Hello Everyone!

Well first i feel i have to apologise for not getting onine for such a while. it has been an absolute nightmare to find internet access. we have mainly been in small towns that downt have internet cafes, or if they do they never seem to be open! I find it hard when i cant get online to write on my blog, becausei miss you all so much when i write on my blog it feels like i am talking to you by telling you what i am up to, and also i am usin this blog as a diary for myself to read when i get home, and i forget what i have been doing. it also means i havent got to speak to anyof you on skype, so sorry about that. i should also apologise for my typing as i am using the worlds worst keyboard, it misses out half the letters i type. i aslo have now manaed to get my skydiving pics online now. you will be able to tell the ones taken with my camera and the ones with the handycam, some of the steamed up at the end so arent good.

Anyway, so sicne i last wrote we have been doing as much as we can to sleep in the van for free, so have been enerally sleepin in laybys, service stations although we did get woken up again by a council inspector and told to move it. oops. We stayed in Townsville another nights, then we moved on down to arlie bay, and went on a day trip to the whitsunday islands, we went to hamilton island (which is essentially a resort islan full of rich people, expensive shops and resorts we cant afford to stay in). we then went to whitehaven beach, which was beautiful (see above pic). We have since been driving further south to try and make it to brisbane intime for out van drop back date. However yesterday we had a bit of a mishap when we got caught by the cops for speeding. we were clocked doing 119k's in a 100k area, although we thought the limit was 110k, so were realy pissed off. We got a $200 fine!!! it was veryy annoyed becasue the copper told us last speed road sign was 50K previous, so when you are driving all day it is hard to know waht the limit is when the speed signs are so far apart. the guy wouldnt let us off. Grr. lee was driving although we have decide to share the cost, becasure if it was me driving i would have been dong the same. we were lucky he didnt catch us a few moments before when we werew doing 140k. so i suppose it could have been worse. we decided to swap drivers at that point, then a few metres down the road i got stopped and breathalised! it is a bank holiday weekend here (the queens birthday, how come we dont et that at home?!) so i think they were out on force. so we have just spent a couple of days just driving, and arrived today in Hervey Bay. we have booked on a day trip for Fraser Island for tomorrow, the biggest sand islan in the world. the whole idea of going to fraser island is really to hire your own 4wd with a group of others, and stay there for two nights/three days and eplore the isan yourself and camp. this is what most people do, but becasue we have to return the van by friday this isnt going to work for us, plus we are tight on money and want to get to see australia zoo before we return the van. so we are going for the organised day trip in a huge 4wd, kind of feel we are missing out a little bit but will see how it goes.

so i think it is fair to say that i'm not enjoying australia as much as i thought i would. and i do really miss asia and have even considered flying aback there, but am going to stick at it for a while. it is just like driving around devon an cornwall, exept the villages here arent as pretty. the people are so so friendly, which is a different to home, much more relaxed, but there isnt that much to do, unless you wanna spend a lot of money. all the towns are very small, with exactly the same chain shops in them so each place is pretty much the same, and everywhere has the most annoying opening hours imaginable. alot of places tend to shut at noon (not great when you are waking up at ten) on staurdays, if they open at all, everywjhere is shut ion a sunday, and a lot of places close at noon or 3 or 4 during the week, which is such a nightmare. So yeah, missing home a lot at the moment and getting annoyed with australia. getting causght speeding by some jobsworth doesnt help either. I think i will start to enjoy it more when we get down to brisbane, as there seems a lot to do there, although everything is so expensive here its annoying.

i know i have done some other stuff in between all that, although i cant remember what it is now! this is what happens when i dont write in my blog for a while. probably generally driving through each town, gettin gout, havin ga look around and gettin gback in the car, eatin gsome cadburys chocolate (which is NOT the same here, they put weird cheicals in it so it doesnt melt so it tastes weird, but they do a giant caramello bar which means th caramel takes the taste of the choclate away) and driving on. will let you know in my next bog if i remember anything else!

god this keyboard is so annoying.....

hope you like my sky diving pics.