As I mentioned in the last blog I was taken on a trip into the Blue Mountains, first to some botanic gardens to get to grips with some of the local plants before heading on to a place called Govett's Leap. This was my first real view of the mountains, which are comprised of sheer rock faces surrounded by a sea of green trees, stretching as far as I could see, a stunning sight. Although there was a significant drop in temperature, the weather held long enough to see this and drive to the town of Leura, where we had a brief patch of sleet. Here we had a great meal in the post office restaurant (a lot nicer than it sounds) before driving to the famous Three Sisters for the obligatory tourist photos and a great walk down the Giant's Staircase and to the bottom of the world's steepest railway, a minute long ride on a small train basically draged up the cliff backwards by a winch. The weather cleared just at the right moment to give us some great views. I had a brief look around at the bottom of the railway as the spot used to be a mining area and there was a great new boardwalk taking you through it. safely back at the top we drove back to Leura to a cafe to get some flowerpot scones, ltierally scones cooked in flowerpots, before heading back to Sydney.

Next morning Judi and Warren dropped me off at Sydney airport for me to catch a flight to Harvey bay. The landing was just a tad hairy and as we hurtled towards the end of the runway it did at one point seem we weren't going to stop. Ahh, budget airlines! I was met immediately as I entered the terminal by Heather and Alex, two of my brother's friends from university, holding a 'Jamie Green' sign! They had been travelling around Asia before Australia and were heading next to New Zealand so we would be able to swap notes! We piled my bags into their awesome campervan and headed strait to the beach, where we think we saw a Dugong (Manatee) swimming just a few metres out. Anyway, spent the evening after that ten pin bowling followed by a brief drink at Beaches hostel, where we had to meet the next morning for our Fraser Island trip, before heading back to the campsite for my first night sleeping in the van! I was sleeping in the roof section above Heather and Alex and I had to climb on the sink and cooker to get up there, which I enjoyed! Early in the morning we went back to Beaches and met the people we were to share our 4 wheel drive vehicle with, three British girls and a French guy. turns out only Heather, Alex and I wanted to drive, and I was nominated as the first driver. Once the shopping for food and booze had been done we all piled into the van, a troop carrier style Toyota Land Cruiser and followed in convoy to the 4wd centre for our briefing, although one of the vans managed to take a wrong turn coming out of beaches hostel! Anyway, after the briefing they just give you directions to the ferry and set you free. My first task was then to reverse onto the ferry, which luckily went without a hitch!

Fraser island is a large sand island with loads of freshwater lakes and rainforest style trees. Coming off the ferry, engaging the 4wd gear (there were 2 gear boxes) and driving down deep sand roads was unbelievable, if bumpy! the road tends to lead you a little bit as deep tracks have already been dug by other vehicles but you still have to be careful not to get stuck. We drove immediately to the east coast beach as instructed and it took my breath away. As I accelerated along the beach I just couldn't quite believe I was simultaneously watching waves crash onto it. We stopped a little while in to take it in and Heather took over the driving. we next stopped at Eli creek, a cold and crystal clear freshwater creek through which you can wade. We then continued North to the wreck of the S.S.Moheno, which used to be a hospital ship during WW1 but now lies rusting on the beach. It was almost ghostly appearing on the horizon in a mist of sand and was just as stunning up close. Next, onto some sand cliffs called the Pinnacles for a quick photo and then we were supposed to find a road inland to get to a lake for lunch but instead we found our campsite so we stayed there for lunch and set up our tents. This we had to do twice as our first tent was broken but we eventually got there, by which time it was too late to drive anywhere due to the tides. We hung around until dinner when heather and alex cooked a fantastic spaghetti bolognese meal which the other groups were all jealous of, followed by a few glasses of goon (cheap wine out of a box to the rest of the world) to finish the evening off.

In the morning we headed North in the van again to Indian Head, in whose surrounding waters is meant to be Australia's largest breeding ground of tiger sharks. needless to say, no swimming here! On the way we sadly happened to drive past a dead baby dolphin washed up on the beach. As we got out to take a look, the island ranger came along to take care of it so we continued. then, a little further up we also found a dieing green turtle also washed up and when the ranger came along that time he must have though we were doing it ourselves! Anyway, we finally made it to Indian head without finding any more dead or dieing wildlife and had some fantastic views of the beach both North and South, the weather being fanstastically hot and clear, but it was impossible to make out any sharks in the rough sea. We continued on foot across the next beach to the Champagne Pools, where water collects at high tide leaving little pools, the only sea water on the island recommended for swimming, although I didn't. On the way back from here we also found the road we were meant to go down the previous day to get to the lake but found we kept getting stuck so turned back to camp after a while. dinner that night was unfortunatley not quite up to the previous night's standard. Still, I do like peanut butter on toast, luckily, as it also covered us for breakfast and lunch the next day too! during that evening we also had a Dingo walk throught the camp and saw some Goannas (large moniter lizards), one of which climbed headfirst into a bin with just it's tail poking out.

The final day of the Fraser trip was spent driving around a few lakes, starting with lake Boomanjin, although due to an unhelpful sign I took a wrong turn which at least gave Alex a chance to do some fantastic offroading! The lake wasn't great. It was a sort of brown/red colour, a little bit like tea without milk. We swiflty departed with Heather driving us to the beautiful lake Birabeen, which in contrast had white sand and beautiful blue water, just like a postcard so we hung around here a bit longer. Final stop was then lake Mckenzie, which was similar to Birabeen but busier, before heading back to the ferry port to get off the island. It was while waiting for the ferry that my sworn enemies returned. The sandlies. And we so nearly avoided them on the island!