After the whirlwind off-road camping adventure that was Fraser Island, we took a couple of days to chill out in the towns of Agnes Water and 1770 (1770 is so called because it was built on the site of by James Cook and the crew of HM Bark Endeavour in May 1770. Originally known as Round Hill — after the creek it sits on — the name was changed in 1970 to commemorate the bicentennial of Cook's visit. The community of 1770 hold the re-enactment of this h...

We arrived at Rainbow Beach (aka Rainbow Island, Paradise Beach and Sheona's many other names for it) safe and sound for our 3 day self-drive safari to Fraser Island, the world's largest sand-island. In the afternoon we met Merv who gave us a briefing on what to expect on the island and we were split into our tour groups. Ours consisted of Dave and Marianne (Scottish couple, very nice to hear their Scottish accents), Cara (from Germany), Laura and Alexa (Stoke-vi...

After the hustle and bustle of city life in Brisbane our next stop off was at the sleepy town of Noosa. The east coast is so busy right now, there doesn't seem to be any beds going spare at any of the hostels. I'm really glad we booked ours in advance now. We were staying out of the main town of Noosa Heads at Noosaville. Our hostel was right by the river and had lots of BBQ areas so we spent the evening doing as the locals do by cooking and dining with the sunse...

In Brisbane we stayed in a really nice hostel called Bunk, which has its own pool and bar. We thought it was further out of town than it was, so for the first day we kept getting the train everywhere until we realised the centre of town was only really about 10 minutes walk away, opps! Darn maps, so deceiving! On our first day there, we (got the train) into town and visited the old Town Hall, which had beautiful ceilings inside and a huge ballroom. We also too...

The journey up to Surfer's Paradise was a lot better, at only 2 hours instead of 12! As we arrived we were greeted by a mass of high rise buildings, all of which were hotels, and streets full of tacky tourist shops. It was pretty much what we had expected, and okay for a couple of days. Our hostel was part of a big hotel, the older rooms of which were sold at cheaper rates for backpackers. Included in this we had free use of all the hotel facilities; pool, steam ...