SAMMIE'S GONE

After three fantastic weeks of travelling with Sammie in Australia it was time for her to head off back to Birmingham and her studies. I was so sad to see her go. She had not had the chance to have her photograph taken with a life guard, so we took the photo opportunity at Brisbane airport, when we saw a life size figure of a lifeguard in the passenger terminal.
After she left I had a good cry, then got on with the business of enjoying my trip down under.
I went to visit Australia Zoo, which was set up by Steve Irwin, with Carolyn, the girl I am going to travel up the east coast with for the next three weeks.(Sammie and I met her in Sydney, when she was in our dorm, and it was at her BBQ in Byron Bay where we saw the frog!!)

We had a great time at the Zoo ,it is a fantastic place. We saw all kinds of animal displays, including the crocodiles.


The next day we took a four hour bus journey north to Hervey Bay. It is beautiful. We decided to hire bicycles to cycle along the special cycle route by the sea. It is 11km. Well, almost as soon as we set off the heavens opened and the heaviest rainstorm started.

Not to be deterred we put on our plastic ponchos and carried on. I was laughing at Carolyn because she tried to set off on the bike, with her bike resting stand still down, it was scraping along the road!!!
Thankfully it brightened up and we stopped halfway for a lovely lunch in a cafe by the sea.
Then we headed off again, and this time Carolyn was laughing at me as I had left my bike stand down and it was scraping along the ground. I had been so full of myself when I told her she had left hers down earlier on, so it made us both laugh like mad. We were also laughing our heads off at how crappy the bikes were and how hard it was to peddle, when again the rain started. This time it was torrential and we got absolutely soaked through. But we were determined to get to the end of the cycle route!(Not thinking that we had to cycle all the way back again!!)

Eventually we decended a steep hill and were thrilled to see that there was a lovely restaurant by the sea, so that we could dry off and get a hot drink. As we stood at the doorway dripping wet and clutching our cycle helmets in our hands, a guy, invited us in and told us not to worry that we looked such a mess, and that we were dripping rainwater all over the place. We were soaked and cold and planned to get a cup of tea. When we tried to order tea, a woman who it turned out was a guest at the wedding behind us, said we needed a drop of the hard stuff. We agreed that Champagne would be better and prompty ordered two small bottles for ourselves. It was the bridegroom who had taken pity on us when he saw us standing at the door, drenched! We had gatecrashed a wedding in our rain ponchos!! As we sat sipping champagne, with out bikes outside, we could not stop laughing at how rediculous the situation was.
We soon stopped laughing when we realised that we had 11km to cycle back again!!!
We were in so much pain by the time we eventually reached the YHA.