Sorry I've not been on for so long to update you all with my antics but i have actually been fairly busy...and fairly lazy as well. But here is the next instalment for you all....

After an emotional exit from Sydney, we headed up to Byron Bay for a spot of chillaxing and sunbathing at the gorgeous beach there. WE'd been told to book some accomodation for when we got there coz after Christmas and New Year is when everybody goes there so there's always a shortage of places to stay. Well me and Jade thought that this didnt apply to us and that they would just be somewhere to stay coz we said so. How wrong. We showed up at 8am in Byron after a 12 hour bus journey and there was absolutely no where! Oh dear. Our friends Adam and Dave were already at a hostel and they were heading upto Brisbane later on that day so we decided to get back on the bus and head up to Surfers Paradise coz we heard that it was good for a night out up there. So after a quick visit to Byron Beach and after we'd snuck in the boys hostel for a sneaky shower to freshen up, we got back on the bus. Another mistake....it broke down 1 hour away from Surfers. Tragic. We were told that it could take anything upto 5 hours to get another bus out to us or to get this one back running again so me Adam Jade and Dave decided that we were going to get pretty hungry by that time so we went for a short walk to the supermarket and after several packets of crisps and sweets later, we returned back to the bus to find one extremely annoyed bus driver and thirty or so people sat on a boiling hot bus waiting for the wanderers return. Oops. Anyway, we made it upto Surfers Paradise and spent a couple of very quiet days there as Jade wasnt feeling too well (lady problems).

After a chilled out Surfers, we headed on up to Brisbane. Not much to see or do there as its just another big city so we only spent the one night there and again did absolutely nothing except wander around like always trying to figure out whats what. Then we got on the train (makes a change from the damn bus) and went up to a place called Noosa Heads where we once again met up with Adam and Dave (just cant get rid of them...following us everywhere!! ha) Noosa is a lovely place but unless you're a millionaire with a house and a boat, again there's not much to do.

So after a night in Noosa Heads, we were off to Hervey Bay which was where we would begin our Fraser Island trip.

Fraser Island is an island where groups of travellers hire out a big 4x4 vehicle and pretty much drive around like lunatics on the beach and then camp for the night. We did the 3 day 2 night trip and i think that was definitely enough.

We had an early start from Hervey Bay (6am!) as we had to have a briefing on how to drive the car (if you can call it that) and how and where to pitch the tent etc, then we had to be put into groups of 10, go and buy our food for the next couple of days and most importantly the alcohol!! Then we had to be on the barge by 10.30am. Once in our groups, of course i volunteered to be the guinea pig first driver and after a slightly bumpy start, we were off.

The first day was a lot of driving around and visiting certain places on the map. a gorgeous lake being one of them that was at the bottom of a massive sand dune. After a swim in there, we headed off to set up camp for the night. We found a spot with some of the other cars from our group (there were 5 of us altogether) and after a tremendous effort from the girsl putting the tents up, we got the BBQ on the go. A few sausages and glasses of wine later...we had a good little party going in the middle of nowhere. Every half hour or so, we would switch the engine of the car on the recharge the battery coz we were using the headlights to see, and when it was my turn to do it.....i saw a Dingo. Walking right past me. Unlike me, i got a bit scared and had to make Jade come with me if i wanted to go to the toilet. ha.

The next morning there were 10 sore heads in the camp and 4 were worse than the others. Us 6 girls had 2 tents between us and the 4 boys had one tent for them all...the tent that me jade and another girl Emma put up. Well aparently in the night, that tent had fallen down....5 times. Oh dear. They were adamant that they wanted that tent coz it was the biggest so they only had themselves to blame. It rained most of the second day so we didnt really get to see much. We did some more becah driving and then set up camp for the second and final night. Well since it was our last night, it would've been rude not to have a drink or two so after our second BBQ, thats exactly what we did but was a lot tamer as we were all knackered! No more Dingoes were spotted that night but i was still crapping myself coz i knew they were out there somewhere.

Our final day. No tents had fallen in the night and everyone was in a good mood. Until we came to start the engine.....nothing but a splutter. Looks like we didnt leave it running for long enough the night before. Amateurs. So we had to flag someone down who came to the rescue and had jump leads to get us goin again and we were back on the road! Phew. that $500 deposit on the car would have been long gone if it hadnt started again. We went to yet another lake which was even mroe stunning then the first on we saw and the sun was shining and the day was perfect. Then it was the annoying task of getting back on the barge over to Hervey Bay and unpacking everything and cleaning out the 10 tonnes of sand we seemed to of acculmulated on our trip.

All in all we had an amazing time and although we had almost no sleep and no showers for 3 days, was well worth doing.