I have now arrived in Byron Bay and today is officially the first day of the second part of the tour (Brisbane to Sydney). On Wednesday it was ANOTHER early start as we were off to Fraser Island for 2 days. We got picked up at 8am by a tour company called Fraser Island Tours (original!) and took a ferry across to the island. The weather was perfect - our tour guide was Steve Irwin's brother I swear!! There were lots of other people on our trip including an extremely rude Dutch Man who called Grace and Brix s***heads for being American!! You are only allowed 4wd on Fraser Island as it's completely sand, the biggest sand island in the world, it's just like a sponge and pumps billions of litres of water out of it every day. We drove across from East to West and it took ages - very bumpy too. We stopped for a walk in the rainforest looking at plants and stuff, quite boring really. Then a nice buffet lunch before hitting 75 mile beach. It was stunning, driving along this beach watching whales in the ocean. We stopped at Eli Creek for a while and we all ended up with Gritty Growlers - sand gets EVERYWHERE! We drove to Indian Head which we had to climb, not great in flip flops! We sat up on the cliff's edge for around an hour and we saw it all - whales, dolphins, sharks, turtles and manta rays. Absolutely amazing and beautiful. The walk back down was funny, Kay fell over twice, tried my hardest not to wet myself from laughing! We headed to camp afterwards and we stayed in permanent tents which had proper beds! I had the best night's sleep in a long time. Chris (tour guide) cooked a lovely steak dinner and we walked down to the beach afterwards to look at the stunning stars. The next day was an early start, 6.30, had breakfast and headed to Lake Womby but first we had to walk across what I can only discribe as a desert! It was such hard work, 1.8km in the boiling heat and not easy to walk on sand. Got there in the end and had a dip and sunbaked for a while before another 2.3km walk through rainforest back to the bus. We stopped at Eli Creek for lunch and more sunbaking before heading to a Tea Tree Oil lake which had lots of little turtles swimming in. We headed back to the ferry afterwards back to Hervey Bay where we stayed again. Friday we got up early to go whale watching. The weather report wasn't good, very choppy and yes, people we throwing up good and proper and it was only men!! I took some ginger tablets just in case. We saw so many Humpback Whales, so amazing. Some came right up to the boat, very friendly and intelligent animals. You have to wave at them and then they come over, really good. Tried to get some good photos but was hard - they were breeching a lot and jumping in and out of the water. Got sprayed a couple of times! I am hoping to do more whale watching in New Zeland. We headed to Brisbane after the trip which was a 4 hour drive. Slept most of the way. When we got there Kay, Emily and I went shopping, I bought a new pair of shoes for $99 in the sale as I need some proper going out shoes. Also a new top and handbag - Brisbane is great for shopping! We headed out that evening and as we had some wine left we drank that before we left, so was quite drunk already. Kay and I went to a couple of pubs before heading back to the hotel and ordering some food in. I was very drunk and passed out! Am not feeling great today! So now am in Byron Bay and it's a proper backpackers place. Kay left the tour this morning as she was only doing Cairns to Brisbane, miss her already, she was so funny! Definitely meeting her when I get home - all I can say is watch out The Castle when she gets there!! We're stayed in a nice resort here, proper bugalows which are nice. Here for two days and tomorrow I am meeting relatives of my old boss Jonathan - they're going to show me the sights of Byron Bay and have some lunch, tonight taking it easy and getting rid of my hangover x x x x