Monday 9th April

Journal entry brought to you by Tami

Woke up nice and early to catch our greyhound bus to Rainbow Beach so we could go on our trip to Fraser Island. Turned out that Luke and Holly were on the same bus as us and were going to be staying at the hostel next to us, Dingos. We were to stay at Frasers on Rainbow, on Chris' recommendation.

When we arrived we checked in, and were told we would have a briefing for our Fraser Island trip at 4 O'clock. We decided to pass the time before by showering and playing pool. I always thought I was average at pool, but since coming away it has become painfully obvious that I am, in fact, appalling. I actually manage to pot the white ball on every single go, bar one. We were just playing our second game when who should come over but another friendly face from the past, Antonia who we'd met at the Pink House in Sydney all those weeks before. Turns out she was going with the third of the three tour operators that worked from Rainbow Beach on the same day as Sophie and I and Luke and Holly were all going. We caught up with what she had been doing since we'd parted ways, and then we all had to go for our briefings.

We went to ours and began chatting to these two Canadian guys called Jeff and Cameron and two Irish girls called Megan and Mariosa. When we'd watched two safety videos about how to escape Dingoes and drive in 4WD on sand we were told our groups for the first time. Although we were in the same group as Megan and Mariosa (or 'M2' as they officially became known over the trip), we weren't with Jeff and Cameron, which we were gutted about. HOWEVER, turned out that there was no one in our group who was over 21 and had a driving license, so the teams were rearranged and it emerged that we WOULD be with the Canadians as well. Good stuff. The other four members of our ten man team were four English guys called Dan (fairly quiet), Jono (liked sharks), Nick and Chris (who I thought was gay but apparently not).

We had a quick (hour long) team meeting to discuss food shopping, then headed up to the supermarket to buy three days worth of food. Had a lot of fun at the supermarket, clearing out the marshmallow shelf and arguing about how much pasta to buy. We were generally of the consensus that 3 x 500g bags would be enough for the 10 of us, but one or two people expressed some concern that we should get 4. We didn't. That story isn't actually that interesting.

When we got back to the hostel we put the food in the fridge and all parted ways. Sophie and Antonia played pool while I went on the tinterweb (thanks, Rich :-P    ). Then Sophie went to bed and I played pool with Antonia and then two guys who worked at the hostel came over and challenged us to doubles. One of them was called Matt, and I think the other one was called George but I'm not actually sure. They were both Scottish anyway, and really funny. I was paired with Antonia first, and I think we won. Then I lost with 'George', but won when I was with Matt, despite me potting the white ball all the time, his talent pulled us back. Good fun!

Then I went to bed as well. Early start tomorrow.