Hi Everyone!

Its been a while since i last wrote so heres a big update of Gar's and mine adventure up the Gold Coast from Brisbane....

We stopped for 2 nights in a place called Noosa Heads which had a great beach and quite rich surrounds - lots of seaside apartments and boats worth alot of $$$! We met a really nice Irish couple, Nick and Ali, aswell as a couple of english girls, cassie and Elly, who we went out for a few drinks with on the 2nd night! At the end of the night i met a welsh lad called Ben, who unbelievably told me that he has stayed in the b&b cottage on the farmhouse that My Mamgu and Dadcu owned in Cenarth (west wales) - freaky how small the world is! We had a great chat which was sweet! He seemed to love Cenarth almost as much as i did!

The next day we caught the bus up to Hervey Bay. Not too much going on there if im honest, in fact, pretty rubbish! But its the place where everyone leaves for Fraser Island on the 4x4 trip! So we met our group of 11 others that night before getting up at the crack of dawn to get prepared for our 3 days on the "worlds biggest sand island"!

We had a right laugh on the trip, the group gelled really well with a good blend of Brits, dutch germans and Ross the token irish lad (there's always an irish lad about). We never managed to camp where we were supposed to as all of us were 4x4 virgins so it took us a bit longer to get places than what we were told! It was great fun though driving through the forests on the rough tracks, we only got stuck a handful of times between us! Camping out underneath the stars was brilliant fun (except for the horseflies that have scarred all of us with their bites!) We got to see pretty much everything that was recommended, Lake Mackenzie was spectacular, the views off the Indian Heads were gorgeous (even if the seas are deadly!) and i think everyone had a superb time! Even a Dodgy clutch on the last day didnt ruin our trip, though it meant me driving in 2nd gear for 2-3hours across the island (no one else wanted to) to get us to the ferry in time for us to get back! When we got back to the resort in Hervey, the bloke said he knew the clutch was on its way out but still let us drive the truck for 3 days...Couldn't believe it - if it had broken on the 1st day we'd have been stranded - cheers!!!

Unbeknown to us, while we were on Fraser, a mini tropical storm had hit north queensland and basically flooded half the state! This meant that alot of the roads were blocked and so we couldnt get up to Airlie beach in time for our Whitsundays trip which was booked for the monday! We were able to make our way as far as Rockhampton (6 hours south of Airlie) for 2 nights where we stayed in the haunted criterion hotel...Great staff and steaks, shame about how freaky the place was!

We headed upto Mackay (2hours south of Airlie) for 1 night, got there in the middle of the night and caught the next bus out of there - slightly backwards in all honesty! The locals had a weird complexion about them...they all looked related (being polite!)

Finally then Monday afternoon we got to Airlie beach, had a good couple of nights out with most of the same people from our Fraser trip before we set sail on Wednesday for the Whitsunday islands....

Woke up wedsnesday to storms, not a happy bunny! We left anyway in the bloody freezing cold wind and rain and got to our island resort! Basically thats all we could do as the weather had come in really bad and reports of the cyclone off townsville heading towards us didnt make good listening!

The 2nd day was pretty much a washout, though we managed to snorkel for an hour off the island but the sea was murky and barely could see anything of note! We then went out on a booze cruise in the rough seas, good fun, but we couldnt see any islands because of the clouds and fog! Still not a happy bunny!

Yesterday then we woke up and the sun was finally out! We sailed for an hour to another island where we snorkelled for a couple of hours and saw loads of cool fish and corals...finally we had smiles on our faces!

In hindsight we had booked the wrong boat to go out on - it was more of a party boat than a sailing boat so we actually saw very little of the islands - even if the weather had been glorious for 3 days i dont think the crew were keen on doing that much sailing which was pretty annoying for alot of us!

What summed up my trip was at dinner on the 1st night my camera decided to break so i have no photos whatsoever except of us having some food in a pitch black shack because the island had lost all power in the storms! Great eh?!

When we got back to Airlie, we decide that as we've arranged to be in Townsville on the 16th with my Uncle Neil and cousins ben and Sam, we had a bit of spare time so we got the overnight bus (10 hours) to Cairns! There's lots to see and do here so i'll write in a few days with all the details!

Still cant find a internet cafe that lets me upload pics, so will do so asap!

Lloydy

x

p.s Congratulations Pegger and Pippa, Great news about little Daisy Mai! We had a coopers pale or 2 to wet her head!