Next stop was Hervey Bay the gateway to Fraser Island with a Happy Gilmore viewing en route. I arrived at the transit centre and caught the free shuttle to Nomads in Hervey Bay for one night's stay before our Fraser Island trip (included in the cost of the tour). On the drive there I was told that they were running low on drivers (as you have to be over 21) for the Fraser self-drive tour. This meant that my umm-ing and arr-ing on whether to drive the 4WD jeep o...

As I jumped on the Greyhound I recognised Paul, a guy I met at the Blue Parrot just before I departed Sydney. He came and sat next to me and we amused ourselves on the journey by catching up and impersonating and mocking Sean Connery in Entrapment (a terribly clichéd film) on show onboard the bus. It turned out that Paul and I had booked in to the YHA hostel in Noosa. He was on the Oz experience but had missed his bus and was on the Greyhound. His friends from...

Brisbane was my first state in Queensland and I arrived on Saturday afternoon and pretty much got ready to go out for the night. I met up with an Aussie that I met in Sydney and joined him for a night out with his friends. During my travels in Australia I have actually met very few Australians, as the hostels are full of other international people so it was a welcomed change to hang out with the locals. We spent Saturday night in Fortitude Valley (or just the v...

I boarded the Greyhound bus at 10pm on Tuesday night from Sydney bound for Byron Bay. The estimated arrival time was 10am Wednesday morning and in true-to-myself style I think it is fair to say I slept almost the entire journey (reminiscent of my school ski trips onboard a 26-hour coach headed for the Italian or Austrian mountains). My eyes slowly opened around 9.30am as we were approaching Lennox Head (which has recently suffered at the fate of a cyclone), bu...

A Sydney farewell... I spent my last days in Sydney recovering from tonsillitis and earning the last few pennies (ahem… cents) I could from my café and restaurant jobs. I continued to work at the hostel as well and took on the training up of my replacement. And to avoid too much confusion they have replaced me, Jo, with Joe. And so the final weekend approached and I invited one and all to come and join me say goodbye to Sydney. The Friday night was spent a...