The reason I haven’t posted in a while is because I’ve with two things:

  • Job!
  • Adventure!

The job: I have one! At Telstra! I didn’t want to say anything earlier in case I jinxed it. But I had a phone interview, a couple of tests, and shabang! Nothing particularly glamourous, broadband telephone support, but the pay’s a little more than what I was getting in Canada. I start training next Monday. Swell.

Next, the adventure. Dana and I originally intended to go on a week-long tour up the coast from Sydney, but it was booked up for the times we wanted. We instead decided on a sailing trip in the Whitsundays, this incredibly blue archipelago about a 5 hour Greyhound south.

Day 1. We leave the house around 9, take the Greyhound from the city to Airlie Beach, the main launching point and beach town of the Whitsundays. We decided to stay the night in Airlie to make sure we were in time for the ship the next day. We stayed overnight at the Organic B&B. It was quite lovely, with a 3-course organic breakfast the next morning.

Day 2. We board the Schooner Friendship (extremely lame name for a boat, if you ask me; I believe there’s a Simpsons’ quote in there somewhere) at around 2pm. Surprisingly, they charged us a little beyond what I had planned for, and unsurprisingly, Dana was prepared with cash on a sailing trip for some reason. Basically we spent the first day sailing to our destination for the night. There were 10 passengers all together: an Irish couple about our age, a pair of Scottish girls about our age, a couple of British schoolteachers from Nepal with their two young kids, and the Australian captain and cook/skipper/deckhand/misc.  So all the wonderbread parts of the commonwealth were represented.  All in all, they were good company, with the Irish couple drinking constantly, the Aussies barbequing constantly, the Britons flashing their horrible teeth constantly, and the Scots bragging about how Nessie could kick a yeti’s ass.  We talked about hockey constantly.  Not really, of course, except for the Irish: they really were big drinkers.

Sleeping in a ship is very tough, by the way.

Day 3.  Sailed to Whitehaven, one of the world’s most beautiful tropical beaches.  It really was quite fantastic.  Quite. We got here fairly early and had to leave quickly, so we didn’t get a chance to swim.  Later that day, we sailed to Yongala where snorkelling was done.  In the Great Barrier Reef!  HAR HAR.  It was pretty cool, but as per usual, my mask didn’t fit my horrible ogre face, so I didn’t have too much fun.  Plus salt water makes me sick, which I apparently forgot before thinking about coming to Australia.  Oh well.  Still cool.  We took a few underwater pictures with a disposable.  At night, we went to the South Molle Island resort to grab a drink.  It’s the off-season now, so it was pretty much dead, but it was neat anyway.  We had to get to bed early anyway because…

Day 4.  Early rise at 6:30am to take a mountainous path to the Spion Kop (WTF with the names, eh?) lookout point.  Took a couple of pictures and threatened to throw Dana down the side of the hill numerous times.  She wasn’t entertained.  And that was pretty much the end of the trip.  So we sailed back to port and grabbed the Greyhound back to Townsville, eventually getting home around 8pm.

I should mention that the food onboard was exceptional, especially considering it was on a boat without a fridge (cooler only).  The last night, for example, we had barbequed chicken, pesto bowties, and steak salad, and it was all great.

Overall, a solid trip.  Good fun was had by all.  Also, Tall Ships and Salty Dogs is something I can definitely get on board with now.  YAR HAR.