Our escapades since my last update have included... 

Fraser Island

Ah, what a place! We went on a 2 day safari tour from Hervey Bay to Fraser, leaving the camper van behind us for the night. Our tour guide was called Kel, and he was so funny! He had so many stories to tell eveyone about the island and his most memorable quote was (liane's favourite anyway) 'every tree's a lava-tree'. Hmm, anyway, the island is made entirely out of sand - it has no proper roads and only a handful of people live there. So, we had a massive 4x4 bus to take us around the island which was VERY bumpy! We saw lots of sites, including the Maheno shipwreck and went swimming in some really clear lakes which were amazing - a bit cold but amazing none the less. My favourite place was Indian Head, where we climbed up these massive rocks to look out over the sea and back towards the rest of the island. We were lucky enough to see a tiger shark swimming around whilst we were there which was very cool! On the way back to camp, was also saw a whale breaching, which was one of the most amazing things I've seen in Oz so far - you don't really appreciate how big whales are until you see one!

Anyway, the campsite was luxury for us (we had proper beds!) and we got our food cooked for us. We made friends with some German couple who were hilarious (the man was called Arnie (as in Scwarzenegger) which we all found funny), and Liane and I heard a dingo wondering around our tent after dark!!!!

Airlie Beach

Hmm, I do not have fond memories of this place!  We got there last Thursday minus a rear windscreen due to a mishap with the van in Proserpine tourist information carpark.  We were only planning on staying there a couple of nights but our windscreen didn't arrive from Perth until the Weds so we stayed a bit longer.  So, with no windscreen, torrential rain outside and a flat battery on one day, the van was not a very happy place to be!  We broke up the boredom with a boat trip to the Whitsundays, which was very good.

We went to Whitehaven Beach  on our trip, where we saw 2 stingrays, but my favourite part of the day by far was snorkeling.  We allhad to get kitted out in Stinger suits and flippers and jumped off the back of the boat.  The coral was really beautiful and the fish came so close to us - it's weird because you can't see them from above the surface, but underneath there were loads!  So, all was going well, all 3 of us were having fun, taking photos when all of a sudden we heard a scream and some woman shouting for help.  At this point, a woman on our boat who looked like Donatella Versace screamed to her family to swim to the shore and get out of the water.   As you can imagine, this created mass panic in the water as we all thought the other woman has either been stung, or that there was a shark lurking about somewhere.  Silly Donatella had worried us unnecessarily though, as the woman shouting for help had had a problem with her diving suit and was fine.  It is very scary to be in the middle of the ocean when somthing like that happens! 

Anyway, apart from that event and me feeling sea sick, the day was excellent and I'd love to go snorkeling again.

Townsville 

It was still raining here, but we were all just glad to be out of Airlie Beach!  We went to the Museum of Queensland and learnt about HMS Pandora, which got shipwrecked on the Great Barrier Reef about 200 years ago.  We also did a nice long walk up some rocks.  The view would have been amazing, but the cloud was too low for us to see a thing but nevermind, we needed the exercise!

That brings us up to date - we're in Mission Beach at the moment, going white water rafting tomorrow (!)and as from Monday, we no longer live in a camper van!!!!!!!!