Hi all.

Time to write...

Last blog ended as I just read with a chinese panting girl in the bed above me meaning that i was soon off to Magnetic Island. I boarded the ship happily and it was a quick unexciting 45 min trip over to the island. Magnetic Island is named apparently because it screwed round with captain cook's compass but as a well organised travelller i didnt have one on me so couldnt test this theory.

I checked in and went to my room of 8 which was absolutely tiny, barely room to put your bags down and move but im getting used to this now. While getting the essentials out i.e. towel, shorts etc i startted chatting to miles and jack...2 members of the hatfield terror unit. after a rather uneventful day on the beach i went to the bar, infact the only bar open after 10 on the island and had a few drinks with miles and jack and a couple of irish guys and played more cards than drinks but was fun all the same.

Next day was a bit more lively, in my room also were 2 dutch girls called antoinette and ren and also a bolton boy named phil. After whinging about not seeing any wild animals to all these 3 of us decided to go and hunt some koalas as magnetic island is supposedly australias largest wild koala sanctuary or some bulls*** like that. i call this bulls*** becasue we only saw 1 and we were told where that was! All the same it was a really nice site to see a wild one although it was sleeping when we got there, it was soon eviling us as i shook the tree a little so the guys could get a pic of its face and it also was a bit shocked when we patted it a little.

Later on in the day, more sunbathing occurred and i also said au revoir to miles and jack although i would bump into them soon. the bar was once again the focus point of the night...there really was nothing else to do during the night! BUT a team of 10 of us did win the quiz that was being played. THough after a large delay as a pissed bloke fell off the decking and cracked his head on the floor thus airlifted to hospital we were finally told the prize which was 2 jugs of beer between 10 and also only 6 free breakfasts! what a joke! I joined in round 2 so i surrendered my free brekky though i more than deserved it as i caned it in the sports round and im pretty sure we got 10 out of 10 for that!

Right, after waking up rather hungover the only way to get through the day was to go back to the bar so after breakfast/lunch we all started again and enjoyed a pretty good night until i woke up the following morning with toothpaste all over my back and little squares of toilet paper. It seems that in my premature dismissal to bed i was ready for the toothpaste treatment but i spose it could have been much worse considering id passsed out.

Back to reality (kinda), all of the quiz team left magnetic the next day and most of them headed off on the oz experience south. I headed back to townsville and quickly booked up a ticket to cairns for that night meaning i had to spend the day somewhere, which meant the local bar! as this was quite a posh bar i did feel quite out of place with my destroyed clothing and dirty backpack but this paid off as all the bar staff were young and treated me very well ie free drinks and free trials of their own home made stuff. Needless to say with all this on offer i was in there from 1 til the man utd chelsea game kicked off at bout 10.30 at night. I stumbled in and watched the game with the internet guy id been chatting to earlier in the day. Both of us supporting united and loathing the chelsea were shouting at the penalty but at least it makes it interesting for the end of season. THis match ended perfectly though and i trotted off to the station to go and get my seat for another 7 hour trip! im really racking up the miles now.

I got to cairns early in the day, and had to wait til 2 to check in so being quite hungover from the day before i slept in the tv room til it was time to move in. After settling in, putting sheets on bed etc i went to kitchen and hoo do i bump into but miles and jack which was quite cool considering there were 4 different levels of rooms so we went to the street lagoon, had a dip and went back to makle some food and drink some goooooooooon. During the eating phase i also bumped into a couple of girls who live in aylesbury which is 10 miles up the road from where i live back home. THey also were best friends with someone i used to work with (vicki watmough) and hoo i went to primary school with! this was the first time id bumped inot someone who directly knew someone i did which was cool.

Second day was boring and not much happened apart from walking round and checking places out. We also decided to skip the night as we were supposed to wake up to arsenal derby at 5am but i decided how good could the game be so went back to bed and as it turned out arsenal won 6-2 so that was a bit of a b*****.

Third day in Cairns was much of the same as the last. To anyone travelling id say just dont go near the big cities/towns unless you have to. THeres nothing to do there and the accomm is more expensive so basically its a lose lose situation. THe only good thing is that the night life in cairns was quite good in the sense that it was lively in comparison to everywhere else. Me and Miles went out on the third night to the woolshed after playing ring of fire with a couple of girls back in their room. THe plan was to go out and be awake for the man utd barca game. THis plan once again misfired as i got way to pissed and couldnt wake up despite being in the tv room to watch it.

It was already time to leave and make my way south towards sydney where id leave but i had to make a few important decisions as only had a short time and still many places to see so i decided to skip whitsundays which was a shame but i was way more inclined to do fraser island which you'll hear about in a short bit but first i have to mention the 25 hour bus ride!

It was horrendous. I think i watched 6 films...one twice as the driver obviously didnt think anyone had been on board for that long! it was horrible and i vow never to do anything like it again.

Despite the pain and misery i knew that i was arriving in Hervey Bay for the fraser island experience! I met my group the night before which consisted of 6 others and there as another car who would be driving with us, a group of 8, the majority of which were paddies which obviously meant a good laugh! we had to get up early so that we could go and see our pink jeeps that would be accommodating us for the next 3 days. Thats right pink! ull see the pic of 'eli' when i post them up. We set off to woolworths togo and shop (woolworths is a supermarket by the way) for the trip. Luckily there were only 3 meat eaters in our group so a 17 pound huge meat set was good enough for us and so we could move more importantly on to the booze. This came down to how much goon we could fit in, we all bought something separate and then all bought goon. I opted for 30 cans of lager, most went for the spirit and mixer but we ended up with roughly 35litres of goon which was the important thing.

We drove to the barge to take us to the island and started drinking straight awway kind of stating our ambition for the trip. Unfortunately i wasnt able to drive as you had to be 21 but to be honest it was more fun sitting in the back being thrown about and then getting out and desperately trying to clear sand out from under the wheels before the tide came in and lost us our 1000 dollar bond. As you can see from the pic above (just a default pic not mine) that we drove on the beach which was very very strange as there were no people there. THis was due to the fact that fraser is home to tiger sharks breeding off shore so is too dangerous to swim there.

We first headed to Lake Wabby, a beautiful green freshwater lake with a very steep sand dune just off it that you ran down to go to the water. We got there with a couple of groups already settled in the water. I climbed the dune to take a pic and was immediately meeted with a chanting chorus of "run down the dune". i was more than happy to oblige and was succeeding before falling over 1m before the water and spanking face first into the sand and pathetically rolled into the water side to thunderous laughter and applause. I took a bow and followed all the guys up as we all ran down together to try and be the first to the tennis ball. Upon winning the race to the water i found that this wasnt great as swimming to the ball i was pushed down underwater and eventually lost. Great fun though! THere was also cat fish in the lake but unfoprtunately i didnt manage to catch one with my bare hands as there slightly quicker than me!

We set up camp later just by the beach and to cut a long story short got plastered! The highlight was definitely watching Rory fall over and put a candle out by his forehead! It was great viewing. I nearly forgot that the second car got stuck, so after helping out with our car, took the shovel and ran back about 400m to the second car and helped them push it out but my team had gone so i got a lift with them. We had an itinerary which basically makes sure we dont get caught in the tide as that determines when you drive down the beach. We were slightly late and had to make a detour and consequently got stuck in a random sand lane going nowhere. FOr a few minutes i did genuinely think that we would be staying here, this would hav ebeen a problem as i was only wearing shorts and had no food or mor eimportantly alcohol! luckily, some locals came past and had no choice but to help us as we were blocking the entire narrow lane. We eventually got to camp and yeah, there we were.

Second day, more driving up the beach, we went to indian head, a large rock attached to the main land which gacve you great views of tiger sharks, sea turtles, manta rays etc. NExt was champagne rocks, a nice swimming pool come rock pool inland which stays filled up due to the sea breaking over the rocks and into the pool like champagne splashing over hence the name. Next we saw the maheno shipwreck on the beach and also the sand pinnacles both were slightly boring. Camp time again. This night was slightly more laid back but maybe too laid back as dingoes came and destroyed our camp during the night as someone lef thte garbage bags out, that will remain forever a mystery. However, after being briefed that feeding dingoes is an offence, and having the unfortunate pleasure of having the rangers stop by in the morning before we could clear up properly we were charged 225 dollars between us. I took the money and paid that off this morning...it was only 15 dollars each but still quite annoying but at least we got to see dingoes!!!

THere hasnt been too much to report else really, im currently residing in byron bay where im heading to nimbin tommorrow, a hippy town and then move to sydney for my last few days where hopefully ill be staying with a friend of mums, if i hear from her in time.

I hope this has been of some interest to you. Its taken me ages to write so you best appreciate the effort ive taken in coming off the beach in the glorious sun to here in a dark and dingy internet place! anyways take care and more than likely it will be bula from me, which i think is hello in fijian. Update soonish x