Motivation Station

Sorry we have been SO slack this month, seems that this month has seen Michael slogging his ass out at the Cotton Gin, working 6 days a week.  We have both been suuuper busy WORKING. We have been both having Fridays off and attempting to do something awesome on that day off.

We were planning to go to Rockhampton and head to Yeppoon on the 4th of May, but we ended up yarning to a Kiwi guy at Trivia so got home late and then lacked the motivation to get up at 5am. So we minced about for the day and ended up heading to the the Fairbairn Dam for a dip.

We decided to head back to the Blackdown Tablelands, we missed out a real nice track last time that we were keen to look at.  The Rainbow Waters track was a mission for Hugo the Hulk, poor car, it was a rough track and to travel 14kms of gravel took over 45mins!

Our trip to Gudda Gumoo a short 4km round tramp in the Blackdown Tablelands

Shahn standing in the rocks near Rainbow Waters waterfall.  An absolutely stunning place!

 
It really is Rainbow Waters!! So gorgeous!

Eak and his clever bird friend - feeding it nuts, pretty cool!

We finally got our shit together (on 18/5/12) and made the 3hour trip to Rockhampton, with the intention to head to the coast to see the Keppel Islands and to smell the sorely missed sea breeze! Poor old Eaky was struggling after working his 72 hour week and then up at 430am to drive 3hours.  So we cruised on through Rocky, leaving the druggies and hobo looking people behind us and headed to the beautiful coast, to Yeppoon.

Wreck Point Lookout at Yeppoon.  Those hills are what we climbed to take the below pics...

 

The fan like structures are formed from lava tubes travelling up and then cooling.  Formed millions of years ago, and the top picture is a blow hole!

Green Tree Ant (Oecophylla smaragadina)  

Than can be used when out in the bush to make a tasty drink when quenched in hot water.

We ventured 18kms down the coastal scenic route to Emu Park, to the singing ship - a monument to honour Captain Cook who discovered and named Keppel Island in May 1770. It is a huge structure that does hum and whistle in the breeze, just lovely!

Poor Eak is missing his boat!

On we trotted to the Koorana Crocodile Farm, they breed their own Crocs for farming their skins, meat, skulls and teeth - they kill 700/year for exporting and consumption.  We got to see a baby croc being born, below is old love holding the egg and showing us how the female croc helps them out of the egg.  This farm can only use their captive bred crocs as farmed products, any wild caught crocs can only be used a breading stock.  As this farm catches massive rouge, wild, saltwater crocs causing issues in the community. Although  It could be argued we are in their territory but they are a danger to all.

 

Brand new baby croc, only a few mins out of his shell.  He can kill and catch his own prey fresh out of his shell.  Amazing that something so big managed to fit in that egg!

 Us each holding a 3year old croc.  He was incredibly smooth feeling, especially underneath on his belly - that is the main reason they are farmed, their belly skin is work $50/square cm.  Absolutely incredible reptile!

On the way out of the Crocodile Farm, we saw a pair of Emu on the side of the road, still not snakes, koala or kangaroo on photograph.... we will get there!!!

We have been thinking about our future travels, which seem to be sneaking up quicker than expected! Realistically we need to get it sorted, so we need to sort our shit out and make some serious money so we can travel the way we are intending to (far and wide, for as long as we can!)

The potential travel plans just trying to price it all up... just a few ideas still a few places to add this is just a idea as we need to price tickets and all.

Trying to do something extreme while in Africa... Anyone want to climb Kilimanjaro???can't be that bad, only 6000 odd metres to climb. http://www.teamkilimanjaro.com/  http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/climbing-kilimanjaro/

We will endeavour to do better with future posts! Hopefully we have exciting things to report, like awesome jobs!

xxxxx Love Shahn & Eak

Highflyers and High-Fives

Thursday 12th April, Eak flew off to Brisbane for the day.  The flight from Emerald to Brisbane is roughly 1.5hrs long and luckily it was another gorgeous day in sunny Queensland!

Blackdown Table lands from above.

The very flat and expansive area of Central Queensland.

He rocked up to the Qantas Club in Brissy a few hours the lounge had a complete buffet and bar area.  Needless to say, free beers, food and cakes were slaughtered by Michael   - Classic!

Free Beer, Free Food and Free Net = Sweet As!!

Then that Thursday night at the local Mayfair Tavern we have been attending the weekly quiz.  Our team name, 2 K's (Two Kiwi's). We didn't place in the quiz but they have a team "True or False" round which Eak won two rounds of, and he won two bottles of wine!! Man what a sweet day, here I am in all my finery, holding my well earned free wine bottles.  Won by using  useful & obscure general knowledge and a small amount of doing what they guy next to me was doing.

That weekend we decided to take a trip to the Blackdown Table Lands (as seen from above in the earlier pics).  It was a bit of a trek from Emerald, about 2 hours drive, but it was really cool - we were on the look out for snakes but still none to be seen, sneaky snakes! Its 1000m above sea level so it was an awesome place for the Aboriginal people to live.

There were some trippy big ass rocks on the track and some old Aboriginal paintings on the rock face. There was a good campground up there and a few tramping tracks around, which is where we saw these Aboriginal hand paintings. The roads are rough, luckily Hugo handled the ride. Would be worth camping there for a few days, very tranquil.

 Eak has been busy picking watermelons, a very sweaty and a hard job.  We are just ticking along at the moment, but things might be looking up!

xxxx Love Shahn & Eak

A diamond in the rough...

We are settling currently in Emerald, QLD. Its about the size of Hawera, with the service industry of New Plymouth. There is alot of money to be made here, we are just struggling to find it!

Richard's and Scuba's humble abode in which we are currently residing (and Hugo) not to mention Richards' sweet ride the Holden Ute.

(16/03/12) After we had the "check engine" light come up on the car, we booked it in to Central Highlands Toyota for a diagnostics check (*cough* $130 later..!) and it came back that the oxygen sensor was buggered and needed replacing.  So we ordered the part (*bigger cough* $311).

We forgot to add this picture on the last post. This is Hugo's interior, pretty spacey huh?! Eak speeding and taking pictures while he is driving... and our cute sat-nav!

Later that day we went to the library and printed out some CVs to drop into businesses.  The first place Shahn dropped hers into, the lady hired her on the spot! Started Monday 19/03/12, Day one dropped an entire large cappuccino down her front - shirt, pants and undies were wet through. Awesome! Has been okay since then :)
Zoe and Jade, I understand why you enjoy working in cafes! They are fun, have as much coffee as you can handle and they give you lunch! Woo! They are also going to teach me to do coffees if I hang around! I know Zoe, I know!

It annoys me that its in text language, was it really that hard to call it "Love a Coffee"? I am sure that all the grammatically anal friends we have, will also find this amusing!

Eak still actively looking for work, I think he enjoys being a kept man (hahahahaha) but really he is hating it. He has massive cabin fever. hope that something comes soon! He has had a few meetings, but still nothing. So for now the stop gap work is an interesting stop gap!

WHY DOES AUSTRALIA HAVE SUCH HUGE SPIDERS... WHY??

This bad-lady spider is precariously positioned between the two trees where Hugo is parked (see photo one in this post) the web is THAT huuuge!

There was a Caine Toad on the porch when it was raining heavily the other night but I missed it with the camera. Other than checking the grass for naughty snakes that might be wanting to get me while hanging the washing or whatever, have not seen anything exciting!

Emerald seems prone to flooding even when there doesn't seem to rain for THAT long... It must rain alot heavier and for longer durations in Taranaki than here but Thursday (22/03/12) while driving to a job interview for Eak, we saw some road closure signs and being the naturally curious people we are, had a little look-see. The John Gay Bridge (awesome name, I know!) was closed as!

Thankfully, we don't live near this river... this is on the other side of the railway lines so we are safe!

Maybe Shahn can get a Radiography job as this cafe work is pretty hard work when your the floor & kitchen bitch, is $19.75/hr worth the pain and effort?! Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Until next time...

xxx Shahn & Eak

The looooong drive North

We had to get Hugo kitted out with spotlights in preparation for our journey north since everyone scared the shit out of us about hitting Roos (please see previous post for pictures of Hugo's new lights!) We managed to get a sweet as deal from Albion Repco, the dudes gave us a massive discount on a new Navig8r Sat-Nav and the spotlights etc (we saved $108.10 from retail price - Ah thank you Mr Eak for pleading poverty).

We took a quick trip to Kmart to get a 10L water canister and 20L fuel can as we were not sure how well Hugo would handle the jandal, and given our previous issues with cars we were not prepared to be stuck in the middle of Central QLD up a creek with no F'ing paddle!

We also had to buy Eak some more shorts and T-shirts, seems he packed his bag full of Thermals and long pants [a small oversight on my behalf] (after leaving Riverton in 10 degrees weather and arriving at Brisbane in 30 degree heat it seemed a bit of a necessity!) he obviously forgot that heading to Australia = constantly sweating!

We left the kind hospitality of Buxton Street - Thank you Craig for letting us stay! Hugo was all packed and ready to go!

So off we trotted from Brisbane to Emerald. Google Maps says 10hrs 29mins and 897kms! Uhhhh not really looking forward to this...... We left Ascot at 6am all ready to rock and roll!

Stopping for a stretch and a much needed toilet break. Shahn in the car, pretty excited!

In typical Shahn & Michael fashion, we had some minor car issues. We were about 4hours into the trip and the "check engine" light came on. So we stopped and had a look see, nothing out of the ordinany visually, so Eak reset the car's computer and we carried on our merry way. Our logic was, if its something major then the light will come back on. It did,  BUT only when we were parking the car nine hours later at Richard's, our destination... Phew! worry about it in the morning!

The massive problem was the road works. We stopped about 25 times! Crazy, so slow and it took ages with at least 100km of stop go lights.

We stopped at Childers, at the famous Peanut Van. Yum as peanuts too! Talked to them for like 30mins then carried on again! Definately stop at one of them if your driving the coast road... YUM! That's Eak below having a few tasters and yarning!

Then onwards and upwards to Rockhampton (we didn't actually have to go to Rocky but we were on the way there so thought, "Bugger it! Lets have a gander". Rockhampton was a bit tired but not bad, so we headed to the Marina to see the river. But I'm keen to come back and check out the beaches and all that  The signs there were AWESOME! There are a few (sorry!) but very worth it!

 Hahahahaha! "Warning! Crocodiles inhabit this area - attacks may cause injury or death! Excellent just what I always wanted... wait until you see the water - I wouldn't swim in that anyway!

 The beautiful Rockhampton Marina, complete with dirty as water full of crocs... awesome! There were loads of yachts in the river too

Eak having a gander at the water...

Then we meandered onward to Emerald, another 3hours from Rocky, to Richards place. It was a great relief to hang our heads and luckily Richard had dinner made for us. An excellent end to a friggen long day! It took us over 12hours to get to Emerald BUT we did stop alot!

So we travelled 900km on $62.00! Man, the Echo is economical! We also saw not a single live  kangaroo although a few squashed juviniles and a massive pig. We are yet to see any snakes or crocs. Although, a few massive spiders and geckos but a few nights are to be planned to go out hunting for them hopefully....

Sorry this is a long post! Until next time...

xxxx Love Shahn & Eak