We left Noosa and headed for Rainbow Beach, where the next morning we would be departing at 6am for Fraser Island, a UNESCO World Heritage site just a few km off the coast. We had booked a 4X4 self drive tour which meant there would be 11 people to a jeep, with all camping and cooking equipment on the roof and we would head off around Fraser Island exploring this beautiful island. As soon as we hit the beach we took an inland track to Lake Mackenzie which took a...

We picked up the van on Monday morning and spent a few hours sorting all of our stuff out and making sure we had some food for the first couple of days. The van was a Toyota Hi-Ace that seats 3 in the front and also sleeps 3. It has a fridge, 2 gas hobs, a grill and a sink. The first afternoon we took it steady and headed a few hours up the coast for our first night in the van. It was surprisingly comfortable and a lot quieter than the 8 & 12 bed dorms we've ...

We arrived at Sydney airport and were greeted by Luke and Luisa, two Sydneysiders we met on the coach journey to Cuzco in Peru. We had kept in touch with them and they were kind enough to offer us a room for the 8 or 9 days we would be in Sydney. It was great to catch up with them after so long, and it also gave us the chance to see Sydney from a locals point of view.We were immediately whisked back to Lukes house (where he lives with 5 uni friends) and treated t...

Next stop was Makarora, in the Mount Aspiring National Park, for a night's stay. We were in the middle of nowhere, in the valley of the mountain ranges. We spent the evening laughing at the various karaoke efforts but we both managed to abstain for everyone else's sake! On the way there, we stopped off at Lake Matheson which we were really looking forward to but the weather was atrocious and we were unable to see much at all. We went to Queenstown from there and...

Our ferry was due to leave Wellington for the South Island at 8am so we had an early start anyway but we were actually woken up by a very drunk guy in our dorm room. He was being really noisy trying to get down from his bunk bed and then I realised that he had made his way to the window and was trying to wee out of it! He was clearly very drunk and had no idea that he wasn't in the toilet but I quickly shouted and him and told him where the door was. I had to ope...