Well hello there! VERY long time no speak! infact nearly 4 weeks!!!! there a good reason for the lack of bloggage, and that been i have been working! yep, grafting hard for 3 weeks, its been really nice actually getting stuck into earning some cash, after writing my last blog i spent the day searching around for some cash-in-hand work however was unsucessful. However once i got picked up by a friend and got chatting to her about work she managed to hook me up some work at her parents house! $15 an hour, 5 days a week for 3 weeks! sweet! landed right on my feet. So i basically spent 3 weeks working outside at Adele's parents house, cutting grass, cleaning out the pool, weeding, just general dogs body really but i didnt care, i was getting paid for it! I even managed to get some work at there next door neighbours house, and even further i ended up working down at some horse paddocks!So yeah 3 weeks of working was perfect for me to get some extra beer money in the back pocket.

So Adele & Kate (adeles housemate) put me up for 4 weeks at her house in Brisbane which was nice, free accommodation, good food, alcohol......all the essentials. got use of a car too which was handy to get to work and around Brissie. Brisbane is a nice city, i could quite easily settle there in the Westend area. It seems a proper Australian City unlike Sydney and Melbourne, there is so many tourist there you hardly ever see an ozzie!

Managed to get tickets to go to a Australia Vs South Africa 20/20 game at the Gabba which was pretty special, i love cricket and to see the ozzies battle it out against now the best team in the world was pretty cool. had a good few beers aswell. rude not to really. So Adele and Kates parents are really sweet, they invite us round for tea quite often which is cool as they cook mean BBQ's and roasts! We take a trip out to Straddie (stradbrook island) just off the coast of Brissie, its a beautiful sand island with alot of wildlife and cool beaches. We have a small drama in the morning with Kate hitting her head on the car as she was getting in and managing to split her eyebrow open! 1st hour spent in a 24hour docs! so once glued and patched up we head off around the island to check out some of the sites. We take a walk around point lookout and spot some turtles and dolphins, the main beach is huge and goldern sand, amazing surf break aswell. The waters around here a Shark infested with great whites, that called for a swim! of course! After surviving a deadly swim we hiked to 2 lakes Brown Lake, coloured brown from all the teatree oils and blue lake which was beautiful. we take a well earned swim again! So we spot a snake or 2 and some deadly spiders which was nice. We have a beers on the way back to end the day on a high!

The weekend of the 24th was pretty awesome........it was my Birthday of course! thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone, especially mum for the mini birthday cake you sent. so now at the fair old age of 25 we decide to have a quiet day before going out on the night dressed up as school girls, me and adam that is. Adele and Kate went out as Nuns! there was another reason for this apart from my birthday, it was one of Adeles friends birthday too. so we end up at a houseparty until 3am! Sunday was a quiet one as you can imagine, plus we needed to save ourselves for the 26th which is Australia Day! huge bank holiday of drinking! we go to the Story Bridge Hotel where there is huge street party, live music, cockroach racing....... just a huge party for 12 hours! pretty awesome even though im not an australian, just a good excuse to get wasted! England could do with something like this.......

the floowing week was slow, its rained alot and not much work happening. spend most of the day chilling to save the money, i watch numberous tennis games as its the Australia Open. The following weekend of the 31st Jan was my last weekend in Brisbane, Its Adele and Kate housewarming party so a few farewell drinks are had. I leave early morning on the Monday on the Greyhound to Hervey Bay, the base for lot of backpackers when taking trips to Fraser Island. I meet back up with Adam here as we plan on doing the rest of the Australia trip together.

We leave Hervey Bay early on the ferry for Fraser, 30mins crossing to the largest Sand Island in the World! This island is 125km in length and 20km in width in the widest point. We are doing a guided tour of the island for 3 days staying 2 nights in cabins on the island. Fraser is famous for Dingos as they roam to island scavaging for food, there pretty dangerous and your asked never to approach them or feed them, they have killed small children in the past. We are part of a goupr of around 20 and we are all similar age we all soon get on amazingly, meeting one guy from Cottingham! unbelievable! we visit several lakes on the island, most famously Lake Mackenzie, the clearest feashwater lake around! its so beautiful, we stay there for 3 hours swimming and sunbathing. The night is spent drinking and dancing the night away! we where having a ball.

day 2 was started early, not good when we hit the sack at 3am. we head over the sandy bumpy roads of fraser to the beach, they use the beach as road so we drive north up to Indian Head to see views of the ocean and Fraser, its pretty amazing. we then drive to a shipwreck on the beach before finally heading to the Champagne Pools, a great place to swim and chill out in the rock pools. in the afternoon we head back towards Eli Creek for a swim, you do a hell of alot of swimming on this island, i love it as im a real water baby! Again the night is spent drinking and we squeeze a game of beach volleyball in! got so drunk that night on 10 shots straight i was sick.....whoops!

Day 3, wish it never came around, i was ill, VERY ill....... i soon sobered up though when we got to lake waddy and hiked the sand dunes. this lake was awesome to swim and dive around in. we even got chance to feed the giant catfish in the lake as they swam around your feet! a nice buffet dinner was demolished in no time so we headed off to Lake binabeen, probably the nicest lake iv ever seen, pure white sandy beaches and amazingly warm waters, we sunbathed and played ball there for about 2 hours, also managed to capture some Bull ants and had some ant fights......haha! we all had the best 3 days on the island, the tour guide had an awesome time with us all too. we made some great friends and could quite easily spent another 3 days there just doing it all again.

Me and adam plan on heading north tonight to Airlie Beach to sail the Whitsundays on the barrier reef, should be epic! unfortuately we cannot take the guys with us we have met but thats just the thing when your travelling, meet so many cool people. A Trpoical Cyclone could spoil our time though as all the roads north of Airlie Beach are flooded! gulp! fingers crossed! Over and Out!