From our campsite in Ipswich outside of Brisbane we headed on up the coast for a few quick stops at Bridie Island, Pomona, and then the lovely Noosa Heads before arriving at Gympie.

Gympie was our home for four nights, staying at a free rest stop on the edge of town, waiting until money was transferred from our UK accounts, as we had managed by this point to get down to our last $'s! But salvation came in the form of a tax rebate for Sasha, and money from some freelance work Ollie had done before we left the UK! But Gympie was the ideal location to wait it out, with our free camping spot, free Internet and power sockets at the Library, and even the opportunity to try out our solar shower!! If you have not seen or used one before, they are basically a big bag that you fill with water, one side of it being black, that you leave out in the sun to heat up for three hours, to give you (as quoted on the shower) a "relaxing hot shower"!

So after three nights and no shower, we decided to give it a go, to at least wash our hair. After three hours sitting out in the sun, our "relaxing hot shower", was FREEZING, but we finally had clean hair!. . . unfortunately though we still had smelly armpits!

After four nights it was time to hit the road a little further to another free site which we knew had showers, in a tiny little village called Bauple. Here we camped next to a recreation ground and hall used by the scouts, which conveniently has an toilet block outside! Even more convenient was access to a plug point on the side of the building which gave us the opportunity to cut Ollie's hair with the clippers! Ollie then attempted to cut in a straight line through Sasha's with a pair of scissors! And even if we do say so ourselves we did a very good (free) job!

Then it was time to wash off all the cut hair in a nice hot shower! Only to find that the nice boiler connected to the shower didn't work and so it was time to endure a bone achingly cold shower! Which was most definitely the quickest either of us has ever showered before!

That night with head torch on, we headed off to the toilet block to clean our teeth before bed. The toilet block, although having electric, had no lights on inside, and no light switch to turn any on. But more than used to it now, we are accustomed to weeing while holding a torch! So teeth cleaned, Sasha heads into one of the cubicles where the toilet lid is down. With some toilet paper in hand ready to bat away any bugs that might be sitting on or under the seat, she is instead greeted with the most ginormous frog! Sitting there in the toilet bowl! With a high pitched scream, drop of the toilet lid and a run to the safety of outside the cubicle, Sasha then urged Ollie to look! So Ollie heads into the cubicle, with torch in hand, and bravely lifts the toilet lid with the very tip of his foot! And is again greeted with the most ginormous frog! With a slightly lower pitched scream, drop of the toilet lid and a run to the safety of outside the cubicle we then had to summon up the courage to try the other cubicles!

So Sasha heads into another cubicle, and although the toilet lid is up, decides to flush the toilet first before using! When out flys a frog that had been happily sitting under the rim in the toilet, and lands on the side of the toilet bowl! Toilet number two out of action!

Third time lucky and the cubicle was not only frog free, but bug free! Phew!

From Bauple we headed to a paid site on the edge of Maryborough as we had prearranged to Skype Helen, Mark, Tones and Shamin, as well as the parents! Not Helen, Mark, Tones and Shamin's parents that is! Our parents! Only to find that once we had paid, set up camp, and put our washing on, that we could not get onto the Internet!

This we both found quite upsetting, and made us quite depressed for a couple of days as we had been very much looking forward to all the catching up! Although we are having a fantastic time, it's really great to hear from everyone back home once in a while.

On a plus note however, we met a lovely (crazy) old lady at the campsite who told us all about her 11 near death experiences, and who then gave us a beautiful (ghastly) mobile that she had made for us to hang in our camper! We also got to watch a runaway caravan! A caravan that appeared to be safely parked in it's spot suddenly started to move backwards and very quickly pick up the most tremendous amount of speed finally crashing into a raised garden, narrowly missing a parked car and mobile home! Once in it's crashed site the caravan door opened and it's two, very shaken, occupants emerged! It appears that the couple had headed to bed for an afternoon nap and the weight of both of them getting on the bed had dislodged the van! Yeah right!! When the caravan's a rocking . . .

From Maryborough we headed on through Childers, Gin Gin, Bundaberg, Town of 1770 (that's actually the name of the town!!!), Agnes Water and onto Gladstone where the possibility of work was to be found!

After seeing an advert on Gumtree for help with a gardening business we met with the couple that had posted the ad and arranged to start work with them on the Monday. Seb (French) and Rene (Australian) are two 40 year old ex-backpackers who haven't really grown out of the experience, and are now making ends meet by living at a free camping ground, in a tent, on the outskirts of Gladstone, with two four year old boys in tow, doing gardening for the residents of Gladstone.

Monday came with the first shock to our system which was to get up at 6:30am, so that we could meet Rene at 7:30am to follow in convoy to the property we were going to work on.

Rene had already advised us that the property was on the top of a hill, but what she hadn't warned us about was that the garden was actually the sides of the hill!! So for the next seven hours we spent our time, Ollie hauling boulder type rocks from the front garden to the back and planting huge succulent type plants down the side of the hill which was a good 70 degree angle, and Sasha weeding and pruning in a bedding area that was again at around 70 degrees in angle. All done in 22'C heat that due to the thin ozone and high UV feels like 35'C! Thankfully no snakes where seen, and only harmless spiders were found, but we did come across three cane toads!

After seven hours that felt like hell, with aching muscles all over, and a touch of sun stroke we headed to a gas station for a free shower, vowing that we would not be doing another day! But after a beer and some food we managed to convince ourselves that we could give it one more chance! However, it then turned in our favour (well at least for our muscles) that Seb and Rene had under quoted for the job we were on and couldn't keep us on. And so with no other work in the pipeline with them we gratefully took our money and drove as fast as we could to Rockhampton!

Crossing the Tropic of Capricorn, arriving in Rockhampton, we headed to their free zoo which we arrived at in time to see the two chimpanzees being fed yogurt and orange juice and the the chance to stroke one of the koalas! Before heading off to a fantastic free campsite in the town of St Lawrence! Here we stayed for three nights with the bonus of hot showers that cost just $1 for three minutes, Sasha finding that one of the showers in the Ladies not requiring the said dollar, and having no time limit!!

From St Lawrence we drove on to Mackay and into the Eungella National Park, an amazingly beautiful area but one that the camper didn't enjoy too much!

Just five kilometres from our destination we see signs indicating that we are about to drive up a steep incline, and so slowly but surely the van makes it up the worst of this incline and we decide to stop at a lookout across the valley. Returning to the camper we see green liquid pouring out of the car! From previous experience we knew that the van had over heated and coolant was now pouring out onto the tarmac below! So with heaters on full we drove on one kilometre to where we knew we could park up for a while and let the van cool down while we attempted to spot platypus. Platypus are most commonly seen at Dawn and dusk but we were lucky enough to see one of the tiny little creatures swimming and diving around in search for food!

With a cooled down engine we headed on back to Mackay to buy coolant, and then onto Airlie Beach, and yesterday arriving in Townsville.

Today we have spent a fantastic day in Townsville, walking along the Strand before cooling off in the sea! The plan had been to head to the town's Rock Pool, an artificial swimming area where sea water is pumped in through a filter to provide a safe swimming area away from the stingers (jelly fish). But our timing being as impeccable as ever, had us turning up, swimmers on, towels in hand, only to find the pool empty of water, and instead full of workmen doing maintenance!

We intend to stay here a couple of days and then make our way on up to Cairns to meet up with JJ and Sam and explore the Great Barrier Reef!