Our first journey on an overnight bus got us to Agnes Water and the Town on 1770 at around 9am - it's 11th December now.Agnes Water and 1770 are not big so there isn't much to do here but we needed a stop between Airlie Beach and Brisbane and Laura from our Cambodia trip had recommended this place for a couple of tours so we decided to stay here. The Town of 1770 has a pretty interesting history, as it was here, on the 24th May 1770 that the then Lieutenant James Cook on his discovery voyage of The New Found Land (Australia) first set foot.The town was then named in is honour.So we were visiting where it all began! The area of Agnes Water and the Town of 1770 is known here as the 'birthplace of Queensland' so it's pretty cool to say we've been here!

Our hostel, Southern Cross Backpackers was totally different to every other place we had stayed.Because this place is out of town a bit it is called a "tourist retreat" which as far as we can see means loads more space and a lot more relaxed!There is a big lake and jetty at the front of the place near the road for swimming, a resort type pool, massive grounds and plenty of animals about including 4 dogs, 2 horses and 10 million frogs!!!We were booked into a cabin called Sweden (all the cabins are named after countries - no cabin called Norn Iron though!!) which was nice so we dumped our bags and got some sleep after our long journey.

We booked onto the Scooteroo Tour here which was one of the trips we were told about and is probably the main reason why people come to Agnes Water.Scooteroo is a 3 hour tour round the town where everyone is dressed up like hells angel bikers with leather jackets, helmets with flames on and fake tattoos!Once suitably dressed you pick your chopper, which are basically scooter bikes that have been rebuilt to look like proper motorbikes with all different paintjobs.I picked one painted with the Aussie flag and Laura jumped on the pink one with the silver stars - what a shock!!You are then given a few laps round a dirt track ring they have at their building to get used to the bikes - you have to go really slow and because of the low speed and bumpy road it is quite hard to get your balance but we both persevered and were ready to go after about 10 minutes.Once out on the road it was much easier with the smooth surface and faster speed so it was a bit more fun.Laura rode for a while but didn't feel comfortable on the roads so jumped on the back of one of the instructors bikes who raked about and went pretty much 100 km/h most of the time - she loved it!!We drove around for about 30 minutes at a pretty low speed before we were allowed to go a bit faster again and overtake any of the slower riders, of which surprisingly I was not one, so I had some fun passing lots of people! After about another 30 minutes we stopped at the side of the road - at first I didn't know why we were stopping then all of a sudden about 6 big Kangaroo's came bouncing out across the road towards us!Laura definitely got the best view of them out of everyone as she was at the front and the guy she was with sped off after them so we got some snaps.We knew there were Kangaroo's in the wild out here but it is still strange seeing them bouncing along the road!

Our final stop was at the beach were we got a big box of potato wedges each and sat on the rocks eating them while the sun set over the sea - all this motorbike riding was hungry work!!

We headed back to the Scooteroo Centre where we could buy some pictures that were taken of us by a professional photographer along the way and get any memorabilia we wanted so Laura got a Scooteroo Vest - it was her Christmas Present!!After Scooteroo we were back to the hostel for a drink and then off to bed at about 9pm!!!We were still exhausted!!

We didn't really do much at all on our second day.We made sure we were up on time to take advantage of the free breakfast then headed down to the town to see what was there - turns out not much so we went to an internet café and put up more of our blogs from the end of our Asia trip and the beginning of Australia.We didn't want to keep you folks at home waiting too long for the next update!!We got some food in the supermarket and headed back to the hostel, grabbed a drink and settled into the TV room to watch Wedding Crashers which filled up the TV room pretty quickly!!Off to Brisbane tomorrow to stay with Alannagh for a while - she has been kind enough to offer us a free bed for a couple of days so we're looking forward to getting down there and meeting up with her and Robert.

Brisbane will have to wait at least another day!!The flooding here on the east coast has finally caught up with us and is now both North and South of Agnes Water meaning the Greyhound Buses, which are taking us all the way to Sydney, cannot get here so we have to stay at least one more day!!

We spent our hopefully last day here again just down at the internet café for a while, then back to the hostel and chilled by the pool for a few hours. We've bought tickets for a backpackers party in the surf club down the town - $5 for free transport, entry and BBQ dinner - unusually cheap for out here!!Was quite quiet given how many people were stranded in town but it was not a bad night.We had a few drinks, some food and met up with some people that had been on our cruise and were staying at a different hostel and had got stuck also so it was good to see another few familiar faces.Stayed for a few hours then headed back at around 11pm for what was hopefully would be our last night in Agnes Water!We woke up the next morning to the best news ever - we are outta here and off to Brisbane to see Alannagh and Robert for a few days which will be great to catch up and relax!!Full day (10 hours) on the bus to get there but we're so happy to be on the road again we don't care!!

Craig and Laura =)