Aliens, Toilets & Nicole Kidman!

Sorry it's been a while...we've been so busy relaxing into the Aussie lifestyle, but with 10,000km's on the clock and still two weeks to go there's plenty to tell...

Whilst in Alice Springs we made a stop at the West McDonall Ranges taking in Simpson's Gap and Standley Chasms - as you can see from the pics both were very impressive.

From here our trek back into civilisation & the East Coast beaches began, and whilst we were expecting a mundane 4/5 days solid driving we actually stumbled across some corkers!

First stop Wycliffe Well - Australians answer to Roswell. So donning out Mulder & Scully hats we grabbed the deckchairs, picked a field and sat in utter darkness heads craned skywards... and... we saw absolutely nothing! Except of course a gorgeous, starlit, Aussie outback sky.

Next stop Tennant Creek. On first sight TC may have seemed a dull and rather 'hick' place, but it actually turned out to be one of our highlights so far. The people we met were so genuinely friendly, helpful & not too mention interesting. Non more so than Bushtucker Jimmy - a resident on the campsite who spent most of his adult life living in the outback under a Gum tree whilst trying to strike rich mining for gold. We spent a good few hours round a campfire, drinking bush tea and eating damper bread (genuine bush tucker) listening to Jimmy's poems and stories. Another great night under the stars.

Then after another 3 days solid driving we finally reached the coast and Townsville in North Queensland. After days of dryness we were quite excited about having a dip in the sea only to find it was home to the deadly Box fish Jellyfish, so we could look but not touch! Boo :(

Anyhow, the beach bug hit us & so we decided to head to a nice quiet spot to relax and celebrate the 1/2 way point of our Oz journey. We found the perfect location at Mission Beach (Wongaling), and what was planned as a 1 night stop over quickly turned into 3. Whilst there, and in between lots of sunning and relaxing we managed to fit in a night time Crocodile Safari! This involved heading up river whilst the sunset & then back down in absolute darkness to spot the crocs! We spotted a few & they were mainly babies...which was actually quite relieving as the dark and other sounds were a tad scary...

However, even scarier was the next day when we were sitting chilling by the van when a huge (and we mean huge!) Lizard just sauntered right past us - full on blue tongue and everything, it put all the crocs to shame!! : )

We then continued north & finally hit Cairns...Great Barrier Reef time... we booked it, did it and loved it! It was mind blowing! The Reef really is the most amazing thing and to know we snorkelled it is something that will be with us forever. Amazing!

Our next major stop was Airlie Beach so we could sail the Whitsundays. However, on the way we diverted to a tiny town called Bowen as we'd heard that Baz Lurhmann was making a movie there starring Nicole Kidman and Hugh Jackman, called 'Australia'. So using our detective skills, we snuck around the town until we found where it was all happening only to find that we were 2 days early and they were still building the set! Oh well, we got a great insight & tour of the set from a local volunteer who also gave us a copy of the press release from old Bazza himself.

Anyway, the Whitsundays, whilst supposedly having one of the worlds Top 10 Beaches (Whitehaven Beach), which was lovely - white soft sand, Crystal clear waters etc, was a little crazy with backpackers and tourists for us. Even so, we did a full day cruise, including a trek to Hill Top lookout, Whitehaven Beach and more snorkelling of another of the islands...which Matt opted out of after visiting Vic Hislop's Great White Shark Expo the day before! Vic Hislop is Australia's 'Shark man' & has dedicated his life, it seems, to putting the fear of god into anyone thinking of going into over 30 centimeters of water, i.e. shark infested canals and all the horrendous shark attacks around Australia etc. And as if that wasn't enough the expo houses a frozen carcass of a HUGE Great White Shark. He's a strange man with odd beliefs, but in a morbid way it was fascinating to see a shark in the flesh..and really quite terrifying.

Talking of which, the other night we had another of our scary wildlife experiences. On our bedtime trek to the camp loo, we saw the wildlife equivalent to a Mexican standoff. On opening the cubicle door we were met by a huge frog who we realised (after a slight squeal from TB and a wee step back) was intently staring at an equal sized Gecko on the toilet. And as if this wasn't enough to keep the stall theirs (we had a very appealing bucket in the van) we looked up to see a snake... yes, big and slimey (maybe venomous?!) snake, watching the frog watching the Gecko. And, guess who bought the farm first... we have absolutely no idea, we were halfway to the bucket after catching sight of the snake!

Anyway, that's enough of our wussy-ness for now. We hope everyone is well and we'll update again soon.