Its now up to the 21st of Jan, and we are 1625km up the East Coast to Rainbow Beach, where we have to arrive by 5pm to have our briefing for Fraser Island. We met up with Polly and Lindsay again, and met a fab couple, Danny and Vikki (we met by comparing vans - they had one of the 'Wicked' vans and its painted black and red with pictures of Alice Cooper on the side and 'Welcome to my Nightmare' written on the back! They just looked hilarious getting out of it! We decided that if their van and our had a fight, ours would die instantly!). We all managed to get put in a group together, and also joined by 3 gorgeous guys, Tony, George and Steve who were just super keen and fab, and two lovely German girls, who basically were happy with anything aslong as they were smoking!

You get completely briefed on everything (there are 6 groups of 11 people that go each day. They actually send people everyday of the year except Christmas day!! That means some people get to spend Christmas day on Fraser Island!!) Then, you all head off for an early night to get going the next morning.

After a morning of more briefing and loading the car (you may see my management skills being put into practise here with the clipboard. To be honest I think people were just happy someone took the responsibility!) We packed up, had a brief lesson on how to drive the 4x4 and drove to the ferry!! Our first stop on Fraser was of course Lake Mackenzie, which we were lucky enough to experience in the pooring rain! We ended up staying for ages cos we wanted to get a good pic, so were waiting for the rain to stop, plus it was warmer in the water than out of it.

After a few hours we gave up and drove on to set up camp in the rain. A sterling effort was made by all and spirits were still massively high despite the weather. Steve cooked us up lovely steaks and potato salad in the dark with the help of numerous opinionated windbreaks (basicallly the boys pretending to be helpful by standing around the stove blocking the wind)! We all got very drunk on goon, which resulted in yet another appearence from Mr Goon (Mr Goon is abit like Vodka Gemma - he is somone that strangely appears quite often of and evening, just at the time we seem to lose Andy! Shocking that! He is pretty well known up the East Coast now). I was also happily reminded the next morning by the gorgeous Tony of one of the things I admitted to during a game of 'I have never' - yeah - didn't remember that!

The next day we all got up pretty early and cooked breakfast, which is very hard for 11 people on one working hob! Once the tide had gone out enough for us to sneak along the beach we got going again and drove to the start of the trek for Lake Wabby. You basically walk in the blistering heat (it had picked up by then) for about 45 minutes, and just when you are giving up hope, you suddenly see the sand and the lake. Its absolutely stunning. Look at the pics - its just sand and water - gorgeous. The boys all rolled down the hill, smacking their heads and landing in the water. We then went to see the ship wreckage, and Eli Creak and they headed back to camp before high tide at about 6pm. Another wicked evening will lots of silliness and eating all the food we had left!

For the third day, we kinda ignored the tide rulings, and with me driving, and the support of Tony as my navigator (I would have done anything he said) we set out early and hardcored it along the beach, just narrowly missing the sea on a few occasions. You can be totally fearless driving a 4x4 - its superb! We all decided that a trip back to Lake Mackenzie was needed to get the photos and enjoy it in the sun. We arrived back to Rainbow about 3 hours late, but had no problems with the van so got gold stars. We were the only 1 out of the 4 already returned not to have damaged the car!

One funny story from the trip was one of the other groups made a game for the entire 4 days. They basically made the rule that no one was allowed to say the word 'mine' and everytime they did, the boys would have to drop and do 10 press-ups and the girls 10 sit-ups. It sounds so simple, but just so funny. Although the trip you would just see one of the group on the floor doing exercises!! Even at the restaurant in Rainbow on the last night!!

We had one night more to stay in Rainbow, so everyone just had a lovely night catching up and chilling with their groups. Fraser Island was the best bit of my trip for sure - loved every second of it!