Our first week on the Rackemann farm

Following on from our stay in the town of 1770 we got on a 2am bus to Gympie. We arrived there at 9am the following morning where we had a delightful breakfast in a small café whilst we waited for Carl to come and collect us to take us back to his farm 2 hours inland.

The Rackemann farm has been in Carl’s family for many generations and today it consists of cattle, barley and peanuts. Despite farming being the family profession Carl spent his professional career playing cricket for the Queensland Bulls and for Australia. After retiring Carl became a coach before buying the farm from his father, although his parents remained living and working on the property for the rest of their lives. Carl moved back to the Rackemann farm, situated about 30km from Kingaroy, with his wife Louise whom he had met whilst playing cricket in England.

Carl and Louise have since built their own property on the farm, yet Alex and I have been staying in the original farmhouse where Carl’s parents lived and where Carl grew up. It is clear that the property has definitely been well loved through many generations; it is completely jammed full of things, mainly crazy ornaments covering the sides, the walls and hanging from the ceiling, in particular slightly strange frog ornaments seem to have been collected. There are also hundreds of family photos and the odd few dried snake and lizard skins scattered around, kindly in unexpected places.

Carl and Louise have 2 children, Maddie who is 12 and already acting like a teenager through and through, and Tommy who is 8 and adorable. Tommy sets Alex Star Wars homework each evening.

Since we have been here our tasks have included taking and picking up the children from school, they both attend school in Kingaroy, which as I have stated is 30km away. We are allowed to drive their 4wd vehicles (some very old and tricky to drive and some very new) both on the farm and into Kingaroy, which is pretty exciting and thankfully we are beginning to get our bearings. We have also been dismantling old fences and building new ones, herding cattle to be weighed and preg tested by the vet. Alex had the pleasant job of cleaning out the cow poo in the cattle truck and he also did multiple moisture tests on the barley with Carl (apparently the moisture levels of barley have to be below 12.5% before it can be harvested and consequently sold).

We also took part in Kingaroy’s annual charity event, Relay for Life. This event has over 40 teams and each team must keep their individual baton moving around the track from 3pm on Saturday afternoon until 9am on Sunday morning. We joined a local youth orchestra team, as they were short on numbers, and Alex played saxophone along side them at different times throughout the evening. A photo of Alex playing alongside 2 young girls in fancy dress made it into the South Bernett Times the following day. Our main walking slot was from 3am-5am as I think the children’s enthusiasm had tired by this point. Overall the event raised over 100K for a cancer charity.

Totally exhausted we returned to the farmhouse the following day to find a foot long lizard living in our room. Alex squealed loudly whilst I named it Lucy. As neither of us were brave enough to remove Lucy from our bedroom we having been sleeping beside her ever since, although secretly I suspect that Alex sleeps with one eye open.

[Photos to follow in the next post due to further camera issues, shock!] 

Whitsundays & 1770

 After Magnetic Island we headed south to our next destination, Airlie Beach. Here we stayed in a very lively hostel called Magnums; we went for dinner with some girls that we had met on the bus and then met up with a couple that we had spent some time with a few weeks ago in Cairns. As always, drinks flowed and we had another great evening.

After a few chilled days in Airlie Beach we set off for our 3-day boat trip around the Whitsundays islands. Our boat had 18 people on, the majority of which were young couples from various parts of England and China so we met some really interesting people, which we hope to keep in contact with. During our trip we went snorkelling, tried paddle boarding and Alex went diving again.

As part of our trip we went to Whitehaven Beach, which was simply paradise. It had the clearest, tropical water we’ve ever seen and the softest, whitest sand. The sand is known to be one of the purest forms of sand in the world and for this reason is heavily protected, we even had to wash the sand of our feet before we were allowed to leave. We also climbed up to the lookout for Whitehaven Beach; this is apparently the third most photographed spot in the whole of Australia.

After the trip had ended around half the group met up that evening at a bar in Airlie Beach. The Bar turned out to have a pub quiz on that evening so we all entered. We came second winning $150, which we wisely spent on 15 ‘aqua bombs’ at the bar. Oops?

Our next stop was the town of 1770. To reach this destination we, along side many of the people that we had met in the past week or so, boarded an eventful overnight bus. The bus diver managed to bang his head on the bus door and badly cut his head open, and the bus had some kind of engine fault resulting in us having to stop at the side of the road and wait for a mechanic.

The town of 1770 marks Captain Cook’s first landing in Queensland. That said, the tiny town seems to have progressed very little from Captain Cook’s first landing all those years ago as we’ve found ourselves to be pretty isolated and with very little to do. 

Nevertheless we went on a scooter tour. We were given leather jackets (mine was bright pink, of course) and fake tattoos to help us capture the biker look. Although we were both fairly unexcited about this trip, we embraced the experience and it turned out to be a lot of fun. After a frightening small amount of practice on the scooters we were let loose on the roads and our 3 hour tour began. Despite obviously seeing the ‘town’, or lack of it, we saw at least 50 kangaroos and got to watch a stunning sunset.

Cape Tribulation, Port Douglas & Magnetic Island

On Monday we went up to Cape Tribulation; on route we stopped off at the Daintree river and went on a crocodile river cruise for an hour. We sat anxiously with our arms firmly inside the boat expecting to see the dangerous saltwater crocodiles we have heard so much about (3 people have been eaten by saltwater crocodiles in Australia this year alone), yet we only saw a tiny baby crocodile. We learnt that baby crocodiles only have 1/100 chance of surviving the first two years of their lives because of the slow rate in which they grow and the hazardous environment in which they live (fun fact for you all). After this our next stop on route to Cape Tribulation was a guided walk around a section of the Daintree rainforest; here Alex and I walked around fairly amused by the number of people taking photos of leaves and bark (perhaps we aren’t the greatest nature lovers?). When we arrived at Cape Tribulation we staying in a lovely little hut in the rainforest that was minutes from an opening to Cape Tribulation’s stunning beach.

The following morning we were picked back up by our tour guide to head to Port Douglas. On the way we made another stop to a National Park and there an Aboriginal man gave us a brief talk. He showed us some of the weapons and hunting tools used by his tribe and also showed us how they make paints, soap and scrubs from the rainforest’s rocks and leaves.

Following this we arrived in Port Douglas. We decided to head down to the beach and cook ourselves some dinner on the beach BBQs. Being on a ‘backpacker’ (a term I like to use sparingly, especially as I cleverly brought a backpack with wheels- no heavy lifting for me), this BBQ merely consisted of $5 sausages. Clearly we looked tragic as an Australia family soon invited us to join them in their BBQ festivities, so we dined on a feast of fresh fish that they had caught themselves early that day.

After a pleasantly chilled day by the Lagoon in Cairns we headed south to Magnetic Island. Magnetic Island is very picturesque; heavenly tropical, turquoise waters and many isolated bays dotted around the island. We quickly created a long list of things we wished to do here, only to discover that such paradise comes at a very hefty price tag; we quickly aborted our to-do-list.

We went to the Koala Sanctuary where we were able to hold koalas, which was delightful. We also held a variety of other animals including a smiling turtle, lizards, cockatoos (I quickly made my fear of birds known so opted out of this one), a baby saltwater crocodile and snakes. Alex had promised to hold a snake despite his great fear of them, as I’m sure you can imagine this was very amusing.

In the afternoon we decided to rent a 4x4 for the day to explore the multiple bays on the island. We caught a bus and then trekked to ‘Budget island rentals’ only to find ourselves at some grubby garage in the middle of nowhere; it looked like something from a horror film. Eventually we found an almost decent looking car rental place, yet having left with the intention of hiring a beasty 4X4 we drove away in an automatic (which we had never driven before), tiny, white Daihatsu.  We named her Daisy. Alex’s 4X4 adventure will have to wait until another day.

Our Great Barrier Reef Experience

We spent the last week completing our PADI open water diving courses with a company called Deep Sea Divers Den here in Cairns. The first two days were a little mundane as we had lots of boring theory to learn and skills to practice in the pool.

After that was over we were picked up bright and early to head out onto the Great Barrier Reef where we spent the next three days living on a boat called Ocean Quest. We spent the majority of our time diving at Norman's reef with our instructor, practising the skills that we had learnt in the pool and looking at the reef (searching for Nemos).

On board Ocean Quest we completed 6 dives before we became certified scuba divers. With another day on the boat, we decided to take on the next qualification, the Adventure Diver Course. This would allow us to dive up to 30m unsupervised.

To do this we had to do another 3 dives with our instructor; a deep dive, a navigation dive and a scary night dive. As we prepared to do the night dive, we found large fish and even larger grey reef SHARKS circling the boat. During our night dive briefing the instructors asked who was scared of sharks, our hands shot up only to discover that nobody else had raised their hand. Just us then.

 Despite our reassuring briefing sharks are still sharks, so, of course, I sent Alex in first to test the water and also to test the sharks' appetite. The night dive was very scary, we used up the air in our tanks very quickly as a result of this, nevertheless we both found the night dive to be exhilarating and exciting (after we were safely out of the shark infested water that is).





Other than sharks we saw plenty of colourful fish and corals, turtles and sting-rays.





We are both now certified open water scuba divers and certified Adventure divers. Job done.

                                    The Great Barrier Reef- they don't call it great for nothing! 

Melbourne- The second instalment

We spent the second half of our week in Melbourne exploring St Kilda and spending time with James, his girlfriend Jeda and his housemates.



On Friday evening we went to see our first AFL match at Melbourne cricket ground with James and Jeda. We saw North Melbourne (the Roos) play Geelong (the Cats); because we are in Melbourne we chose to support the Roos. This turned out to be a wise decision as they won 98-92. It took a while to get our heads around AFL and its many rules, in particular how long the extra time can go on for (15 minutes extra time for a 20 minute quarter seemed crazy to us). Overall we really enjoyed our AFL experience.

Alex, James, Jeda and I supporting the Roos.

We had been eagerly awaiting saturday all week as my trusted iPhone weather app had promised sunshine and a temperature of 21 degrees. The sun came out as promised yet it was still very chilly and windy. Nevertheless we headed down to St Kilda beach as planned but wrapped up in scarves and hoodies. We went for a nice stroll along the promenade and walked along St Kilda Pier. Regrettably this is where my camera and I parted ways, as I, although i've been trying to pass this error off as 'we', left the camera on a bench.








On Saturday evening we went out for some drinks in Melbourne Central, some of us drank more than others but I'm sure you don't need me to clarify who that someone was. Jeda and I opted for sophisticated cocktails, whilst the boys drank... everything.










On Sunday morning we went out for breakfast (at lunch time of course) to a place that James had been raving about all week. We devoured two peanut butter hot chocolates and, once I had swallowed my pride at being a girl and ordering this, two plates of 'iron-man pancakes'. Yum yum.






Tomorrow we fly to Cairns to start our journey down the east coast. Importantly we hope to finally be able to wear shorts as the temperature in Cairns is currently around 28 degrees. We cannot wait. 

Our first few days in chilly Melbourne

After some tearful and many nearly tearful goodbyes Alex and I set off on sunday evening from Heathrow for Melbourne to begin our travelling adventure. Our journey consisted of 3, fairly lengthy flights with Royal Brunei. Alex had managed to charm his way into getting us both extra leg room seats for the first two flights, however we paid the price for our luck on the third flight when we found ourselves surrounded by hyper children and screaming babies for 7 hours. Overall our 30 hour journey to 'the land down under' was tolerable, yet I do wish to share the following information with you all. When we arrived in Brunei airport (before we connected for our final fight to Melbourne), Alex, a foreign exchange 'Senior Account Manager', opened his wallet to pay for our drinks to discover that he had purchased Malaysian Ringgit rather than Brunei Dollars for our stopover, much to my amusement.

We arrived in Melbourne at 5am to a very chilly and dark city, we then proceeded to meet James at a chic coffee shop in Windsor at 7am. After being shown around a little and grabbing some breakfast James welcomed us back to his flat where we decided to go a quick nap... we woke up 6 hours later. Jet lag has really hit us hard.

We spent the next few days figuring out our plans for the east coast and exploring the city. We visited the Melbourne museum, walked along South Bank by the river, explored Chapel St. in Windsor, went to Queen Victoria market and rode the city tram around the CBD.









We went for dinner with James at a Thai restaurant on Chapel St. on thursday evening, reminiscing about our trip two years ago where we all met. After an enjoyable meal and a round of Chang beers James took us to a bar for some cocktails. We both looked at him bizarrely when a few minutes later we followed him into 'Boston Subs', an American Sandwich shop. James then proceeded to speak to the guy behind the sandwich counter then beckoned us to the fridge door at the back. We followed James through the fridge door and stepped out into a stylish bar the other side.  'Boston Subs' is in fact a cover up sandwich shop for a secret, exclusive cocktail bar and going through the fridge door is the only way in. Impressive. Please also note in the photo below the crazy, fun glass that my banana daiquiri came in. Doubley impressive.

Our thoughts on Melbourne so far... a cosmopolitan, chic and chilled city, yet pricey and very chilly at this time of year.

Our delightful first photo together in
Oz whilst waiting for the city tram. One for the frame?