Hello one and all, its been an awesome couple of days since my last update, I’ve managed to refrain from passing out again, which is good news! My toe is still b***** (looks like a cocktail sausage) and with 45 minutes to kill until I set sail on the Whitsunday’s I thought I’d enlighten you on what I’ve been upto.

Hervey bay was where I last updated from I believe, and it was from there that Alexia and I met our Fraser Island team and boarded the ferry to the world’s largest sand island. We were placed in a group of 9, from which 8 of us could drive on the island. Our group consisted mainly of English (7), the remaining to places in group A were made up by one Swiss girl and one Dutch girl. We all got on fine, did our shopping for the island with no problems and were soon bombing our way towards central station, which was to be our starting point on the island. From CS we went on a little walk around some rainforest and saw( or didnt) the invisible river (how you can see something that’s invisible is a little confusing I know). It’s called the invisible river basically because of the clearness of its waters, you have to look surprisingly hard to realize that it’s not just a sunken strip of land but a steam of incredibly clear water. After our little wander Trev drove us to Lake McKenzie which was quite simply a stunningly vast lake, again with crystal clear waters. We splashed around in there for an hour or so, swam to an island off one of its shores and just generally chilled in the sun. After lunch I took up driving responsibilities. Never driven a 4x4 before and the clutch took a bit of getting used to but I think I did ok... Alexia may tell you diferently, i advise you not to listen. I drove inland to a little resort called Eurong where we picked up a few essentials, crips, chocolate, a small monkey etc and then I drove us a little way down the beach.  It wasn’t long till I’d got us stuck in the sand, and with 8 back seat drivers telling me what to do I decided to have a bit of a sulk and decided I’d had enough for the day, awesome driving experience though!!

After a lot of faffing, we walked to Lake Wabby where we ran down huge sand dunes before diving/bombing/belly flopping into its green waters amongst the cat fish. Our faffing had set us back slightly, and we ended up setting up camp in the dark. Mr wind and mrs rain then decided to make an appearance even though they weren’t invited and proceeded to cause havoc with our evening meal. Our stoves were continually blown out before one almost blew up whilst celeverly placed in the back on the van so it was sheilded from the wind. In the end our bbq was delayed until the next afternoon and alexia cooked us all spag bowl using a stove we’d paid another group 4 beers for.

That night was bloody freezing, we got a little wet and alexia woke me (kicked me) at stupid p'clock in the morning to let me know just how cold she was … essential info at such a time.

Day 2 started with a drive to Happy Valley where more supplies were picked up, then onto Eli Creek where we floated in freezing waters from up in the forest right down to the beach.  We didnt realise we'd reach eli until michelle crashed through it in the van sending water through all the windows, good fun actually. Next up was India Head where we were told we’d be able to see tiger sharks and rays … we think we might have seen the shadow of a shark but that was all, the weather was not helping. Alexia drove us up to India Head and had the most amazing stretch of beach to drive on, Craig had to tell her off for speeding at one point … girl racers eh! The last point of interest for the day was the champagne pools where we slashed around in bubbling water for another hour or so.  The waves would crash over the rocks leaving you feeling as it you were in some kind of natural jaccuzi, there were a few fish knocking around too. 

Camp was much easier that night, we had our bbq in a camp site before setting up our tents near the beach. We spread out our ‘mat of fun’ and people came from miles around to join the party, admittedly I didn’t last very long but I believe it went on until about 6am, not a beer left in sight.

Our last day consisted on driving back to Lake McKenzie for another chill out then boarding the ferry back to the main land. Fraser was an awesome experience but we both agreed that if we’d have stayed any longer we’d have gone insane. So much depends on your group and to be fair our group was nice and great fun but a couple had a complete lack of work ethic and by the end we couldn’t really stand them … mongs!  The flies were insane again too.  Much like the red centre they would leave you alone but this time they were the size of your fist and could litterally rip your face off ... well maybe not but they drew blood and just looked bloody evil.  Trev made it his mission to kill as many of the b*****s as possible ... things is they're indestructable.

We all met up hat evening for a nice meal in some Irish bar but it was another early start so we hit the sack pretty early.

Our next stop was a small town called Bundaberg. It was a fruit pickers town so we only stayed the two nights but in that time we managed to catch a clutch of baby turtles hatching on the beach after sun down. There were pretty cute. The clutch we saw contained about 120 of the little dudes, they just kept popping out one after the other, before crawling down to the beach where they'd endure a 5 day swim to see they're mum. In our time in Bundy we also visited the Bundaberg rum distillery. That was quite interesting, Alexia got herself 4 free drinks as I hate rum and she had my two free samples … interesting walk home!

After Bundy we were taken by the Oz bus to a cattle ranch in a place called Kroombit. It was only an overnight stay but it was so cool. Whilst there we were given the chance to shoot shotguns - hit 4 of 5 clay pigeons - check me out (is it worng that part of me wishes they were real pigeons? I hate pigeons ... and seagulls), crack whips, catch goats (one handed i might add) and ride a mechanical bull … I’m still sore from that one, the inside of my leg resembles a zap lolly from back in the day ... mainly green, yellow and purple ... photos on request. It was a pretty cool place and good fun. We bumped into Vicki and Michelle again so spent a fair bit of our time there with them.

I’m now in Airlie beach. Had a bit of a drink with our oz bus group on our first night and spent yesterday with Trevor who was one of Alexia’s room mates in Sydney. Haven’t actually got that much of the east coast left to do but it’s been a blast.

Right, time to get on this boat and look at pretty colored fish … hard life.

See ya.