Road Trip!

The road trip is over and I am oddly relieved. I would kill for a queen sized bed, a clean shower, and a hearty American breakfast right about now. Thankfully I can make all three of those things happen in about two hours when I get off of this plane. The trip itself was amazing but traveling from hostel to hostel with little to no money gets old after a while.  The following is a brief post about the first half of the road trip and all the good and bad that came with it.

I had this thought countless times during my trip

Day 1:

I woke up on day one with Sasha at the foot of my bed, waiting for me to get up. We had to go pick up the car at noon and meet the other girls in Hervey Bay because of some complications with Ashley’s flight back from Thailand.  On the way to Hervey Bay we stopped in Noosa and had an amazingly delicious pizza but no pizza will ever compare with eating a slice of Slices Pizza. We walked along the beach, hung out with some lizards, and got some coffee to assist me on the drive. I was so out of it that I asked the coffee barista if I could have mushrooms with my coffee instead of marshmallows. His facial expression was priceless. By the time we reached the hostel in Hervey Bay it was practically dark and I was really tired.  We met a few Germans and decided to go together to grab a few things from Coles, the local supermarket, for dinner and breakfast. Afterwards I tried to stay up and converse with our new friends but I could barely form sentences. I eventually just gave up and went to bed.

Day 2:

Since we had to wait for Ash and Theresa’s bus to get in to the bus station Sasha and I spent he day catching some rays and eating coconuts at the beach.

Sasha :)

We hung out with the Germans for pretty much the entire day as well. I learned how to say butterfly in German, which is super random and pretty cool, but I have no idea how to spell it. It sounds something like this: Schmit-a-ling. We picked up the girls from the bus terminal at 8 pm and made the 5 hour drive to Rockhampton…barely. I was soooooo tired when we got there because I drove the entire way so I just went to bed again (I thought I’d be doing a whole lot more drinking on this road trip!).

Day 3/4:

Rockhampton is pretty but just a farm town. There are cows everywhere, it has a very small population, and there is pretty much nothing to do. We decided to get out early so we could have more time at Airlie Beach and in Mackay but not before I got in a good cuddle with the local Labrador J. On the way to Airlie Beach we made a stop in Mackay for lunch because I heard it was supposed to be really nice. WRONG. Basically everything was closed except one restaurant called Outback Jacks. Cliché, I know. I ate a parts of a disgusting piece of pizza and gave in to a batch of fries instead. I gave up on eating healthy for this vacation. It is honestly just too hard/time consuming to make healthy meals three times a day. Especially while traveling and staying in hostels.

Driving and more driving

On the way from Makay to Airlie Beach I started to feel a little off but I still tried to hang with everyone including our new hostel buddies. Then I suddenly felt a lot off and before I knew it I was hugging the toilet. Stupid Outback Jacks gave me food poisoning!!! So there I was in the one place that I really wanted to go explore on the road trip, wasting my first night and only full day there puking. The poor guys that we had to share the room with had to listen to me puke all night long. Thankfully they were super nice, and from Tennessee and Seattle, so we bonded in between toilet sessions.  Oh, also someone stole Ashley’s Iphone so she was pretty pissed off for the entire next day. Sasha and Ashley also broke their waterproof cameras in 3 inches of water today too. The whole trip has been bad for our electronics.

Day 5:

Instead of getting on the road early we decided to stay a while in Airlie Beach because I didn’t get to see anything the previous day due to becoming good pals with Timmy the Toilet.  We booked a ridiculously overpriced half day cruise to the beautiful Whitehaven beach. We then got on the rickety old tin boat, which I’m pretty sure was not meant for carrying actual people, around 8am and got to the island about an hour later.

Whitehaven was beautiful!!!! The sand felt and looked like flour and even made a strange noise when you ran on it or dragged your feet when you walked. Almost like a squeaky noise. The water was so warm and there was a small reef we could easily swim to and snorkel.  Ashley was still mad about her phone and camera so she spent the day pouting on the beach instead of enjoying the sunny weather and sweet hike that the rest of us went on.   Sasha and I decided to go for a swim and a hike for a change of scenery and Theresa decided to tag along as well. We discovered this amazing lookout point and gosh was it gorgeous.  Oh and along the way we met this guy…………  At about one we went for one last swim in the ocean then piled back on to the boat and went back to Airlie beach.

Top of lookout point at Whitehaven

This was my one and only day in Airlie beach where I wasn’t puking so I was trying my best to enjoy my time there and not let others bring me down. I watched Theresa get shot down like a million times every time she tried to cheer Ashley up so I decided it was best just to keep my mouth shut about the whole thing. 

Around 4 pm we left for Townsville. The hostel in Townsville was pretty sweet and the staff was really nice. It felt more like we were in some ones home than in a cheap motel which was nice, but a little unsettling. It was strange using anything there because it felt like it belonged to someone and I should ask for permission to use it, which of course was not necessary. We did nothing here but sleep because we had to get up really early to ensure we got the car back to the company on time.

Day 6:

On the drive to Cairns we nearly hit a pair of adorable dogs who were walking in the middle of the highway. Everyone was just driving around them and only one man was kind enough to stop but couldn’t get the dogs to come to him. J We went down the closest road and stopped at a house who happened to house a veterinarian. She took the dogs and said she would see if they had a microchips. After a sad goodbye we were on the road again.

Even though I would be late returning the car, I decided to stop the car in the middle of the road, open my door, and call them. They came running to me and jumped right in to my lap. Seeing as how it was raining and we were in the middle of now where yet again, the dogs (and now me) were covered in mud. I didn’t mind one bit! I love love love dogs and I miss mine so these guys were welcome under any conditions

1pm:

We finally arrived in Cairns (an hour late)! The girl at the car rental desk was really nice and gave us the extra hour for free which was awesome. Then we stumbled our way around Cairns trying to find our hostel. Once we managed to reach it I was finally relieved. Since Cairns was the last stop on the trip we would have to drive any more. Also, my dive course started the next day so I was super excited to get that ball rolling.

To be continued......

Great Barrier Reef!