We got into Airlie Beach at 7am after our 14 hour bus journey and were surprised but pleased to be able to check into our room immediately. We went straight to bed until lunchtime then got up to look around town and have a swim in the manmade lagoon. Swimming in the sea without a stinger suit is not allowed here as there are lots of jelly fish so the only swimming you CAN do is in the lagoon or pools. It's a bit tame but you can see why. The next day we trekked ...

Hervey Bay is actually three seaside towns that have amalgamated into one over the years. This means that there are a few almost-towncentres but no real heart to the place. Most people come here for the reputably excellent whalewatching or to make the trip to Fraser Island. We did neither, seeing as we have done both before, and found that there was not a great deal else to do. Luckily this suited us just fine; after camping we were wiped and just glad to be bac...

Since the last blog entry we've been fairly busy. We've spent three nights in Brisbane, three nights in Rainbow Beach and two nights camping on Fraser Island. The highlight of Brisbane was definitely dinner with Sara, an Aussie I used to work with in London. She took us to an Italian restaurant where you order pizza by the metre and to a dessert restaurant where I ordered chocolate and cherry cheesecake with double clotted cream and ice cream AND chocolate sauce...

Surfers Paradise is delightfully trashy compared to Byron Bay. It's full of high rise apartments, casinos and sin city style nightclubs. I think one club is even called 'Sin City'. We've seen dozens of promotions girls walking down the street in gold lame bikinis or similarly skimpy getup. The hostel sent a limo to pick us up. It reminds us a bit of Vegas :-) On our first day here we went for a wander round town and along the beach. We stumbled across a Nandos a...

The weather has been amazing the last few days and we both have cute rosy cheeks and not so cute burnt shoulders. You know how much it hurts when someone touches sunburnt skin? Painful right? Now imagine trying to lug 15kg of crap around on lobster shoulders. Not clever. We found that out the hard way when we walked to the bus stop this morning. As you may have guessed from the fact that we're burnt, we've spent the last three days down at the beach. It's easy t...