An island, more beaches and a borderline city

Rainbow beach

The 120km drive from Noosa to Rainbow beach was a pretty uneventful one, other than the usual me belting out tunes in the privacy (and soundproof-ness) of my car of course. And the last 53km are even less eventful and will make the 2hour drive feel like 5 if you ask me. Mind you I always love and will never pass up on the chance to drive through a national park, but the part through the Toolara State Forest is just mainly straight and quite frankly will make just about anyone’s eyes droop if you ask me. The Great Sandy National Park is pretty cool, but as you’re driving about 100km/h you don’t have much chance of seeing shit. So the drive is a long ass one but the reward is great because at the end you’ll find yourself in the charming town of Rainbow beach. It’s not big but it’s got all the comforts you need, especially to head off to K’gari, more commonly known as Fraser Island. 

Fraser Island

From 1992 this 123km long island has been listed as an UNESCO World Heritage Site and rightly so. 

I won’t forgot soon how this biggest sand island in the world was featured on some kind of documentary my dad happened to stumble upon on a school night over 6 years ago. I remember how he called me down from my room to come see this extraordinary natural phenomenon that had formed on the other side of the world. 

So when I finally had (and took) the chance to go and actually visit this awe-inspiring place I was more than grateful for life. 

Major tip to get the most out of your east coast trip is to make friends with someone working at a travel agency to get the best deals and inside information on the best tours! 

I was lucky enough to have a friend who works at Peterpans adventure travel agency in Byron Bay so I was absolutely sure that I got the best deals which brings me to the tour I did for Fraser Island.

Initially, me being me, I didn’t want to do the silly tourist tours and experience the north east coast by my self but I’m actually really glad I did do the tours I did. Some things are just best explored with a professional and good people around you. Which is exactly what I got with Dingo’s and Rainbow beach adventure company.

The 3 day 3 night tour was everything and more you could want or expect! It certainly was for me anyway.

Day 1 asphalt to sand

A(nother) safety and general information briefing done, cars assigned, stuff sorted and packed in before folding ourselves in the cars later we were on the road !

With 8 of us to a car and 4 cars in total per group things got snug and friendly pretty quickly. When you put 3 Irish lads, a French, Swedish, North Korean, English and Belgian chick in a 4WD things are bound to get fun.

Ten minutes of asphalt, a couple 100meters through soft sand and a ferry ride later I managed to get us safely onto Fraser Island. Woooooo!

It was low tide that morning which makes driving on the beach just about the same as driving on a hard packed dirt road (minus the dust lol). Quite easy in other words, still super exciting as I had never driven on a beach before but not the more difficult thing to do. 

So AUX cable plugged in, stereo on full volume, a car full of strangers, a big ass sand island and the sun shining bright we were off to a great start already.

Two hours driving along the eastern highway beach later we reached Eurong, one of the three settlements on Fraser Island where we took a short break to switch drivers before we headed land inward toward lake McKenzie. 

Lake McKenzie is yet another one of those stunning natural phenomenons found in Australia. Being one of the over 100 freshwater lakes on the island, Lake McKenzie is quite famous for it’s clear water. It is, in fact one of the clearest lakes in the world. We spent a great afternoon swimming in the warm clear water, making new friends and using the silica sand as a natural body scrub. 

After a long drive to camp in the rain (including rain leaking into the car) we all gladly cooked dinner together and get to know each other and the rest of the group (all 32 of us) better over drinks, games and music. 

Day 2 headlands, pools, creeks, shipwrecks and sunsets

Indian Head to the south

That pretty much sums up day two for ya haha. With the sun out all day it was the perfect day to take a hike up Indian Head for some panoramic views of the island. After that morning stroll up the hill we drove across the beach to relax at the champagne pools for the rest of the morning. 

Champagne pools

highway cruising

Another beach lunch later we headed back down the highway to visit the SS Maheno shipwreck.

This once 120m long dream liner (cruise) ship got washed ashore with a cyclone in July 1935 while being towed from Sydney to shipwrecks in Osaka, Japan. As all the attempts to reflect her had failed, for the past 84 years the wreck has been slowly corroding away on the eastern beach of Fraser Island. Right on the highway.

We got there in the early afternoon as the tide was coming in so the waves were quite spectacularly crashing into and going through the ships remains.

Fraser crew

Happy (floating) days

Our last stop of the day would be Eli Creek. This fresh water creek has a year round temperature of about 18degrees thanks to the constant flow of about 80 minion litres of fresh spring water flowing through everyday. 

Jenny and I floating
around
(RIP that bikini :( )

With the black tubes we brought with us from camp we spent the rest of the afternoon floating down the stream, playing volleyball and chilling on the beach.

Once back at camp we all headed down to the beach for some sunset drinks. Meeting a couple locals on the way. The dingoes that live on Fraser Island are quite unique as they are the last remaining ‘pure’ dingoes in Eastern Australia. Though these guys may look very like ordinary (domestic) dogs, they are quite the opposite, they are, in fact, just as wild as the shark swimming just off shore or the kangaroo’s hopping cross the mainland. My point being that they are dangerous and not to be taken lightly. There have been plenty of cases where people get attacked by these wild dingoes and people have even died at their “hands”. Dingo fences have been placed around the townships on the island and when camping outside fines apply concerning leaving food and rubbish out as they may (and will) attract dingoes which can have potential dreadful consequences. 

Common sense rules are widely spread as well, like don’t go wandering about at night, don’t go wandering about alone (at any time of day), don’t approach wildlife, don’t make eye contact ect.

Anyway, we had a banging sunset on the beach with the entire group before heading back to camp for dinner and more (drinking)games that went well into the night :p

Day 3 Green, blue, sandy and asphalt again

Lake Wabby

Admittedly waking up early the next morning was pretty painful but was well worth it once we were back to cruising on the beach again. This time we were heading for Lake Wabby! Which is, incidentally, again one of those extraordinary features of Fraser Island. It so happens that this lake is actually slowly disappearing, it’s quite literally being swallowed by a massive sand dune to the east. The two kilometre walk through bush is easy enough though the last couple hundred meters across the sand dune may provide magnificent views it also slows you down by 300% lol. 

So after the famously blue lake (McKenzie) we were all pretty stoked for this green lake. No idea why it’s so green but it’s the deepest (12m) and least acidic lake on the island thus permitting several fish-types to inhabit the lake. One of those are the tiny ones that munch away on your dead skin.  Anyway, once it began to rain we all skidded back up the dune to the walking track back to the trucks for lunch.

waving Fraser Island goodbye!

Luckily, by the time we all got off the track the sun had come back out and was drying us all up nicely so we had lunch before packing everything back up again to head all the way back down the island toward the ferry that would put us back on solid (asphalted) ground. 

Once back at the hostel, everyone got all their stuff back, got their rooms allocated, clothes washed and had a shower we headed out with a big bunch of our group for dinner. It was a great ending to another great adventure as the following day we would (almost) all split up again and go our own ways on our travels.

Agnes water

Friday the 19th of April I headed out of Rainbow beach with Helena, one of the girls I met on Fraser Island. It was so good to have a travel mate even for the day. We drove the 322km (+about a 100km of wrong turns and not the shortest route ideas lol) up to Agnes Water in one go. Agnes Water is known (among backpackers mostly) for it’s cheap surf lessons and chilled small town vibes. It’s the last stop on the east coast heading north where you can swim in the ocean (without risking dying/getting hurt from jell fish and other marine life), as well as being the last stop you can actually surf because of the great barrier reef that limits waves forming to the north. This also makes it the most southern access point to the Great Barrier Reef.

I had set myself a good week between my Fraser Island tour and my snorkel day out on the Reef in Cairns (approx 1,500km straight up the highway). In the past couple weeks though, I had made up a decent little map of all the things I wanted too see in-between, which was about 98% rainforest and waterfalls. Anyhow, as I only had a week to see all that beauty I wanted to (and because it was pissing down rain the following morning in Agnes Water) I only stayed the night and headed off further north on Saturday morning.

Although I still made a slight detour to Seventeen Seventy. Which simply intrigued me. There was absolutely nothing there really but it was one of those weird sights in Australia that you get drawn too. The town of Seventeen Seventy (1770) has simply been named so because James Cook had his second landing on Aussie land in May of 1770. Other than the Marker commemorating the landing there really isn’t much else to do. So it wasn’t a very lengthy detour but the rain had stoped and the sun was doing it’s best to come through too.

Rockhampton

roo garden

Off to Rocky. A good 3hours later I was wandering through the free zoo right next to the Rockhampton botanical gardens. I was very pleasantly surprised by this little zoo. It had all the great Aussie animals all as well as some very ‘typical’ zoo animals. Needless to say I was extremely happy with this unexpected find (as I was originally heading for the botanical gardens which I always love doing). I fuelled up on scones after a lovely walk through the botanical gardens too before heading back into to to officially cross the Tropic of Capricorn. 

Rocky's beautiful botanical gardens

Koala chills

made some friends 

WELCOME TO THE TROPICS

Three thousand steps before brekkie

This is the story on my new job.

Beginning of May I arrived in Scone, NSW after a great 17hour drive from the Whitsundays. 

I took a live in job as a horse trainer and groom with a family of 3. Here I take care of 7 horses. Six and a half really ;-)

So everyday I wake up at 6:45AM to snooze once and be outside by 7 to feed the horses. Mixing up everyone's specific feed according to their meal-plans (I swear these horses get better food then I do sometimes 😂), splitting up the guys cuz they ain't of the sharing kind and skipping out the paddocks takes me a good three quarters of an hour before I can go back in to feed myself. 

After brekkie, I've got about 4 hours to get all the horses worked. As I've learned this past month it's quite impossible to properly ride 6 horses in less then 4 hours as they all have their own 'special care' programs going on too 😅

Time flies out here. On Thursdays I cook diner and I've usually got my day off on Monday, there doesn't seem to be much in between (on either side!).

I'm not agreeing with the falling (plummeting more like it) temperatures around here, but summer will be back around soon enough and in the meantime; if it stays cooler longer in the mornings that means I don't have to get up at 5 anymore in the weekends to get everyone fed and tacked up to go hunting, woehoe!

Writing and blogging has taken a back seat this past month, I'll probably get back to it again more in the following ones. So much to tell you about Singapore and the tropical north east coast !! 

that'll be all for now,

xoxo Liz

Phuket birthday adventures

Two thousand nineteen has been a good year. Already. On the 3rd of April I celebrated my birthday in solitude. My 5th birthday abroad, the first on my own. I guess 23 is a good age for it. 

Anyway, 30th of March 9:20am and I was up and away again! Off to the beautiful Island of Phuket, Thailand. I could not have been more excited, nervous and ready for the trip. Even-though it was only for a week, the thrill of stepping into the unknown like this once again was exactly what I needed after having lived and worked in Byron Bay and having been in Australia for almost half a year already. 

Six months is a long time if you live every day and not just let life pass by. This is something I have learnt during my travels. They say time flies when you’re having fun which is true but doesn't time always fly by in hind sight? I mean to say that I feel like I've been to so many places and met so many new faces, it wouldn't be right not to acknowledge all the awesomeness of my last 182 days spent here. 

Back to Phuket. Now, I feel like I must start with sharing something I would have liked to known beforehand. This being that Phuket is quite a big island with plenty of little towns. Public transport is close to non-existent and taxi’s are quite pricy for Thai-standards. 

The single piece of public transport that I found was the airport bus. Which is the easiest/cheapest combination to get to Old town. Costs 100Bhat and takes about an hour and 20 min to and hour and a half from the airport to Old town. If you say which hotel you’re staying at in old town the bus driver might just drop you off in front if it’s on the way. 

Although old town is quaint and has it’s charms, things to do and see are well spread over the entire island. On Sunday nights though, you'll find the Thalang night market right in the centre of Old town, which I most definitely recommend to everyone staying in Phuket over the weekend. 

So the thing about Phuket is, is that you’ve got two big hubs where you’d want to be. This being Old town and Patong beach area. Now Patong beach is world renown for it’s party scene and I made the very conscious decision NOT to stay there because I wanted to go explore and relax rather than party. So I started off at Vitamin sea hostel in Old town. This beautiful little hostel is an easy walk from the bus station 1 where the airport bus ends and is an equally easy walk up the road to the central streets. Probably the best thing about the hostel is the ever so friendly and helpful staff. Most definitely recommend when in Phuket. 

Spent my first morning pretty slow, figuring out a plan on what to see and do in Phuket and if I would even stay in Phuket for the entire week. After a good couple of hours going over maps and talking to other travellers I decided not to make a decision quite yet on what to do with my week. I went for a walk in stead. Ended up wandering through Old town for most of the day. 

Turns out there's quite enough places to discover in Old town I soon found out. Temples and murals just around corners and down alleyways. As well as a nice park here and there and of course all the food waiting to be eaten. After a quick nap back at the hostel I ventured to the night market to stuff my face in all that's weird and wonderful. Ran into two girls I met at the hostel and ended up eating loads of mango sticky rice which made my soul really happy.

I'd also decided on doing an island hopping day tour, which I booked through the hostel. So day two started early with a pick up shuttle to Rassada pier. I booked a 3 islands day trip tour with Sea Angel for 1 400Baht (39€/62AU$) as it was recommended by the hostel and I had a great day. 

Air conditioned shuttle to the pier, animated briefing by the tour guide accompanied by free water, juice, coffee and some biscuits. And then off we were!

Speedboating to the first stop which was Yao Yai Island where we were free to go snorkelling and so I did of course. Met some really cool people too with who I ended up hanging out with for the rest of the day. We also got fresh pineapple and watermelon sliced to munch on before heading off for some sightseeing. Where we stoped in monkey bay and went snorkelling in the Phi Phi marine national park among many other places. For lunch we headed to Phi Phi Don, where we spent another couple of hours relaxing and enjoying the island

one of the snorkel sights, where I saw
the entire Finding Nemo-crew !

Take three for the sea

Koh Phi Phi Don

Had such a great time and laugh with this crew!

Monkey bay laughs

 So about the monkey picture. If you know me at all I feel quite strongly about animal/wildlife conservation and keeping wildlife wild. Which naturally includes not exploiting wildlife for tourism or any proposes really. This includes feeding wildlife, which I can get really angry about if I see people doing this (certainly if it's just to take a picture/selfie with the animal??!) as it disturbs their natural habitats and food patterns. So in the picture we're at Monkey bay, a little bay on one of the islands close to Phuket known for it's monkeys that inhabit the beach. Tourists come to the island in boat loads and although we were explicitly asked not to touch/feed nor interact with the wildlife clearly others weren't. As there were loads of people feeding the monkey it's clear that these monkeys already have changed their habits greatly and now fully associate humans with food. 

So as I was getting angry at idiots feeding the monkeys another monkey climbed up my leg to sit on my shoulder/head. Quite ironic, I know, as I was telling people off for feeding the monkeys and letting them climb onto them for pictures. But I still think it's a funny picture so imma still gonna leave it right here.

Case in point: DO NOT FEED WILDLIFE, nor ride elephants, take selfies with tigers, .... the list goes on and on really. people are idiots 🙅

ok rant over, back to my trip.

As it would be my birthday in just a few days I decided to spoil myself completely and book myself into a resort. So thanks to the expert searching skills of my sister I found The Mangrove Phuket. Located about 20 min out of Old town in Chalong Bay I went all the way and booked a taxi to get there in style haha!

So for the next four nights I found myself in bathing in (affordable) luxury. I got on of the studio villa's with views over the bay for just 281AU$ (178€) breakfast buffet included. The resort also rents out SUP-boards and kayaks for free to explore the bay and next-door mangroves. I cannot recommend this place enough. Honestly. Very friendly staff, always happy to help. 

Nomadic going on settled

Byron Bay, January2019

Going to Byron felt like the next natural thing to do. As I was running out of money fast I decided to settle down there for a bit to earn and save. I arrived on a Saturday and was completely overwhelmed. Not by the town itself, which is small and hardly rises above 2 stories but by the amount of people. Tourists and locals alike were all out and about on the streets. I had not realised it was the last Saturday of the summer holidays so the town was absolutely packed. I planned on saving money and staying on a campground outside of town but on arriving I decided I needed to be in hub to get that social contact going again, which is another reason why I ditched the campsite far out of town and checked in to a hostel in town. 

Christina and I on the eastern most point of mainland Australia

The same afternoon I met Christina, a lovely girl from Spain with whom I spent the rest of the day on the beach and after we did the lighthouse walk for sunset. It was a great way to start my days in Byron. It’s always so incredible to find someone, between all the people you meet along the way, with whom you can relate to in so many ways. Christina told me how she had been looking for a job here for a week already now and hadn’t had any luck so she ended up flying to Melbourne on Tuesday. Obviously this made me worry as I was getting in desperate need of a job as accommodation was really expensive with the summer still in full swing. Despite this I still walked around hours handing in my resume to every- and anyone who could give me a job.

It’s these kind of people you meet though, who really make me love travelling. The kind of people with whom you just connect. It’s the kind of people where you share life stories with before having asked their name or just forgot it instantly lol. 

My first few hours in Byron were super overwhelming which sent me spiralling. It was another moment of crisis in my head which I let run me over for a bit. And almost made me leave again. I’m so glad I didn’t though, thanks to a Skype call home and this beautiful new friend I met I pushed through, once again.

The following day I started talking to some other guys in the hostel which ended up in us going to the silent disco on the beach, with the full moon. Needless to say it was awesome, it felt so good to feel so alive and happy in the moment again. 

After a couple of days in my first hostel I decided to move as I just didn’t feel the ‘vibe’ going on there (the vibe being: party). So I walked across the street and around the corner to the YHA and asked for a room. Of course this place was almost as expensive as the last but I walked around and had a way better feeling about the place than the last so I moved. And thank god I did. Funny how life sends you across the street like that sometimes (literally haha). 

Life had it that I was able to score a job for accommodation there which would save me sooooo much money, so naturally I immediately took it with both hands. Around the same time I had started working at Cypress tree, a small Mediterranean restaurant in town which serves magnificent seafood. It was quite a fun job and the hours were perfectly combinable with my work at the hostel. Unfortunately this wasn’t the place for me to work after all, after a good week the owner told me they weren’t in need of my help anymore. So I received my pay and was thanked politely for my help. 

But as if they were waiting for this to happen the very same day I got a message from a restaurant where I had walked in with my resume, if i was still looking for a job and if so, if i would like to come in for a trail in a couple of days. 

And so I started working at Fishheads, a nice little restaurant right on the beach. Better pay, more hours and still manageable with my other job made me a happy kiddo.

from housekeeping

to the front of house

The whole “work for accomodation”thing was the best opportunity I could’ve gotten as this enabled me to live super social while saving big time on acc. costs. Most hostels work with volunteers who work about 15hours a week for acc. The work depends obviously on the time of year and what the hostels needs having done but I got a position with housekeeping. And even though I don’t think you’ll ever find me doing that full time I was easy work in shifts of 4 or 5 hours 3 mornings a week.

During my very first day at the hostel I did the free lighthouse walk, which was one of the activities done by the hostel.

side note; I always try to do the activities organised by hostels I go to, they’re usually either free or very cheap and it’s an excellent (and easy) way to meet people. 

So on the walk I met Yanina, a not your typical backpacker girl from Germany who was on a vacation in Australia from her life on the (cruise)ships. Anyway, we started talking about the horse tattoo on my back. 

Yanina and I after yet another fun night out

again side note: I have found that tattoo’s are also always such an easy way to start up a conversation with perfect strangers. 

We ended up spending most her time in Byron together, going out for drinks and diner and to the beach. I was great and I was able to see her again a couple of weeks later due to a change in her itinerary and I hope to be able to see her again somewhere around the world wherever we may get to!

Loreto and I at the tea tree lake

The other good friend I made is Loreto, from Chile. We met as we were in the same dorm at the time and stayed in contact throughout my entire time in Byron which was so great. We both had jobs and she moved places but we still managed to get together for waterfall adventures, strange meditation sessions and just beach chills. 

Even with the rocky first few hours in Byron I am so great full for the opportunities I got (and took) in my new home away from home, the beautiful Byron Bay.

So as life in Byron settled and I was working almost 45hours a week some weeks I learnt some new things in life.

Stay tuned for more Byron livin’ !

xoxo Liz