Hi friends!

I hope all is going well back in the UK. Chris and I have thoroughly loved our time in Australia and I'm feeling a little sad to be leaving. Still, we have Japan to look forward to now, so it's not all that bad, huh?! It appears as though we have done a helluva lot since Chris' last blog, so I apologise now for this exceptionally long blog!! Picking up from the last one, we first stopped off in a place called Agnes Water. It was recommended to us as a beautiful bay to learn to surf, as the waves are more forgiving than further south. I don't have a great track record for conquering sports that involve standing on a plank; I've pretty much failed at snowboarding, skateboarding and we can now add surfing to the list! Actually, we had a lovely instructor who promised me he'd get me standing up and, true to his word and helped along with his Aussie humour and laid-back surfer patience, I did manage to stand up on a few occasions!! Chris,as you can imagine, took to it really well. Oh well, more instructor time for me, I suppose!

From Agnes Water we drove to Bundaberg for a quick look around and then onto Hervey Bay, where we picked up a ferry to Fraser Island. Here we took a fantastic trip round the island on a specially designed 4x4 bus that hopped and skipped it's way over 75 Mile Beach!!! (Yes, you read correctly, it was indeed 75 miles long!) We took a trek through the rainforest where we saw a Kookaburra chilling by the river, laid horizontal and floated down a fresh-water stream allowing the current to drift us all the way to the beach and a plane ride to give us some aerial views! The highlight for me, though, was right in the centre of the island where we were shown to Lake McKenzie. This is the place where I decided to roll around the sand and then give Chris a big bear hug with added shimmy for extra sand-spreading effect! The video has been uploaded for your amusement.

Noosa Heads was next on our list and, unfortunately, we had only had one night here. It was thoroughly beautiful with its cosmopolitan cafes and restaurants, upmarket shops, heavenly beaches and national park forest land complete with wild koalas - we didn't see any though, but that's besides the point, it was totally gorgeous regardless of any koala appearances! There's also a lovely river, where we took a beautiful sunset cruise and actually meandered past Richard Branson's pad; what can I say, Richie and I have equally impeccable taste in seaside towns! From here we got up at the unholy hour of 5am (ish!) to drive to Mooloolaba and make a 7am dive on the ex-HMAS Brisbane. It's a purposefully sunken wreck post the decommissioning of this fine vessel, and I have to say 'Well-bloody-done, Australia, what a fantastic idea!!' It's only been on the sea floor for around 5 years now and is already teeming with barnacles, hard and soft corals and over 200 species of fish! It is totally awesome. We had 2 dives around the wreck: the first we navigated the circumference and the second we actually 'penetrated'. (By the way, it turns out that I'm the only one out of twelve divers that giggles when the word 'penetration' is used in a dive briefing. I glanced at Chris for some reassuring giggling empathy, but he was at his concentrating, studious best. Dammit!) In all seriousness though, the 'penetration' dive was out of this world! We swam through the engine/ boiler room, the dining quarters, the kitchen, through some corridors and several other amazing rooms, absolutely packed full of fish making it their home. At this point, I notice out of the corner of my eye, Chris signalling to our guide his air levels. This particular dive centre have told us that we should aim to start ascending at 70 bar of air to allow for safety stops and what not. Being the nosy type, and also Chris is my buddy, so I should get an update on his air anyway, I ask him the same question. He makes the signals that he has 80 bar left! Bear in mind that we are deep in the interior of this 133m long ship and we've been diving for only 25 minutes or so. I signal to him, 'surely you mean 180 bar?' He shakes his head and reaffirms it is indeed only 80 bar he has and asks me how much I have. I double check my own air, and yes, I have 140 bar!! (There's still another 20 minutes of dive time left for me.) Chris looks amazed and then we both glance at our guide who, clearly rocked a little by Chris' air levels, starts to fin pretty damn quickly out of the wreck! Bless him, it was such an amazing dive, Chris had used up his air in double-quick time in all the excitement. Luckily there was another girl I could buddy-up with when Chris ascended with our guide, and we had another 20 minutes or so playing with the fish and exploring the wonderful ex-HMAS Brisbane.

We spent some time in Brisbane itself, before moving on to Byron Bay. Byron itself was perhaps a little touristy for my liking. It didn't quite have the exclusivity of Noosa Heads and was ram-packed with 21-year old back-packers getting p***ed. As a side note, the second night after we left Byron, it made it onto the Australian national news for riotous clashes between locals and kids who have just finished school and descended on the place for too much surf and alcohol. Anyways, Chris and I did our last Australian dive here, to a place called Julian Rocks, where we saw some HUGE grey nurse sharks. Again, we had 2 dives with the local dive centre and the first was by far the best. At one point we had one 3-4 metre long (and fat!) shark swimming past the left hand side of our group, closely followed by another giant swimming above us and one to our right! I was at the back of our group, with Chris just slightly ahead of me and armed with our diving camera. Ever chasing a good photo, I thought it'd be a great idea to swim after this last shark so Chris could get a photo of the two of us together! So off I go, waving to Chris to take a picture but keeping one eye on the shark. The shark notices I'm following him and decides to do a hard right, cutting directly into my swim path. The two of us make eye-contact and I can tell you I stopped dead in my tracks! He continues sauntering past in the most casual manner afforded to only those marine life that just know nothing in the world will threaten them - they're the ones that do the eating around here! I do a 180 degree turn to check on the group and see our guide racing towards me at top speed, the look on his face saying something like 'what the hell do you think you're doing??!' I'm exhilarated and give him a double okay sign and 'Yeeeh! Woooo!' type cheering gestures! He shrugs, smiles (through his air regs) and gives an 'okay, now let's swim away from the sharks' sign. Brilliant! Unfortunately, I think Chris froze a little around the sharks as there's no fantastic photo to accompany this little story. Next time, though, for sure!! Ha ha - I can hear my Mum saying - 'No, not again! Don't do that again!' Sorry, Mum, and sorry again as we did a sky dive in our next stop-off - Coffs Harbour!! It was totally awesome, and I promise, that's the last one now, definitely!! Please take a look at the photos, they are hilarious!

Next on our itinerary were the Great lakes, encompassing, Myall and Smith lakes and an overnight in Hawks Nest. The latter is a gorgeous little bay that jutted out into the coast, unshielded from the mainland making it a great place for surfing or body boarding. As we've already tried surfing, and I sucked big-style, we spot a cheap body board on sale and decide to give that a go. We check out of our caravan park, load the car with ALL our bags and, wearing just our swim wear complete with camera, body board and car key, we head to the beach. Chris gives it a good go, and again appears to be a natural at the surf-related sport of body boarding. Time for my turn, so I pass Chris the camera and acquire the board. I'm out at sea having fun when Chris shouts, 'By any chance do you have the car key?' with a very worried look on his face. I shout back, 'I never had it - you locked up!' I carry on boarding - it's great fun, and much easier than surfing. I notice Chris has run to the shore and for some reason he's looking at our flip flops, as if they might be concealing something... like a car key? I look more closely and notice my gorgeous fiancée looks a like ill, worriedly and with a little trepidation I get out of the water to check things out. Yes, you've guessed it, Chris put our car key in his swimming shorts pocket after locking up and then went body boarding in these high waves of Hawk's Nest. You're probably thinking that I should have enquired as to the where-abouts of our key after locking up, but let me add this to the picture... about 8 weeks ago Chris jumped into a lake in the Amazon with his camera in his pocket which proved the end for that cool little camera. Ever since I have been repeatedly checking nothing was in his pockets before entering any water, to the point that I'm pretty sure that I'm getting annoying and sounding like a nagging wife. So I don't say anything this time... Needless to say, it cost us a lot of money in accommodation and two and a half days getting buses to and from Europcar's nearest office before we were finally back on track and arriving at our next stop - Sydney!

I haven't decided yet whether Sydney is my favourite city so far. For beaches you still cannot beat Venezuela for me. Los Roques in particular was like HEAVEN! However, Los Roques was very sleepy, Rio on the other hand, was a party city, with sights and an atmosphere that Chris and I don't really feel like we've been able to find elsewhere yet! Then there's also Fiji which will always have the most special place in our heart as we did truly have the time of our lives there... But Sydney is utterly amazing!!! We walked around feeling totally safe and at ease, which we haven't felt in all of South America - it was as if Sydney has no crime whatsoever! There's gorgeous beaches like Bondi and Manly Island, plus they have Sydney Wildlife World where you can pet koalas and see the kangaroos and other crazy killer spiders and insects that inhabit Australia alone! There's some amazing architecture, including the Opera House, Sydney Tower with its great views over the city and the beautiful St Mary's Cathedral, where I will admit I had a wee word with the man upstairs. I asked Him to please keep us safe, healthy and happy, (my regular words,) and then asked, 'and please can you help Chris to please stop breaking or losing things in the sea? Thank you!' We shall have to see about that last one... ! Finally, and this is what gives Sydney an edge, they have GUYLIAN CAFE'S!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You can get a Guylian hot chocolate, chocolate milkshake, iced chocolate drink and an array like none other of chocolate-based desserts!!! The city oozes a self-assuredness that allows class and style to feel at ease setting home here, including the aforementioned top Belgian chocolate manufacturer.

My final note on Australia is that I missed my Mum's birthday on Nov 18th. I just wanted to mention how much I missed you, Mum, I don't think you really know. I'm looking forward to giving you a huge cuddle when we get back. You are the absolute best, I love you so much and I'm glad you had a great time and got the little pressie and cup cakes okay!! (Thank you, Ayla, for your help chasing them up!)

Well, again, I am terribly sorry for going on so, but we just enjoyed Australia so much! We're in Tokyo, Japan, now and I'm finishing off a bottle of Usheco writing this (it's wine made of plums!) That may have contributed somewhat to my apparently verbose nature! Chris will elaborate more on this other-worldly place soon! We're missing you all loads and loads and we love seeing your comments on the blog and on our pictures - it means everything to share this with you.

Lots and lots of love, Emma xxx