We are leaving Australia in a couple of days. We are sad to go and leave our fantastic new friends but we must head onto Cambodia and Vietnam for another adventure!
We witnessed the opening of Lynnes new building which was a brilliant day. For those who don't know, we have spent most of our time in Oz helping a bunch of students rebuild a flood destroyed shed which was used as a halfway point for people walking the Bicentenial national trail. Lynne is really passionate ablut the trail that runs the length of the East side of Oz, so it has been lovely to help build her a lovely new place. (We are now experts at stone walling so if anyone needs a wall building when we get home, we're your women! ) Lynne has been so kind to us during our stay, as has her son Jak. We have been made to feel part of the family. We will truely miss them both, as well as Killer, the chickens and other wildlife that live in and around her farm! Our new Ausie freinds have promised to come and visit if they ever come to the UK so maybe we will see them again!
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| The finished building |
We took a week off from building over my birthday and travelled up to Cairns in a campervan. We found a relocation service called 'Standby Cars' which allows travellers to drive vans to another location for free, we just paid for our petrol! We managed to get one to Cairns and one back, which turned out to be much cheaper than flying as we didnt pay anything for our accomodation (it was just like being back in Olive in NZ!). It took 2.5 days to drive there from Brisbane so we only managed to get one full day in Cairns but that was enough to explore the Great Barrier Reef!
The only reason we came to Oz was becasue I wanted to dive the GBR! We paid for a day's snorkling trip and an introductory scuba dive. I had scuba'd before in Fiji but it was Emma's first time and she was TERRIFIED! Our first snorking spot was beautiful and we were the first group to put on our tanks and masks and brave the crystal clear water. Our insrtuctor held Emmas hand the entire time but she did it, despite her irrational fear of crabs, fish, sharks, snakes and other sea based creatures. I think she even enjoyed herself a little bit! I need to convince her to do her PADI in Cambodia. We didnt see anything big, just a lot of fish. We had some lunch and the boat took us to our second snorkling spot. We had been in the water for about 10 minutes when Emma spotted a little Green Turtle! I was beyond excited and followed him around for ages, trying to take some photos on the underwater camera we had hired for the day. I managed to get some, having to dive down pretty deep, until my ears felt like bursting, but it was so worth it. He was beautiful! It was worth a 7 day round trip, driving for 14 hours most days just to see him, it was the best birthday ever!
We drove back to Brisbane and got a lift back to Murphy's Creek the day before the grand opening, where we worked until 3am to finish the painting on the building . We are glad we came back to see it in all its glory, it really is beautiful and we helped to build it! It took 2 months of working from 5am till 10pm in blistering heat. The students designed it, all the materials were donated and I hope it goes some way to help rebuild the community of Murphy's Creek after the deverstation and misery of the last year.
Anyway, we have immensley enjoyed our Ozzie adventure and even though we didn't visit all the tourist hotspots, we had a unique experience and hopefully left the place a bit better than we found it!
We'll update you on our Cambodian whereabouts asap,
love,
Roo and M
xxxxx
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