Hey hey everyone,

Apologies for not updating this before now. Life has been a bit crazy and I have barely been in one place for long enough to look at emails let alone do this. SO today is the day I decided.

I'm in Byron Bay at the moment and only arrived last night so off to explore today. Its supposed to be a very chilled out beach resort with a lighthouse to walk too and see the whales and shraks hopefully. Finally stop is sydney weither tomorrow or sunday.

So since I last wrote I went extremem white water rafting in cairns which really was extreme. Very scary at times. Capsizing all the time, cliff jumping and going down crazy waterfalls. Good fun and would recommend it but in future think I will stick to the normal grade 4 rapids in a boat.

Then I left for Magnetic Island. This is a very beautiful island. FInally a time to just chill out. I met an awesome group of people and we did everything togteher. Lots of beautiful walks where you can see the koalas in the forest. I stayed in a wicked hostel where the koala park was next door so got to kiss a parrot, massage a cocatoo (not sure how you spell that one), hold 4 lizards at once, kiss a corc , cuddle Dexter the koala and had 2 enormous snakes put on me!!!!!

I left them to go dive the Yongala Wreck - one of the top 5 dive sites in the world. Went to a very small place in the middle of nowhere. STaye dthe night and then unfortunately it was cancelled due to poor conditions. I was gutted :-( thought that was my chance to dive the great barrier reef over.

Headed to airlie beach and went on a beautiful sailing boat for 3 days and visited whitehaven beach and snorkelled and dived. A beautiful place and the sun shone a little.

Then headed to hervey bay. This is definitely my highlight so far. Fraser island is just off the coast and is a world heritage park. There were 9 of us in our group and 2 4wds. Only 3 of us were over 25 so we got to do all the driving. Along the beach with the sand dunes one side and the waves crashing on the other, driving in the thickest sand you will have ever seen and driving through the rianforest. We camped for 2 nights and I met the most amazing people. We had such fun. We spent all day visiting beautiful lakes and view points. I saw turtues, whales and dolphins!!!! A memory to treasure most definitely.

Then headed to Noosa - definitely not a backpackers place. Very upmarket and beautiful. I stayed a couple of days and visited Australia zoo. Steve Irwins place. He really is seen as a legend out here! He even has his own highway named after him. Then I had a surf lesson yesterday. Stood twice and think a lot more practice is needed so thinking about heading out today.

The foot is much much better and i'm generally doing really well. I leave for New Zealand next thurday. Cannot quite believe it.

The last of 9 countries to visit! A month exploring there and then home time.

Think of you all lots and lots

xxxxx