Hey again! Its been a little while since I've updated the site but I've had a busy and brilliant time. Im now writing from Queenslands capital and Australia's third largest city, Brisbane. The last I left it on here I was just leaving Cairns, and as expected since doing so the travelling has really picked up. From Cairns to Brisbane we stopped off on Magnetic Island, made our way down to Airlie beach to sail the Whistsundays, coached it south to Rainbow beach to go to Fraser Island, continued down to Noosa for a few days, then ended up here in Brisbane. Magnetic Island was our first stop after Cairns and it was exactly the chilled out couple of days we needed. Its a pretty quiet island and all we really did was soak up the scenery and go on a couple of scenic walks. We then headed to Airlie beach to sail the beautiful Whitsundays Islands. Our boat was a sailing race boat, and the reality of this didnt quite strike me until we were well underway with the wind beneath our sails. I had no idea how far the boat actually tips, I swear we were horizontal for most of it with our mast nearly touching the water! We all got soaked and were clinging on tightly for most of the journey, but it was all good fun. Our boat even came with a one eyed crewman with an eye patch- no joke! We stopped off a couple of times to snorkel and i finally managed to see a turtle! We also saw a school (school? class? group? gaggle?) of whales in the distance from the boat and were joined by a couple of dolphins who jumped alongside us for a while! The highlight of that trip though had to be Whitsunday Island itself, and the spectacularly beautiful white sand beach. When we got onto the beach we all suddenly lost 15 years and we ran around like primary school kids in a sand pit, splashing in the water and playing in the sand! After our sailing trip we headed south to Rainbow beach which was essentially the gateway to yet another island. Fraser Island is apparently the sandiest island in the world, and for me it was one of the best things I've done on my travels so far. It goes a little something like this- they give u a 4x4 truck, put u in a group consisting of 10 travellers like myself, and wave u off on a ferry to Fraser for 3 days with little more than a safety talk and a video to advise you how to behave. Needless to say we ended up having a wicked time. We were lucky in that our group was cool and got on well. This was our group: Myself (of course), J (the jester), crazy German Tim (whose hat i nicked, see the photos), Mike (who i knew from the west coast and would later be involved in an unfortunate incident relating to a coconut smelling of horse s***), Sarah + Erika (whom we got on well with despite them coming from leeds), the german girls Karen, Andrea and Susie (who we got on well with despite them coming from germany) and Irish Chris, another jester of sorts. German Tim was a bit of a liability at times, but a decent guy. He spent most of his time throwing a ball as far as he could into the water, swimming after it, then throwing it further in, like a dog playing catch with itself. On the 2nd day after a liason with an Irish girl the night before, he coined my second favourite quote of the 3 days- ''my testicles really hurt'' (said with strong german accent!). My favourite quote came from Mike. On the first day we pulled over on the beach to stop for an impromptu game of rounders with a branch for a bat. While playing we noticed a coconut had washed up on shore and it was agreed that it would make a fine dessert for later. Later came and Mike used his swiss army knife to puncture a hole in it, and the smell that wafted up can only be described as smelling exactly like horse s***. He concluded it was best to throw it away, but was then convinced by chris to smash it open 'just to check'. Needless to say he smashed it open and the 'milk' splattered all over him and covered his face. He STANK, and provided my favourite quote of my time there "My face stinks of s***". I have photos of him still trying to clean his face the next morning. In fact, i think i can still smell him. I also have some really cools photos of sunrise on the 2nd day, and of the colour of the moon on the first night.... it was RED! RED! the moon! After Fraser we headed back to rainbow beach and J and I surfed for a few hours which was brilliant fun! its such a wicked sport, and we managed to get photos of that too! How cool do i look surfing! After our time on in Rainbow/Fraser we headed further south to Noosa. After parting ways with J whos headed to New Zealand, I went to the national park and then to Steve Irwins zoo the next day! It was good fun and i also learnt alot. Unfortunately i was 2 weeks too late to see the oldest living mammal in the world. Hariett, the 175 year old tortoise had just passed away. She was so old, that Charles Darwin brought her back to the UK in the 1830s! And these scientist types clearly arent too clever cos she was first a "Harry" and it took until the 1960s for them to realise she was in fact a "Hariett"! But i also learnt what a lot of animals looked like. If you thought a wombat was a nocturnal bird like animal which sleeps upside down, or that a tazmanian devil was only a cartoon character who spins around, then have a look at the photos for the reality of it all! From the zoo, clued up about my wildlife and amused and strangely admiring at how crazy Steve Irwin is, I headed down to Brisbane where I am now writing to you from. I hope you're all keeping well, keep posting on the board or emailing me to let me know what ur up to. All the best, Si