By 7:30 am, we bid a fond farewell to our friends. They felt more like family than ever and as we drove away, we all fell silent, filled with a mixture of sadness and contentment. What a wonderful few days. Australia had already matched our expectations, but we knew we still had a way to go in order to see everything we wanted to in our short three weeks.

Our next stop along the way would be Fraser Island. In order to get there, however, we had another long drive ahead of us, hence the early start.

By lunchtime, we had gotten to Rockhampton and we stopped at McDonalds for lunch. We've fallen into a bit of a habit of fast food only because Australia doesn't feel all that foreign, food wise, so fast food seems acceptable and, of course, cheap.

When we drove through Childers, we remembered the 15 backpackers who were killed there in 2000 when a madman set the hostel on fire. It was a good time to be thankful for our good luck and good health.

At 7:00 pm, we made it to Harvey Bay. After a quick supper, some E-mail checks, and some downtime watching movies, we went to bed, interested to see how an island would stack up against our other ocean adventures.