Our five days spent in Brisbane were a welcome change to the many seaside towns in which we had spent the previous couple of weeks, mainly thanks to the hospitality of our hosts David and Michael Rankin and also to being back in the hustle and bustle of a city again. Although we'd heard mixed reports from others about the city (and even from our host David), the weather, atmosphere and everything else made a great change from the beaches and hostels. The best th...

We'd heard lots of good things about Fraser Island from fellow travellers but the idea was still a bit daunting - sending 11 strangers off in a rented 4x4 to camp for 3 days. Luckily 'team A' seemed to get on well from the outset as we got on with the first task of buying enough alcohol to last the experience. Under strict instructions, all groups were in the car park the following morning at 7:30 where we set about packing the roof of the car with 4 tents, 11 s...

The main attraction of 1770, a small town near Agnes Water, where Captain Cook first set foot in Australia in 1770, are the surfing lessons for $16 each. These are cracking value when compared to the rest of the beach towns on the Gold Coast; we were always going to stop here to try our hand at the national hobby. The other reason we loved staying here was the Cool Bananas hostel. Along with Gilligan's in Cairns this has been the best hostel, for the opposite re...

We opted for the daytime bus to Airlie Beach which was a much better idea and we even got to watch a couple of films whilst we were travelling. Having arrived, we headed to Beaches hostel where we believed we'd made a reservation, only to find that internet bookings take 3 days so we hadn't allowed enough time and they were now full up. We considered the best idea was to go to the nearest tourist office and let them do the work for us, but the only thing they cou...

The overnight bus to Townsville and Magnetic Island wasn't as good an idea as first seemed, with a bus being no substitute for the sleeper trains we had frequented in Asia. Stepping off the bus at the ferry terminal to take us to Magnetic Island at 5am, we eventually arrived at the hostel and had to wait until midday to catch up on our sleep. After this, our day got much better, however, as we spent the day sitting by the pool and exploring the beach in the 'sunn...