swing it looked amazing and the girls were very brave, I took some footage that will also be in the first episode of (unnamed- suggestions?). Basically its a swing that you are suspended from then winched backwards until you are 40m off the ground (level with the bungee platform) then you have to pull the release pin and swing, apparently at the bottom apex of the swing you are doing about 120kms p/h which is very fast in a small amount of time hahah. The girls loved it so much they did it twice, i watched, filmed and drank beer.

After all of that commotion was complete we went for a shop in the night markets in Cairns I bought a hippie headband and Sunglasses and Heff bought a pair of hippy fanta pants (you'll see them in an upcoming photo). That night we went to the bar in Gilligans which is ridiculous its huge and multifaceted it had about 3 or 4 different bars and lots of international guests all drinking and eating, the meal i got was $10 it was an open grill chicken sandwich with salad and chips, included in the price is a free drink... i opted for Bourbon, the first of many that were to be consumed that night. The hour following tea was 2 for 1 drinks so for 7.50 i was getting 2 Bourbons i bought 3 lots in that hour. After that hour the drinks were back to standard prices which meant we could use our stamps (given to guests of the backpackers) to get discounted drinks, this meant Bourbons were now $5 ea more expensive than the previous hour, but still amazingly cheap, not sure how many we drank in this hour but it would have been at least 4 or 5. Heather was keeping up with me drink for drink which was quite impressive also we were all getting quite loose and enjoying the bogan rock that was playing. Little did we know that the bogan rock was an intro into Bogan Bingo which was hilarious. Hosted by to funny blokes dressed up in flanos and mullets, they were the funniest pair of MC's i've witnessed.
"41, up ya bum.... no babies" each number had a funny bogan comment to go with it and a song,
"15, not quite legal!" this was backed up with cherry pie i was almost crying with laughter, pretty sure the excessively cheap alcohol was helping with the mood. About an hour must have passed, the bogans announced the hour of power, another incentive to drink more. The hour of power is $10 to opt in you get a voucher with 6 drinks on it, So i had 6 drinks again in this hour. Heather managed to get 8 because the chick at the bar didn't take the voucher when she got her drinks. It was about this time Nelson Said
"Pretty cool place hey" to which i replied
"I'm wasted" i had misheard him and revealed the extent of my intoxication i one foul swoop. After such a calamity the only obvious next step is to go and dance, so we Nelson, Heather and Myself danced with such prowess that other backpackers were joining us and some were even taking photos, obviously because I'm such a talent on the dance floor!
The next morning was kinda blurry so after checkout in my blurry hungover state i thought it was a great idea to get a facial piercing! So i marched into the nearest piercing shop and walked out with a sore lip and a chunk of metal in it.

I have a shiny sprinkle on my face.

Well what came next.. aha yes our next stop was Josephine falls it was a little way off the highway but definitely worth the trek. It was a gorgeous lush rain forest waterfall that i really enjoyed. I didn't go for a swim because i was concerned about my lip. but i did enjoy the rain forest walk and the spectacular waterfall.

Josephine Falls (i had to pick my jaw up from the ground)

It so lush that everything has something else growing from it!

After Nelson and Heff had a swim and i had a smoke with Mik and washed my mouth out with mouthwash. We continued to our next port of call, being Paronella Park it was simply breathtaking. Its like a mini Spanish Castle set on a waterfall and every building on the site is made to accentuate or frame the waterfall in one way or another.

Don't worry i know what I'm doing

almost there....

Bam and the Penthouse is ready!

After setting up camp we went on the night tour and again my phone was flat so i couldn't take any pictures but i took some the following morning.  On the night tour we were all given a torch each and followed the very bubbly tour guide around the park. The highlight for me wasn't actually the park itself but the Firefly's! When the tour guide was feeding some turtle i started looking up, spacing out no doubt. But regardless i looked up and saw what i thought were fairy lights, i remember thinking that's a bit tacky to have in a nice place like this, but the fairy lights started moving this is when i pointed it out to Mikyla, just to make sure i wasn't hallucinating or something. Turns out they were firefly's, i didn't even realise we had them in Australia, but they are a definent highlight in this trip and in my life, very very special. After a good nights sleep we went packed up camp and set off on our merry way to do the morning tour, it was much more informative than the night one but somehow despite that it was slightly more boring (may be an insight into my brain). Anyways we cruised around and took some glamour shots. It's impossible to take an ugly photo in this place!

The main building

View from the bottom of the grand staircase.

Same spot as the above image just turned 180degrees

Stunning gravity fed water fountain

Morning tour Heff's afore mentioned Fanta Pants

I can't remember the name of these trees but apparently the
Australian Army Camouflage is based on the pattern.

The Waterfall from the top

This was once the refrestment cafe and entrance to the ballroom



From above the falls looking over the Eel pool.

 Paronella Park is a must and i recommend it for anyone thinking of coming up this direction. Sadly we had to leave this beautiful place and continue on our Journey back to Townsville. We had one last stop of which turned out to be epically spectacular! Wallaman Falls is the largest free falling waterfall in the Southern Hemisphere 268m of free falling water its amazing, half the water is mist before it reaches the bottom which looks excellent because the mist is blown up the valley and appears to go back to the top of the falls.

The Wolfpack at Wallaman Falls, (you can see it in the middle)

After that we returned to Townsville, which was weird because it felt like driving home from a holiday but as it turns out it was a holiday within a holiday! Awesome. Peace.