Hello to everyone!!

Bout time I caught up with the Blog... my sister is pestering me now so here it is!!

After I wrote to you from the library in Tannum Sands me and Greg jumped straight in to the mobile oven and headed further north... The next major stop on the way up was GLADSTONE. This is more of an industrial town and we were getting funny looks as we were driving through. We didn't stop the van because there wasn't much to see or do there but we did take a photo of a ship because it really did look weird to have this big industrial area in Australia. As stupid as it sounds you dont see Australia as anywhere Industrial. In Aimee world Australia is all beaches and sunshine!

Past Gladstone is a place called ROCKHAMPTON, where they love their cows.. There are 2million cows within a 250k radius, and you can smell their poo!! This was a really old school place, there were plenty of places that were closed down and the buildings hadn't been updated in a while. It gave the impression that it was once the place to be but people had now moved on. We were now in crocodile territory. A 12m crocodile was spotted there last year just hanging around the river. Cages had been laid to catch the croc but some very brave person had filled the cage with an inflatable crocodile for a joke instead.... It was not Greg Dundee by the way. We spent one night in Rockhampton because the humidity the further north you go is really hard to handle. Parking up on the side of the road and leaving the door open while you sleep doesn't let you drop off quite as easy as counting sheep!

The next morning we headed off towords our next stop MACKAY which was very similar to Rockhampton exept more of an L.A version with up to date buildings and a few more palm trees. It was getting hotter the more we moved on so we spent a lot of our time hiding out in the shopping centre to make the most of their Air Condittioning and the 50c Ice Creams from Burger King!! We decided to head for the beach to cook our dinner. When we got there the beach was closed because they had found stingers in the water. I was beginning to think that we had picked the wrong time to be travelling north. It was getting too hot (thats right I'm complaining about the heat!!) and you couldn't go in the water to cool off because of the crocodiles and jelly fish... both of which will kill you!

After one night in Mackay we decided to head on to AIRLIE BEACH. I was really looking forward to this stop because the name makes it sound great. And it was, you couldn't go in the water though but we started to feel like we were back in the mixer with the rest of the backpackers. It was made up of one strip that had all the bars, hostels and shops on. The beach wasn't what I expected but it was pituresque anyway. We had the usual trouble of finding somewhere to sleep where we wouldn't get woken up by official looking people. We ended up driving out of the main area and parking in a side street away from the drunk people.
We were at the a little way out of Airlie Beach one day and this guy pulled up in his car, I noticed something a bit weird looking on his windscreen. Just as I took a closer look it moved... bloody fast too... up to the top of the car. Now, remember the visitor we had in our camper in Maryborough?? I had just found his long lost father. This spider was so big the guy asked the local petshop if they wanted to take him on... The Australians treat these things like puppies!! He was touching it and everything while I ran away and screamed!!

Airlie beach was a turning point in the journey (litterally). It was getting far to hot and we knew that the further north we went the worse it was going to get. So we made the decision to do a U turn and head straight back down to Brisbane. This was a wise decision as over the next couple of days the places that we were due to stop in the north had record numbers of rainfall. Resulting in major flooding and the one town being cut off. We were lucky that we turned around when we did!! The drive back meant that we would spend two days solid driving so to occupy ourselves we played a game of 'beep your horn' with the truck drivers. I clearly won this compettition because as you will see from thr photos I managed to get a mile long train to beep his horn at us!! A lot of the photos are of us posing as well making out like we are movie stars!! haha!

We made our way back to one of our favourite spots ELLIOT HEADS, this was the most postcard beach that we had seen so far and didn't get too busy. We had timed it right with the wind too!! Greg was out everyday for hours at a time kitesurfing and there was perfect condittions to get me started. I was being pulled all over the place in the style of Super girl. I would go up in the air quite high and then smash down in the water. I couldn't even make it look good – legs and arms everywhere and when I surfaced from the water I would spit salt water out of my nose..... very attractive!! But after the third day I managed to get a couple of runs in and was going back and fore looking like I sort of knew what I was doing! Greg of course was loving his time on the water and getting in some massive jumps and spins while I stood on the side and watched!!

We were now at the end of the camper journey and it was time to hand it back. After 5 whole weeks in the van I was glad to hand it back and get in to a house with walls and floors. We are now back in Brisbane staying in a typical Australian house. For the past three weeks we have looked solidly for work however the recession is happening over here so today we have made the decision to head down to MELBOURNE where a friend of mine has managed to sort us out some work.

We will be doing 6 months worth of work then more than likely do some fruit picking after that, but our plans are ever changing. There are still many places that we have to see and we will be doing them soon no doubt!

I hope everyone is well back home.... miss you all!

Lots of love
Aimee and Greg
xxx