Hi all - just want to say first that we really appreciate all the emails and messages we get. Let us know more about what you are up to (albeit in the rain and snow).

Anyway more about us!..........

We had a great time on Fraser Island - it was a two day trip on this island which is essentially a big big sand dune. It's so big that is has more sand than the Sahara and it is formed by the long shore drift over (obviously) thousands of years.  Only 4WD vehicles can go here and the main highway is the beach on the east side.  A lot of the island has well established vegitation and many animals.  We did a walk up Indian Hill and from the top spotted a few sharks, lots of large rays and some dolphins.  Not such a good idea to swim in the sea there so they took us to lots of water holes and creeks for swimming which was fun.  The evening was spent at a specially equiped permanent campsite which was much nicer than the ones we stayed in in the red centre!  The name of the island has quite a funny/sad aboriginal story attached to it.  [More and more we are hearing of the systematic ethnic cleansing imposed in a 'socially active, we know better than you how to live' kind of fashion by the Ozzie gov't.]  Eliza and her boats captain John Fraser were marrooned after a ship wreck and were saved by the abo's on the island who clothed and fed them and showed them how to survive on the land.  John was killed by an abo man who caught him (not for the first time) doing naughty things with some young abo girls - fair play I say!  Eliza was eventually 'rescued' and proceeded to tell the western world how she was captured and forced into slavery by the nasty natives - what a cow.  Over the years she became quite a wacko so I guess she got her karma!

After one more night in Hervey Bay (which we didn't like to much - it's just a place to get to Fraser from) we headed north again to a place called St Agnes Water and Town of 1770 - ok well it's 2 places but they are very close together and seem to be twinned.  I chose it becuase Agnes is my name in French/Latin (apparently) - random I know but it turned out to be a good choice and we did a day trip to Lady Musgrove Island which is on the south side of the Great Barrier Reef (henceforth GBF).  After 2 hours of rough seas and sitting in the middle of the amazing puking woman and the equally amazing puking sister we arrived at the most beautiful island surrounded by a lagoon created by the reef.  We decided to do our first dive in Oz and we weren't disappointed - an all to short 40mins later we were recovering from the shock of seeing a 8ft Lemon shark (sleeping in a cave but woke up and bolted), several hawksbill and green turtles, a massive manta ray and a large eagle ray as well as countless smaller fish and marine life and a wealth of coral.  We stayed in a cool little cottage in St Agnes where we had our own spa jacuzzi - nice!  By the way we have abandoned all pretence of back-packing as we don't think much of them in Oz.  We are going to try and use them in NZ and spend more money on activities there instead!

Next we went for a night to a resort place which was truly awful - it was really set up for families and there were some good golf courses to play on if you are into that sort of thing.  We changed our booking from 2 nights to 1 and made the best of a poor choice by going to what turned out to be another yummy gastronomic evening at their authentic japanese restuarant!

Next it was up to Airlie Beach which is a resort town for trips to the Whitsundays.  If you didn't know, sailing and diving on the Whitsundays is one of my main wishes whilst here!  We stayed in a place called Boathaven which was recommended by Paul and Helena (thanks guys - good choice).  Unfortunately it rained a lot so we decided to change our booking to go out on a live aboard for 3 nights, 3 days, to today (friday 26th) as now the weather is better!  So as I am writing this we are killing time on a boiling hot and sunny day, awaiting our boat to pick us up and take us to the Whitsundays.  If you want to get an idea of the boat look at the second one down on this page - http://www.anacondasailing.com/ its called the Anaconda III.

Hope all is well at home.  Try and take a break from your daily routine and stop to smell the roses (as one of my teachers told me recently) - its been nice to have time to get life into perspective!

Lots of love, Nes and Rhi

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