We arrived in Australia "frothing" at the thought of having other people around to talk to....as much as it's been great travelling together for 3 weeks in a van, it was enough to make anyone crave some other human interaction. When we got into Bondi and met up with Jez, Weeze, Kyle and Doyle we pretty much spent 3 days surfing, drinking, and laughing.....there were some interesting people in our Hostel, one man appeared to be a lunatic screaming "F@*KING SCUMBAGS" in his sleep but luckily I don't think he was dreaming about us at the time - who knows maybe he was dreaming about Nazi's and he was fully justified in his outburst! Page met up with her friend Amber from PGL and Nicky her oldest friend from school in Sydney so she had some girl time which I know she had been missing.

Unfortunately Jez and Weeze, being proper people, had to go back to work so they left us on the Monday and the rest of us picked up a rental car ready to make our way up the 1000km drive to the Gold Coast. We drove 3 hours to the Blue Mountains which were pretty cool, I use the past tense due to the fact that almost immediately after we left they set on fire and are still burning - strangely similar to Yosemite, spooky!? Our time there was good though, the scenery is great and I am assured that the mountains do appear blue however I was sceptical (shocking I know!?) and could only see green trees! We also spent some time at a scenic centre, which was basically 3 different ways of seeing the rainforest - a sky line between 2 cliffs, the steepest railway in the world and a cable car. Our time in the Blue Mountains was accompanied by a symphony of cicadas, a flying beetle like creature which seems intent of making as much noise as possible during its short life span!

From here, after much discussion about the route we should take, we made our way through Forster and Yamba over a couple of days to the Gold Coast where Jez had organised for us to stay in a holiday apartment 2 doors from his place. It turned out that Jez had not booked us into a holiday apartment......he had booked us into a palace! We were on the 15th floor with a balcony overlooking the beach, 2 double bedrooms (ours had an en-suite), huge reclining leather sofas and Sky TV. I have no doubt that, with the exception of when the rentals come to visit us in Thailand, this will be the nicest place we stay our entire trip! The Gold Coast, much like Bondi, was filled with drinking, surfing and laughing....the highlight of this bit of our trip was a trip to Tangalooma Island, where we went sand boarding on the Dunes, snorkelling around a ship wreck (this was just me Jez and Weeze, it was a bit too far out for the others) and hand fed wild Dolphins! Jez had also organised for us to join his friends annual Jefferson's Drinking Bike Tour, a 50km ride down the coast stopping at 17 surf clubs for a "Pot of New". It was a great day however Page didn't come, which was probably a good thing as I heard Doyle describing the day as "feral"......not her favourite adjective for a day! Another great activity was Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary where we fed Kangaroos (some of them were huge!) and held Koalas. Page was particularly excited about holding the Koala, named Phoebe, especially as she got to hold it twice due to my eyes being closed in the first picture.

Byron Bay was calling after the Gold Coast, and when we arrived we saw lots of cool shops, bars and cafes. And of course a great beach for me to jump waves. Page loved it here, and it was her favourite place in Oz. We stayed at a backpacker's hostel, and Page and I went wave jumping in the morning and I was proud she got in the sea! We walked to the most easterly point in Oz and upto a lighthouse with killer views of the ocean. We spent a lot of time at The Balcony bar and ordered strange drinks from hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps, a whole coconut to iced fruit frappes.

We headed back to the Gold Coast for a few days, then said our said goodbyes to Kyle and Weeze as they went back to the real. Page, Doyle and I made our way to Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, which really is as amazing as people say it is. We booked a boat trip and it took us 2 hours to get out to the outer reefs, but it was definitely worth it. I was a bit nervous about how Page was going to do in the open ocean but she put on a life jacket and hopped straight in - what a trooper!! We snorkelled for about 2 ½ all together at 2 different sites and saw some amazing fish, a lot like the beginning of Finding Nemo. I grabbed page's hand and we snorkelled after huge rainbow coloured fish, defiantly a highlight of our Ozzie trip.

Today we are back in Brisbane staying with Jez, awaiting our flight to Singapore. Page is giddy with excitement about entering Asia, I hope it lives upto her dreams!