Sorry for the lack of blogging - if I am honest, the East Coast can be summed up as sun, sand, sea and parties. Byron Bay was an overnight greyhound bus ride from Sydney, we met lots of people at the station all heading up the East Coast who we have stayed friends with the whole way up - nice to see familiar faces wherever you go. We arrived in Byron at 6am and couldn't check in to our hostel till 10.30am so there was quite a bit of waiting around, and it was already 35 degrees at 7am. However Byron was lovely, really compact, only about 3 or 4 streets with shops and restaurants on them but it was so lively. It was right after new years so everyone was heading up there for some sun. Full of people and great atmosphere. The beach was stunning, lots of restaurants and boutique shops (although I had enough of shops since Sydney and Melbourne). We had met some lovely Essex girls and another girl, Louise, at the bus station in Sydney who were in Byron so we chilled out with them quite a lot. One night, there was a 5 dollar meal deal at Cheeky Monkeys (the club to go to) and a free drink. We queued for over an hour and once we got to the front, the only 5 dollar meal left was a veggie curry which I would have been very happy about but the others weren't so we left and got kebabs! Had some goon (4 litre bag of bad wine for 11 dollars) and headed back to the Monkeys! Earlier that day I was on the beach on my own, it was quite early in the morning and I chose a quiet spot. I closed my eyes and woke up to the tide completely covering me and all my stuff. Water and sand covered everything, me, my bag, my phone - everything! I also had my bikini straps undone so not to get strap marks and that came down too - thankfully nobody saw, I was still quite upset but able to laugh about it later. Byron was a big party place but we also had a chance to chill out on the beach was nice after the bad weather in Sydney.

Next stop was Surfers Paradise, not too far away from Byron. We thought it would be smaller than Byron but it was quite the opposite. A real big commerical, tourist resort - a bit like Magaluf. We were only staying here one night, just another stop to see. We were staying at a hostel called 'Surf and Sun'. It was a cool, hippy style hostel with a pool, big outdoor area and beanbags - very homely. Our bed was a 6 bed female dorm and we met a lovely Canadian girl who we went out with that night. We walked around the main area in the day, had a lovely frozen yogurt from a place from Igloo Zoo (like Snog in London for those of you who know it, or Lick in Brighton - delicious!). We were going on an organised bar crawl that night with the hostel, we figured we were only there one night so should have a big one. We paid 30 dollars and got lots of free punch, entry to 4 clubs and 4 free drinks at the clubs. We bumped into our lovely Essex girls on the crawl too which was great fun. The clubs were very big and commercial, like Oceana at home - a good night out but I was happy I was only there a night.

We got to Brisbane at 2pm next day - the hostel, Bunk was very different to the last one. It was a big, multi storey hostel with a club. It was modern though and well equipped. We were staying in the Valley in Brisbane, only a 15 minute walk from the city centre and we were based in the nightclub district (not that we went to any of these - I was just on a bit of a detox from the last few weeks.) We went to the West End which is a big cafe and hippy street, and ate at a very cool restaurant called the three monkeys, it was a teahouse with turkish decor and a lovely tea garden outside. We checked out the Southbank which doesnt compare to London's Southbank. There was a man made street beach there which wasn't very nice. We did however go to an amazing Contemporary Art Gallery on the Southbank which I would highly recommend. Between us, we saw the city and an area called Paddington in Brisbane as well. We had a bar in our hostel called Birdie Num Num's where we met this very drunk guy who invited us to his sisters wedding - all because 'my mum will love you, she loves Watford', unfortunately we had a bus to catch the next day so couldn't make the wedding - shame!

Noosa was our next stop - stunning!! We were staying in the YHA which was actually called Halsa Lodge. It was really sweet, set in a rainforest setting with a friendly outdoor atmosphere and a nice restaurant. However rooms were quite cramped and we didn't love these Dutch girls in our rom - we found out they were doing the Fraser Island tour the same day as us so we were a but worried but they turned out not to be in our group, what a relief. We got in a fight with them about the fan, as one of the girls was cold and we were hot, but surely she could have just put more clothes on and then they were b****ing about us in Dutch.

The beach in Noosa was less than a minutes walk from the hostel and was so lovely. The weather was fab as well. We grabbed dinner that night at this restaurant called Rococo with a guy playing piano, sax, guitar and singing - really cool place and a nice treat. That night we went to Rolling Rocks, a club but it was full of very young people so we went back to the hostel and played card games with some German guys and Emily dazzled them with some tricks. The next day in Noosa, we walked to the National Park along the cliffs. We walked to Tea Tree Bay where there was a gorgeous beach with loads of rocks. We took a picnic and had lunch on the rocks whilst just chilling out in the sun. That night we went to the cinema to see Lovely Bones, nice to have a night off partying. Noosa is stunning - a great stop.

We arrived at Rainbow Beach for our Fraser Island trip. The hostel was wicked, really spacious rooms, great pool and outdoor bar. We met a swiss girl, Henne in our room and grabbed some lunch with her before having our orientation meeting for Fraser Island. As we sat down we sat next to a girl from Guernsey, Emma - she was lovely and knew immediately we wanted her to be in our group (we were nervous about our group!) We asked Emma if she wanted to be in our group and as she was travelling on her own, was very excited about. So we already had a 3 - only 7 more people to find out about. The rest of the group were all so lovely, we were very lucky. We had 2 welsh girls, Hannah and Kelly, Johnny and Lisa from Ireland, John and Sian from Leeds, and Lara from Germany. They all seemed awesome and we arranged to meet them in the bar later for a bbq. The orientation filled us in on being aware of Dingos, what to do if there is a dingo around, 1) stamp your feet, 2) clap your hands, 3) throw a stick, 4) cross your hands over your chest and walk slowly away or 5) just say "Go home dingo, go home"! I chose option 5 when I saw one and it worked! We got up at 6 the next morning, had some free pancakes before meeting our 4 wheel drive truck hat was going to look after us for the next 3 days. It was a Toyota so we called her Latoya and we were the A-Team. We had lots to do before heading off, we did a vehicle check, a stock check of tents, sleeping bags, equipment and food. We filled up our eskies, water bottles and loaded the roof of our truck. We had a chat with Merve (the guy in charge) who ran us through tide times, driving a 4x4, the best itinerary for us to take (it was a self-drive so we had no tour guide, just the 10 of us to navigate and drive.) We had a map and we were on our way, the trucks were equipped with ipod docks so we had the music pumping, great weather, and awesome people. We got the ferry over to Fraser Island. We appointed Johnny (who drives 4x4 at home) to start driving and we had a go but he did the majority of the driving as the tracks got pretty bump to say the least. He was ur saviour! We drve 72 miles of beach up to the north point of the island - Indian Head, where we had lunch and climbed the steep rock up to the most beautiful view point. We chilled up there until it was time to leave - we had to get to our campsite before high tide. I had a chance of driving, and was doing really well - really enjoying driving along the beach until I had a moment of rage and wanted to kill this massive jellyfish. I went near the sea and the tide came in and got everyone wet. I carried on driving for a bit but then figured it was best I let Johnny carry on. We got to our campsite, literally an area on the beach behind the dunes, no toilets or showers (or anything for that matter) but it was amazing. Before settling down for the night, we walked to the Maheno Shipwreck which was incredible. The tide was coming up right through it. It was so surreal to see as I have always seen it in peoples pictures but it was amazing to finally be there, experiencing it myself. The beach was full of jellyfish so we weren't allowed to swim and had to be reallly careful. We pitched our tents, which took forever as me and Em had no idea and started preparing for dinner. There were 6 trucks in our tour so all together there were 60 of us camping together which was a great laugh. We had steak and potato salad for dinner and washed all our plates and crockery in the sea but by this point it was pitch black so was quite difficult, especially as were having to avoid the jellyfish. The next morning we woke up when the sun rose at 6am as it was so hot. We had scrambled egg sandwiches for breakfast and chilled out and packed up, we weren't allowed to drive on beach till 9.30am when the tide was low. We drove to Eli Creek which was a beatutiful freshwater lake, where you get in at one end and float down to the other end. It was freezing but amazing way to cool down and wash the sand off us. I had sand EVERYWHERE! We then drove to Lake McKenzie, Fraser's most beautiful freshwater lake. It was crystal clear with hot waters and dazzling sandy shores. The drive was horrible, really bumpy for 14km but so worth it when we got there. We were shocked at how beautiful this place was, we stayed for 3 hours but I could have stayed for ever. The sand in the water was a body exfoliator too which foamed up and made a nice body cleanser. We unfortunately had to leave the lake at 4.30 due to high tides. We had a long and bumpy ride back to a campsite near Eurong Beach resort. We were much efficient this night with getting the tents up and cooking before sunset, some of us pitched the tents and others prepared dinner (I cut the vegetables!) After dinner, we went for a sunset walk along the beach and I saw my first DINGO - I was going to go through the 5 motions I mentioned earlier, but instead I just said "Go home Dingo, go home!" in my best Aussie accent. Funnily enough it actually worked and he left us alone. Our night was spent chilling out on the sand dunes drinking goon (cheap aussie wine in a box). Had a relatively early night and woke up at 5am to the sound of Emma's voice telling a dingo to go home. We had breakfast, washed and cleared up the site before leaving at 9.30am when it started to rain. We drove to Lake Wabby and it was pouring. We thought we just walk the 5 mintues to the lookout and then head back but once we got to the lookout (absolutely soaked and freezing), we figured we might as well walk to 1km down to the lake. It was an emerald green lake surrounding by the Hammerstone sandblow (huge sand-dunes). The sand was incredible and the views spectacular. It didn't matter that we were soaked and freezing, it was so worth it. We ran straight into the lake and we were the only ones there, it was so warm, like a big bath. It was still spitting but WITH warm rain and was really relaxing. The Lara (german girl) comes out with " would anybody like to share washing when we get back" and Johnny says "ah ze efficiency of the German". Then Kelly (welsh girl) starts hanging her wet clothes on a tree (the efficiency of the Welsh!) Our ferry was leaving at 1.30pm back to Rainbow beach. We got back, cleaned out the truck, showered and did some washing before having a night out with our group. Fraser island was brilliant fun!

We went to 1770 the next day where we stayed at Southern Cross, a beautiful hostel retreat with cabins, a pool, a lake and hammocks. It was really chilled out. The town itself is tiny and there is only one bar/restaurant which as you can imagine is pretty expensive. In 1770, we hired scooteroos - and scootered around the town for 3 hours in a big group. We stopped at the beach in 1770 to watch sunset. It was a really good way to see the town and have some fun, we also got to see lots of kangaroos in the wild.

We got on an overnight bus to Airlie Beach and arrived in at 7am. We were boarding our Whitsunday boat at 1.30pm so had the morning to hang about in Airlie. The boat was called Boomerang, approx 80ft sailing boat. We all boarded and were given our beds, it is all open plan downstairs, and you literally have coffins as beds. It was a pretty basic boat but all part of the sailing experience. The food on the boat was amazing, we had a big breakfast, followed by fruit mid morning, a hearty lunch, and then canapes before dinner. I first met 3 girls, Nina (from Brighton), a canadian girl and Sarah (from St.Albans), whom were all lovely. We stopped pretty soon into the whitsunday passage and went for a snorkel at Hayman Island. There were 4 crew members, Andy and Rick the captains, Scottie the chef and Taco (who Emily called Nacho). There were also some great lads on our boat from Scotland and 2 couples from England. We watched sunset anchored up at Luncheon Bay which was stunning. We stayed up drinking, chatting and having a real laugh. Apparently we were the party boat because the crew from the other boats anchored near us got their tenders over to our boat. It was difficult to sleep that night, I was sharing with Emily and it was so hot. We got up at 7am and left straight away for some more snorkling and diving. First stop was Hook Island, followed by Bordee Island and that afternoon we headed to Whitehaven Beach. They dropped us off at Tongue Bay and we walked up to Hill Inlet to the most phenomenal lookout ever. Absolute paradise! We then walked down to the beach and spent the afternoon in the crystal waters. We did however have to wear stinger suits as it is stinger season. We had a moment of group euphoria in the water where we all floated together, was so relaxing. Not that I need anymore relaxation :-) The Captain told us to do the YMCA from the shore when we were ready to be picked up so that was a hilarious moment. We had a chilled out night on the boat and the next morning were very depressed to be heading back after such a lovely 2 days. We did stop in hook passage for a final jump in the sea and a cool down before heading back to Airlie Beach.

That afternoon Emily and I had a free digeridoo lesson as I wanted to buy one and thought it would be good to learn how to play it. I ended up buying one with a story of symbols painted on it, it started off with a solo traveller, then showed the meeting of friends, personal growth, symbols of Australia like the Kangaroo and finished off with 2 birds signifying true love. I thought it was a wonderful souvenir for my travelling trip.

We had a fab night out with all the Boomerang gang begore heading to Cairns the next day.

We got to Cairns and a cyclone had hit so pretty much rained the whole time we were there. We took a reef boat out to the Great Barrier Reef where we did some snorkling and diving. Unfortunately the weather wasn't great so the visibility wasn't as its best but it was still amazing. Both emily and I got stung by Blue Bottle Jellyfish but the sting went away after 20 minutes. Tommorrow is our last day in Cairns before we head to Fiji for ten days. Goodbye Australia!