Magical seacreatures, experiencing Australia and enjoying the best time of life...

It has been two weeks since my last blog. To be honest it feels like months! The last two weeks have been amazing! I think the coolest two weeks of my life aside from a few days of sickness. As usual I will describe my adventures word for word.. =] It started with another fun party in the Valley with Linda who finally came back from the US. (and has left us again for a research trip on a boat) We went to meet her at my favorite cocktail bar where she, her boyfriend Pat and two Dutch friends of her were having a good time. It was weird talking in Dutch again. I'm getting used to the english so fast that I'm actually losing some of y Dutch vocabulary... We tried to end up in this bar that four other friends were in but apparently none of us had any clue where this place was, o we endended up, after 30 minutes walking in the lamest bar ever. But, yes thats me again, I had forgotten my drivers licence in Nick's car. This country insists on people showing their ID at all times, even 70 year old gradpa's with a walking stick! So we went walking back to the car.. yes a 15 minute walk, when, passing a fancy night club, an enourmous bouncer decided to take a step back onto the pavement without looking. He stept full on my foot! And this was not an ordinary big guy, he was HUGE! So skipping around in pain he asked what he could do to make it up to us when Nick cleverly replied that he could let us in for free.. This club had a 15 dollar entree fee! SO thats 30 dollars saved! So we had a drink there enjoyed the music got a stamp from another boucer while walking out and headed to the car again. We met up with the rest of the group in te super lame bar filled with super druk ununderstandable irish guys. So I tried to make everyone leave for another venue when we decided that a house party on nicks deck was a better and cheaper plan. I was the only sober one in the group unfortunately so I had the honour of driving a big Rav4 to Red Hill. The first time I felt a bit comfortable driving on the left side of the road. That is one of the things I love from Australia, you can do anything outside because it is never cold! You can sit in your short summer dress in the middle of the night without feeling cold once! Wild plans were made to head to Byron bathe next day. And so we did, leaving early in the morning. A three hour drive to Byron Bay, a place that is very popular but still very laid back. Tried to get a nice camping spot but there was almost nothing left. The one spot that was left was directly next to the entrance bordering the road... Well ok, we settled for that, when genius nick took out the tent to set it up realized he had forgotten the tent poles! I laughed my ass off, he kept mumbling the line, rookie mistake, rookie mistake.... Luckily there was still some space in the lodges. We went to do a little tour through Byron, which is actually a very small place and got to see all the sights. After some shopping we headed back to barbecue some haute cuisine burgers accompanied by a lovely red shiraz. Next to us there were these three guys eating some hotdog and after a while we started talking and found out we had a common interest... Diving! These guys were in byron with the sole reason to go diving! One of these guys had an incredible under water camera and showed us some of his pictures, that are published occasionally in dive magazines. We mixed the party up and enjoyed some drinks together. After a while the guys invited us to go diving with them the next day! They brought their own boat on a trailer and had all the gear with them! Drinks turned into a party and Blair the Photo guy started another barbecue spree. Kangaroo steak was on the menue! I love it! We took an esky and moved to the beach where a few french guys joined us and some dude that called himself moonjoined with a guitar. We ended up drinking and singing songs till 12, when we finally headed into the nightlife of Byron bay. Unfortunatly almost everything closes, or refuses people to get in, at 12. So our last resort was the "cheeky monkey" we rushed there and partied untill 4. After that went straight to bed to be at least a bit fit in the morning for the dive. I wasn't looking forward to it because I know I get sick on boatrides.. The next morning we headed out to Julian Rock, 30 minute boatride, smashing onto the waves. It felt like a rodeo... The dive though was unbelievably beautifull! I only did not have a wetsuit, so I dove suitless, which wasn't bad at all!! I got cold once at a thermocline at 12 meter depth. We saw bullrays, eaglerays, stingrays, a lot of pufferfish, I adore them, they look so cute with those big eyes and kissy lips. We even encountered an angelfish!! Beautifull! Back on the boat getting my gear off I felt a bit of nausea comming up, but nothing too bad. I actually survived a dive trip without spuwing! I was so proud! Back on the beach it was a bit cold though... A hot shower and a fresh change of clothes did me really good. Then it was time to head back to Brisbane...

That week I was a bit ill.. Go this bad cold from my room mate with a tickling cough that almost makes you puke out your intestines while coughing. So did two days of uni started my morphology studie, really happy to start something new. That friday a trip to Sarah's house on rainbow beach was planned. So we headed out a bit after eight to drive the 3,5 hour up north to Gympie (seriously a place has this name...) and the to Rainbow beach. We arrived picked our rooms and took a tour of the house. It was beautiful with a gorgeous view of the beach and the bay, even Frasier Island was visible in the distance! We had some drinks and a dance when Sarah had the wonderfull idea to take the music to a sanddune and enjoy the view from there. It was the biggest sanddune I had ever seen. And ofcourse we had to run down it, not thinking of how bad the way back would be. My roomie Micheal aka Germy aka Jeremy was also invited to this trip so we showed the australians the proper european way to run into the ocean on a moonless night... Totally naked! So the five of us ran into the sea. When we were in there I noticed that the waves were filled with little sparks.. little things were lighting up when you stirred the water. It was the first time in my life I ever experienced seaspark... It was magical! Unfortunately when I was running into the ocean I did not notice a rock in the water and sprained my knee falling over it. Well I was so happy and had a few drinks, so I did not notice it at the time. The climb up the sanddune was a big adventure. It was really steep and really high, but I invented the Gorilla running technique to get up the hill. Back at the house we enjoyed a bit more music had a dance and decided we were going to watch the sunride from the big sandblow. It was unbelievable beautifull. The sky turned pink and a deep orange sun rose between the hills.. the sea was sparkling gold. I think this was the most beautiful and magical night I have ever experienced. We headed back and danced on the balcony till 9 in the morning, then went to bed for a few hours of sleep. Sarah, Cameo and Germie made the best breakfast ever, toast scrambled eggs, avocado, tomatoes and cheese... That with a coffee brought me back to life again. We did some groceries for dinner and headed to the beach where I did yet another magical discovery I found a Glaucomus atlanticus, also referred to as a little blue sea dragon. This is a nudibranch, a sort of seaslug that eats bluebottle jellyfish, the jellyfish pop when you step on them on the beach. The blue sea dragon concentrated the venom from the jellyfish and stores in in some weird shaped extensions on its body, so its very poisonous! But only when you squash it.. And it's pretty.. =] We headed back to the house, I took a shower and a little nap and started cooking. Made a grilled vegtable pasta salad sweet potato and Yam from the oven and a nice light green salad. Andrew! my favorite party animal did his magic on the berbecue grilling the sausages and the steaks... Best steak ever! Since there was no sleep on fridaynight everyone was a bit tired after the dinner so we had an easy evening and a good sleep. The next day we went fourwheel driving on the beach! Its quite popular here, you can't call it a beach anymore.. Its more like a highway! Hahaha, but really cool nonetheless. We stopped at double island point for a swim. The water was just beautiful, so clear, though there was something that was gruesome on the beach. A beached and very dead dolphin. And yes I had to take pictures of it. I know I horrible, but whats even worse, I'll put them on the blog too!! Anyway, the tide was comming up so we had to head back by taking a sandpath to another beach and then through the bush to get back to the house. While doing this trip we found out that Nick's car wasn't actually a fourwheeldrive! Oops, sarah stopped the car in front of us on a impossible sandy spot because germie dropped his camera out of the car. So we got bogged... Luckily there are a lot of Macho Australian dudes with huge cars to pull us out of the mess. The car had a hard time though and with our efforts to get it out ourselfs the engine overheated... After a little wait and some help we were able to continue the journey, that took 45 minutes thorugh sandy bush paths back to the main road. It was awesome! Really cool and beautiful... Hail to our courageous driver! And then it was time to clean the house and head back to good old Brizzie again.

There and back again, I had the best time ever.. Am so thankfull for it! It gave me the energie to start back up in the lab again. Get more work and start another blog! I started a cooking blog with recipies etc in it. Hope to update that one at least every week. Since the stories are not as ridiculously long as for this one. ;) Anyway.. Big kiss to all of you. I hope you are enjoying the hot chocolate and the fireplaces back in holland. Its getting so hot here that you sometimes whish the whole country was a nudist campsite. Bangkok like hot, very humid. Next saturday my roomie and me organised a barbecue in the garden, so I hop that will be a nice little party. On sunday the plan is to go and see a cricket game! Culture!!

So peeps! Big kiss and hope to hear from you guys!

PS, the new blog is:

therecipebylindagomes.blogspot.com

ANd anothe picture from thge Byron Bay dive!!! Magical!

Island Vibes, beautifull beaches and my first kangaroo!

I have had the most cool, incredible beautiful long weekend trip. We went with a big group of people to stay in a big queenslander house on stradbroke island to go to the Island Vibes festival! We left early early in the morning to make the 1,5 hour drive to Cleveland to catch the ferry and do some groceries for the weekend. Stupid, because we got there at eight! And the shops weren’t open yet. Silly… after half an hour in sun on the ferry in the sun we arrived on Straddie and drove to point lookout to pick up the keys to the house. The Island is sooo beautiful! Eucalyptus forests, squeeking white beaches, the sand actually squeeks when you walk on it. Its so fine and white.. The house was not ready for us all yet so we had some fish and chips for lunch did some shopping and went to cylinder beach. Floated in the waves, a bit scared for the giant shark luring around those parts, walked around in search for some hidden sea creatures lay in the sun and read my book. Finally we could pick up the keys for the house. Arriving there we found a huge Goana on the driveway. The biggest lizard I have ever seen in the wild. It was HUGE!! The house, by the way, was equally HUGE. With two enormous decks and so many rooms! I got installed in my room and hit the deck with a glass of Pimm’s with gingerale. New invention =]. By that time Josh arrived who is always our beloved DJ and has the most relaxed tunes ever. Since Billy, the organizer of the whole trip, brought his didgeridoo, bongo, drums and guitar we were entertained by DJ music with live instruments. I thought digeridoos, as josh said it, sounds like an elephant fart. We’ll this definitely changed my mind… At around 5 the festival started and after the little party on the deck and a bit of a wait for the others to arrive, Bas, Abbi, Nat and last but not least my teeny tiny dancing queen Nadiah. The festival was not very big just a few thousand people, 5 at the max. Lots of food stands and little shops, but three big tents for all the performances. All the music was reggae-ish, but mixed with electronic and drum and base. <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7ioxadKgUoOtZTshhuDNupecZ0KW7Um4ErUJ_7aQI_OPtIqlLkO3kxVgn8CMlABtKIswtl8Hp_jeSSm3TnwMET8M9Ir7hVWcExLI0b4uhBk4ZzLUD0KNDLeZEIIRe1bFft2zfhvELKh4L/s1600-h/PA300102.jpg">Happy nice danceable music! Nadiah went crzy on the dance floor… So did I. At twelve the party ended and we walked the long uphill walk back to the house to continue the party on the deck. Fully equipped with my uggs and a furry vest. After some beers I was so tired that I practically fell asleep while sitting at the table. So I just rolled into bed to wake up at 7 the next morning by people running around in the living room. After a nice breakfast and headed to the most beautiful beach I have ever seen. We played boogie ball on the waves. A funny little ball the bounces on water. We had another deck party after. We left at five for the festival, but on my way there I was cought off guard by three wallaroo’s, a smaller version of a kangaroo! Unbelievable, these big hopping rats just live in the wild here! Saw a coule of Galah’s too, pretty pink headed birds =] On the festival again; had a little thing to eat there, bad food… ooef.. But anyway we saw this incredible band called Darky Roots. If you want to hear nice reggae, download that! Seriously! A lot of dancing again =] I have never seen so many people out of their minds on acid hugging trees. To be honest it was just a long blur of fun… three days of festival make you mix up what happened on which day. Anyway, again a little party on the deck after the festival. Sunday the festival was going to be over quite early so we headed there at one, shopped around. I bought the coolest dress ever! Its sooo pretty. I had the best food ever at a nameless stand and we saw Darky Roots again! The last performance in the big tent was of a guy from Jurassic five, a crazy cool performance. The crowd was going nuts! I have never seen a crowd like that! Unbelievable. After that we had a big party at the house with some other people that were staying at the camp site.. dancing crazy, drinks, girls with hairy armpits… ewww. Monday we got up… and Josh had already cleaned the house!!!
Unbelievable! We just had to have breakfast and after we headed out to catch the 12 o’clock ferry. Got home and crashed on my bed… I was sooo tired. Then my roomie Micheal a.k.a. Germie came in and asked if I wanted to join him and a friend to the movies. Before that I made this huge greek/Turkish dinner. I had neglected my cooking urge all weekend so I had to catch up. Sometimes I wonder why I am not a cook/chef. Well I’m not that good, but maybe I should put in some effort to really get good. Anyway the movie was, dr. Parnassus Imaginarium. Heath Ledgers last movie. Incredible! I really liked it! Yesterday was another disappointing day in the lab since nothing worked again. I did some easy maintenance tasks to at least feel a bit useful. Sometimes I wonder why I bother. Maybe I’m not cut out to be a researcher. Maybe I’m not patient enough. Well we’ll see. I got to toughen this one out. Murphy ’s Law can’t last forever… And today is today… Going to do a bit of groceries and make my cheapest dish.. I’m getting broke. I need another job. :P anyway guys! Big kiss and talk to you soon