It was a good few miles between Rockhampton and Hervey Bay so we broke the journey staying in our first free campsite, much to Phils disgust as this meant we had no air con or hot showers.

In Hervey Bay we hired a 4WD truck and camping gear and headed over to Fraser Island for 3 days to enjoy 'paradise on one of the worlds only sand islands'. Hmmm....paradise? The island was really beautiful - forests inland and stunning beaches but our camping trip could possibly be the inspiration for a new 'Carry On' film....

1) Our 4WD was pretty rubbish and couldn't get up the small soft hill inclines to most of the beach campsites. So each day we started to panic as the tide came in and we couldn't get our stupid truck to drive off the beach. We finally ended up getting completely stuck in the dunes and we had to dig it out with the help of a hippie German man and his large shovel.

2) Fraser Island was suffering a seasonal infestation of flies (they don't mention this in the brochure!) We looked like Ethiopian famine victims - covered in flies and after a while lacking the energy to brush them off. The worst was the evil March Fly which actively sought you out to give you a very painful sting...Mark developed a new sport 'March Fly Baseball' where you ran around madly trying to hit the fly with your shoe.

3) The weather wasn't that great. Our first night in the tent it rained heavily and we discovered it wasn't completely rainproof. The second day was so windy that we struggled to put the tent up and then worried all night that it would blow away with us inside! Not everyone hated the weather though - we noticed that the hippie German enjoyed pretending to be superman, standing on top of his 4WD with the wind blowing a long piece of material tied round his shoulders!

4) The fear of losing your bond is not a nice feeling. Losing a tent peg, somehow damaging the front wing and registration plate and Phil putting Unleaded petrol in a Diesel engine all can age you by ten years....(it all worked out ok in the end though...we clipped the front wing back, hammered out the reg plate, physically tackled Phil before he could put more than $3 of petrol in and bought a new tent peg for 69 cents - phew!)