We arrived in the tiny beachside town of Agnes Water in the evening and made our way immediately to a backpackers called Cool Bananas where we had been told we could park the van and stay cheaply overnight. Our other reason for going here was to try and meet a university friend of Lucy's, Claire, and her sister Lisa who were also travelling up the east coast.

We got parked up round the back of the backpackers which was very cool, with a big chilled out garden area and the rooms arranged around it a bit like a motel. We found the girls at a table in the garden and sat chatting for a while, discussing our respective journeys up the coast so far.

We were informed by the girls that there was an older guy who came to the backpackers to cook dinner every night, a portion of which you could buy for $6. We decided to sign up for some stiry fry and it wasn't long before the little guy turned up and started cooking up a storm in the kitchen.

We relaxed in the garden and ate our stir fry, as well as some crepes with cream, strawberries and chocolate sauce which the old guy made for dessert, then moved our chairs to sit around a campfire which had been lit in the fire pit in the garden.

We sat here for a while keeping warm by the fire and chatting to fellow travellers, before Lucy's friend and her sister had to leave to catch a night bus further up the coast. After they left we called it a night and retired to the van.

The next morning we were up and breakfasted quite early, as we had to head to the local travel agent to check in for our next adventure, 1770 castaway. We turned up at the travel agent in the tiny town centre along with a group of Dutch travellers, a French couple and two German guys where we were given our briefing about our trip and told our check-in time to return.

The Castaway trip would consist of us being flying out to an island north of Agnes Water and 1770 in a little plane, landing on the beach, and then being left overnight to camp in the bush behind the beach, to be picked up the following day and flown back.

We were really excited about getting out to the island, but didn't have a checkin until 1330, in a few hours, so we decided to kill some time by driving down to the beach and going for a stroll. It was a lovely day again and the beach at Agnes was another beautiful golden curve of sand. We had a wee walk, looking for cowries as usual, before wandering back to the van and making our way back to the travel agent.

Back at the shop we met up with the other guy who would be on our flight out to the island, a German guy called Tomas. We followed him and a lady from the Castaway company out of town in the van, to a small dirt airstrip. Here, we met Bruce, the pilot who would be flying us out for our adventure.

We had heard Bruce was an ex stunt pilot, so we were interested to see what moves he would pull on our flight out. All of us wanted to sit up front so we each had to pick one of Bruce's fingers, with the person choosing the one marked with pen getting to ride up front. I chose the middle finger, and didn't mind Bruce sticking it up towards me to show that it had the pen mark, meaning I got to ride up front.

We all bundled into the tiny 70s-looking plane, and I got my headset on so I could chat to Bruce. He didn't waste much time in zipping down the dusty runway and up into the sky, cruising out over the perfect turqouise water, sandy beaches and dense bush below.

Once we were on course to the island, Bruce told me to point my camera at Lucy and take a picture on the count of three. I counted one, two, and on three Bruce nose dived the plane as I took a picture of Lucy, resulting in the most hilarious picture of pure terror on her face.

The rest of the short flight was as much fun, as Bruce banked and swooped in the plane to get a look at the water for dolphins, as well as just to entertain us. After about 15 minutes we saw the long, smooth beach we would be landing on below us, as well as our camp kitchen just behind the beach like something out of Lost.

We turned and dropped down to land smoothly on the sand, stopping to pick up another German guy, Tomas's friend Lukas, who rode on the plane's wing strut as we taxied along to our camp. Once we arrived, the last group to get out that day, Bruce helped us get our bags and things out of the plane and also unloaded a massive bucket of vegetables and a big bag of chopped steak which we would be cooking for our dinner that night.

After a quick safety spiel he got back in his plane, scooted down the runway and took off, telling us his friend Woody would be coming to pick us up the next day.

It was quite fun being left on the beach in the middle of nowhere, but we decided we'd better check out where we were sleeping that night before we relaxed. we followed the track a short distance through the thick jungly bush behind the beach to find a few tents set up amongst the trees. We selected a section of one big tent and dumped our stuff before returning to the beach to meet our fellow castaways.

There were a few tracks we were aware of on the island, one of which we wanted to check out, and it turned out most of the group did as well. We set off with Tomas and Lukas the German guys, along the beach then up a track into the bush, climbing up to a shallow ridge which we turned and walked along, on a dirt path worn between the long grass and trees covered in eerie spiders' funnel webs. After walking some distance up the island, we popped out on another beach on the west side of the island, at an area called Pancake Creek.

Although we had an idea of our situation having had an aerial overview from the plane, Pancake Creek shattered the 'cast away' illusion somewhat, as the beach faced the mainland, a few km away over an inlet, which was filled with yachts out for pleasure cruises.

Nevertheless, the beach was nice and we all spent the remainder of the afternoon there, with the Dutch and French guys turning up shortly after us. We snorkelled a little though the bottom was muddy and there was a bit of a current, and a few of the guys tried fishing from the rocks with little success. The highlights of our time at Pancake Creek were eating oysters plucked fresh from the rocks, and seeing a massive stingray lying on the seabed in shallow water just a few feet away from a rock we were standing on.

We got chatting more to the other castaways while we were at Pancake Creek, and found out both the French couple, Armel and Sandrine, as well as the three Dutch couples, would be sailing on the same boat trip as us around the Whitsundays in a few days.

With the sun getting low in the sky, we made our way back through the bush to our beach, before getting a campfire built up and getting our beef stew cooking on our gas stove in the camp kitchen. With the stew on to simmer, we all took seats around the fire and had a few drinks, chatting until the food was ready.

Eventually after an hour or so of cooking, once we were all starving, the stew was ready and a couple of the Dutch guys dished it out for us before we sat around the fire muching. After eating and cleaning up the dishes, we all resumed our sitting around the fire, with the incredible starry sky above us providing an amazing backdrop.

The drinks kept flowing as the night progressed, and slowly the various couples retired to bed, followed quite late by Lucy, until just me, Tomas and Lukas remained, drinking the famous cheap wine or 'Goon' so popular among backpackers in Australia well into the wee hours.

Eventually deciding bed would be a good idea, we stumbled back through the bush to our tents and crashed out.

Despite the copious amounts of goon and beer consumed the night before, I was up fairly early the next morning, keen to make the most of our remaining time on the island.

Initially we had planned to walk to the lighthouse at the south of the island and to check out the caves there, but instead we opted just to potter around on our own beach, which was gorgeous. I had a float around in a huge inflated tractor tyre tube in the waves before taking out a sea kayak for a wee paddle around the bay, the refreshing water proving a great way of kicking any remaining grogginess from the night before out of my system.

At about half past ten the first plane arrived to start flying us back from the island. We weren't due to leave until the last plane so we spent more time on the beach playing frisbee in the surf, relaxing and reading, a well as wandering up the beach checking out the numerous dingo footprints which had been left the night before.

Eventually all the castaways had been replaced by new ones, and it was time for Lucy and I to leave on the last flight. We loaded up our bags and hopped in the plane with Woody, who would fly us back to Agnes Water.

We took off and headed back with less aerial acrobatics than with Bruce, but nonetheless had an amazing flight as we saw dolphins from the plane, and Lucy even got a chance to fly the plane for a short while. The highlight of the flight, however, was seeing two whales below us in the shallow clear waters of the bay, swimming gracefully out towards the deeper water. One of the whales was almost completely white in colour, which I had never seen before, and it really rounded off a great experience on the island for us.

Once we landed back at Agnes and were reunited with the van, it was time to set off and carry on up the road. We drove back west to the Bruce Highway and took it north, past the town of Gladstone and onward as it started to get dark. In the early evening we came into the large town of Rockhampton, the centre of the huge cattle industry in the area. We only stopped here for a quick dinner at KFC before carrying on a bit north of Rockhampton, to the Capricorn Caves.

We had decided to try and stay at a campsite at the caves, so took a turning from the highway and followed a small road a few km into the countryside. As we were arriving quite late, I was worried we wouldn't be able to check in to the campsite and our fears increased as we came across a closed barrier at the entrance to the campsite. However, after a short chat with a friendly lady on the other end of an intercom at the gate, we were granted access and shown to our spot for the night.

Once we were parked up and settled, I decided to go down to the campfire I had seen burning beside one of the camp buildings while Lucy went for a shower. I had a chat with an older couple and a father and daughter on holiday around the fire for a while before having a shower myself, then heading to bed to join Lucy.