Hello one and all,

Two updates in two days, arent you all lucky!?

From Magnetic Island we headed next to Airlie Beach, which is generally where everyone stops to jump on a 2 day Sailing boat round the whitsunday Islands. This place was a really picturesque beach side town with lots of little shops, boats in the harbour and another outdoor 'Lagoon'. Rather than book a 2 day tour like everyone else, time and money limits led us to book a one day tour, on a speed boat rather than a sailing boat. Here we managed to fit in two cool snorkelling sites around the lower part of the Great Barrier Reef and a lunch stop at the prettiest, silicon beach you will ever see (whitehaven Beach).

Next stop, we had an over night stay at a cattle ranch, organised by the Oz Experience. Here we got to crack whips, ride the mechanical bull (unsucessfully in Katie's case) and a lovely roast beef dinner, with plenty of drinking and face paints. The next day we also got to practise lassooing and then had to go into a pen of goats for a competition. Steve came first after catching a goat in the first 5 seconds of being in the pen, and surprisingly Katie came second after catching her goat pretty soon after!

Next we travelled, and arrived late!, to Rainbow Beach. The first thing we did upon arrival was have a look around the town, which took all of 3 minutes. Not much to do here, but fortunately we had booked with the hostel to take a self-drive 2 day tour of Fraser Island. This involved 11 of us driving our own 4 x 4 on the world's largest all-sand island with plenty of rainforest and camping over 2 nights. After trying to negotiate the tracks, which were literally sand roads, we stopped to help a car stuck in the sand for about an hour. As they say no good deed goes unpunished, and after about 5 minutes on our way (already behind schedule) our fan-belt snapped and we were stranded at the side of the road for the rest of the day, whilst 2 of our group had to get a lift to go and find help (no phone reception anywhere!) We finally got on the road and found our campsite after dark and successfully barbequed and set up tents in the dark. After this dreadful start, we had a great few days of driving round the island to the different fresh water lakes (which you can drink from) and staying over night at an aboriginal camp. Fortunately, we lucked out and had a great mix of people with us so we managed to squeeze in a few drunken nights with lots of drinking games. We also got free beers off the company when we got back to Rainbow Beach as compensation for the break-down so alls well that ends well.

Next we travelled down to Noosa for a day of recovering, and also a visit to Australia Zoo (Home of the Crocodile Hunter), which was a great day out. Got to see some amazing shows with the animals and lots of impressive crocodiles.

Finally, we arrived in Brisbane, which we leave today. This is a really nice relaxing city. We arrived on the day of The Melbourne Cup (Australia's biggest horse race) so we got to see plenty of people dressed up to the nines, stumbling about all over the place. We had a good few days here walking around the city shops, gardens and over the bridge to the man-made beach and 'lagoon'. Went for a nice meal and to a really amazing old cinema for 'Cheap-Tuesdays'. Surprisingly, we also randomly bumped into one of the people from our Vietnam tour who lives in Brisbane, such a small world!

We're now just waiting to leave Brisbane for Byron Bay for our last 2 legs of Australia - it's gone so fast!

Hope all is well with everyone, and we look forward to hearing all your news.

Lots of love

Katie and Steve xxxxx