G'day from Australia! I have been racing up the east coast of Oz like lightening and so far visited Sydney, The Hunter Valley, Myall Lakes, Byron Bay, the Gold Coast, Fraser Island, Rockhampton and The Whitsundays! And I can safely that all that travel time is more than worth it when you reach some of the gorgeous gorgeous places I've been to this week.

So starting from Sydney, here we go....

Got to Sydney late afternoon after a very boring and very long plane journey. Sydney was seen only by taxi and bus (did manage to spot the Harbour Bridge and the Opera house though!). But never fear I shall be back here for the week running up to Christmas so I can fit all my sightseeing then.

Spent the next day traveling to Myall Lakes. On the way we stopped in the Hunter Valley - home of vino! Got to have a go at wine tasting for the first time and in typical girly style I loved all the pink, fruity, bubbly ones. After lunch here we carried on traveling till we reached Myall Lakes in the late afternoon. We stayed in a dinky little eco resort which was a bit like Centre Parks. After I got settled in the little cabin I went kayaking on the lake until the ominous looking clouds came drifting in (more about those clouds later!). That night I had my first Aussie BBQ where I was joined by a little Possum who was very interested in the sausages.

Woke up in Myall Lakes to rain rain rain and more rain. And it didn't stop raining for the next 3 days - so much for the Sunshine coast! Apparently the Sunshine coast gets 360 days of sunshine and I managed to get the rainy days out of that lot! Anyway, in the rain we drove to Byron Bay which was the cutest little surf town...I wanted to stay there and never leave! Even in the rain it shone out! This is where I had a go at surfing. We all trudged down to the surf school early one morning and were made to look like idiots for hours pretending to surf on the beach front. Then we all had a go at actual surfing in the water and it was brill! It's really hard and I used muscle that I never knew existed BUT I did manage to stand up for about 3 seconds! A really awesome Aussie experience!

After Byron we headed on up to Fraser Island. Here we caught the little ferry over to our resort. That night we headed to a place called the Dingo Bar where all of us on the bus had a fancy dress themed party and the theme was..... 'Anything but clothes!'. So we had to get our thinking caps on and be creative. I came dressed up in 'The Australian' newspaper - it was an aysemetric, knee length dress with paper flower corsage and it worked really well!! Had lots of fun that night laughing at everyone's costumes, there was a great selection including...bubble wrap shorts, wrapping paper tops and dresses made out of curtains!

In the morning we went on a hike to find Lake Mackenzie. We eventually got there and it was just breathtakingly beautiful. The lake was shortlisted as one of the places that they were going to film the movie 'The Beach' with Leo DiCaprio and you could see why. The water was completely see through and the sand was so different - really white and fine. We had a lovely relaxing time at the lake and then got all hot and bothered on our hike back again!

Just as I thought that life couldn't get any better we traveled to the Whitsunday Islands! We've spent two days here sailing the islands and it has been heaven on earth. This has to be one of the top 10 places you HAVE to see before you die! Anyway, I've spent two days on a boat without being sick and we've been snorkeling and swimming and spying on all the celebs in the big posh houses around the islands.

Next up on the adventure is Cairns and then I fly over to the Northern Territory for a spot of living in the outback!