Hey guys

It's going to be a long one!! I have Rainbow Beach, Hervey Bay & Fraser Island to report on!! So put the kettle on, get comfy and happy reading!!

Rainbow Beach, the boys & I arrived there last Wednesday just as a storm was starting!! We had a bit of a shock at how basic the hostel was and the main reason for us choosing to go to Rainbow Beach earlier than planned was the picture of the pool in the brochure……The actual pool looked nothing like advertised!! It was half the size for a start, there were no sunloungers and the water was merky, and full of cockroaches!!! Its saving grace was the hammocks which I spent nearly an entire day laying in whilst reading 'the godfather' which is absolutely amazing book, I thoroughly recommend.

Our first day at the beach we were also in for a shock! We spent 15 minutes walking up and down the beach making sure we were on the main beach! It was covered in tar and on the second day we had to sunbathe on a grassy patch as the tide was in!! Seeing Carlos Sandblow - was a highlight but other than that there really wasn't much to do there and whoever described Rainbow Beach as God's waiting room for the OAPs on their way out, got it pretty much right!!

We gained two new recruits to the dreamteam whilst in Rainbow Beach, Lucy and Nadine had met Alex and Elliot in Fiij and they arrived in our hostel on Friday and the five of us have been travelling together ever since!

We arrived in Hervey Bay on Saturday and spent the evening in a live music bar. Alex (who had practically downed a bottle of red wine) before leaving the hostel was very drunk leaving the rest of us feeling very sober! When we went to the local nightclub - Morroco's we were in for a right shock! It was full of Hell's Angels, girls with peroxide hair dancing like slappers and everyone seemed to be completely and utterly wasted!

Some Aussie guy with dreadlocks started chatting me up and I managed to get rid of him, he came back ten minutes later and used the same line followed by 'you look really familiar' I was like 'really, well maybe that's cause you tried hitting on me ten minutes ago'!! Shortly after that a massive fight broke out between 2 guys, it was really close to us and pretty scary so Lucy and I called it a night.

The girls and I went shopping the next day and then had a power nap together (we're proper pals now we've napped together!). At 3pm we had our Fraser Island briefing.

For those of you who don't know, Fraser Island is the world's largest sand Island, and therefore you have to use a 4WD to travel around the Island.Our hostel puts together groups of 10 and 11 and you're given avan, tents, cooking equipment, a map and then let lose on the island with an itinerary (with specific tide times) that you must follow.The purpose of the 3pm meeting was for us to get to know our group members and be told of the risks of driving the 4WD such as it sinking, washouts and overturning. We were also warned about the dingos on the island! We all found it quite amusing, I've written down the dos and don'ts;

• Don't excite or encourage dingos
• If you feel threatened stand at full height, face the dingo, fold your arms across your chest and keep eye contact. (We found this particularly funny and everyone time we saw a dingo we whilst on the island we folded our arms across our chest and laughed!)
• Calmly back away and confidently call for help!
• Do not run or wave your arms!
• If attached defend yourself aggressively with a stick, or backpack!!

There was so much information to take in in the space of an hour that we all felt rather overwhelmed. Any damage to the van or tents would result in heavy fines and so it was very important to drive on the beach only when the tide was out, (mostly between 6am-10am) so no lies in for us!

The rest of Sunday was spent buying our food supplies, alcohol supplies, ordering meat from the butcher and packing our bags. The next day we had to meet at the vans 6.45am and pack! We had sooo much booze compared to the other groups, a total of 32 litres of goon (cheap boxed wine for those of you not familiar with the term!) and over 100 cans of beer.The rain began whilst we were on the ferry and stopped for a total of about 6 hours the entire time we were on the island (2.5 days!)

Our luck wasn't as bad as others though. Ten minutes after arriving on Fraser, one group's van got a bust tyre and they had to use the spare!! It didn't take us long to find a suitable space for camping and we camped alongside another two groups but putting the tents up in the pouring rain wasn't much fun. Plus we discovered one of our tent poles was broken so instead of having 4 tents between the ten of us we only had 3!

We were all soaked through by the time the tents were pitched, and decided there was only one thing for it. Get on the booze! The 10 of us crammed into the van, got the ipod on the go and we began drinking games, such as 21, G'day Bruce and the legendary Roxanne which was a favourite of ours over the next few days. Basically, you play the song 'Roxanne' and when you hear the word 'Roxanne' the girls drink and when you hear the words 'red light' the boys drink. Those familiar with this song will know the frequency of these words and it's a surefire way of getting drunk in about 3 minutes!!

Within two hours our group had been named the fun bus, and as the night went on we really bonded and decided on nick names for each other;

Myself - Baby Spice

Elliot - ET

Alex - Gorge

Lucy - The Queen

Nadine - Lar de da!!

Chris (from UK) - Tinkabel

Kirsty (from Norway) -The Cat

Stein (from Norway) - Stifler

Michael (from Germany) - Porn Star

Angela (from Switzerland) - Brandy

Not using these nicknames resulted in a heavy fine! 5 seconds of drinking! We were all so drunk by 7pm that no one could be arsed to cook, however Lucy and Nadine thought it wise that we should eat and they managed to cook us each a burger before it got too dark.I was wasted and in bed by 9pm and managed to have pretty good nights sleep.

We had to be up at 5.30am and most people woke up to waterlogged tents due to it raining constantly throughout the night.As a result, the majority of one group decided they wanted to return to Hervey Bay and leave the Island. Angela also wasn't very impressed and so she joined the group that wanted to leave and we gained two extra guys who didn't want to go. They were;

Nick (from UK) - nicknamed the fish

Mike (from UK) nicknamed Mechanic

Elliot, bless his heart was on suicide watch the rest of the day, he really wasn't impressed with the rain but we talked him into staying on the island. The groups that left were unable to leave the island so instead checked into hostels! The fun bus team had decided no matter how bad things got this was not going to be an option. After all the majority of us were from England and we're used to dealing with rain!

The new team members got on well with everyone and at 6am we set off down the beach and saw the Maheno ship wreck before arriving at Indian Head. Once there we played cricket and cooked sausage sandwiches. To our horror, we discovered our cutlery and 2litre bottle of ketchup was not in the van! We had to make do with fingers and no sauce on our sarnies!

Once re-energised we set off on a long walk down the beach to the champagne pools! These pools provide a very popular swimming hole with the ocean crashing over the rocks into shallow sandy pools. The foaming water is where the name Champagne Pools comes from. Whilst we were there it actually stopped raining for an hour and we all jumped in the pools! It was so refreshing!!

I volunteered to be the driver on a really short trip to campsite facilities.No joke…. I stalled the van about 10 times over the course of 2km.As you know, I drive Mum's lovely Purple Nissan Micra Automatic back home and its been about 3 years since I've driven a manual so I'm just not used to finding the biting point anymore! Stein even told me when to put the clutch down and she moved the gearstick leaving me just to concentrate on steering and the pressing the correct pedal!! Luckily my passengers found it very entertaining but that was the only driving I did whilst on the island!!

Once at the campsite, we showered and cooked spaghetti Bolognese which was delicious.We got on the beers and when we arrived back at base camp we spent the remainder of the evening drinking in the van and eating crisps!!! Nadine and I were hammered by about 8pm and were singing our hearts out to Oasis, The kooks and 2unlimed - no limit!! We were all rocking the van backwards and forwards, it was absolutely hilarious.

The only thing with drinking lots was weeing lots and with dingos around I really didn't like straying too far from the van.As a result, I was caught weeing on the side of one of the tents and against the tyre of the vans!! Everyone was crying with laughter and once they'd gotton over the shock they were very quick to grab the cameras!! I'm waiting for the day one of those photos appears on facebook! Anyway, when the rain eased off we watched the approaching lighting sat at the beach and most people were in bed relatively early again.

Our final day - Wednesday another early start, we were up at 5.30am and packed our tents up. Something was finally going our way because the rain had stopped!! We made our way to Lake Mckenzie and had a massive feast for breakfast, using up all the remaining edible food!! It was an overcast morning but we were well chuffed with that, just to have a few hours of no rain was a treat! The lake was beautiful and so clear.

We played a game where we all stood in a circle and were allowed once touch each to keep the ball from going in the water.Sounds simple but this game kept us entertained for a good couple of hours! Initially if someone messed up before we got to 20, they had to turn around whilst the rest of the group pelted sand at their backs, but we decided this punishment was little harsh and once we had eliminated the punishment, everyone's game seemed to improve!! Our aim was to reach 100 and Alex had said if anyone messed up close to this we would carry them out the water and beat the sh*t out of them on the sand! Funnily enough it was Alex who messed up on hit 99!! I've never seen him move so fast!! How we laughed!! Of course we didn't actually hurt him but everyone charged at him and dunked him under!

Our ferry departed at 2.30pm and we drank some of the remaining beers on the way back over.It was raining again as soon as we got back on the ferry and didn't stop until yesterday afternoon!! To our complete surprise we all got our deposits back,(the van smelt so bad people would literally retch if we weren't moving with the wind coming in!)

We got showered and met at reception at 7pm for an all you can Chinese buffet dinner at a restaurant where you could bring you own booze! We all found it rather amusing that the remaining booze had been packed in black bag! Stifler walked in with it over her shoulder (classy!) and how we cringed when we squeezed the silver bags full of goon into glasses in the middle of the restaurant! Was a good night though and after eating as much as we could we made our way to a local bar where we sang and danced the night away.

To our delight we found Roxanne on the juke box and played it twice in a row whilst downing cocktails associated with dingo, Dingo paw, fuzzy dingos, dingo orgasm etc!! Most of us called it a night at 12 when we got kicked out, we said our goodbyes and made our way back to our rooms at the hostel. It was sad saying goodbye, we may have not had the best weather for the island but our group got on really well, we tried to stay as positive as possible, all pitched in and we got on sooo well. A reunion once we're all back home, is on the cards and I definitely want to visit the girls in Norway at some point next year.

Elliot, Alex, Nadine, Lucy, Nick & I were due on the Oz Experience bus at 7am the next day. We were supposed to be going to a little town called 1770 however due to the torrential rain the road to get us to the town was ten foot underwater so we had to get off the bus in Bundaberg instead which is where we are currently.

I shall tell you all about that next time! Take it easy guys; hope you've enjoyed this extremely long blog! Lots of love, Shell xxx