06/02 - Moving to an Island

Today, it was kind of an early morning, a bit hard after last night. We had breakfast and checked out well before 10am. We are heading to North Stradbroke Island. An Island a bit outside of the bay of Brisbane.

We took the train from Roma Station at 9am to Cleveland (it took around 1h, I slept the whole time!). Then a courtesy bus took us to the ferry terminal (it took around 10 minutes). We bought our ferry tickets and waited for the boat. Once in the boat I remember the guy asking for our tickets and then nothing else (I fell asleep again, exhaustion? Or the tablets?? Maybe both!). The ride was 25 minutes. D. woke me up when we arrived.

A courtesy shuttle from the hostel was supposed to get us, but apparently we missed each other so in the end we had to wait quite a while until someone came to pick us up. The ferry had arrived in Dunswich but the hotel is situated in Point Lookout, at the top right of the island. It is a big Island but most of it is a natural reserve.

Once in the hostel we checked in our room (mixed dorm x8, spacious) and rested a little. D. did some painting (watercolour), I worked on the journal and slept for a bit. It was way too hot outside to go up and about.

Around 4pm, we went for a walk on the beach. It is right by the hostel! But we went a bit father to another beach and stopped there. D drew some more and I read, and fell asleep again! After the walk, I was too exhausted to continue so I went back to the hostel while D. kept going.

Pretty much as soon as I arrived at the hostel (around 6pm) it started raining… I hope D. was under cover. I took a shower to warm up and spent some time on the laptop in the room (I had managed to find a spot on the floor where we could catch the free wifi from reception!).

We found out that this weekend it is the Manta Fest: the Manta Ray are passing by the Island. Unfortunately all the snorkeling and diving are booked out…. There is only 1 space in each. D. asked about his license & they told him that he needs to send his papers to PADI if he wants to dive in Australia…

D. made dinner + in the free library he found an interesting cookbook, so he took it to study/read it. We were both really tired and went to bed short after our roommates came back from their day out (3 girls).

 Walked 7 km today.

Slept in a mixed dorm, in North Stradbroke Island YHA (Manta)