after the wedding a few of us headed over to great keppel island for a few days. zac, brent and i stayed at the holiday village (a backpackers) while steve and kara stayed at the resort a few minutes walk away. the backpackers was great. we were supposed to be in a 4 person dorm with just the 3 of us but there was already someone on the 4th bed so they gave us 2 twin rooms. they cooked up a big pot of rice every nite (except one nite where they made a really good veggie soup) and it was just really friendly and relaxed. steve, kara and brent were all leaving the island tuesday afternoon to fly back to melbourne wednesday morning and me and zac weren't sure what to do for the rest of our holiday but not long after arriving on the island we decided to stay there until friday (i think we all fell in love with the island pretty much as soon as the boat "docked" on the white sandy beach)
sunset our first nite on great keppel
our favourite beach for snorkeling (monkey beach)
the beach was pretty deserted (we only saw a few people the whole day). over the 3 days we snorkeled there we saw turtles, small sharks, jelly fish, LOTS of colourful tropical fish, some kind of ray (i think whip rays-- brent saw a sting ray), gigantic clams, lots of coral........it was amazing. the water was a bit cold for me (someone told us it was 18C but it had been 26C up until they had the cold weather/rain for 2 weeks) so i hired a wet suit for 1 day so i could stay out a bit longer.
vicious lorikeet (i think this was bill or ted):
a lot of the birds on the island were quite aggressive because of people feeding them (despite signs EVERYWHERE telling you not to). the lorikeets are addicted to sugar and knew the little yellow packets. i played tug-o-war one morning with a lorikeet as he tried to take a sip of my coffee thru the travel lid and as i took that from him he tried to grab my sugar packets from me. he nipped me a few times and then got hold of one packet. i wasn't gonna let him have it so i grabbed the other end and pulled a few times until he finally let go.
kookaburra eating a snail or something (he kept smashing it against the log then put it down the hatch):
the kookaburras were quite aggressive too. we saw an unsuspecting guy have a doughnut (and almost his thumb too!!) grabbed right from his hand. he just picked up his small daughter and ran after that. we saw woman have a chip stolen from her half way to her mouth (she was busy watching the lorikeets on the other side of her).
possum at the hostel picking at the insides of a dried up coconut:
these little guys were also quite aggressive (according to steve). he was eating pizza on the balcony of their hillside villa at the resort. he went inside to grab a drink and the possum was eating his pizza when he came back. he shooed it away and grabbed his pizza and was a bit scared of the possum. his wife made a comment that the possum wouldn't hurt him and right at that second it went for his leg and tried to bite it!!
another sunset shot (i have dozens):
bat (they were pretty cool and not vicious as far as i know):
sailing: we decided to do a sailing trip offered thru the resort "sailing with grace". it was a day sailing trip on a 40 foot yacht.
the wind was kinda gusty and not constant so we did pretty much everything but sail (the water was like glass for 1/2 the trip back). we got to snorkel in an area that had much more colourful coral than monkey beach. zac went down into the cabin area and got a bit seasick so the crew took us over to a secluded beach in the dingy for zac to recover while lunch was being prepared.
it was an amazing private little beach around the side of a cliff from where the boat was anchored. the entire shore was pretty much just bits of coral and shells. zac found a big piece of coral:
lunch was pretty amazing too. we let them know beforehand that zac was vegan so they catered well for that (and they had lots of vegetarian options). we had wraps, quiche, cocktail samosas and spring rolls, as well as chicken and a HUGE bowl of fresh prawns for the non veggie people. on the way back we spotted a few dolphins jumping out of the water (didn't really get any good shots-- just a couple grey bits on a blue background). a couple even came quite close to the boat.
our last nite on the island we decided to stay at the resort because i just really wanted a fresh shower (the hostel uses bore water for the showers so they were kinda salty) and it would be nice to be close to the spa (every other afternoon we'd had a spa at the resort after snorkeling then had to walk back 5 min to the hostel getting cold).
here was the view from our deck area of our room:
i wouldn't really recommend the resort there unless you were going for the activities they offered (like as a family with children under 12). the staff were quite young and unprofessional and the rooms weren't all that nice (other than the view)
another bit of wildlife: a bush thick knee curlew. they're really cool nocturnal birds that wander around the island.
they had a little paragraph about them in the info news at the resort and it said something to the effect of if you hear what sounds like a baby keeping its parents up, its probably just one of these birds. i thought it was a bit odd that in the last 4 nites i hadn't heard that at all. that evening we were getting ready for an after dinner spa and we heard this screaming noise like a crying baby. zac's response was "that baby is annoying" (he didn't read the info on the birds). it was one of the birds!!
our last day on the island
is it wrong that i was watching the pool bar very closely for them to open and was up there ordering a pina colada within 30 seconds of them pulling up the gate at noon (there was another woman ahead of me though)?
the view down fisherman's beach (the main beach of the island)
teasing the lorikeets with my cocktail (i think they could smell the sugar in my "adult slurpee" and gathered around hoping for a sip-- zac let one have a few licks of his after he finished but i thought that was probably a really bad idea to get the lorikeets drunk)
we spent our last nite at the yha in rocky (after waiting an hour for a bus that then took us 15 min past the yha-- i don't think he heard zac ask him to let us know where our stop is). after hiking back up over the bridge with our packs on we found the hostel then walked another couple kms back to the mall to find some food for dinner. the next morning we left sunny queensland to arrive back home to melbourne at 7C (this seems to be the temp any time we arrive back in melbourne from anywhere in july) and it was VERY grey and rainy all day (at least it hadn't snowed that morning in melbourne-- that happened once on a day we returned).
we'll definately be going back to great keppel again though (we'd have the wedding there if it wasn't so expensive for everyone to get there)
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