Well?being completely useless and only just finding time to use the internet I have almost forgotten what I got upto just before I left for Fraser Island...I know there was alot of walking in Noosa's National Park, some Koala spotting in the forest and a very fun night dancing around to good old 80's music in Hervey Bay but in all fairness nothing quite beat the experience I had on Fraser Island...I have so much to write about it so get yourself prepared - you might even need a cup of tea or even stronger how about some vodka....mother be prepared - I get the feeling this one could be all gushy hahaha!!

Fraser Island - My entire experience here was out of this world and trying to convey that to you guys is going to be hard. It would make my job alot easier if you had all experienced it too! I did the complete tourist thing and took photos of everything and then me with everything! I will put some up very soon as I seem to have misplaced my card reader.....

So day 1 - it was an early start as the alarm rang at 7.00am for my 7.40am pick up. All was going well until I took a look at the weather - cloudy, miserable and on the verge of rain. I would love to say this didnt ruin my enthusiasm for the trip but it did, as indeed it did for everyone else on the mini bus. The weather didnt improve as we waited for the boat to take us from Hervey Bay to Fraser Island. The faces on people were a picture and everyone sat there looking like they were about to be taken to Alcatraz and not one of the most beautiful sand islands in the world! There was glimer of hope when the sun peaked through the clouds and caused a rainbow. In Ross' words, 'Everything was ok as we sailed off once we had spotted a rainbow arced gracefully over Hervey Bay', - Ross was one of the 3 dayers on the island and he?greatly contributed to my experience along with Silvana (the first person to talk to me), Heather (the drunked we picked up from the YHA - only joking girl!) and my 3 Korean friends who didnt speak much English but provided laughs and fun! Also Ranger Bob - without him the Fraser Island adventure would have been incomplete....

The weather eased up as we arrived into Kingfisher Bay where we were met by Ranger Bob - a fantastice, enthusiastic guy who was to be our tour guide and bus driver for the next 3 days. After a quick brief we boarded our 4x4 bus and off we went on our first adventure. The advenutre started almost instantly as I was thrown side to side, up and down whilst the 4x4 conquered the sand track. It was so much fun, better than a rollercoaster at times! Saying that however, after about half an hour of being thrown around it did start to make you feel rather sick. Our first stop was Basin Lake to swim with fresh water turtles and after a 1km walk to reach it, the sun decided to stop being so shy - result! We spent about 45 minutes here swimming in the gorgeous lake and relaxing on the white sand until it was time to walk the 2.6km to Central Station where lunch was being served - and wow, lunch was good! Salad, ham, drinks, fresh fruit, cereal bars......food I hadnt eaten in ages due to my backpackers budget. After eating as much as I could it was time to take a walk along the rainforest boardwalk. Initially I thought the creek running through it was extremely dirty unitl I got closer and realised the yellow colour on the water was infact the sand underneath the water - I have never seen a creek so crystal clean in my life. Ranger Bob built up our knowledge on the area and why it was so special. Next it was a 1.8km walk along Wanggoolba Creek and Pile Valley. All this walking was a shock to the system and even funnier was that before lunch I started upfront (I was hungry!) yes after lunch the small, slow, very full up girl was now dragging her feet at the back of the line!! Also to give you a weather update the sun was now shining through some scattered borken cloud - yay! Our last stop of the day was to?be Lake McKenzie and I didnt honestly expect to see a lake quite like this. It was competely breathtaking - imagine the whitest sand and the clearest, bluest water ever and you wouldalmost be picturing what I was seeing. I never thought such a lake could exist in the middle of an island! The weather decided to get dull and cloudy again but it didnt stop anyone taking a dip, splash and swim. The water was clean enough to drink and the sand so fine that we all rubbed it over our bodies to create a natural exfoliant - my skin had never felt so soft after that!

That was the first days adventure over...it was back to our lodges after some afternoon tea (ohhh it was sooo good - tea and cookies!!!) and after exploring some of the resort and taking a deep in one of the pools and of course the jacuzzi it was time to get ready for dinner. This was served at 7pm in the Dingos bar...it was buffet style and the theme was Italian - my favourite and after 3 plate fulls I decided it was maybe time to start on the deserts - hahaha!! Although I had been living off pasta and noodles for the past few weeks, it was so good to have it all cooked for me with proper sauces rather than value jars of yuk from Woolworths supermarket! It had been a completely exhausting day so after the dance contest which consisted of no dancers I headed to bed ready for my 7am start the following day.....

Day 2 - Wohoo, my first full English brekkie with all the usual plus cereal and fresh fruit - just what Tasha needed at 7am!! It was time to start a whole new day of adventure and the first stop was Stonetool sandblow - we didnt spend too long here and it was basically a lookout over lots of sand! The best part of this day was that it was to be a full day of driving and stopping along 75 mile beach and after the sandblow stop it was onto view the Pinnacles (coloured sand) Apparently it consisted of something around 72 colours but to me it looked like about 5 - nonetheless it was worth seeing and of course my camera came out to take yet more pictures (by this point I think I had already taken about half my memory cards capacity!!). Probably my favourite stop of the day was Champagne Pools - these are hard to explain but bascially they are pools of water almost on a cliff side with waves splashing in from the ocean. Very nice and lots of fun! Once the pictures are up my description will probably become alot clearer. We had our lunch here and I bumped into a few friends that I had met in Hervey Bay which was nice. Next stop was Indian Head - a very high cliff side that overlooked the beach and ocean. We walked up the side and spent about an hour maybe a little less just sat at the top and climbing over the rocks trying to spot sharks - and yes we spotted a shark!! I don't think it was a good idea for me to have done it in flip flops as one wrong step and I probably would've found myself in the ocean after falling a good few feet...hahah dont mean to scare you all, good thing is I didnt and Im here to tell you the story! After the hike down it was back onto 75 mile beach and long to look at the Maheno Shipwreck - I cant quite remember how the boat got here as Ranger Bob had told so many fascinating stories but whatever happened the shipwreck ended up on Fraser Island....another excuse to take pictures - Half the time I dont know why I even bothered to put my camera away!! The final stop along the beach was Eli Creek - a fresh water creek that runs straight into the ocean..I walked all the way along the creek and after discovering that the water flowed with a donwhill current I took the easy way back and floated almost all the way to the ocean! It could probably be described as a natural lazy river that you would usually find at a water park filled with big rubber rings - lots of fun and very relaxing......As this was the last stop and the end of the Fraser Island advenutre for some people we headed back to Kingfisher Bay to wave off the 2 dayers and watch the sun set over the water. It was a perfect ending to a perfect day...dinner was mexican and for some reason they had put custard next to the nachos - almost all of us nearly ended up with nachos covered in custard rather than cheese sauce!! Desert was apple crumble and although that didnt follow on with the Mexican theme it was a nice reminder of home and something I hadnt actually eaten in so long - yum yum yum - I enjoyed every mouthful of that....by the time dinner was over there were just a few of us left so Ranger Bob took us to the main resort for a few drinks and a game of pool, darts and table tennis...it again wasnt a late night as it was back up at 7am for breakfast the next morning.....oooh and incase you were wondering the weather had been perfect all day - bright blue sky and not a cloud could be seen!!

..Day 3 - Our last day on the island but by no means any less fun or lacking excitement. By this point there were only 7 of us left and by this point we had all bonded pretty well and got along so well. Heather and myself had decided that our plan for the day was to get as much sun as we could and look like lobsters...almost impossible for me as you cant look like a lobster when your as tanned as me - hahaha! (saying that I think my tan is going very fast and Im worried I might just come back looking more English than I had hoped for!!) Our first stop was Lake Wabby lookout and after a quick photo session is was time to have some real fun at the lake and on Hammerstone Sandblow. We took a short walk to the lake and after jumping down a few big sand dunes it was straight in a swim....Ranger Bob had given us a body board with the idea of sliding all the way down the sand hills and straight into the lake - certainly sounds like my type of fun however it didnt quite work as the board wasnt shiny surfaced enough...this didnt matter much as along came another group with a body board and some sand boards - woohoo Tasha was off, but nobody reminded her to close her mouth when falling over - yum a mouth full of sand along with a body covered in the stuff....it was very much like snowboarding but on sand rather than snow and of course alot warmer. We spent over an hour here having lots of fun and taking action shots of each other boarding done the huge sand hills...I loved it, nothing like a bit of extreme fun to get the adrenaline going for the day. We walked across the sandblow which was amazing - a whole lot of sand in the middle of dense forest. Again the pictures will help to explain this to you. Lunch was served at the Eurong Beach Resort and in an actual restaurant - a little bit of a culture shock for all of us as it had been a while since we had all dined in style like this...Im not too sure they were keen on our board shorts and wet tshirts though!!! I took a quick dip in the hotel pool until it was time to make our last stop of the day at Lake Birrabean where we spent a good few hours chilling out and talking about the last few days...this lake was gorgeous but didnt quite compare to Lake McKenzie from Day 1....we had our afternoon tea just by the lake and then it was time to depart Fraser Island much to all our disappoinment. It had been an amazing 3 days and I would have to say that it has to be one of the highlights of my trip here in Australia. I couldnt have asked for anything else from this trip - the friends I made, the adventures, Ranger Bob, the stories, the laughs, the jokes - everything made this trip out of this world for me..and to prove that I did take in some of the information given to me one of the names of Fraser Island is K'Gari which means Paradise - and honestly this place is pure Paradise.......

....I hope you have all enjoyed this rather long blog. There was so much more I could put into it but dont worry I will just tell you all in person..one last thing before I finish up here I have to mention Ass Water - this is the name we gave the water supplied to us by Ranger Bob...we arent too sure why it tasted so bad but its a random thing that I thought I would share with you all...Heather and Silvana - I had to mention this as I know it was a highlight for you both!!

Pictures to follow very soon people...........xxx