Thursday 16th Nov
We checked out of our room at Beaches at 10am, said goodbye to Frank and Anna and headed of to catch the Greyhound to Rainbow Beach. We wanted to spend a few days here chilling out after Fraser. After a two hour journey we arrived in Rainbow and checked into Pippies. We stayed in a random little room which was like a permanent tent but a decked floor and flourescent tube lights dangling from the ceiling. We thought it was pretty cool, little did we know it was going to be the coldest night we'd experienced yet in Oz! After lunch we wandered down to the beach and sunbathed for a couple of hours - such a hard life! In the evening we played scrabble with this random guy called Richard back at the hostel, he was a bit strange but harmless bless him - bit of an indecisive chappy! (The following day he decided to go on a Fraser Island trip literally 5 mins before then set off! Very odd! They even had to do a quick supermarket shop especially for him, bit of an inconvenience!) Anyway, we eventually headed to bed in our freezing cold tent, the temperature randomly dropped dramatically! I ended up sleeping fully clothed in my sleeping bag with it zipped up right over my head! Not quite what I expected to experience in Australia!!

Friday 17th Nov
After a terrible nights sleep we got up pretty early and claimed our free breakfast. We decided to change rooms and move from our igloo into a proper room with four solid walls inside the main hostel building. This was a smart move as we ended up having a nice big room all to ourselves! We decided to explore Rainbow so we had a chat with the people on reception and they advised us to hitchhike a lift to the lighthouse to look at the views. Apparently lots of locals drive up and down the beach daily to get to Double Island where the lighthouse is and would be happy to oblige. We were a bit dubious, having never hitchhiked before we just decided to wander down the beach and see what happened. Within a few minutes of trekking along and without even raising a thumb, a car pulled up beside us. Driving was a grey haired man and beside him sat a chap with white hair and a beard. They asked where we were going and they offered us a lift. They looked harmless enough (plus we sensed and english accent) so we agreed and got in the 4X4. It turns out the guy driving, Graham, was originally from the UK and emigrated with his family 30 years ago and the guy in the passenger seat was his brother Martin, who was over visiting from Lemington Spa. Graham was showing Martin the sights so they decided to come to the lighthouse with us. We parked up and climbed up the pathway to the top and took a few pics of our random little group - us and our "aussie boyfriends!". lol! Once we had walked back down to the car we were quite happy to try and hitch a lift back, however Graham insisted on driving us back to town. It was totally out of his way but he said he'd feel better knowing we got back safely. He even gave us his mobile number when we got back to Rainbow as he lived locally to that area and said we should call if we ever had any problems anywhere. Was so nice of them! After a bit of lunch we walked back to the hostel. They were surprised to see us back so soon but we told them all about the two English gentlemen we'd met and how they had driven us all the way back. For our afternoon activity we decided to go to a nearby lake - Lake Poona. A guy from the hostel gave us a lift to the dropoff point at Great Sandy National Park and told us it would be about an hour and a half walk to the lake unless we managed to hitchhike. We began to walk along the track and it was all a bit remote so we didn't fancy our chances at catching a ride, plus we'd already landed on our feet once today in the hitchiking stakes. After walking about 200 metres I heard a car behind us so I stepped out of the way so it could pass, however it slowed down and eventually stopped next to us. I turned around and what do you know - it was a police car! The nice officer driving was out doing his rounds and offered us a lift up to the main car park near the lake. How could we refuse? If you can't trust a policeman, who can you trust?! lol! After reassuring us that there wasn't much crime in the area (Rainbow is a really small town) and that occasionally just the odd pushbike goes astray, he dropped us at the car park and I think we spent a while just laughing about what a random day it had been so far! We walked for about 40mins through the rainforest until we reached the lake. We were the only ones there which was pretty cool. We sunbathed for a bit and then walked all the way back, unfortunately there were no lifts back. In the evening we went up to the Carlo Sandblow - a massive sand dune near the hostel, to watch the sunset. It was like being in the desert again, like Fraser! We hiked around through the sand for a bit looking at the views but it was pretty windy so we soon headed back to the hostel to cook dinner and get some well deserved rest after such an actioned packed day!