1770/Agnes Water: Friday 21st January - Sunday 23rd January

Sat between the popular tourist destinations of Fraser Island and The Whitsundays are the small towns of 1770 and Agnes Water, both of which exist primarily for 3 reasons - tourists on their way between the two, surfing and fishing. We stayed in a place called Southern Cross backpackers which I'm gonna give a massive plug to for the simple reason that it is a friggin brilliant place to spend a few days. It's a huge resort with a pool, all the dorms are in little secluded huts and there's free ping-pong and foosball. Add to this the fact that we arrived during happy hour and I got a beer and two hot-dogs for $3, which in Australia for a backpacker is like if someone wanted to swap your their Lambourgini for your paper-clip.

We spent a few days here, beating the Dutch at doubles ping-pong (another thing that Janine is freakishly good at, like connect-4) and trying our hand at surfing with some lessons down on the beach (Janine is freakishly bad at this so it sort of balances out). For the record we both managed to stand up by the end although Janine's single effort was conveniently missed by everyone and (one of my many) was caught on camera and immediately posted as my fb profile pic for evidence! Surfing is so much harder than it looks, or maybe we just made it look so much harder than it is?