throwin the book at you.

so this past week has been quite the gong show i must admit, a very fun one but a gongshow none the less. i think the last thing i wrote about was the whitsundays sailing. after airlie beach we hopped on the oz bus down to kroombit which is more of a natinoal park/farm than a town, actually where we stayed it was just a ranch designed for our group specifically. we are so bad at booking our busses that i think on every occasion we have either only booked in one person on the bus (as i don't have darcy's ID, booked us like an hour before the bus leaves, or just not booked at all and asked the driver that morning if he has room. oh well, its all part of us making plans as we go, lately we have also been making plans that align with the group we've hung out with quite a bit lately, you'll probably see them a few times in the facebook pictures. i swear that by the time we get to sydney we'll just be one big group of southgoers. we leap frog eachother all the time but seem to always meet up. pretty sweet. anyways the cattle station was a blast despite it pouring rain for an hour or so in the middle of the evening. the highlight of the night of course was the bull riding, during my Sea to Sea tour i didn't dare as i didn't want to injure myself. so i kind of had a chance at the ranch, althouh i admit it was a lot easier than a real bull. I judge that from the fact that i was able to ride the bull backwards, spin my self around and then surf on it for a couple seconds. doubt the boys on the real bull would have tried that, although it was pretty hilarious to see most people get thrown forward off the bull on the first buck. there should be a good fb picture of a couple of them. we tried to get a couple drinkin games going but no one was really into it so it ended up being an early, night. fine enough as the next day we had a little mini rodeo with goats, team Canada (ie darcy and i) plus one got second. we had to lassoo a goat, flip it on its side and brand it for 3 seconds (fake branding...too bad) anyway it seems i've been second a lot lately, we also stopped during our bus ride at this lawn bowls club and tried our hand at it, was a good time again, and i was second closest behind tom so i just lost the $25 prize pot. oh well me and darcy got a free nights accomadation once when the receptionist in airlie beach thought we had already paid for our night. sweet. although now i'm gonna need another three of those breaks to make up for the $100 cash i just lost yesterday...woot. i almost lost our camera the other day when i left it somewhere. thankfully someone was honest an returned it to the front desk.
the language barrier can be pretty confusing at times, it seems all of england comes to australia at some point in their life as that's all we've met basically, plus a couple swedes. one day we were discussing what to make for supper and darcy and i suggested our past meal of pasta and hamburger with pasta sauce. they thought it was the most outrageous idea and made fun of it for a good five mintues. it wasn't until we figured out they thought actual patties with pasta that there was a misreading. they call it mince meat, makes sense but hamburger works too i think, anyway that night we just had pizza instead as it was all you could eat dominoes for $10 at our hostel, including drinks, i think i've had pizza about 7 times in the last week and a half, its just always such a good deal.
anyway so now onto our gong show of a fraser island trip. at six am we were up for our safety briefing where like every other safety movie, we killed ourselves laughing at the video. the highlight was "in case of a dingo, back away, then attack aggresively! we joked about that all weekend. after that it was time to go grocery shopping with our group of 10 for 3 days. actually went well considering we didn't really know each other too well and had to cooperate and shop together. we spent $20each for 3 days so we did well, one group spent $350 for 8 ppl. crazy. once we got to the island, i had the brainy idea of volunteering to drive first, it was a pretty steep learning curve i tell yah. i was smokin tires on the first boarded section and got us stuck a few times. to my credit though everyone got stuck as this was serious 4X4. they said i was a good driver so that's comforting. in the end i was glad i went first. it was so much fun and now i want to buy a hard core jeep so i can do it again in canada. our group gelled so well together that we ended up even getting irritated when the other 3 groups of 8-10 joined us at camp that night. terrible i know. as per the pictures you'll see there were so many cool sights on the island, at lake wabby we found a sweet dune with a steep slope down to a cool freshwater lake, we ran down, cartwheeled and even body boarding down the sand, flying into the water. so much fun. setting up camp was a gongshow too as we had a rain scare with a half hour shower so we were all running around trying to figure out tarps, tents, stoves, etc. it worked well though as everybody kind of took over certain areas and we were setup pretty quick. one of the guys, matt, took over the bbq and we had a awesome supper of smokies to start, bbq chicken skewers to follow, then hamburgers to finish it off, we didn't realize we bought so much. ate it all though. everything had a bit of a crunch to it though as you literally cannot help but getting sand in absolutely everything and everywhere. after dinner we chilled out over some beers and goon (baically any wine that comes in a bag or box, usually very cheap) because it get so dark out so quick we still ended up in bed before midnight, once again our drinking games were ruined because of the other groups joining our party (we did have a pretty happenin camp.)
the next morning we were up early and took down camp, we ended up sitting around for a couple hours though as a few had to go with the vehicle and get more water for us. our time was further lost as we got stopped by the cops at a check stop and they took like 45 mintues to get everything figured out there. after that it we rushed through everything but it was still amazing. we went to indian head lookout where you could go on dangerous cliffs n such, then off to champagne pools which are natural pools filled by the high tides. like swimming in a natural aquarium. then a quick stop at a huge ship wreck before rushing back to beat the other three groups back to our awesome camp site. its is such a sweet feeling to cruise at like 70km/hr down a sand beach, passing fishers, and basically making the lanes wherever the water washes up. oh yah and i had to be reminded to stay on the left when i drove as there aren't any markers obvi. on the way back to camp we got pulled over again and got fined for no one wearing their seatbelts, stupid cops just pull over the young guns, w/e we only got one fine between the 10 of us so we all payed 10% of it. for the second time we set up camp we were pros and ended up having dinner done by like 6pm, so naturally we popped the beers a little earlier. this night we just hung out on our own and had a blast just goofin around and listening to music. in bed again early.
the final day we packed up, i was the monkey who had get up in the top of the camper and put the tents and stuff in the back. sweat like a pig up there, had a waterfall off my back when i got out. so we did the same water routine but found out that there was a water location like 10 mintues away this whole time, saved an hour and a half. i drove again this morning which was awesome again. we started heading back to the terminal but got stuck behind some piddly SUV (i think it was a ford or some local brand) who was stuck, we had to dig and push him out as he was beached and had crap tires, he didn't even help himself or dig and didn't even say thands afterwards, w/e guess old people just think young people are at their disposal ;) (i don't actually mean that) anyway so then we went up to lake mckenzie for a quick dip which was also amazing, met a couple of our fellow bus goers there too. after that, a quick SANDwhich (man i'm funny) and then back to the terminal to go back to the mainland. all in all the trip was amazing and probably even beat the sailin trip.
now it's time to take few days here in noosa and surf, also gonna have to figure out how long we stay here. we might end up chillin for a while here to recover from how much has been gonig on. the YHA here is really nice but also very expensive. this morning we had our first bacon and eggs breakfast on the trip, nice fat bacon, sausage, eggs, toast, hash browns, baked beans and tomato. we're so screwed for money that we'll just deal with it when the time comes. could be washin dishes...woot...anyway this has been a book and had a publishing cost of about $10 so i hope its a best seller. i know the half of you won't even get to this line but for those who actually care i figured i owed you one. Enjoy.

i'll be back

hey folks, literally and figuratively, it seems as though even on days when we're not doing anything i run out time anyway, i do mean to put some new info up but need a good block of time which i hope will come up in the next few days. cheers for now. sorry for the lack of juicy gossip ;)

your favorite title, picture time!

hey folkily dolkilies, here are some pics, since it took a whole hour just to get these uploaded i don't really have time for a blog post but i will try for that in the near future. unfortunately we don't have too many pics yet as we just got our new camera going yesterday. enjoy, love from theo and darcy.

This is darcy and i's first night in Cairns and the first night of our trip as well, we were kind of surprised that we were in a room with 8 different people and no bathroom. lol we got used to it pretty quick, and even took the next shock of co-ed dorms pretty well too.

still our first night, just gettin into the groove of washing all our dishes and cleaning up after ourselves.

this is a pic darcy took when we were waiting for the computer in a travel agency/internet shop, pretty cool i think. i don't understand why there is an empty computer though as we should be on it if it was free at that moment...weird.

these are a bunch of people we met at our YHA in Cairns, instead of going out on the town we just brought the town to us and chilled out over some music and drinks, basically half the people here are from germany, lately though everyone we're meeting is from england. ps some of these pictures i made smaller so as to download quicker but usually the pics with more people i left original size so you can see them better ie how intoxicated they are lol. just click each picture to see if its a big one!

we took this picture cuz our boring tour bus guide went on for like 3 minutes about how we should be able to find some sandwhiches in this little town we stopped in (sorry about the lack of names, we don't really pay attention to what stuff is called.) but yeah so when this sign came up we were relieved cuz we thought he might just be lying ;)

this palm tree was so funny cuz it was the only one on the rocks, just doin its own thing, i engraved my name in the trunk as that seemed to be the thing to do, there were a lot of names on there.

as you can see it was kind of crappy weather for the first couple days while we were in australia, we actually had to wear our rain jackets in town, nice beach though where we just had a little while to chill out on our way up to cape tribulation

we had some time at a stop along the way so this is just a pic with some coral at low tide with some rainforest and lots of clouds (as that is where the rain comes from in case you were wondering.)

this is the river we did the croc tour up, was a really cool place and we saw crocs of all different sizes, no pics of them though cuz they're kind of far away so it isn't really worth seeing. we wished our boat guide was our bus guide cuz he was way more interesting.

this group is the one we sailed the whitsundays with, it was a really good group and we had a blast, its customary to meet at beaches (a hostel/bar)the evening you get back from sailing. they give you free beer and nibblies when you're with these reserved groups so that was sweet. we've been to this bar everynight since we've been in arlie beach...good fun.

while we've been in arlie beach we have not made supper once as this little pizza place has a special for a large cheese pizza for $8, at $4 per person that is the cheapest supper we've made so far. i figure only for like 4 days it shouldn't be too detrimental to our health.

time to chill, for darcy's sake.

ait mates, it seems as though i'm starting to talk like whoever i'm talking to. i only have 10 minutes now so i'm gonna be quick. as of the last time we wrote we were going to mission beach. anyway we got on the bus and found out you can't swim there cuz of the crocs, and besides that there is nothing to do there, so we just stayed on the bus and went right out to magnetic island, we're now staying at base backpackers hostel which is pretty sweet and we've just taken a few days to chill out and laze around a bit. we just went grocery shopping, layed on the beach, watched a movie etc. today we rented a couple bikes and are going around the island, which you can do in a day. we stopped in arcadia and found this net cafe (which still costs an arm and a leg)and also tried to use our stupid calling cards again. they are so frustrating. we chilled over a machiatto and will go up to do some popular walk up in the mountains. maybe see a koala and some old war base stuff from when japan was attacking everyone? darcy would probably know more about that stuff. its been good to chill for a couple days but me and darcy definitely have different ideas of what we want to do, he likes chillin while i feel like i'm wasting my time doing that. i've enjoyed these past couple days though. now its adventure time again. sailing the whitsundays bay bay. we haven't booked anything yet but we'll figure it out. apparently the whitsundays are named cuz some explorer named it after a certain sunday, i'll have to check into what whitsunday is. k well my computer is telling me my time is almost up, gotta go, mom we will get a camera asap but there's nothing on magnetic island, we've checked, found a cool bike repair shop though where the guy told me about where you can find the good mountain biking trails south of sydneym, might check that out. love you all

eh mate, just relax, its all good, cept for a few things.

I can't believe we've already been in Cairns for five days, even though at times it seemed like i was bored out of my mind, it's been a pretty action packed last few days. today we went on our dive trip which was really cool. its not like in the commercials but for our first dive it was excellent. the only problem is that me and darcy both have crappy ears and so we couldn't equalize very well, as a result of going 11metres under water, my left ear is in serious dissrepair, but after a few days it should be good to go again. the first time we dove i have to say i didn't even really look at the coral or fish as i was just focusing on keeping everything together, paddling, breathing, etc. the second dive was a better and besides my throbbing ear was an awesome experience. the rest of the day was sweet too as we just sunbathed on the front of the boat when we weren't diving, they had a really good lunch and got a complimentary ride in a glass bottom boat as well as champagne and a live guitar performance from one of the crew members. on a crappier note, darcy's camera also tanked when we took it diving the first time, as a result we now do not have a camera and we have no pictures to show for the whole day of diving. and a new camera really isn't in the cards. cards aren't even in the cards.
We are officially blowing any chance at a budget out of the water, it seems like we're forking out money at every turn. even though we constantly are aware of trying to keep things cheap it just adds up so fast.
back to the happy notes, we have met a lot of cool people lately as we start to get into the swing of things, lots of people from germany, a few crazy hollanders, a canadian, and a bunch more on a lesser basis. i'm beginning to just go with the flow a bit more, which everyone says is what you have to do, in fact our hamburger is sitting on the floor right now getting warm as we decided to pop a squat here and do our interweb shannanigans again.
tomorrow darcy and i are takin off on the bus to mission beach, i think we're gonna have to skip a lot of stuff as there is so much to do and so little time, even though lots of one's time is taken by just figurin things out, checkin out the town, etc. i feel like we've finally made cairns a bit of a home and we know a few people. oh well, last night was a good time as we went out with a few people, apparently there were a bunch of horse races somewhere in cairns and so everyone was dressed up all fancy and out on the town. oh and my jeans got stolen, sweet i know, i had them hangin off my bed a few nights ago and the next morning they weren't there, i thought i had just packed them already and forgot about it, now three days later, when i wanted to wear them when we went out, i could not find them...they were my favy babies too. my back pack is working really well though, thanks mom and dad, very good choice.
the past couple days before today we took a bus tour up to Cape tribulation to check out the rainforests, turns out it didn't quite hit the adventure rating me and darcy were expecting, but it was still cool though, we made fun of the bus driver to get by the boring parts and other wise had a good swim (our first one) at myall beach, saw some crocodiles in all their different growth stages. they're really lazy animals but impressive nonetheless. we had a good river guide for that so that made it better as well. and did i tell you how much i love peanut butter and nutella toasted sandwhiches right now? so good. sorry, that was a far aside. for more details on the cape tribulation trip, become friends with darcy on facebook and read his note. this little nut cafe is closing and we're hungry, so its time to go make some sups and call some recent aquaintances to see what we do with the night. enjoy
tomorrow wer're

we made it...thankfully

I just read a bit of my last blog post and its crazy to even think about me getting up to bike anymore, i'm now chillin at a net cafe in Cairns, Australia. After a semi-relaxing week at home where i did not get near as much stuff done as i should of, me and darcy are now here in aussie land, learning all the ropes for the first time, we spent like an hour this morning buying our groceries for the day as we checked out prices, discussed what to buy, planned our meals, and decided how many days to buy for.
As for our travels the other day, they were also a bit of an adventure, when we arrived in Sydney we had an hour to transfer, and between that we had to go through customs, claim our bags, re-check them in, shuttle between terminals and otherwise figure out what the heck we were doing. we didn't have a chance at making our next flight so we got bumped. in the end it wasn't a big deal, when we got to cairns our shuttle to ended up bringing us to the wrong hostel, we then went to the hostel she thought we were at, which also was the wrong hostel, the lady there though figured out what hostel we were supposed to be at and pointed us in the right direction, its actually not to bad as everything is within a few blocks of each other.
last night we basically just walked around and checked out the town, today we spent some time at a info center where a really helpful lady helped us plan out our next few days, (albeit and expensive few days) we're going to bus it up to to cape tribulation which apparently has a lot of cool things to see, then on sunday we're taking advantage of a dive trip for a couple introductory dives, we're blowing our $60/day limit for the next bit but whatever. we're in australia baby!

as for darcy's perspective, if you're friends with him on facebook you can check out his latest notes where he bascially said what i said here. he may at some point also do the blog post on here. we will try to put some pics up at some point, we may do a pay as you go system, for every $10 transferred to our account, we'll post a picture and say sponsored by so-and-so ;)

anyway that's all for now, wish us well as we figure out this whole travelling thing, we both miss you all, and some more than others ;) out.