We left Brisbane & caught a bus down the Gold Coast to Surfers Paradise. It was time for a little beach relaxation & the sun had made a reappearance just in time. We checked into our hostel & headed into the town to look around. With a mixture of souvenir shops, fairground rides & neon lights, it was like being in Australia's version of Blackpool. We found the strip of clubs & pubs fairly easily & spent the evening at an Irish Pub that...

We jumped on to the Oz Experience bus, naturally with Sally & Lou in tow, & headed towards Brisbane. The two girls got off the bus a bit earlier as they were staying a couple of nights in Noosa, so we would meet up with them again once they arrived in Brisbane. We had arranged to meet up with Anne-Marie (who we had met on our Vietnam & Laos tours) & she kindly let us stay with her at her apartment. We arrived at hers & promptly had a chill ...

I awoke the following morning & heading to the nearest bush in order to answer the call of nature, I stumbled across Joel.....asleep in a bush!! Although he doesn't recall anything, he apparently got up in the night & decided that a bush was much comfier than a tent & sleeping bag. It was amazing that he didn't get bitten or attacked by one of the wild dingoes that inhabit the island. Whereas mainland dingoes (they look like a mangy cross between a...

Miraculously Joel was still alive in the morning but thankfully it was my turn to drive, as I'm sure Joel would have been over the limit for about a week. We headed off down the beach & stopped off at Eli Creek. This was a freshwater stream that flowed out of the rainforest & into the sea. It was only waist deep so you could walk from the top of it, all the way back down to the beach. With the sun beaming down, it was extremely refreshing to float dow...

We started early that morning so we could make use of the daylight on Fraser Island. We were all assigned to a 4x4 making sure that drivers were split evenly throughout the cars. Joel & I were both driving & were put in a group with Phil (a fellow Brit) & Ryan, Zach, Nicole, Kirsten & Hannah ( 5 Americans over in Oz studying). Thankfully they were much more tolerable than the previous Yank we had met. In fact, they probably made our weekend!! ...