stlucia.blogg.se

Im still not sure whether its a good idea to tell this story or not. Probably not. Its def NOT made for ears older than 80. That is, granma will without doubt be better off not knowing. (Prob mum as well). BUT. To start with. I'm FINE!  So let's take it from there.

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Yday, me and my friend Tom went to Tweed Valley with a double kayak and were going out abt 800-1000m to Cook Island. The weather conditions were fine in the morning and the water really calm. Plus the island was amazing! Saw thousands of seagull babies newly hatched and sea turtles when snorkling on the reef around the island. Stunning!

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Spend a few hours on the island before we decided to head back. Conditions didn't look too bad and we were aiming to sort of zic zac back since the waves were coming in from the side. It was even pretty relaxing and Tom told be a story about a man who kayaked from NZ to the Australian coast during 30days. But who ended up being eaten by a shark on his last day of the journy when he was expected to arrive and the whole celebration welcome party was already set up on the beach for him.

In the end of that story, a wave was rising behind us and we decided we were better of catching it. However, it was hit by another wave from another direction so we went of really fast and were actually on top of the wave when it started to break. So our kayak pretty much went nose down 90degrees and we were thrown out. I was just underneath the kayak and got hit in the head pretty hard.

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Even after this happened. It wasn't too bad. The kayak and my paddles were floating away in the waves and Tom went off to collect them. He managed to get back into the kayak and came back to me. At this time, we were still joking about that we both lost our sun glasses in the waves and Tom told me to get back into the kayak.

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However in that very second the whole water turned completely crazy. Waves were coming from all directions and I just couldn't get back in. Held on to the kayak until a new massive wave came in which separated me and Tom. He drifted of to the cliffs much faster than I did.

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At this stage, I was still pretty calm and started to focus on whether it was a better idea to try to get thrown onto the cliffs or try to swim away from them. Australians who are brought up with this pretty much know what to do. Its harder for us internationals. Since the cliffs were really sharp and slippery and the waves just growing bigger I decided I had to get as far away from them as possible. So I started to paddle away from the cliffs with all my energy. I thought nothing except "I need to get away from here". So my plan was to go back out and then sort of come around the cliffs and just be washed up on the beach. But I realized pretty soon that I was just getting closer and closer to the cliffs with every wave that hit me. And then 3 massive waves hit me in a row and I looked to the right to see Tom thrown off the kayak again abt 100 meters away from me. In that momant, I started to panic cause I realized I had no chance of making it and I started to get really tired. I had probably just been out of the kayak for abt 10 min but constantly fighting 3m high waves is really hard.

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The thought of sharks being in the water had luckily still not crossed my mind, despite the story Tom was just telling me minutes before we got thrown off. If I would ave pictured a shark in that momant I would have started to breath in way more water than I already did. Anyway. I started to realize that it wasn't a chance I would make it. And I looked up on the cliffs and saw a few people standing there watching me. I sort of thought that maybe they can get help so I started to wave to them but they all were just poining out the sea so I turned around. Heard a voice and saw a red little boat with two lifeguards in. The second later I felt this very strong hand around my stomach and suddenly I was in the boat. The only thing I could say was "I love you guys" which I will remember I repeated a few times on the way back.

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The guy was pushing me down and the girl went off to collect Tom who was with the kayak a bit further away on the cliffs. He was a bit better off though since the waves he had managed to get up on was a bit more protected from the waves so he actually managed to walk up the cliffs and eventually ended up on the beach behind them, where also the kayak and most of our stuff ended up eventually.

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The ride back to the beach was as rough as the rest of the story. At one point, we got hit by a massive wave that made the whole lifeboat stand up 90degrees...again. I have no idea how we did not fall out, cause I was basically holding on to two small strings on the boat. But we stayed in and later on I was safe on the beach. Dizzy, exhausted, thirsty. But very happy! Tom ended up with a pretty scratched body since he ended up on the cliffs and the kayak got a bit ripped as well but we were both good. The ambulance stuff came down to check blood pressure etc and then we were free to go.

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I was pretty torn between wheter I should tell you or not. It's pretty hard for me as well to realized what actually happened and how bad it could have ended. The fact that life guards even exist didn't cross my mind when I was out there and it didn't cross my mind until I was actually on the boat. These people are voluntering, doing this amazing work on their free time with no payment what so ever. They rely on the public's donations so from now on, every time I walk past life savers (who usually collect money at a lot of different places) I'm gonna fill their money boxes with all that I have. I am just so thankful for these guys being there and turning up just in the same moment as I would probably really start panicing since I just realized I had no chance of making it. All love and cred to them!

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Also, they told us the waves quickly had picked up that afternoon and the weather conditions just changed very suddenly. So it wasn't us picking a really bad day. We were just really unlucky.

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Thats my very adventurous weekend story anyway. Remember I am fine and I would never have taken a risk like this if I even would have realized it was a risk. I was terrified of waves and water before and had a huge respect. I never hardly went into the water between the flags when it used to be high waves. So that respect is even bigger now and I will never put myself in a similar situation ever again so you dont have to be worried for me. I just wanted everyone to know what an amazing job the australian lifeguard service are doing and how easy it is to appreciate this when something like this happen.

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So I guess this is true: "The thin line between a good experience and a serious accident is whether you can walk away from it in one piece and are able to tell the story"

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Have had such a relaxed Saturday. West end markets and breakie with Lauren this morning and then forced healthworks gym to give me a 7 days free pass. The lady there wasn't very pleased with that but if a gym has free weeks to hand out why wouldn't day? Can't say Im very impressed though. Pretty small. Almost no classes. A screaming kid running around annoying everyone while his dad was working out. And way more expensive than my very beloved SATS at home. Really doesn't seem like it's worth joining. But. Need to keep fit somehow.

Ohh, I guess I haven't introduced my neighbour sausage dog Snuffy yet! Found on our kitchen floor one day when she escaped the heat from outside. Adorable!

Feeling incredibly lonely in my Pippi house. Its so quiet and clean....since I spend the whole day yesdarday keeping busy cleaning every part of the house. To do something useful of the day, I'm gonna head to Milton to get my bike serviced and going for the new year.

Last Rudolph of the year spoted on Sea World's car park 1st of Jan?

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The last week didn't really follow the plans. But we had an amazing time anyway. Decided to just pack the car with essentinal things and drive north. This is where we went:

Kayaking on bribe island. Then, due to completely booked out accomodation. We slept half the night in the car. Half the night on the beach while searching for the southern cross on the sky.

Next say, we couldnt decide wether we should drive back south, to Sydney or continue north. However, eventually we decided not to go interstatet and went to Buddina beach to visit John and Mon for a few days. Some beach hang and mountain climbs...

On the top of Mt Ngungung, Glass house mountains section.

Had an awesome bbq with John and Mon (which for some reason didn't end up on pics)...before driving back to Bris and west end for markets and new years eve celebration.

((Went to IKEA as well on the way back only to buy new Kalles kaviar but got informed that IKEA globally will stop to sell Kalles. I'm destroyed. Will a Kalles survive 2 weeks in a postage pack??))

Had an incredible hippie veggie new years dinner in Brisbane's soho before watching the fire works at Southbank. Plan was orininally to drive up to Mt Cootha but Brisbane decided to cut off every single bridge so we colndt cross the river.

Ended up very good anyway...

And then....Last day of visit. First day of the new year. Monique was nice enough to give us passes to sea world since she is working there. Had an awesome day together with the animals. Lots of smiles and seal kisses!

Never thought I would see a polar bear in australia but sea world are trying to make people aware of the sad destiny of our polar bears and how the are suceptible to global warming etc. This one was totally amazing, swimming around in the cold water. Such a peaceful and beautiful creature!

Almost all animals on sea world has been taken care of due to injuries and disease. Feels so much better knowing that the animals are there for another reason than someone greedy just wanting money.

The highlight of the day was when Mon took us to pet the seal Beerleigh. Totally siked!

Beerleigh was so gentle. Even kissed us on the cheek=)))

Fell so hard for Beerleigh that Johannes bought me my own seal (named Beerleigh as well) from the gift shop.

And then a last quick picnic on the beach...

And thats the end of 3 beautiful weeks. Couldn't have wished for a better holiday.

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Plans are therefore. Fill up Rostis (our car) with fuel. Pack evertything that could possbly be useful. Swimming clothes, hiking gear, tent, sleeping bags, camera etc etc and drive north along the coast. Sleeping under open sky has been done before. It could work again! Let's see where destiny takes us.

Left thursday morning, after lab party, to Lamnington national park O´reillys section (where we accidentally ended up instead of the Binna burra section which was the original plan). Went for a 7hr hike and got massively attacked by leeches. It was seriously the most disguisting thing ever! I had 7 stuck on my legs and one that made its way down into my sports top (underneath the jacket!). Panicked until Johannes had removed all of them. Decided that it was still better to continue with the remaining 6.3hrs hike instead of going back. Never give up! This is the reward:

One of three weird blue crabs we found in the mountains...

Proper rain forest. No rules!

After two days hiking in Lamington, we continued to Byron Bay (NSW) to celebrate christmas.

Morning walk to the light house

Back in Bris for 1.3 nights before taking off to the best place in the world....yet another time. Fraser Island is on the list!

Trying to create some christmas feeling for tomorrows lab party.

Tack päron för ingredienserna!

About 225 nillion years ago, Girraween s landscape was formed by the acts of nature. The oceanic plate and sediments collided with the continent and ocean sediments were thrust from off shore into the land area. When this happened, magma was forced to invade the traprock layer and when it slowly cooled down, it formed granite. So the whole park looks like a moon landscape with massive rocks of granite. Really incredible! Just look at these pics:

Lunch time

Wild kangaroos whre everywhere. Were both very excited with the sight of the first one but after almost tripping on them wherever we went, the excitement sort of cooled down a bit

Next day. On our way to the sphinx and turtle...

The sphinx

me on top of the turtle rock

Last steep uphill towards notman mountain.

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We did about 8 tracks in two days. About 10 hrs of hike later. 
Can summerize this weekend as an awesome weekend trip.

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AND, last but not least., Happy birthday Mum!!

Now, abt 6 hrs sleep before the long drive south. Ecxited!

So, its been a while again. You better get used to it I guess. The weather forecast has been really nasty but luckily we have got a few hours of sunshine every day. Saturday was spent on lone pine koala sanctuary. Its been a while and I forgot how much observing koalas makes me smile. They are so adorable. Just check out these cool tree hanging / sleeping / incredibly high on eucalyptus koala styles:

And how amazing is this??

Also spend some time with the lovely kangaroos...

And petting a python... (sorry mum!)

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Sunday. Spend another few hours on the beach. Coolangatta (gold coast) until the rain hit us and everyone else on the coast pretty badly. Since everyone then decided to drive back to the city, it took 3 hrs instead of the normal 1 to get back home. 20km/hr for like 3 hrs is pretty booring. Luckily IKEA is on the way...

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Monday: After a few hrs at work and a totally clear night. Mt Cootha seemed like a good idea:

Well. Thats the very quick update. Just managed to move Karstens bed on the roof rack of his 4wd, just beating the rain to my place. So tonight will be the first night in a real bed. Exciting!!

...me and Johannes took a run on the beach:

Hard to say which is the better view...

Please let it not be true...

1. I got a kitchen table!!

Got it for 50AUD on gumtree. Three hockey guys overloaded with muscles sold it but when I asked if I could take it apart to fit it into Karsten's car their muscles didn't help very much. Luckily, being Swedish and brought up next door to IKEA is very helpful in situations like that. So I asked them all to step aside and did it for them. Plus, carried it all out into the car with them as an audience. I guess brain is better than muscles most often.

2. Johannes is coming to Bris tomw morning! Lots and lots of roadtrips and fun are waiting around the corner.

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And then. To the less exciting thing:

http://www.abc.net.au/brisbane/weather/ (my blogg doesn't want to upload the pic so you'll have to find out yourself)

Pissing down. I don't know how to get to work since I can't run or ride my bike in this storm. Someone said there is something called public transport. Might be time to try that one!

So just remember. If I were to show you a before and an after pic, then the before one would be an empty room. This is what I managed to do with it so far:

(Still waiting for my new bed, this triangle shaped one is getting on my nervs...) Notice the advent lights in the window and the little santa my gran made for me many years ago. Christmas feeling in the summer heat!!

Wonder how long it will stay like this...

Just a big flower and a few candles missing on this one. And new wheat for Snuff!

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So. After almost finishing my own room. Its time for the next challenge. Dining room. Ian, my housemate got fed up with me wanting a kitchen table and made one for me. Very sweet. But I dont think its going to be able to sit down even one person and actually eat a meal thet will stay on it.

Time for me to walk over to Anna's house for Friday night dinner.

The consequenses after the flooding was an extreme increase in banana kilo price. I think it went up as high as AUD20 just afterwards and had dropped to somewhere between 9-12AUD when I got back (abt 9 months later). Yesterday however, I had the biggest surprise when Coles had a massive sale on bananas, only 3AUD each! So I just enjoyed my first banana in 6 weeks. Pretty nice!

Sort of understand why Luke (my old housemate who visited me in sweden a few months ago) craved for all our bananas now. Hope it stays like this!!

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Yesterday, my first box of three arrived to my friend's Beau's house. Amazing to get some stuff over, but very worrying that only 1 out of 3 arrived. Too bad as well that the arriving one didn't contain any clothes since I start to get bored f wearing the same 3 clothes every day. Crossing my fingers the rest of the boxes will appear later this week. Prefferably today.

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Also went to see the new Twillight movie last night with Lauren. Figured abt 5 min into the movie that I missed the 3rd one. Thought this was the third one. Must have been in africa when it was released. So much of a twillight fan that I am..huh!

The road only became worse after this so we had to park and hike the last 5 k to the summit. And the trail we were gonna take would be another 13 k on top of that. And. It was freakin hot since we didnt manage to start until 13 instead of like 10 which was the plan. So we walked along the road for a while. Saw a not very extraordinary waterfall and some wild life...

And on the way back, we found a pretty nice water hole (altough a snake was swimming around in it on the other side, it was just too hot ant too tempting not to...)

Dissaointing hike. Had higher expectations than we should have had. But still. Everything ends up to be the way you make them so it was still a very fun day!!

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Second news. Em got whooping cough. Very nasty... After sharing waterbottle with Kris at squash. Expensive game. Grrr! Actually, Im not sure I have it but he did and I started to cough just the other day so went to the doctor. He was really surprised that a scandinavian country had a big gap in their immunization program regarding whooping cough and that I actually never got vaccinated. So he gave me antibiotics (Australias favourite medicine against everything!), which I only accepted to take in case I have it and would infect others since it's pretty contagious. At least not contagous when on it. Hmm...

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Third. Two weeks till next swedish visitors arrive. Looking forward to very much =))
Time for work!

But look at this beautiful tree!

Johan took the bus back to Sydney at 5 this morning. Same time as my friend Anna called me to invite me to a street festival in Highgate hill. After all this walkning, I just wanted to lay down in my bed but since most of my friends are gone, socialising seemed like a good idea.

And yeah. It really was a street festival. A whole neighbour hood turned their houses in to a free festival right on the street. Stages in people's house's cellars and verandas. People sitting on the street. And in other people's gardens. Very cute. And very hippie...

Wonder if we could turn a street into a festival in the Stockholm rush hour? =) Would be fun to try!