...well we finally made it out of Cairns. We had to buy a flight to Brisbane which is about a 1/3 of the way down the east coast. It meant we had to miss out a few places in Queensland because the floods were so bad! Unfortunatly we had already booked and payed for some trips that we missed and were not refunded for! So we flew to Brisbane and then took the Greyhound bus back up the coast to 1770 (Agnes Water) a small coastal town. We stayed in a beautiful hostel that had hundreds of acres of land and a lake in its grounds. There were wild kangaroos in the grounds and the beach there was lovely. We did a trip called Scooteroo. It was basically a scooter ride around 1770 and Agnes Water which ended by watching the sunset over the harbour. The scooters were souped up to look like mini chopper bikes.They were brill, except my scooteroo experince was cut short after the leader of the trip said I couldn't balance and made me go on the back of Stevens bike. I was the only one who couldn't do it!!

We spent four nights in Agnes water in total. The day before we left I was pood on by a bird......great more bad luck. However after this my luck actually changed for the better. Firstly I got a free hour on the internet at the hostel because they had no change for a 10 dollar note. Now that might not seem much but to a poor backpacker it was like winning the lottery! Then on the day we checked out of the hostel I was only charged for two nights when we stayed for four...and then the mother of all good luck was finding 200 dollars on the greyhound bus to Rainbow Beach!

From Rainbow Beach we had a trip booked to Fraser Island, a whole island that has been declared a National Park. The trip was a 3 day 2 night self drive safari camping trip. They basically give 11 strangers a 4 wheel drive jeep, 11 tents, enough food for 11 people and point you in the right direction! We had an amazing group of people on our trip! We all clicked instantly and as we set off in the jeep I knew it was going to be a highlight of the whole journey! The morning of the trip was grey and drizzly but we were determined that the weather was not going to spoil any more of our plans! We packed up the jeep and took the ferry over to the island. When we arrived the tide was still too high to drive along the beach so we parked up and sat on a sand dune with a beer watching the ocean. We saw dolpins playing in the shallow water and wild dingoes who must have heard all the noise. It was great!!

When the tide was out we drove half way up the island to visit Lake Mckenzie! The nicest place on earth in my opinion!. It is a beautiful sand fringed lake, with crytal clear blue water infused with tea tree oil! It was pouring down when we arrived but we all stripped down to our swimmers and jumped straight in. The water was suprisingly warm! The other jeeps of people had clearly let the rain spoil the day and were sat at the lake edge wondering how we can be having so much fun when its not sunny!!!

After playing in the lake we jumped back into the jeep and drove along the beach to our camp for the night. The other four jeeps arrived shortly after and we built a little bar, dance floor and roof out of taupaulin that protected us brilliantly from the nights rain and wind! Everyone sat on the sand underneath the roof and we stayed up till the wee small hours playing drinking games and listening to the guitar being played (badly)!

Due to the tide times we had a very early 5 am start. I still do not know how we did it but our group woke up, packed up and set in just 15 minutes (still drunk-except the driver of course -mum). I think it was my 'morning campers' impression that irritated everyone into getting out of bed!

We made our way up to Indian Head where we saw a baby turtle on the sand. We walked to the Champagne pools (where the foam from the sea remains in large pools when the tide goes out). When it was safe to wlak along the beach again we made our way to the 2nd nights camp. This camp had a lot more shelter from trees and the weather actually improved by late afternoon so we decided to unload all the stuff, set up and head off in the truck again to check out Lake Wabby! We later realised that this was a big mistake.

We set off to the lake at approximately 4pm and arrived shortly after. We parked up the jeep and took the 1km walk from the jeep to the lake. It was beautiful. It was buried in a valley of sand dunes and the water was really dark green and just what we needed after a dirty couple of days with no showers! Steven did a huge roly poly from the top of the biggest sand dune right into the water. After we finished playing in the lake we set off to the jeep. Suddenly it started to pour down again, it was turrential and it didn't stop! We eventually made it back up the hill to the jeep and by this time it was pitch black. I started to get really scared and worried about the dangerous drive back down the mountain and along the beach to camp. Luckily, Perr a Swedish boy in our group had been brought up on a farm and was very experienced in driving four wheel drives!. He got us safely back to camp but not before some of the scariest moments of my life! Like driving through puddles almost 3 feet deep and 10 feet wide. We literally held on for dear life. If we hadn't unloaded the roof before we set off we would have had to stay up that mountain for the night or the jeep would certainly have toppled!

When we got back to camp everything was wet through! The tents were dry inside but all of our clothes and sleeping bags were drenched. We decided that we couldn't build a camp in the dark so we piled back into the jeep and carried on the party in there, singing along to the ipod plugged into the stereo!

We accidently left the food eski out all night and while we were sleeping the dingoes came and ate all of our food! All we had left in the morning was rice and vegetables so ste cooked up a vegetable stir fry for breakfast!

The morning after the strom was beautiful. The sun was shining and the island undoubtedly looked even more stunning.After visiting Eli Creek where we saw sea snakes and fresh water fish fighting to swim upstream we spent our last afternoon on Fraser Island back at Lake Mckenzie...it was perfect!

When we left Fraser island our group all stayed together at the same hostel for one more night. After the best shower of our lives we met in the hostel bar to 'slap the goon'. Goon is the general term used for wine that comes in a box. Goon is an aboriginal word for pillow and they would drink their box of goon then blow up the silver bag and use it as a pillow! The phrase 'slap the goon' means to drink far too much of it and get slapped by it! After a night on the 'goon' we all hit the sack around 2 am, however Steven went sleep walking and was woken up by the hostel cleaner at 5 am in the bar! He then walked out of the hostel and over on to the field across the road before suddenly waking up and wondering where the hell he was!

Our next destination was Noosa, a town six hours south of Rainbow Beach. When we arrived we realised there was lots to do there and dumped our bagsto set of in search of the famous National Park. We walked a 3 hour walk round the coast inside th National Park. It was beautiful. The beaches were breath taking ...especially the nudist beach half way around! After an early night catching up on the late nights on Fraser we spent the next day at Australia Zoo (Steve Irwins Zoo). The zoo was fabulous. All of the animals had huge enclosures, some of which you could walk around. We fed the kangaroos and patted the koalas. The shows that the zookeepers put on were by far the most impressive thing at the zoo. The tiger show was just their normal excercise routine, the keeper threw a giant toy into the pool of water and the mighty cats jumped in after them play fighting and enjoying the water. I had never seen tigers this way before! All of the work at the zoo is done in the name of conservation and raising awareness for endangered animals!

Surfers Paradise was next on the map for us! It was aptly named becausof the huge waves and dangerous rip-tides that control the ocean theer.Steven loved it!! We only had two days here and found that it was just an Ozzy version of Magaluf or Benidorm so we headed out of town to the legendary water park; Wet n Wild! It was definatly the best water park I have ever been to and I actually went on all of the rides for once!

After Surfers we headed down the coast to Byron Bay. Stupidly we turned up there with no accomodation and found that all of the hostels were full all weekend! We had to stay in a town half an hour away called Lennox Head which actually turned out to be a good move. The beach was quiet and the hostel was really nice. It was perfect for saving money! We were diappointed that we didn't get to seemore of Byron but we were in too much of a rush to get to Melbourne and start job hunting!

We visited Port Maqaurie next which we really enjoyed! The weather was really beautiful. We spent our first morning on hired bikes which we took to the local Koala hospital. It was feeding time at 8am and we arrived just in time. There was an old Koala called Barry that looked like he was a baby because he had something wrong with his spine that made him small. We then took the bikes up the coast of Port Maquarie for about 8 km to the light house. It was lovely and the sea was so calm you could see fro miles! As if that wasn't enough excercise we then took a bodyboard down to the beach which was about an hoyrs walk frm the hostel and played in the sea all afternoon!

We set off for Sydney on the overnight bus and checked into Big hostel. We really enjoyed Sydney. We spent our first day doing all the free touristy things like harbour bridge, opera house and museum of contemporary art. A crazy Japanese lady had an exhibition there which was actually really impressive. One room was a normal living room that was completely covered in illuminous dots that were then lit up by UV lights! It was really weird! There was another room that full of fairy lights consisted of a walk-way over water and mirrors on every wall.It looked like outer space and stars of every colour!

Our second day in Sydney was spent in Bondi, we visited the becah but it was quite cold and windy but that didn't stop Ste going into the sea (neither did the 5 shark attacks in Sydney in the past month!).

After Sydney we got back on the overnight Greyhound to Melbounre. We arrived after a gruelling 12 hour journey with very little sleep and were welcomed so warmly into my sisters house. Her gorgeous children are keeping us entertained and very busy at the moment. We are currently job hunting and plan to stay in Melbourne for 3-4 months while we save up for the rest of the trip!

It is so nice to be back with family again even if it is only a small percentage of them!!!

we miss you all x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x