May 31, 2011- Day 35
Where: Town of 1770 to Emu Beach
Dinner: Turkey sandwich on the way out of town
First of all, happy birthday to my wonderful sister! I love you and miss you and hope you had a really great birthday weekend with the fam ♥ (sorry this is late now...)
We've heard great things about The town of 1770 so today I was interested to see what it's about. Where we woke up was along the water and it was nice. There are some random sand spits out in the water here which make it look like it would be hard to navigate a boat around. Yet, there were still quite a few boats anchored out in the water. The beach on Agnes Beach, the little sister town to 1770 is the northern most beach at which you can surf. From here on up the waves die out because of all the reefs in the water. So at our final surfable beach we finally rented a surf board for me to try.
There was only one surf shop in town and the boards they rented out weren't especially good, but we didn't have any other options. I got a big, tall and thick foam board. It seemed like a good beginner board to me but once we got in the water Pat said it wasn't as buoyant as you would hope for. Oh well, this was my last chance! I could have taken some surf school lessons, but Pat already knows how to surf so I got my own one on one lesson. Unfortunately, there were hardly any waves at all today. After a few quick pointers I got out in the “waves.” I mainly just ended up riding the little waves in on my stomach for a while. I also practiced popping up while Pat held the board steady for me. I ended up feeling a bit frustrated and cold so I went in for a break on the beach. The greatest part about today is that it was the first truly warm, non windy day we've had so far. We were able to lay on the beach and not get cold! We had the board for 4 hours, so I ended up laying in the sun for an hour and a half before I got back in the water.
Actually, I almost didn't get back in the water. I was so happy on the beach that I didn't want to get back in. I figured I had given it a try, but Pat said he felt like a failed teacher if I didn't even stand up and ride something. After a mental battle with myself (which involved me spouting out some frustrated words) I finally marched myself back into the water. After a bit of a spiel about how I'm not cut out for ocean sports, Pat pushed me into a little wave and while I was riding the white water towards the beach I popped myself up and I didn't even fall off! Ok people, so at this point I take all my previous negative comments back because I am clearly a natural. Baha! Not so much. I was able to stand up on a few more similar “waves”, but that is where my talent ran out for the day. I basically just got worse after that. With sore arms and legs, and a bit of a scraped knee, I decided to call it a day. I felt good that I hadn't given up and that I had managed to stand up a few times, and Pat could feel like he hadn't failed as a teacher. I didn't ride a real wave, but I like to think I got the hardest part out of the way. Is the first day truly the hardest part? Or is like snowboarding where you get up on the mountain and you snowplow for a while, feeling pretty good about yourself, and then someone shows you how your supposed to carve and you realize that you haven't even begun the real challenge? Let's hope not. I'm sure I'll try it again sometime.
After returning the board we drove up towards the point where Captain Cook first set foot on land. Oh yes, and I learned that the history I described yesterday was wrong. This town isn't the first place where Captain Cook discovered Australia. That was Sydney Harbor. This is where he landed the second time he came to Australia, officially discovering what is now the state of Queensland. Now we can all feel better about our more accurate knowledge of Australian history. We walked out to a pretty overlook that had a nice view of the beach.
From there we went back into town to a the same travel booking company where we booked our Fraser Island tour. We're getting close to the Whitsunday Islands up north, which are an unbelievably gorgeous series of tropical islands with coral reefs all around. The popular thing to do it take multiple day sailing trips through the many islands, stopping to snorkel or dive along the way. There are a million different boating trips and we needed some advice about what to do. We met a really helpful guy who ended up getting us a good deal and booking us onto a 3 day, 2 night yacht tour. Oh my goodness, I can't even begin to explain how excited I am about the trip. It's on a nice racing yacht too, so we should be able to cover some serious distance. The boat only holds 20 people, and we get one free introductory scuba dive. We still don't know for sure whether Pat will get cleared to do serious scuba diving, but we will probably both be able to at least do the intro dive. We leave in two days which means that most of tomorrow will be spent driving. That's ok because the area we're in right now doesn't have many nice towns along it. The Whitsundays really are the next big thing. We drove two hours out of 1770 this evening and are staying in the small town of Emu Park. Tomorrow we'll drive for 6 hours and arrive at Airlie Beach in the evening in order to leave on the yacht the next morning!!
No comments:
Post a Comment