Well it has been a long time since I've written on here - largely because for the last week or so I've been on trips and so internetless! Anyway I feel it's high time I wrote a bit more about what I've been up to, bit it's been a busy couple of weeks so I'll do this in stages! I'm going to write about my Fraser Island trip now, so hold tight!

Noosa first though - this seems like a long time ago already! It was a bit of a flying visit for the purpose of visiting Australia Zoo - or Steve Irwin's zoo as you may know it. We arrived there last Monday in the pouring rain, which luckily stopped in the afternoon long enough for us to venture over to Noosa National Park for a walk. This is a beautiful forest area which runs along the coast and is home to wild koalas - we spotted our first (and only, so far!) wild koala up in a tree - so that's camels, kangaroos and a koala we've seen in the wild now! We also saw a lot of surfing along the coast, some of which was really impressive (I've a new appreciation for surf now I've learn't first hand how hard it is!).

On Tuesday we got the free courtesy bus to Australia Zoo, and even though some people say bad things about the zoo (like it's too over-the-top Steve Irwin, etc) we had such a good day, and was definitely worth the trip. The bus played a video about Steve Irwin on the way there which got us in the mood and gave us a bit of background about Steve Irwin and the zoo. It was cool because it showed him telling the stories of crocs he'd caught - like one called Agro - which we then saw in the Zoo later. We fed Sian the elephant, and saw a wildlife show which had snakes, birds and crocs. The zoo has so many koalas and I absolutely adore them - they sleep for 20 hours a day too which is pretty sweet! We got to pet one and it felt like cotton wool; another one kept doing this odd little shuffle dance thing which kept me amused for a good 5 minutes. We got to stroke kangaroos too and saw loads of animals including snakes, wombats, tigers, emus, echidnas and more. One thing I would say was that these animals seemed pretty domesticated - the tigers for eg weren't exactly "wild". But the zoo is big on wildlife protection and awareness so I think it's doing a good thing overall.

From Noosa we travelled to Hervey Bay which was the stopover point for our trip to Fraser Island. Mum and Greg I spoke to you from here so you know I was feeling pretty apprehensive about this trip! We did a 3 day, 2 night self-drive trip on the island. This is where you're put in groups of ten (with at least a couple of over 21s who can drive), given a 4x4, camping equipment and a suggested itinerary, and then you go with your group on the barge across to the Island and explore it for yourselves. So we were up at the crack of dawn on Thursday and shown a couple of videos about the island with information, safety tips etc (the mention of dingos didn't exactly calm my nerves!) and then met our group. After picking up our van and equipment we headed to the supermarket for supplies - a stressfull activity shopping for 8 (2 girls didn't want to be included in the food for some reason - not exactly the spirit of the trip we thought!) but we did okay, and somehow fitted all of this plus ourselves into the back of the truck and set off!

The itineraries for the Island are carefully planned because the beach - used just like a road - is only drivable when the tide is out. Our plan was to spend the afternoon at Lake McKenzie - accessible from a track which is ridiculously bumpy! The lake is beautiful, really blue with really white sand. Had our first dingo sighting here and turned out to be nowhere near as scary as expected - there were a couple sniffing around the car park but they just look like pet dogs off their leads (obviously you're not about to stroke one or throw it a stick though).

Afterwards we drove along the beach which is just stunning, driving along with the sea beside you and just miles of beach ahead. We stopped quite early to set up our camp for the evening as we didnt want to do it in the dark - and then ended up being all set up by 4.30 and wondering what to do with ourselves! Lol, so a little overcautious, but better than setting up by torchlight anyway. Turned out the guide back at Hervey hadnt been joking when he said the tents took ten seconds to assemble - it was literally 1 peg in each corner, a pole in the middle and bob's your uncle. As we were camping properly it was here that I used my first "camp toilet" - or, to put it another way, the shovel. That night we cooked a barbeque which was pretty good and drank some of our goon (aka boxed wine - pretty much staple when travelling Australia) but what with getting there early and it getting dark at about 6 it felt a lot later than it was - we were all in bed by 8.30 and asleep not long after!

Before we started the next day I'd had 2 less than ideal experiences, the first when I got up with Amy for a toilet trip in the night and we saw a dingo - we chose the other direction and thankfully didnt see it again. The second when we were loading the van after breakfast and Rebecca from our group spotted an enormous spider on the back of one of the seats. I'd been eating my cereal in there 10 minutes earlier! I refused to look at it but this plan failed when Jonny (our hero after this) went for it with a shovel and it jumped - yes, jumped - across the van, so I just saw this disgusting leggy thing flying across the back. He managed to kill it but proceeded to chase us round with it on the shovel to which I screamed and screamed (you can imagine). I hate spiders and we were all agreed it was pretty much a tarantula, yukyuk! We found out afterwards it could even have been a funnelweb which is deadly, thankfully didn't know this at the time though. Just like we didnt know that there is in fact a funnelweb spider every square metre of sand on the Island, living underground and coming up every now and then for a look around. Not sure I could have gone if I'd known that!

Anyway, our second day on the Island was good. We went to Eli creek first, where you walk up, get in the freshwater and float back down to the beach. (this doubled up as my morning wash). We saw the SS Mohino shipwreck which is a pretty stunning sight, just lying there decaying on the vast beach. We went to the champagne pools where you can get in the water because it's shielded from the sea (the sea is full of jellies and tiger sharks so it's unswimmable). Those of the group who wanted a go at driving had a drive along the beach - including me, but don't tell anyone! So much fun. After this we couldn't go on the beach until 4.30 because of the tide so instead we walked along to Waddy Point, a bit of headland with rockpools and a view. Also had a shower which felt so, so good - Fraser Island is a sand island and boy do you know this, it gets absolutely everywhere! Back on the beach we drove to Indian Head, another headland which we climbed up for some impressive views. On our second (and final) night camping we cooked an immense pasta dish which included the leftover sausages from the night before and was actually as tasty as any pasta I'd cook in the kitchen! We managed to stay up until the grand time of 9 tonight before crawling into our tents to sleep!

On Saturday - our 3rd and last day - we went to Lake Wabby. To get there you walk 1.8k mostly over desert and it was hothothot! Worth it though - the sand slopes down steeply into this clear blue lake, inviting enough that I jumped in and swam a width! We had a mammoth washing-up session before lunch (which consisted again of a cheese, lettuce and crisp sandwich - can't count the number of these I've had on this trip, still love it though!) and a quick last visit to Lake McKenzie in the afternoon, before heading to the barge for our 4 o clock ride home. It was a great trip and good to experience proper camping for the first time. People that know me I think you'd be proud at how well I coped - I even surprised myself and actually enjoyed it! Though I was probably a little too excited about doing laundry when I got back... it was heaven to feel clean and de-sandified that night!

So that takes me to the end of last week... but this seems long enough for one blog entry! So I'll tell you about my trip to a cattle ranch and sailing round the Whitsunday Islands in my next one. Take care and love to all... xx