G’day everyone

I have been neglecting my journal a bit lately but Sam and I have been pretty busy and we now have less than 2 weeks left in Oz ( that’s a kind of a good thing though as money is almost gone, haha).

Back to Brisbane, we enjoyed it, was ok but not much to do, our hostel was fab though and we spent most our time lazing by the pool as it was HOT!!!!!! The east coast seems to be having a crazy heat wave at the mo, and we are not complaining about it!!! ( although we have heard that it is extreme heat and humidity up in cairns at the moment which I’m not looking forward too) We spent last Sunday at Australia Zoo which was good fun. We got up really early and caught the local train, I even managed to blag myself in as a student and just put on a sob story when I said I had lost my student card, yeah right, it saved me $12 though!!! Always good. I like to pretend that I’m still a student ;-) We got to see LOTS of different animals at the zoo, and……., the highlight of my day,……. I got to hold a koala, awwwwwww they are the cutest things, pretty heavy, but so cute and fluffy. They have REALLY sharp claws though. I’ve put all the photos up now so you can see them on there. So we had a great day there, it was a bit sad walking around Steve Irwin’s memorial. There were so many lovely flowers, and poems etc. It was really moving actually. We also saw Terri Irwin walking about ( Steve’s wife) and we had a bit of a chat with her. She’s really nice and was saying how it was always Steve’s dream to make the zoo bigger so in the next 10 years, they are going to expand it loads. I also got to feed the Kangaroos which was cool, a bit scary ( you can tell from the pics that I was a little scared)

We left Brisbane on Monday morning and got the coach up to Hervey Bay, I have to say I’m not a big fan of these premier Coaches, they are soooooo uncomfortable and Sam and I always manage to get the rubbish seats!!!! Either right at the back, next to the loo, nice!!!! Or right at the front, which is rubbish too as you are not supposed to eat or drink on the coach and Sam and I always bring little snacks onto them, hehe, then end up getting in trouble with the driver!!!! Its funny though as there are always so many getting on and off who we recognise from somewhere, even some people I met in Thailand. Everyone seems to do the same route up the East Coast over here.

We stayed at a really nice hostel in Hervey Bay, although we found out after the first night that once again we had some little friends in our beds!!!!! The dreaded Bedbugs! The people at the reception just didn’t seem to care. But we dealt with them and it wasn’t too bad????!!!!!! We went out on our first night to a little pub called the beaches which was nice, quite similar to Lesters actually.

Tuesday day we just spent the day chilling by the pool and chatting to everyone, we actually got to meet our group who we would be camping with the next day, they were all great people. Hervey Bay itself is a little “quiet”, not much going on there, as I guess its just mainly used as a “stop over” place for people before they go to Fraser island. WE had a quiet one on Tuesday night as we had to get up at 6am to start our camping trip!!!!

So Wednesday we left our hostel and our backpacks, we had to take a tiny bag with us with the essentials, and after repacking our rucksacks for the third time, Sam and I just literally had, a vest top, skirt, tooth brush and soap!!!!!!!!!! Can you believe it. Because there were 10 of us in our group and we had to fit everything in the car, we were only literally allowed to take the bare minimum! We met up with all our group and had to put a bond down of $1000 just in case there was any damage to the car! ( Luckily there wasn’t and we got our money back) then we had to sit through a 2 hour “safety” talk about driving carefully on the sand dunes and camping sensibly, oh and what to do if you see a dingo……. Run of course but apparently not, you’re supposed to stand there with your arms crossed over your chest and just stand still!!!!! They have to watch their backs I guess as a couple of years ago, a 9 year old boy was taken by a dingo and killed. Its funny though because they look like normal dogs, some of them actually look really cute!!!!! and then we went off to the camping yard where we picked up our 4X4 for the next 3 days, and all our tents and stuff. It was sooooooo exciting, Sam and I were loving it. I made sure I listened carefully as I have never put up a tent before!!!! Haha, it was pretty funny. They gave up everything, even a Frisbee and a football to take with us!!!! What nice people. Then we packed up the car and the 2 huge Cool boxes and headed to the supermarket where we all threw in $15 and got our supplies for the next 2 days. Luckily there were no vegetarians so we decided we would do a BBQ for the first night. We got soooooooooooo much food, it was great. Sam and I were in our element as we haven’t exactly been filling ourselves up the lest few days, haha. The off we went, to the ferry port and got on our ferry which took us over to Fraser island. Sam drove first which was soooooo funny as she is tiny and looked even tinier behind that huge car with 8 of us in the back all watching her, bless her, she was really scared.

They gave us an itinerary of the best places to go and dingo safety etc and we just headed off into the sand dunes and found a pretty lake called Lake McKenzie and we just chilled there for a while, the water was really nice. Its good there are so many lakes to swim in as you get fined if you’re caught swimming in the sea, there are too many sharks, and stingrays, and jelly fish!!! So you wouldn’t want to go in anyway really!!!!!!! The place is FULL of backpackers doing the same kind of thing as us, except we did a self drive 3 days so we pretty much did what we wanted, but you could do a base camp drive where you have to be back at your base camp by certain times for dinner etc, but we didn’t want to do that!

We had to leave early from the lake as you are only allowed to drive along the beach at certain times, because of the tides and you can only camp on the beach so we headed off to find our first nights camping spot , and found a nice sheltered little place by the beach, It was so strange as it was literally in the middle of nowhere and all us girls were freaking out. There was me and Sam, a a girl called Kerri from Brixton and a lovely Irish girl, Ann- Marie who was there with her Boyfriend, Martin ( they had actually just got engaged 2 weeks before in Barley, awwwwww, she is from Belfast and really lovely) and then there were a few lads from London and a German guy called Stefan who was cool, but I felt a bit sorry for him as he didn’t know what was going on half the time and his English isn’t great!!! Bless him, and then these 2 guys from Leeds, ( They were HUGE Leeds fan Chris, you would have loved them) So we set up our tents, which was a bit of a mission but to be fair all us girls sat back and watched the lads do it, hehe. They were like big old Army tents, then we cooked our food, had a great BBQ, drank lots of wine, beers and LOTS of goon, and then we were all passed out fast asleep by 10pm!!!! We were all shattered. Sam and I were petrified as all the lads were telling ghost stories and stories of people going kissing on Fraser island. Me and Sam went to bed that night clutching onto each other as Sam was CONVINCED that somebody was going to come and drag us out of our tent!!!! That girl, I tell ya, She is a crazy one. But we survived the night, and I woke up in the morning, feeling unbelievably hot, the tent was like a sauna, it was horrible, we were all up and dressed by 7.30am and ready to start the day. My back was sooooooo sore from sleeping on the floor though so I spent most the day complaining about that, hehe.

We hadn’t planned on having a shower or using a” proper” toilet as were doing a self drive, but us girlies were desperate to have a shower on our 2nd day as it was so hot, we were sweating in 35deg heat and it wasn’t nice so we made the lads drive to the nearest campsite ( which we wert actually supposed to use) and we sneaked in to the showers, hehe. We only got 3 minutes of hot water but my god it felt good!!!!! And to use the toilet too, as going to the loo out in the wilderness is not something us ladies enjoy doing!!!! Well def me anyway ;-)

The second day we drove up the beach ( the whole island is 120km) so we drove a fair distance that day, it was soooooo much fun in the back of the car, everyone was just bumping about and flying everywhere, it was like we were rally driving. Driving up and down those sand dunes seemed like too much hard work to me so I wimped out and didn’t end up driving. ( I also didn’t trust myself after seeing a few jeeps turned over on their side and plus the fact I had 9 other people in the car) so The lads did most of the driving. Martin has recently come out of the army so he did most of the driving as he was driving tanks etc. We walked up to Indian head which is where you can climb up and look down over the island, you can also see the sharks below you in the water!!!!! Eeeeeeeek. It was a long walk and took ages but we got up there. Then we spent the afternoon down at the “Champagne” Pools which are these gorgeous little rock pools down by the sea, the water is gorgeous, clear and so warm!!! Did lots of sunbathing, had lunch then headed off to find another spot to camp.

Our last night was good fun, Sam and I cooked Spag Bol for everyone, then we all just sat and played drinking games all night, which was funny as we had this Swedish couple (who were actually camping next to us) who came and joined in and they didn’t have a clue what was going on but they enjoyed themselves! Everyone was a little tipsy, then later on we went and sat on the beach, it was the best thing ever, it was PITCH BLACK!!!and the sky looked amazing, the stars were the best I have ever seen, there were literally millions of them right above us, really bright and we saw loads of shooting starts, the whole sky was lit up, it was incredible. We all lay there for hours, watching the stars, drinking and singing lots of funny songs!!!! It was a great night. We also saw a few dingo’s though which was scary but they didn’t come near us, they could just smell our food. I was petrified though. I was convinced that they would get into our tents!!!!!!!

Quote of the trip- Laura- “Can Dingo’s unzip the tents do you think Sam and get in”????

Sam- “No, Laura, Dingo’s are not that clever!!!!!”

Haha, we all had a good laugh at that, the thing is, you could hear them outside your tent and that’s why I was so scared!!!!!!

On our last day we went to another huge lake and it was so much fun as everyone was body surfing ( literally lying on a small board) and climbing to the top of the sand dunes, and then surfing down to the bottom and into the lake ,the dunes were really steep and we had a great time doing it.

So we had a GREAT camping trip and we all went home on Friday evening feeling totally exhausted and we couldn’t wait for a decent shower!!!!! My back is still hurting but what an experience! We were so lucky too as we had such a great group of people with us. We all went out the night we got back too for our last night. I really enjoyed Fraser island, the only thing which would put me off going back again would be the HUGE sand flies which are constantly attacking you, they bit all of us and we are covered in them, but you cant avoid them over there. But the island itself is so pretty.

So we left Hervey Bay last night and caught the over night coach to Airlie Beach which is where we are now, we stay here for 2 nights, then we leave to go to the Whitsunday’s on our sailing trip on Tuesday, and we are on the boat for 2 nights, sleeping on it too, eeeeek. Hope the water isn’t too rough!!!!

Rich, I am now all prepared for our camping adventure at V Festival this Summer, I cant wait. I am a pro with tents now, hehe. So there will be no whinging from me ;-) !!!!

Love and big hugs to you all. Cant believe how quick this trip is going, only 2 weeks left in Oz!!!!! Hope everyone is well. Love me. xxxx