G'day.

Here we are in the merry old land of Aus. We've been up and down the East Coast of this mammoth rock and done in only two and a half weeks it was a whistle stop tour to end all whistle stop tours.

Firstly however it's worth mentioning our flight from Fiji to Sydney. We we're both pretty excited to find out we were on a two story airplane as neither of us have been on one before. We asked a stewardess if we could sit upstairs but we were told that we had to sit in our allocated seats. No great loss considering it was still only economy class up there. However, the stewardess came to us just before takeoff and offered us some seats upstairs informing us that she'd told the rest of the crew it was our honeymoon! So the apparent newlyweds Paul Walton and Amy Snowball (we kept our own names) went to a very empty upstairs and provided lie upon lie for the lovely stewardess who gave us extra attention (in the form of drinks and snack) considering it was such a special occasion for us.

We spent our first 5 days in Australia staying with our friend Ben (who we met at Pete and Martha's wedding in New Zealand). Ben had lived in Sydney for 4 years but was set to relocate to the UK with work two weeks after we arrived. As a result we were able to join Ben on all of his final weeks in Sydney endeavors. The most surreal of these endeavors was champagne and fine dining at a restaurant with a stunning view of the Harbor Bridge and the Opera House. Not a bad Saturday afternoon.

Other highlights of our time in Sydney include cocktails in Darling Harbour, lazing on Bondi Beach and enjoying a coffee in the Rocks. Sydney is an exciting bustling city and we weren't aware of how city deprived we'd been. Seriously the last city we were in was Hong Kong. You'll have to understand that we mean an actual city. Not the things that pass for cities in Fiji or New Zealand. Anyway, apparently we like the hustle and bustle of city life. Just like being in Bolton.

From Sydney we got a night coach (not recommended) to Byron Bay which is surf, beach and hippie laden. We were only there for a night so we made the most of it, going for a coastal walk around the lighthouse, walking along the beautiful beach and getting involved in the hostels BBQ and sangria night.

The next day we were back on our Premier Motor Service (product placement) coach and rolled up to Brisbane where we met our good friend Mya. We'd originally met Mya in Paris when we were travelling around Europe 4 years ago. And she's still loads of fun!

Brisbane is proof that beach is one of the top priorities for an Aussie. This landlocked city has gone to the length of building a fake beach. The Streets Beach at Southbank contains 4,000 cubic metres of sand and each year the beach is topped up with an additional 70 tonnes to ensure that it is kept in pristine condition. We spent a large portion of our time here.

Mya and her boyfriend Chris treated us too our first Aussie BBQ (T-bone steak made an appearance), an all-round delicious experience. The steaks out here are much better quality than you'll find back home and better value (if you're earning Aussie dollars that is). Also in Brisbane Paul got a chance to try his hands at boxing (courtesy of Chris and his personal trainer). Paul's guard was pretty poor but lucky for him it was only a training session and no-one was throwing punches in his direction.

There was a sad awareness that it would be quite a while before we saw Mya or Chris again and we were encouraging, verging on forcing, them to get themselves over to the UK in the next couple of years. Following our goodbyes we grabbed a camper (a converted space-wagon) from Jucy rentals and left Brisbane with a certain fondness for this underrated (as a travel location) Aussie city.

We bounded up the east coast as far as Rainbow Beach which would be our jettison point to reach Fraser Island the following morning.

Now the thing about paying for a campervan is that you don't want to pay more than a couple of quid for somewhere to park it. It seems to defeat the point. Rainbow Beach seemed to feel differently about this and as we prepared to lay our heads we received a rather authoritative knock on our van door. The Nazi on the other side pointed out that we could not camp in the empty car park which had access to public toilets, picnic benches and BBQ's and that we should go to one of the hostels. We complied with the seemingly unreasonable request as a $500 fine was mentioned for a repeat offence. We sleepily drove to a row of hostels, flustered and concerned about our ability to actually find somewhere to sleep. We found two hostels, one was shut and the next had no night staff on, but it did have a bar. Pushing through the drunken crowd Paul asked the barman how much it was to sleep in a van in their car park. In an amused voice the barkeep said "Why would you pay for a car park? Just park up bro. No worries." With our faith in humanity resorted, we grabbed a good night sleep for our early expedition to the largest sand island in the world!!

Fraser Island. Wow! We visited the island on a day trip with Fraser Island Discovery. It would have been nice to spend a few nights on Fraser but sadly our speedy itinerary made that impossible. However the day trip was brilliant. The driver/guide was incredibly knowledgeable about the islands incredible eco-system and he drove us around in something the US Military might use to drive Obama around Iraq. It was tank like. We drove up the beach and observed that we couldn't go in the sea, not because it is one of the most shark (bad shark) infested waters in the world (which it is), but because the rips will pull you so far out to sea that your only hope of staving off drowning is if the sharks eat you first. The jungle is thick and the trees thicker. It rained the whole time we were there giving us chance to see this beautiful rainforest in its ideal setting. We were also able to take a dip in Lake McKenzie. McKenzie is one of the purist lakes in the world on account of it being situated in a massive sand dune. No toxins, chemicals, minerals get in (apart from on people, which is why it's important to shower first) meaning it's just the pure rainwater that has collected in this sandy basin and for all the Avon ladies out there, the sand is also high in silica meaning it's a great exfoliant.

Following our Fraser trip we hurtled up the coast, having been told there was a storm coming that would probably block the motorway! We got ourselves to 1770, so named as it's where Captain Cook first anchored on his initial voyage to Australia in 1770. It's an okay little place. Been given a lot of good press in travel guides but to be honest we didn't really get what all the fuss was about and continued onwards towards Airlie Beach which was to be our launch point for the Whitsundays.

Airlie Beach, has no beach. As far as naming goes it appears to be a typo. There is a small bit of sand, about 4 square meters in size with a sign indicating that you shouldn't swim due to the box jellyfish. Great. But we are only there as a means to an end, the end being a jettison point to reach the Whitsundays. The Whitsundays is a group of 74 islands. Whitehaven Island is the most famous of these, largely because of its beach. The sand on the beach is the purist sand in the world!! It has a stupidly high silica content (98%), making it extremely white and it can even be used to polish jewelry.

The highlights of our 3 day 2 night trip to the Whitsundays were Whitehaven beach (not for the sand but for the sexy stinger suits we had to wear to avoid jellyfish stings), the atmosphere on the boat (lots of fun, lots of drinking), snorkeling and petting a massive Maori Wrasse. Lowlights include being ravaged by bedbugs whilst we slept. Unpleasant. Back on dry land (though we felt like we're still rocking) We spent one last night in Airlie Beach before making our final driving stint up to Cairns.

Cairns is okay. By okay we mean it's crap. Awful place. Please avoid. Travelers seem to get stuck there but the only reason is that there's always a party. It's like being in Magaluf, but a s*** expensive version of Magaluf. Anyway we went there for diving and spent two days one night on a ship on the Great Barrier Reef diving this world wonder. We saw all sorts of stuff and things, including (but not exclusive too): Sharks, a cuttlefish, grouper, butterfly fish, angelfish, lionfish, cleaner shrimp (cleaned our nails), puffer fish, parrot fish, sting rays, and a turtle! All in all, good trip.

Back in Cairns we picked up our new ride. The bigger version of the rental we drove up here. It's like a big green transit van that has a hydraulic tent on the roof. Now the catch of getting this for free is that we have to have in in Sydney in 6 days. That's not long!

We blitzed the first 3 days and got to Brisbane with enough time to spend a day with our friend Sharon whom we met on the good old Trans Mongolian. It was brilliant to catch up with Sharon who's just moved to Brisbane. We had a day out riding the City Cat (the catamaran that travels up and down the river) and taking in the views of a wet Brisbane. In the evening we had a fair amount of wine and nattered like the old women we are. We left Sharon the next day and got ourselves down to Sydney to spend the night before we return our green and purple bedroom.

Having travelled up and down the East Coast, feeling the entire 5,284 kilometers, we have an appreciation for the size of Australia and promise never to complain about driving in the UK again. We sit in our trailer park (trailer trash that we are) and await the arrival of Amy's mum, a.k.a. Pamie Anders.

More to come soon,

Paul & Amy