We were in Agnes Water/ Town of 1770 for Christmas, where Captain Cook made his first landing in Queensland (hence the “1770”). We hadn’t really planned anything and I don’t care much about Christmas. To be honest, I don’t even know which day we are most of the time so I could have forgotten it was Christmas but for the palm trees sporting decorations.
We spent the day sleeping on the beach because we got up at 5 a.m. to catch an early Greyhound bus from Rockhampton. The hostel wasn’t busy, we were about 10 backpackers, mostly from Europe—German, Austrian, British, Dutch etc. After cooking a pasta dinner, we all gathered outside and drank the wine we had bought at the “bottle shop”. Sometime, the chemistry is good and it was the case that evening: we chatted until late at night, talking about life back home, travel plans and Australia in general.
The floods are catching up with us: the 6-hour bus ride from Agnes Waters to Rainbow Beach was painful, as portions of the road were flooded. Apparently, up North, Greyhound temporarily suspended the bus service around Townsville and Airlie Beach, where we were last week.
Rainbow Beach was rainy but the hostel we stayed in had a great atmosphere, which made up for the bad weather. We enjoyed a free BBQ Christmas lunch (Aussies love their “barbie”!) and strolled on the beach. The party started at night—probably because a lot of people helped themselves to the huge jug of sangria—and soon enough, some guys started juggling with fire devil sticks around the bonfire. I stood there, taking a series of long exposure pictures to capture the fire trail. It turned out that the juggler was from Ottawa and he offered to teach me how to use fire devil sticks. Now, I should probably mention I’m not a huge fan of fire: I even avoid matches because I’m always scared to get burned. But what the hell, I thought, it’s never too late to overcome fears! After learning how to handle the meter-long stick, Tyler dipped it into kerosene and handed it to me. Well, it wasn’t as scary as I thought, as long as you have a good grip, the burning ends of the stick are not as close to the body as it seemed. Now I did turn down the offer to learn fire breathing (we all have limits, don’t we!) but I’m glad I can now add “fire devil stick juggling” to my resume.
 Seashell |
 Surf Lesson |
Agnes Water Beach
Lifeguards
Agnes Water - Feet in the Sand
Agnes Waters Beach
Rainy Rainbow Beach
Juggling With Fire
Yes, That's Me!
12 Comments
If you are running out of money, you can do the fire breathing trick to make some money, LOL…
@khengsiong – Oh I really hope I won’t have to do it 😆
Zhu you look cool in that last picture for sure!
very nice pics
Glad to see you’re having an exciting/relaxing vacation in Australia! Freezing here in Washington – those beaches look amazing.
I always forget that there’s the Pacific Ocean right there in front of you, and that right now, you’re basically following the coast. It looks like you are having a great time handling fire!
@Priyank – 😆 Thank you!
@chinmai – Thank you! Doing my best 😉
@Tanya – Being away from the winter is certainly a treat, but the floods are catching up with us 🙁
@Linguist-in-Waiting – That<s exactly what we are doing, following the coast. There is not much away from the coast anyway 😉
Hey, Merry Christmas, Zhu!
What beautiful photos.
Oh wow, so much! Love all of the pics and the beach with that warm weather!!! Looks like lots oh fun!
Wow, the fire pictures look lovely. I always loved playing with fire 🙂
You make a great fire twirler. What an adventure.
Looks like a good Christmas to me! and you received the gift of fire 🙂 Those pics are really cool!
I heard on the radio about the floods and was thinking of you as I seemed to remember you were in this area. At least, you won’t have to evacuate your home, just pick up your bag and move on…