Bonday. Howdy and how's it going? We have now arrived at our final Australian destination. Oh, the emotion. Truly strange to think of leaving Oz so soon after having arrived - as with New Zealand, the last four weeks seem to have passed incredibly quickly. Still, at least there are a few months to go still, eh? Righty ho then, what was the story last time I updated this blog malarkey? I believe we had just hit Noosa, having spent a few relaxing days in Byron - incidentally, for anyone we met back on the Inca Trail in January, Farida and I had an awesome time meeting up with Mic when we were in Byron, although we were a little disappointed, as you will also be, Bruce, to see him disappear after only a few drinks - not hardcore enough Mic, not at all. Anyway, back to writing about me. The trip up to Noosa was fairly uneventful, stopping only to take photos of a kangaroo sign, to call in for an obligatory service in Brisbane, and to go to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, also in Brisbane. Here we saw all manner of Australian animals, from galahs - I only then realised what a flaming galah was (Alf, of Home and Away fame,'s favourite expression), to dingos, to koalas, to kangaroos to pythons to frogs to wombats to yeah ok it was a zoo. You get the drift. In Noosa we went surfing again, and generally chilled on the beach, also bumping once more into Nathan and Aimee from back home in Tonbridge. This is turning into a very dull list of What Dave Has Been Doing Over The Last Month. My apologies. I'll try and liven things up from here on in. Wahoooooooooooooooooooooooooo! Yeah. Rock on. After Noosa we made it to Hervey Bay, the point of departure for our Fraser Island trip. Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, and the three day trip basically consists of 10/11 backpackers being given a 4x4, some tents, cooking equipment and eskies, being told to go and buy enough food and goon to survive the 3 days on an island, and then being given the keys to the aforementioned 4x4. What trust. Although somehow, the bank card given in for the $5000 deposit was mine. Schoolboy. So off we headed in our group of 5 Germans, 5 Brits and one Dutch girl, along with the other 3 4x4s full of various other nationalities and personalities. Our group was a pretty quiet one, and fairly young for the most part, which meant there were only 5 of us legally allowed to drive the jeep jobby thingummyjib. Take away three girls who were a little nervous about driving a 2 and a half tonne, top-heavy truck over sand dunes, and Rich, the other British guy, who has been driving around Australia for about 4 months and is thus sick of driving, and you're left with Muggins here doing the majority of the driving. Not that I'm complaining, it was awesome fun - especially accelerating over some of the dunes to give the people in the back a little space between cushion and cheek. And I didn't even crash. Good effort. Or bon effort as our French brothers say. So the days were filled with driving to various idyllic freshwater lakes and sea water rockpools, looking out over headlands for tiger sharks and manta rays, and trying to avoid driving in the sea for fear of losing my hefty deposit. Then just as the daylight was beginning to ebb away, we would pull up somewhere to pitch the tents next to the other groups, cook a meal and then commence the socialities. Or put another way, the drinking games. Ring of Fire - remind me to teach y'all when I get home. Fingers in the middle......fiddle with your diddle......oh " " etc. etc. Promise you, a barrel of laughs. All in all, an awesome time on Fraser. Then back to Hervey Bay to pick up the campervan again and have one last night of festivities. (This last night saw me lose my glasses. Thankfully, some kind soul handed them into the bar in the club we were in. Malheureusement, the same kind soul didn't do so until after having stepped on them, snapping off the arm. So now I have street-person glasses. It's a good look though. Semi-Morpheus. Sweeeeet. Iss niiiice). On the Thursday morning, Sian, Farida and I, now accompanied by Sian's boyfriend Jon, set off for 1770 - a tiny beach town in between Hervey Bay and Airlie Beach, the latter being the departure point for Whitsundays sailing. Rich and Zoe, the other two British guys from our Fraser Island trip met us there, and we've been travelling up to Cairns as a sextet ever since. The only interesting thing to happen in 1770 was my $225 fine for lack of proper seatbelt wearing. Again, I've said it before, but I found this a little harsh. Up to the Whitsundays it was then, where we bumped into Saba and Amy, a couple of awesome Canadian girls we'd also met on Fraser, and then our 3 day sailing trip began. This was a tad hardcore - 60 odd people on a catamaran (is there a g at the end?...or is it catamerangue? no.). about 20 of whom seemed to think the sole purpose of the trip was to get drunk as quickly as possible by doing goon shots at 10am. (Goon being cheap, boxed wine for those of you not as down with the lingo as I). Unfortunately, not much sailing was actually achieved either, due to pretty rough conditions and time constraints, but the snorkelling on the reef was absolutely incredible, and the island resort we stayed at each night, complete with golf course and tennis courts, was niiiiice. Timmmmy). Back to Airlie Beach it was then, and then up to Townsville to get the ferry to Magnetic Island - we stayed the last three nights in a hostel here, getting in a bit of sea kayaking and a lot of liver abuse, especially for the England match. What an appalling show. Not impressed. Anywho, a bit of beach football and a few more drinks later, it was time to get the ferry back to the mainland and head up here to Cairns. Tomorrow is our last full day and the plan is to spend it snorkeling on the outer reef - I'll hopefully get a disposable underwater camera - the variety of fish and coral you can see there is mindblowing, and while memories are all fine and dandy, a few photos wouldn't go amiss. Right now though, I'm afraid I must go - things to meet and people to do and all that. A massive congratulations to Sam and Deborah and all others finishing their degrees and exams etc. Sam, I am truly sorry that I couldn't be bothered to hop on a flight to come and celebrate with you in Bristol t'other night. Please don't hold it against me. Much love to all of you, xxxxxxx Ps- Wednesday we will be flying out to Singapore...I think I may have said already. So next time you hear from me, I'll be back dealing with language barriers and different cultures. Can't wait. Be good all of you, love, me. Pps- congratulations on figuring out how to leave a message Mum. That's only taken 5 months. I'm impressed. And it's good to see you're finally honouring my 17th birthday present and redecorating my room ;) you have another 3 or 4 months in which to procrastinate though :D