Today we left Brisbane and headed to Noosa for a night. Noosa was a very nice place and we managed to chill out on the beach, spend some time in the sea and soak up the sun.

We then headed to Rainbow Beach where we spent another night as this was the place we were being collected for our Fraser Island tour. We had been looking forward to this and it's fair to say that it didn't disappoint! We had a 3 day/2 night tour booked with Cool Dingo tours and was fun right from the start.

We were picked up in a 4x4 coach by an Aussie nutter called Dan. He was a very good laugh and we were quite disappointed that we were only with him for a couple of hours. We had to take a barge across to the island which was about 15 minutes and we just landed on the beach (makes sense when you consider Fraser Island is made up completely of sand! After a short stop for morning coffee at Eurong (we saw 2 wild dingoes on the beach on our way!) we headed to our first main stop at Lake McKenzie. Here we switched to our guide for the rest of the tour and linked up with those that came across from Hervey Bay.

Lake McKenzie was great, the water was lovely, warm and very clear and we spent a good hour or so enjoying a swim. We then had a bit of lunch and headed off to our next stop. This was to the start of a walk taking us to Central Station, it was a nice walk through rainforest and we ended up at the place where people used to live back when they were logging etc. here we saw another couple of wild dingies which was pretty cool. For all the stories, like most other animals in Australia, if you leave them alone they tend to leave you alone. We then did another walk taking us through more rainforest and had some very nice cookies at the end of it, well deserved! We then had a drive to the resort we were staying at so that we could get checked in etc.

We had planned to see the sunset at the beach that evening but there was some room confusion with some other couples so decided to stay until it was sorted. It was a good decision as Tom and Rosie were pretty cool. We headed down to dinner with them and ended up enjoying a good evening of drinks with them and some others on the tour, it was a fantastic night...l

Less fantastic was the 6am wake up call to head down to breakfast the next day, we were being picked up at 7:30 so we made sure we got our fill of bacon and sausages! Everyone was a bit worse for wear after the night before so no one was looking forward to the bumpy coach ride. First we headed to the famous shipwreck of the SS Maheno, it is now mostly covered in sand but you can see just how big it was. On our way here we had the opportunity to take a 15 minute flight over the island on a small plane, we decided to go for it and it was worth it. Taking off and landing on the beach along with some great views made it a very worthwhile experience. From there we headed to Champagne Pools which were basically like a better version of the Bathing Pools with some big waves coming over, this was enjoyed more by the lads than the ladies!

After a spot of lunch we walked up to a shear cliff face and were able to see some rays and even some shared swimming in the water below. When the sharks were spotted a girl asked our your guide (Gaz) if we should shout to the idiot swimming in the sea as a warning, he replied "nah, it's his own bloody fault!". After this we went to Eli Creek, the largest creek on the Island which had enough fresh water flowing out of it to supply Sydney and Melbourne, they don't use it though. The water was freezing but could walk up and down in the creek and even float down in a rubber ring which Jess rather enjoyed. We headed back to the resort and had a much more chilled out evening and took advantage of the pools and not so hot tub that they had on the resort.

On the third day the group thinned out as some were only on a 2 day tour. We first headed to Lake Birrabeen. It wasn't as nice as Lake McKenzie we still enjoyed a nice long swim and some paddle boarding... I was rubbish but Jess did a pretty good job.mfrom there we headed to Eurong for a buffet lunch and then had to endure a pretty rough walk to Lake Wabby. This lake was featured in John Bishop's Australia programme where he went in naked. We didn't follow suit but we did go in for a good swim. It was a fantastic place with amazing sand dunes and the water was nice and warm. The lake is actually disappearing and its predicted it will be gone in 30 years. It used to be a creek so there are still lots of little fish which come on and have a nibble on your dead skin and also a few big catfish swimming around.

From here, we said goodbye to those going back to Rainbow Beach, including Tom & Rosie and also Rhys & Lily who we also spent a lot of time with. We headed back to the resort so we could get the boat back to Hervey Bay.

Fraser Island has probably been our favourite excursion, we did lots of fun things and met some great people, we wish we had much more time there!

We have spent a dat in Hervey Bay in scorching 32 degree heat waiting for our overnight coach to take us to Airlie Beach, that should be a fun 12 hours!