ok well sorry its been so long guys!! from the last pont that i wrote i left Nimbin and headed back to byron bay for 1 week. had a really good week and on the friday there was an open mike night at the bar in the hostel. the live music was amazing, there was baptiste on guitar and singing, someone lese on double bass, a sax player and another friend on electric guitar, was better than a lot of gigs that i have paid to see!!

after bidding sad (and final!!) farewells to all in byron i got back on the coach to brisbane, where i only had 2 nights. didnt get there until late the first day so in reality only had one full day there, which i spent walking around and exploring the city. Theres not really much else for me to say.... brisbane is a lovely city but there didnt seem to be an awful amount to do so i was happy with only spending one day there. after brisbane it was off to maroochydore for 2 nights again. again pretty uneventful - Maroochydore is a town set between the sea and the marooch river, on my day there i rented a bike and explored the bike paths around the town (which was the first bit of proper excercise i have done in a while!!), before heading back for an early night - very boring!

a little furthur up the coast is noosa, which is a really pretty little town (with lots of money!!). getting there i checked into a hostel and met 3 other girls that weere staying in my room. they managed to convince me (not hard!) to go out that night to the racous bar that was attached to the hostel. so we got the goon in and then went out and had a really good night dancing to rubbish cheesy music!! when we got back i got talking to a couple of guys in the dorm next to us, who were living there, they were really nice so i stayed up a bit longer chatting and drinking with them. i spent 4 nights in noosa and during the days i went to the beach and into the national park a couple of times. the park is beautiful and there is wildlife everywhere, i saw koalas, lace monitor lizards and of course the bush turkeys which are everywhere is australia!! after about a 4km walk you can get to a really pretty secluded cove with great surf. it was way to cold for me to be tempted but i watched for some time. i was the only one of the beach and when i looked up ther were 4 big eagles circling, one witha alrge angel fish in its talon, which was pretty spectacular.

sadly, but bound for hervey bay, i left noosa, once in hervey bay i met the other poeple in my tour group that i was going to fraser island with. there were 2 couples and the rest girls which was nice!! after getting all our food and camping gear together we headed off for fraser island in a huge 4 wheel drive (this thing was big enough for 12 people and camping and food equipment.... and none of us had driven a 4 wheel drive before... let alone on loose sand!!). fraser island is the largest sand island in the world and a wildlife haven. its pretty much untouched, there is one small 'town' with shopes and one hotel, no roads and a lot of lakes and rainforest. the first night after visiting lake mackenzie (i braved going swimming even though it was freezing - you cant swim in the sea because the rips around fraser are lethal, and theres an abundance of tiger sharks). that night we were staying in one of the campsites so set up camp and had a great a BBQ in the star light. there are signs everywhere about the dingoes so going to the toilet at night wasnt fun! we had 2 days there and visted a lot of the lakes on the island, and the rusty wreck of the SS Maheno, which looked partcularly atmospheric in the bad weather and sea spray. unfortunately i got really sick on the last night with a stomach bug and spent the whole night on the beach or in the van because i was too scared of the dingoes!! i spent one more night in hervey bay recovering before leaving the next day for the town of 1770.

i wasnt initially going to go but all but 4 of the people on my fraser trip were going so they convinced me to come. the bus journey was funny - we had a really cool driver and there was only 4 of us on there. getting there the hostel was so pretty and clean witha big fire every evening, and the town was tiny. 2 of the girls started to come down with the same thing as i had had and i was till pretty delicate so it a relaxed cuple of nights, the furthest i moved was the beach and back!! i would have liked to stayed longer but i had to get up to airlie beach to meet my whitsunday sailing trip.

there were about 15 of us all together, including 8guys of varying nationalities that all knew eachother. they were all living in airlie beach and were only taking this trip so that they could go to the whitehaven beach party that was on the next day. Whitehaven beach is considered the most beautiful in the world and i accidently pick to go on one of the biggest beach parties of the year - very lucky!! when i saw the amount of alcohol that they were loading onto the boat i knew it was going to be an interesting few days! we sailed to the island that we were staying on, called south molle island and got settled in our rooms before getting some dinner and proceeding to stay at bar all night!! unfortunately for us we had to get up early the next day to set off for whitehaven, as the party starts about 10. none of us were feeling at our best, but i soon was convinced to put the hair of the dog treatment to the test - and it worked!! going into whitehaven you could see all the yachts moored and chartered 2 seater planes flying in and out - there was obviously a lot of money there!! coming in we could enjoy all the quiet untouched beaches and coves before arriving at the busy, but not overcrowded part of the beach that the party was on. im sure that i dont need to go intpo details of what happened next but it was a really good afternoon, dipping in and out of the sea, good music, good drinks and really friendly people! again in the evning we headed back to the south molle island and hit the karioke (not good). setting off early the next morning and stopping to snorkel for a couple of hours on the way (where they threw me over board in my clothes - they found it funny!!), and we arrived back in airlie beach mid afternoon. i spent the next couple of nights in arilie and to save me money they kindly offered a spare bed so i spents the next couple of days hanging it out with them all still.

when it came to leaving it was probably a good thing, i was beginning to get sick and needed a couple of quiet days that i got in mission beach. the 2 nights there passed without much event- i was tired and ill so just went for a walks on the beach in the day and got an early night!!

after mission beach i had 2 nights in cairns before i had to fly back to sydney. arriving i spent the afternoon exploring the town and booked a snorkeling trip on the barrier reef for the next day, i would liked to have tried an introductory scuba dive but a chest infection was making my asthma flare up, plus one of the people i met in airlie was a dive instructure and he said the snorkelling is just as good on the reef and scuba as so much of it is shallow. we went to 2 sights to dive and spent about 2 hours at each. i was fully expected to be disapointed, id seen so many amazing pictures of the reef and couldnt believe that it could be that colourful and beautiful, but it was absolutely breathtaking with multicoloured coral and fish, and sea turtles coming up for air. i met a few people on the boat who i spent the evening with befor epacking ready for the next day.

flying back to sydney the next day i could not believe the weather, it was raining so heavily and was cold :( i was so excited to see kate, adrian and megan though it didnt matter and we had a quiet couple of drinks catching up, it was so good to see them, megan had chnaged so much!! the follwoing day it wqas still raining heavily but we took a walk around and ended up at darling harbour where we tryed to convince ourselves that we didnt mind the rain, and kate and ady took megan to the aquarium. luckily the following day the weather was much better and we got the ferry over to manly beach which was really nice and then headed towards bondi. the following day we went on a trip to the blue mountains national park, so called because of the oils from thhe eucalyptus trees that hang in the air like a blue haze. we had a really nice day stopping at a sweet shop on the way home and megan was as funny and as cute as ever. sadly the next day i had to say goodbye to them as they headed up the coast and i was flying out that afternoon. was horrible saying goodbye to kate it had been so good to see her. but i had thailand to look forward to and ed was coming out to meet me so i coildnt complain!!