We've had quite a few adventures since our last blog update. On our way south to meet up with Thomas we spent a night in a deserted (and run down...) National Park campground. The sun had hardly gone down when we head "funny" noises outside our van. "Spotlighting" (as the Australians like to call "shining a flashlight into a poor nocturnal animals eyes") showed two as of yet unidentified critters all over our campsite. At some point we heard a noise by our front window - Jason removed the curtain to be face to face with the critter balancing on our windshield wiper staring into our van.... uncomfortable.. we had a great laugh - check out the pictures to get an idea of what we saw .

From there we headed to Cape Hillsborough NP to meet up with Thomas. We were so excited to finally get some company that we setup camp like the "Gray Nomads" and sat outside our van looking out for Thomas not daring to move away from the van and miss his much anticipated arrival. It was a fun reunion and we chatted all afternoon/night. It turned out that Thomas didn't have a tent, having, so far, stayed in motels but he was considering buying a tent. At this point I have to add the story of the "rescued" (or stolen as I like to call it) tent: A few nights earlier in a caravan park (I am not going to put the city down for safety reasons...) Jason noticed a tent piled on top of the washing machine. It was there all afternoon and still there at 10pm... and a few minutes later is was all packed up in our van . We set it up the next day expecting missing pegs and tears - nope, it was a perfectly good tent. Jason claims that someone left it on the washer because they didn't use it anymore, I think someone may have washed it. Whatever - Thomas LOVES his little Chinese tent and puts it to good use .

The three of us headed to Airlie Beach (party central, just what we needed...) to check-in for our 3day/2night sailing trip. Our crew of two and fellow 10 travellers where a great group, no party boat with lights out at 9pm! We sailed to the outer islands, snorkelled at one reef and spent the night moored in Whitehaven Beach (THE place to be, as we've been told). In the middle of the night the bilge pump alarm went off and it took a couple of minutes to a) figure out what caused the alarm and b) to turn if off. Needless to say it wasn't the best sleep we got and we looked pretty worn out in the morning. Some beach time, more snorkelling, more sailing to our next nights mooring opposite a posh 6star resort. We spent the evening eating spaghetti Bolognaise off plates on our laps, drinking boxed red wine while gazing at the rich and famous resort - the $15'000 pP/pNight was out of our league . That night we got woken by a buoy banging on the hull of the boat - it felt like lying right next to a massive church bell ringing for mass! That also took a while to fix - sleep? In the morning Jason decided to go for a swim... without the very flattering "stinger suit" - only to get a few small burns and later being told that the deadly jellyfish actually are in the water even at this time of year.... LUCKY. Needless to say that we donned the suits for all following swims! That last day we also saw a few dolphins and a humpback whale. It stayed next to our boat for the longest time, sticking out its tale - almost looked like synchronized swimming - beautiful creatures!

Back in the campground, all squeaky clean, fed and sipping red we had to admit that we were all looking forward to sleeping in a van/tent with enough room to turn over, having a full-sized bathroom only a short walk away - with privacy and not 14 other people waiting to use that same toilet. Funny how priorities shift .

We'll spend another few days with Thomas, doing some hiking in National Parks, some beach walking and lots of chatting, eating and drinking.