been a long time since this was last updated and we have been up to some crazy stuff since we left cairns and made our way down the east coast. i will try and give you a brief taster of the best bits that we have taken part in. at the moment as i type this we are in noosa, but we have been to airlie beach (for the whitsundays sailing trip) Rockhampton, Hervey bay (for fraser island tour) and now noosa.

Airlie beach - the main reason everyone goes to airlie is to go on one of the boat trips to see the whitsundays. we were booked on a boat called the freight train which had been built up to be a good boat to do the tour on, so we arrived at the docks ready for our three day/ two night tour.....only to be told that the boat had broken and we wouldnt be able to go on that boat. not ideal but nobodys fault i suppose. we managed to get booked onto a boat leaving the next morning called enid, but we were warned that we might have to camp on the islands rather than on the boat itself. this boat left without too much of a hitch and we were off on our tour. the islands are amazing and the pictures will show how beautiful the places are. the boat wasnt bad but we lost a couple of people who couldnt deal with the choppy conditions and cramped sleeping conditions.

after airlie we left for rockhampton, heading for ascot bazkpackers and capricorn daves bush treck. when we were booking trips we were told daves tour was like being with steve irwin on acid. he aims to find as many wierd and potentially dangerous insects and animals and give you the chance to see them close up. capricorn just walked around barefooted lifting rocks and climbing trees to find whatever he could. first animal encounter was with a massive huntsman spider which he gave to us to hold and then proceded to put it on our faces...potentially dangerous but why not eh, later in the day we managed to find a yellow bellied tree snake which we not only held but after dave showed us how to we proceded to put the snake in our mouthes......dont try this at home folks. our third and most anticipated encounter was with meat ants. the game with these monster ants involves you stamping on a meat ants nest and then standing barefoot for as long as you can. the ants obviously try to defend their nest and start biting you...the effect is that you get what looks like socks made of ants and its pretty painful....but we all managed it. the tour didnt just involve animals. we also had swimming time in a natural billabong with tea tree mud and rope swings...such a surreal day looking back at it. to top the day off we stopeed for what was described as the best steaks in australia...we opted for steak for webby and pedro and i pushed the boat out with a bit of kangaroo. the steaks are brought out to you immediately on your own personal stone that has been in the oven all day, so you cook your own steak however you want. aparently someone made a bet that they could cut the steak with the side of their fork and managed it. best steaks we have ever had...gonna be hard to beat.

agnes water and 1770 were next. stopped in a really cool backpackers hostel in agnes water and tried to get as much in as we could here. starting with a national park tour with sea fishing and kayaking. i managed to win the fishing competition, not only catching the first fish but catching 4 in total to webby's pitiful 3... ha ha. next at 1770 was surf lessons. in prettty chiily and rainey conditiond we had about 2 hours of surfing with limited success. prob the best trip was on the scooterroos which were mini motorbikes and choppers and they did a three hour tour of the area...great fun bombing around the area.

hervey bay next, another place that you visit with one purpose, to visit fraser island. we were booked on a three day two night driving tour. the idea being you were put in a group of 10 people, given a suggested shopping list and a 4x4 truck. the island was amazing, visited the champagne falls, lake wabby, indian head, lake mackenzie. we camped both nights which ended up being a big party with all the other trucks from our hostel....extreme camping to say the least.

from hervey bay we made our way to our current location in noosa, not really abackpacker place, more of a resort area with nice beaches and good surfing. we travelled here with our newly aquired chillian friends and went out for a morning of fishing....not so succesful realy and then a lazy afternoon chilling on the beach. tomorrow we are going to australia zoo then back on our trusty greyhound as we travel further south.