Sheena, Queen of the Jungle

The town of 1770 is such a small town that the main street consists of one square block of shops. The hostel I stayed at was a beautiful little retreat out in the middle of nowhere, but despite it’s inconvenient location, it turned out to be really pleasant experience because I knew half the people there. It was a very chilled out, oasis-like place, and because I was surrounded by such good company, I felt absolutely no need to go out and paint the town red (however, had I tried to do so, it would have taken me approximately 15 minutes).

My friend Solene and I spent one whole day surfing and got a few fun shots. We had to surf really close to the shore (and really close together) to get the following pic…


which made this pretty much inevitable:



Aside from acquiring a few new bumps and bruises, I had a really great day out in the water. The following morning, I went for a “beauty hike” where this very, um, colorful guy takes about 10 people on a 20 min walk to a beautiful, secluded beach to get painted with natural mud and oils. While the mud is drying, you get the chance to scour the beach for shells with which to make some jewelry if you so desire. All the shells on the beach have little holes in them created by worms that have burrowed through to eat the animal inside, thereby turning them into perfect little beads. I could have spent all day shell hunting, and the man who led the hike informed us that one girl he took on the hike a few years back stayed and financed her entire trip making and selling bracelets she made out of the shells collected on that very beach. (Then again, this came from the same guy that spent half the hike trying to convince us of the existence of UFOs and parasite mind control, so I’ll take what he says with a grain of salt.)

After the “hike,” I went down to the beach to get in one last surf, as that will be the last time I will be able to surf for quite some time. I was feeling quite tired out after the day’s activities, but some friends back at the hostel convinced me to go for a sunset kayak.


I never seem to be able to resist the chance to go kayaking, even though I really don’t have the money to be spending on such activities at this time. It was good fun, but a big part of the allure for me was the good possibility of kayaking with dolphins and unfortunately, they just weren’t out that day. After the totally exhausting excursion, most of us left 1770 and boarded a bus headed up north. Everyone continued up the coast, but I got off earlier at a small, random town called Rockhampton to stay with some friends of a friend in Yepoon, a 40-min drive from the bus drop off. The people I was supposed to stay with couldn’t pick me up that night because the bus got in at 11:30 pm, so they sent their very nice neighbor, a fellow American named Randy, to come get me. As it turned out, I would be staying at Randy’s place the whole time, as there was not enough room for me at their house! No worries, I spent the next 2 days at Randy’s magnificent hilltop home eating great food, doing laundry, and reveling in the free wireless internet. After 5 months of hostel jumping, it was such a pleasure to sleep on a real mattress in a room all to myself. I had a very generous host, and the highlight my trip to Yepoon was an excursion to a very small and intimate wildlife center where you can interact with all the native animals. In most zoos, you can’t touch the animals and you’re surrounded by thousands of tourists, but I was in Yepoon and it’s not exactly the most popular tourist destination. What a day I had! Aside from seeing some of the brightest, most colorful birds I’ve ever seen (some of them looked like they had been tossed into rainbows), I got to live out my ultimate dream.



I will never forget what it felt like holding that little guy. He was so soft and cuddly, I could barely stand it (I had to resist the urge to run off with him). And he kept grabbing my braids! If it were possible to die of an overdose of cuteness, that moment would have been the end for me. After that near-death experience, I went out into the main area to play with some kangaroos and wallabies. They really seemed to like me…




Haha! So much fun. Yepoon, random as it is, is a pretty special place if you have the right person to show you around.

Tomorrow, I’m off to do my Whitsunday sailing adventure, which is a 3-day sailing trip though the Great Barrier Reef. I can’t say I’m dreading it!