I arrived into Hervey Bay around 6pm in the evening after a fairly long bus journey from Maroochydore. We were given drinks and muffins upon check-in and it was there that I met a girl called Christina. I had enquired about tours to Fraser Island and also Whale Watching as a few people had recommended this to me.Christina also wanted to do these tours so we decided to do them together...and then we found out we was also in the same room! So we ended up spending hanging out quite a lot!

That evening we headed to the bar for food and drink. Pitchers were on offer so we grabbed a couple of those whilst watching the rugby. Turns out we ended up quite tipsy and sat with quite an amusing German guy! Or maybe we were just drunk? who know's!! After that we headed to bed and prepared ourselves for the 7am pick up the next day! Awesome!

So 6:30am and the alarm goes off...groggy head from the beer..ouch!! We headed to reception and our sail boat was cancelled because it was too small for the high winds so we were transferred to a catamaran which was slightly larger and apparently had better food!! (that's the important bit for us backpackers!!) The only down side was we weren't been picked up until 9am so we could have had a lay in!! Nevermind, we opted for breakfast instead!

At 9am we were collected from our hostel and transferred to the harbour where we boarded our catamaran.

Due to the winds the journey out to sea was fairly rough, but they put on morning tea! Amazingly yummy profiteroles, fruit, tea, coffee and hot chocolate! so that passed some time! It was quite good fun just chilling at the front of the catamaran anyway!

When we were out at sea we started to spot the whales...they were amazing! and we got so close!! they were breaching out of the water with their calves. Only downside was how huge the waves were!! Me and Christina were stood right at the front and I honestly thought I would be thrown overboard and eaten by a whale-much to Christina's amusement!! We must have watched the whales for a couple of hours before going inside for lunch...amazingly yummy buffet :-) it's all about the food haha!! So in true Sarah style I got my money's worth and filled up...didn't want to have to eat weetabix that night!!

After lunch we headed nearer to the beach where more whales had been spotted, again we got amazingly close to them and saw some huge jumps from the water!! Couldn't have wished for a better day!! So a few more hours watching the whales and then it was time to head back...but first afternoon tea!! Wow we were fed like queens!! So we had more profiteroles, fruit and cheese and crackers!! Oh and we bought a bottle of red wine to share!! Awesome day and a fun journey home!!

At the harbour we were collected and transferred back to our hostel, we showered and headed to the bar for a few drinks and a bite to eat (I ate like a queen that day!!!)

The following morning we had to be up early again for our trip to Fraser Island...and no thanks to the horrific snorer in our room we managed to get up!! So 7am we were up and ready to go...we were taken from the hostel in 4x4's and our guide troy was quite cool. We did however have a really annoying old german lady/bag in our jeep...wow she annoyed us!!

Anyway the excursion was cool, we headed firstly to the ferry which took about 40minutes across to the island and then we drove through rainforest and along to the beach.

There was one area though where the tide had come in and it was too deep for us to drive through so we had to wait a while. They put on morning tea for us and advised us to walk to a cool creek to take a look at...which all of our group did except me and Christina...no...we met a group of 6/7 fishermen!! Old ones but we got talking and they offered us a beer!! so we sat down with them, chatted, drank beer, then another and another!! and then our tour guide came and just laughed! I'm not one to say no to free beer and they were a funny group of 'old' men haha and it passed the time!!

Once the tide had gone back in we headed further up the beach, checked out the ship wreck, looked out over Lake Wabby, had a champagne lunch and then headed to Lake McKensie.

The Lake was gorgeous, crystal clear!! We took a dip which was a little bit fresh but really cool!!

After that we headed back and took the ferry over to the mainland! It was a pretty cool day out!!

Once we were back at the hostel we went straight to bed!! In hope that we would get some sleep in before the Canadian girl returned!! or should I say the killer snorer!! We ended up sleeping until next morning...with numerous wake ups from the snorer during the night!!

The next day was a free day until we had to catch the overnight bus to Airlie Beach.

So we headed to the harbour cafe's for coffee and cakes, chilled out and then caught the painful 12hour bus overnight...this was truely painful!! the bus was full so there wasn't any room to spread out!! We finally made it to Airlie Beach around 8am...shattered!!!