"Every day you should do something that scares you...it reminds you that you are still alive!" Just a few hours ago, we did another crazy, adrenaline packed activity in the form of the Minjin Swing. Having reached Cairns, our final proper destination in Australia, we decided to fulfill AJ Hacketts quote above for a third time this trip. Despite having done a skydive and the sky swing in Queenstown, we were still bricking it as we made our way to the site. The Minjin Swing is the worlds largest jungle swing where you fall from 45 metres in height down to just 1 metre in 3.5 seconds reaching speeds of up to 120km/h! Me and Chris did it in tandem. You get raised up from the bottom where you are lying horizontally and when you get to the top you have to pull the release rope yourselves, against all your better judgement. It was one of the most exhilarating things we have done this trip. Heres what its like - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIAsNKA9atg

Back to where we left you last time though.
After living in luxury for a couple of weeks in brisbane, it was back on the backpacker trail and up to a little coastal town called Noosa. The hostel was a little way out of town and we had a bit of trouble finding, including jumping up and down in the middle of the road in the pitch black in order to flag down the last bus, not really knowing where we were! Thankfully, we made it to the hostel, only to realise that we need to go back tot he town to eat! The hostel itself was really good. it was in an apartment style, with us and a german couple upstairs and the kitchen and living area downstairs. The germans were nice enough to give us a lift into town, which, well, saved us getting lost in the dark I guess!
The next day was one of the hottest we'd had so far in Australia. We spent the first half of the day down at the beach, then went and did a walk in the Noosa National Park. It was a good walk, although it would have been better had we not started it just as a thunder storm hit. We did manage to see a koala in the wild though so it was all worthwhile.
Next stop up the east coast was hervey bay. It's known as a retirement town but it was full of backpacker places as well. Odd mix! Backpackers mainly use it as a stop of point before going to Fraser Island, which is what we did too. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and is one of the most popular backpackers destinations. Nearly everyone on our travels so far has said, "have you been to Fraser?", or "make sure you go to Fraser". We did a 2 day, 1 night guided tour of the island. We had a short boat ride over the island in the morning before getting into the vehicles once on the island. You are only allowed to drive around Fraser in 4 wheel drives, and as we were on a guided tour with about 15 people, we were driven around in this huge 4x4 by a guy called shane. To say the drive round was bumpy would be an understatement. The tracks were almost as bad as some of the roads back home! Maybe thats going a bit far though! Off the 4x4, we did a longish walk through some rainforest surroundings which was cool. After an all you can eat buffet for lunch, we drove onto 75 mile beach and proceeded to drive a fair few of those miles up the beach, right up against the ocean. We passed the Maheno shipwreck, the only visible shipwreck on the island from over 100 years ago. We also passed some coloured sands, these jagged castle-like pillars, with multi-coloured layers of sand. Our guide then drove us to the bottom of a cliff called Indian Head, unofficially Australia's most easterly point (doesn't count because its on an island). We trekked up to the top in what was now really windy conditions, so much so that at times it felt like you might just take off! even with the bad weather, it was still an awesome view from the top, and on sunny days you can see dolphins and sharks. But no, we got nothing. Throughout the day as well we saw three wild dingo's, one of them came right up close to the group. They look cute but also very hungry so didn't want to get too near!We returned to our hostel resort for another buffet, had a drink with a couple of irish guys in our room before calling it a day.
The second day started off with a visit to lake Mackenzie. This is a beautiful crystal clear lake, it almost looks like a swimming pool. It is a perched lake or something, with a floor of entirely white sand. Apparently, it's quite acidic as well, 4.5 on the ph scale, which is the same as shampoo so we came out of the lake looking like we'd just been in a loreal advert("because we're worth it"). We stayed there for quite a while which was really good. In the afternoon we did a 5km round trip to Lake Wabby, passing some impressive sand dunes on the way. Lake Wabby looks like a more traditional lake, surrounded by reeds. it's right at the bottom of a sand dune, quite a steep slope to get down to it, where we had fun running down into it. We also found this massive bit of wood in the water and paddled our way across to the other side on it.
The only bad thing about the two days was the weather which was more english than Aussie style.
We spent another night in Hervey Bay before leaving for 1770, not in a time machine sadly, just a normal bus! Not sure why it's known as 1770, its actually called Agnes Water. We spent a couple of night there just relaxing, giving the money a bit of a rest! We then took an overnight bus to Airlie Beach. We were pretty tired from it sos didn't do too much, only had a day there. We went for a swim in the lagoon near our hostel in the evening.

Got to Cairns a couple of days ago. Staying in the only 5 star backpacker hostel in Australia!