Shelley's World Travels: 30th March

13th March - 22nd March

Australia

Arrived in Sydney, excited at the prospect of meeting up with friends from home. Meeting point, steps of the Opera House at 2pm. We didn't move too far for several hours, enjoying a backlog of gossip, several cold beers and the fantastic atmosphere of Sydney Harbour on a sunny day.

Above: Me with bessy mate Kirsten, Jules and Richard. Richard has lived in Sydney for over a year and has no plans to return to the UK. Not hard to see why.

Jumped on the Manly ferry and enjoyed the late afternoon sun on the beach

Jules and I realised we had both been in Sydney 15 years ago, ekkk. Why had we never climbed the Sydney Harbour Bridge? This popular attraction has only been available for the last eight years. Two million people have climbed into boiler suits, attached harnesses to the bridge and climbed over the catwalks to stand several hundred feet above Sydney Harbour. I was apparently walking quite tentatively, something like the secret lemonade drinker, a little nervous in parts I must admit. Walking over the arches to top of the bridge was the easy bit. What a great way to spend a couple of hours in Sydney.

Above: Climbing the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Above: Visit to Bondi Beach

Adam yet again threw himself in the surf for hours. Kirsten followed suit but quickly returned to the safety of the beach after she had been thrown 360 degrees and popped up in between an old man's legs, minus her bikini bottoms. It was the surf that had removed her bikini bottoms I hasten to add!

We said our goodbyes to Rich and headed for the tropical paradise of Hamilton Island in the Whitsundays. Hold on a minute, it doesn't rain in paradise!! The weather was pretty grim but we were cheered by our upgrade to a 44 foot yacht. Sunsail seemed very relaxed about handing over responsibility of this rather nice vessel (named Turn Twelve) and about the weather conditions, blowing 30 knots with 5 meter swells. I leaned over to Adam during the briefing, "is that not quite bad?" The skipper seemed quite relaxed at that point.

Above: One of the many Cockatoos on Hamilton Island

That evening, as well as consuming large quantities of booze, going to the island's only nightclub, being thrown out of the island's only nightclub, (nothing to do with Adam), me missing the boat and falling into the marina, we were also assigned sea-going names for our pending adventure.

Adam - El Capitan George Mullet (the first)
Me - Lady Broadside (far too many cakes in NZ)
Kirsten - Lady Hornblower, later Lady Hornblower-ASBO (yes, it was her fault we were kicked out of the night club)
Jules - Lady me'Julie Bilgez

All very childish but we had to amuse ourselves at sea for the coming week.

Sailing on day one was pretty good fun. We were racing along at 9 knots, the sun was shining, marvellous. It wasn't until we arrived at our anchorage that we learnt of the Whitsunday 'bullets'. A bullet is a very sharp gust of wind that takes you by surprise, particularly as it spins you around on your anchor. Ummm, not the best nights sleep as Adam and I alternately poked our heads out of the cabin hatch to ensure we had not lost our anchor and beached on the Great Barrier Reef.

Day three of the sailing trip was the most eventful. Rounding Hook Island, the waves were pretty dramatic. Life jackets on, sea sickness all round, a passing storm with "white out" conditions and a rendezvous with boat that was delivering us fresh fish, all made for quite a journey. We arrived at our chosen anchorage exhausted, ummmm, why are there no other boats here?

Adam and I took the dingy and a short rain forest track to Wilderness Lodge, a backpacker retreat and the only dwelling on Hook Island. We informed the odd crowd that we would join them later that evening for a drink. Whilst preparing dinner, Jules became sea sick thanks to the rocky conditions. We needed to get ashore, but not before Jules managed to eat sausage and mash - brave performance for someone that had just thrown up. We had scared ourselves before we even crossed to the island. We were the only yacht in sight, an eerie howling noise filled the bay and an underwater observatory tower threw creepy shadows into water.

We knew we had to go through the forest by torch light to reach the hippies. We had just reached the end of the jetty, when Adam started doing wobbly backwards steps, accompanied by expletives. A long, brown snake was lying in our path, which reared up and came towards the torch light. Adam pegged it (snake-phobic). We all ran back to underwater observatory, at which point a fat rat started sprinting towards us, followed by a large ozzie coach roach. It seemed we were facing our phobias, one by one. We didn't hang around for the large, stray dog (Jule's phobia) that no doubt, would have shortly followed. Mr Rat swam under our dinghy to give me a final scare - yuk. We gave up on beers at Wilderness Lodge and decided that the marina at Hamilton Island seemed like an attractive option for the following night. El Capitan George Mullet drank half a bottle of gin!