We spent 3 weeks in Sydney exploring. We visited manly island , sunbathed at bondi beach , ate in Chinatown, visited markets and explored the city. On the 12th January it was Sophie's 21st. We had such a nice day celebrating . Firstly for breakfast we went to Max Brenners chocolate restaurant with a few of Sophs friends from home that were in Sydney. It was amazing we had chocolate sundaes, chocolates pizzas and chocolate fondant! Safe to say we all felt pretty sick after. In the evening we found a nice Italian restaurant overlooking Sydney habour which was lovely. Karen and Barry kindly paid for our delicious meal and we filled our boots on pizzas.... Finally we booked our adventure up the east coast of Australia and what an amazing 5 weeks we had planned.....

First stop Byron Bay.... Byron was amazing. We spent a week at this hippy little village. We loved the chilled vibe and nightlife of byron. It suited us both well. During our week here we made some good friends and had some fun nights out. We had picnics on the beach and attempted a 10 km walk to the lighthouse which we failed to complete ... The highlight of byron bay was our sky dive... Wow what an amazing sensatation. Free falling through the air at 14,000 FT .. I was pretty nervous to begin but as soon as it was done I wanted to go up again. It was a huge ambition of mine to do and I had finally done it and enjoyed every minute.......

Second stop was a short visit to surfers paradise and brisbane. We only stayed there for one night each. Nothing much interesting about surfers. We felt like we were in benidorm and the Aussie school holidays were still on so there was so many kids running around. Not worth going back for but we found a good Irish pub and enjoyed a drink with steak and chips. Brisbane was a lovely city. Shame it was raining so much but we used this opportunity to go to the modern art museum and the national science and wildlife museum which were both really fun and strangely interesting . Once we left the museums and wondered the city for a few hours the rain got worse and we got soaked even after buying an umbrella. We explored the south bank which was very much like London and watched the world go by in Starbucks. Our time in brisbane was really nice and we used the hostel to our advantage as there was good showers and cheap meals.

Next we moved on to a small town calked Mooloolaba which we had booked as the famous Australia zoo was only 40 minutes from here. We spent two nights in the most awful and un-equipt hostel we had ever been in. The zoo 100% made up for this though. We spent a whole day there arriving early and leaving late. The highlight of the day for me was feeding the wild kangaroos and holding my first koala. I was in love ,and those who know me know I love animals . We watched a few wiked shows and saw some crazy big crocodiles too. Crickeyy !!!

Noosa was our next destination. We spent 5 nights in yet another dirty and not very nice hostel but we survived. There was to much to do here but we used our time well walking for miles around the area. We visited noosaville the next town down and sat and watched the world go by drinking coffee (again), we walked around the famous Noosa national park and saw lots of wildlife, surfers and amazing views. We also went to see wolf of Wall Street one night with popcorn and a frozen drink which was becoming very regular...

Onwards to rainbow beach where we would be going to Fraser Island from. We booked the 4x4 tag along tour which was fantastic. We had a brilliant guide Brendan who kept us 30 loud travelers amused the whole time. Fraser was beautiful and we had a lot of luck with the weather too. We had so much fun exploring the island driving in convoy visting beautiful lakes and creeks and view points on the island. My favourite was Indian Head a small climb up to an amazing few overlooking the island and sea where we were lucky to see a turtle and stingray. We camped on Fraser which was fun and luckily didn't see any creepy crawleys just a few dingos ... The evenings consisted of cooking our dinners and lots of goon and (travelers wine) and dancing in winkys the club.

A long bus journey to 1770 was our stop over before going to airlie beach to do the Whitsunday's . Our cute homely hostel 'cool bananas' was our first hostel we liked in a long while. We only spent one night here and booked our ' Eco tour ' for our one day stay. We had our guide ' the clay king' pick us up from our hostel and take us on a tour of 1770. It was a small town of only 6 streets. He then took us on a walk around a national park where he showed us bush survival skills which had us hooked. He was so interesting and unusual with hundreds of interesting facts and stories. He then took us down to a beautiful deserted beach where we applied a full body clay detoxifying mask. Our skin felt great after. Before the day ended he took us back to his house which looked like a spa retreat with Buddhas and interesting spiritual handmade furniture over his 5 acre garden. He even had a stream and his own man made maze. I loved his house, infact I didn't want to leave... 1770 had the most amazing stars I had ever seen that night. We even saw a few shooting stars and the Milky Way . I wished 1770 could of been a longer stop over...

Onwards to airlie beach where we would board our 2 night stay onboard our boat 'Wings' . The boat was huge and there was 24 of us onboard.. The weather was still unsettled because of the cyclone that had hit only one weeks ago. Even though we had a broken engine we sailed around the Whitsunday's and snorkelled many diving sights. The visibility wasn't brilliant but we still managed to see lots of fish including Nemo which I was very happy to see. The food on board was amazing. We were being fed every few hours, we had never seen food like it since arriving in Oz and our bellies were very happy and full the whole trip. On the second day we visited Whitehaven beach a very popular beach which beautiful sands and views and we took the opportunity to take lots of photos. The rain on our last night was pretty amazing but luckily we were shaded in a bay and it wasnt too rocky and we could see the amazing light display inside the boat staying very dry...

Cairns was our last stop in our 5 weeks adventure up the east coast of Australia. The humidity here was like nothing I had experienced before. Our hostel here was also really nice and our small rooms and clean facilities made us feel right at home. Because we had already snorkelled the Great Barrier Reef we didn't chose to go again so we spent 4 nights here exploring the city, enjoying the small cute cafés and wondering around the lagoon and botanical gardens. We also did a days trip to the rainforest and got to see the famous waterfalls where Peter Andre 'mysterious girl' and the herbal essence advert was filmed...

All in all our east coast adventure had been amazing, we has met so many nice people along the way and had experienced so many new things. Even though our purses were emptied it was worth every penny. We were now to be heading south to Melbourne for 1 more week in Oz before heading to New Zealand .. Only 3 more weeks left of my adventure ...