From Sydney we caught the bus to Byron Bay and when we arrived at our hostel 'The Arts Factory' we discovered it was pretty much a hippy commune complete with recording studio and digeridoo making centre! Very bizarre! Was lovely to hang around in hammocks all day though. Whilst we were in Byron we spent a lot of time at the gorgeous beach soaking up the sun, took a day trip to Nimbin (perhaps the weirdest place in the entire world) and went on a bush walk where the guide 'Cockatoo Paul' taught us how to survive on plants and trees if we were ever to find ourselves stranded in the Australian outback...hopefully we'll never have to put it into practice.

After Byron it was on to Surfers Paradise- possibly the complete polar opposite of chilled out Byron Bay. Surfers is basically a gorgeous beach surrounded by hundreds of high rise buildings, it was tacky and commercial but great fun and we had a really good night out.

We then made our way to Brisbane. Typically we thought we had booked into a hostel in Brisbane city centre but when the hostel owners picked us up and we'd been driving for half an hour we realised this wasn't the case. Luckily for us though it all worked out as we were staying in beautiful Moreton Bay and our hostel was an absolute bargain. The first day we were there we caught the train into Brisbane and spent the day hanging around the lagoon on the South Bank and then went back to the hostel for a barbeque. After that we explored Brisbane and decided we were pleased we weren't staying in the centre as there wasn't a huge amount to do. That night we went out in Brisbane and bumped into MORE people from uni in a nightclub, it makes you realise how small the world actually is. We then waited for the first train home as we were too stingy to afford a taxi! The next day we were told by the hostel that there was a free boat trip around the islands of Moreton Bay...so we wandered down to the Marina (me and Charl both in dresses) and before we knew it we were involved in a fully fledged yachting race! Very random indeed and it involved a lot of clambering around the boat deck which wasn't too dignified in a dress. Very funny all the same, until it started raining and we got drenched!

After Brisbane we travelled to Rainbow Beach which is the starting point for all the Fraser Island trips. We spent a couple of days there and then went onto Fraser Island. Despite the owner of the company we were going with convincing us that we were going to die/have to pay him thousands of pounds we had one of the best weekends of the trip. We camped on the sand which was actually really fun (never thought I would actually say that) and spent my birthday there. We were really lucky in that we met loads of great people including a German guy who had the same birthday as me (!). Lake McKenzie on the island is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. After 3 days and 2 nights on the island we returned to Rainbow Beach for one last night out with the people we had met and then caught the bus to a tiny town called 1770 (named that because it was the second place Captain Cook found). Whilst we were in 1770 we went to Surf School which was really fun. I even managed to stand up a couple of times which was a miracle considering that I have the agility of a lame horse! We've definitely now got the bug and are hoping to do it again whilst we're in Oz. We also successfully hitchhiked 7km to a lookout point, which was something we were particularly proud of- I'm well practiced in the art of hitching now since the days of Bummit.

From 1770 we made our way to Airlie Beach, the starting point for all Whitsundays trips. We had a really good night out and then went on our sailing trip the next day. It certainly took time to adjust to sleeping on a boat for two nights but we eventually got used to it. Whitehaven Beach was absolutely gorgeous and we went snorkelling over the Reef which was amazing but I hate to say it we thought the Whitsundays in general were a tad over-rated. Had a great time all the same and we were really lucky with the weather as the crew said that we had the best weather they'd had in three weeks.

We are now waiting for an overnight bus to Cairns, the last leg of our Oz adventure...