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We have been in Australia for 2 months now and are due to leave tomorrow for South East Asia. It's been an awesome (if slightly drunken and very expensive) 2 months here starting back at the end of April in Melbourne...
We had a week in Melbourne staying with my family which worked out well, we saw a lot of Melbourne including the zoo, the aquarium, went up to the Dandenongs, took a day trip along the great ocean road, spent a bit too much time in the casino (maybe $50 on black wasn't such a good idea Fuzzy!), went to Ramsay street and on the neighbours night and also squeezed a couple of AFL games in which were great fun once I'd manage to work out what was going on! Obviously there was also the usual extremely drunken night out or 2 with the cousins which left us all feeling a little worse for wear.
Following Melbourne we headed for Sydney which can be summed up more or less with sightseeing, beaches and drinking! We did a lot of walking round Sydney to see the sights - the bridge and opera house at the top of the list but we also visited many beaches including Bondi, Manly, Coogee, Watsons bay and a couple of others. Our evening in the bar under the hostel were usually entertaining with a band on and we had a couple of good nights out with old mates from back home too.
In the week after Sydney we travelled up to Byron bay learning to surf on the way. This was definately one of the best things we've done yet. The set up of surf camp was brilliant with the 1st place being a little camp in the middle of nowhere on an awesome beach which we had pretty much to ourselves. The standard of surfing left a bit to be desired initially but we were gradually improving. The food and accomodation was awesome and we had 3 excellent days and nights at Crescent head.
From there we headed up to Spot X for our last couple of days surfing. The camp was bigger which meant the party on a night was bigger! Unfortunately the waves were a bit smaller but we still had a good time surfing and lots of fun on an evening, especially my birthday night which resulted in a 3 day hangover, oops.
Byron bay was the next stop on the list and we spent a week chilling out there. The weather was getting better the further North we went so we could spend quite a bit of time down by the beach in Byron. We took a day trip out to Nimbin which was hillarious (anyone that's been will know why!) but lets just say it's a bit of a hippie town which is about 30 years behind the times.
From Byron we went to Brisbane on the Greyhound to pick up our campervan which we would live in for the next month. We picked up a lone traveller whilst on the surf camp so the 4 of us would share the campervan up to Cairns. It proved to be a very funny trip and was a great way to see the East coast. We spent a couple of quiet nights in Noosa which is a nice little beach town North of Brisbane where not a lot seemed to go on!
Then it was on to Hervey bay for our Fraser Island trip... On Fraser Island you get split up into teams of 11 and given a 4x4 to load up with all the camping equipment and food you'll need and sent onto an Island to spend a couple of days. Some of the tracks and beach to drive along are interesting to say the least especially as none of us had experience of driving off road! Anyway we survived in one piece, didn't get eaten by dingoes and saw some amazing sites.
Lake Mackenzie is without doubt one of the best places we've visited yet, a large freshwater lake with amazing beaches round it was just like a little spot of paradise! Lake Wabby was also pretty cool and really nice to swim in... Why haven't we got anything like that in England??
We had a couple of days driving to do from Hervey bay as we had to be in Airlie beach for our Whitsundays trip. We covered the 1000km or so between the 2 in a couple of days with no worries and were soon heading out on Condor, an ex racing yacht which has won every major race in the world at least twice apparantly. The Whitsundays are wicked, even in the rain! The living quarters on the boat left a little to be desired, it was pretty cosy and there were plenty of snorers but it was worth it for the rest of the trip and the number 3 beach in the world and some snorkelling out near the great barrier reef.
Over the next week or so we headed up to Cairns stopping in a few camp sites on the way. We went white water rafting whilst in Mission beach which was brilliant apart from the bit where I thought I was going to drown!! We also stopped in Ayr and Townsville.
On arrival in Cairns we booked to do a Scuba diving course where we would spend a couple of days in a pool learning the basics of how to dive. We then headed out to the outer great barrier reef on a boat and did 9 dives in 3 days. The diving was amazing, there was so much to see down there it was unbelieveable. We saw all kinds of fish and coral, a couple of sharks, loads of turtles and stingray and giant clams... I could go on! Will definately be doing more diving when the opportunity arises.
After Cairns we went further North to Port Douglas and Cape Tribulation for a few days. It was good to get up into rainforest (and yes, it did rain) and see some of the wildlife up there, the crocodiles in particular were worth a look. We just spent our last few days in Oz relaxing after the excitement of Cairns before we had to give our campervan back and head for a week in Fiji.
Sorry it's all a bit rushed but I'm running out of credit fast so am going to leave it there for now. If I get chance I will add more when I'm in SE Asia.
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