Fraser Island!

  

We woke up fairly early to get ready to pack our 4x4. It holds 8 people, so that is us four, with Liz, Tamar, Layla and Amy. There is also another car, so 16 of us convoying together.

We packed up our camping gear in our 4x4 with our food from the hostel and off we went!

                            Me driving!

Fraser Island is the biggest sand island in the world and definitely one of the most recommended spots in Australia.  It was amazing!

We camped the first night in a campsite in a massive forest full of spiders, snakes and probably dingoes!  It was absolutely freezing but we manned up and got on with it.

Fraser Island has lots of lakes which are beautiful and clear.  There is also a ship wreck on the shore.

We had an awesome time, swimming in lakes, camping on the beach, running from dingoes and shark spotting.

All in all, a fab trip and I didn't even need to dig a hole to go to the loo (if we camped on the beach like we were meant to - turns out there were too many dingo attacks so we couldn't!)!  Everyones a winner!

We are heading to Airlie Beach tonight before we head to the Whitsunday Islands! xxx

Rainbow Beach

We arrived in Rainbow Beach to discover a tiny town with a gorgeous beach and... not a whole lot else. We have spent our first day sunbathing and basically being surf bums with a bit of frisbee thrown in there. In the afternoon we had our briefing for our three day camping trip in our very own 4x4 land rover with the threat of dingoes, snakes, spiders and sleeping on the beach. As you can imagine, we had to watch a couple of DVDs about how to drive on sand and general safety. According to said video, you are meant to cross your arms in front of you (like you are about to dance the macarena) and walk backwards away from the dingo. Really, if a dingo is going to attack, is this amusing pose going to help? Hmm.

Anyway, after the video we went on a guided walk up to the sand plains. There was a fairly big group of us and it was a good chance for us to meet the people who we would be adventuring with us on Fraser. We learnt how to throw boomerangs (unsuprisingly, I still throw like a girl and failed miserably) and went sand surfing. There were many photo opportunities for us with the sun setting in the back ground and a nice storm a-brewing. Our guide was a young bloke who tried to hurry us along as it was getting dark. He also dared us to follow him down the sand cliffs to get home. It turns out, that the tide was coming in a little sooner than he inticipated since we ended up climbing cliffs in the dark and rain, being mucky, tired and I'll be honest, a bit scared before we were safely home. Scary, yet amazing time!

The next morning, we set of for our adventures for Fraser Island!

Australia Zoo

Since being in Brisbane, we spent one day in Australia Zoo. We knew about it because of the legend that was Steve Irwin: The Crocodile Hunter. This zoo was practically a memorial to his life. It was pretty awesome though. Much, much better than Woburn, haha!

As soon as we got there, it was hands on! Steve Irwin's idea was that if you get to touch and interact with animals, that's when you fall in love with them. Once you have fallen in love with those animals, you want to protect them - hence the whole reason behind the zoo. There was a lot of information on illegal animal trade, the fur and ivory trades, in all of the shows. It really impacted on me as educating the visitors of the zoo is such a key way to start a stop to these terrible industries that are causing animal extinction and cruelty.

Within ten minutes of being there we had a 3 month old possum named Georgia on our laps, had stoked a lizard and had a parrot talk to us!

We then decided to line up and feed an elephant (as you do!) It was awesome to get so close to those animals and its safe to say, I haven't felt that small in a long time! I have a photo of this, but I don't have means of getting to a scanner, so sadly, I can't put it up here.

We saw the main show which had the exciting bit that we were all waiting for: The Crocodile Demonstration! They basically inticed a salt water croc out in the water with a bucket and some meat to show us the speed that these crocs can move. It was pretty cool although I didn't get many good photos since it is difficult to guess when a croc is going to strike (I sound like Steve Irwin myself a bit!).

We saw all sorts of animals and got to pet most of them.

Anyway, it was an ace day and I have to rush since I am getting ushered out of the internet cafe as we speak, so I will blog in our new location of Rainbow Beach in the very near future! xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Brisbane

We have spent about four days (I am losing track already) in sunny Brisbane. It's a lovely spot - completely different feel to Byron Bay and Surfer's Paradise. It's a nice change to be in a big city compared to little towns devoted to the easy life. It's not near the coast, but it has a river running through it. There is a man-made beach here for those Aussie's who miss the coast. We didn't feel the need to sunbathe though since we still have plenty of that to come. Well, surfing anyway!

We have spent most of our time in Brisbane exploring. I love Brisbane but I get the feeling there isn't a massive amount of culture (there probably is - I just missed it). We walked over to South Bank where we walked around a park with lovely gardens. It also has a man made beach but we just munched an icecream instead of swimming. Now is the time for sightseeing and not sunbathing! Haha!

Our room mates in our hostel are two girls (Tina and Elana from Finland and Switzerland) and they are pretty awesome. They have been travelling together for about a year. We all went out last night, just to the local bar, for a bit of a knees up and it was great to meet new people.

We took a trip up the river on a ferry to see a lovely park where everyone seemed to be having BBQ parties. We were tempted to steal someone's BBQ food but settled for fish and chips instead. Yum.


We have found a couple of cute markets where people sell vintage clothes and jewellery. It's quite refreshing because I am used to boring High Street shops at home so this makes for a nice change. I have purchased a ring made out of a shell which is lovely. I will put a photo up on here once I've downloaded the photos from my camera.
There is more to come from Brisbane, so once I stop being a numpty and start remembering to bring my camera down from the room, I will write more! Hope everything is good with all of you xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Photos from Sea-Kayaking

"Team Twat"

Here are the shots taken whilst we were sea-kayaking:

 Dolphin Bush

You can't actually see how MASSIVE the waves are on these photos so it looks like we were being wimps. Trust me, when you are bobbing around in a tiny kayak in a storm, the waves look like they are going to swallow you up. Give me a surf board any day.

I am a numpty and brought my camera lead but not my camera.  D'oh!

We are currently in Brisbane and I have taken some lovely shots of the city which I will put up, with more details, soon!

And I spoke to my Daddy and Donia on Skype today! Yay!

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The Scary Sea-Kayaking Adventure!

Some shots from Byron Bay.

We are still in Byron Bay at the moment, we have decided to leave tomorrow.  Today we went sea-kayaking.  It was a pretty hardcore experience.  We had to lug our kayaks down to the beach, walk through a mini lake towards the beach which had a slimy floor (apparently it had tea tree in it, so was healing but it was a bit too squishy for my liking).  Claire and I were in a kayak together, Graham and Kerry in another with our instructor in his own one.

Once we had our very brief theory lesson and donned our wetsuits with lifejackets and helmets, we set off.  Kerry and Graham set off first whilst we waited on the beach for them to get past the breaking waves.  They fell out, Kerry apparently back-somersaulting out of the kayak, just before they got past the waves.  They had to start again.  It didn't fill myself and Claire with confidence, but we manned up and attempted it anyway.  We managed to get out (Claire was steering whilst I was yelling "left, right, left, right!" to keep us in time)  It was pretty scary/awesome to kayak into the waves (they seem VERY massive when you are in a tiny kayak) but we managed to get out eventually.  The others followed us but Kerry was not in a good way.  She was a bit seasick, so we decided to head back in after about two hours on the water.  It was difficult to paddle and we were all knackered by the end of it.  The best part was seeing a couple of turtles bobbing around in the waves.  Sadly we didn't see any dolphins.  We kayak-surfed back to the shore and promptly jumped out for some hot chocolate.  We tried a Tim-Tam Slam.  A tim-tam is basically a pengiun chocolate bar but you drink hot chocolate through it and then scoff the chocolate before it disintergrates.  Yum.

There will be photos of this hilarious experience going up as soon as our instructor has sent them to us.  You are welcome to laugh at us.

Anyway, we are about to grab some lunch before heading to the beach (in the rain - boo) for a frisbee game with some guys we met out last night.  Game on! xxx

Roadtrippin'

(Some odd Sydney shots from our last day - it rained a bit (boo).

I am writing to you from Byron Bay this evening.  We got the Oz Experience bus at 6:30am (yawn) on Saturday morning from Sydney.  We began our East Coast Road Trip in style on a cute little coach (seats about 26 people) and headed to our first destination: Surf Camp!

It was one heck of a journey (9 hours) it was great to get off the bus at Surf Camp.  If I were to describe Surf Camp, it would be little huts with surf boards everywhere.  There were even sofas made of surfboards around a campfire and a 30 second walk to a fabulous beach.  Plus, I can't forget to mention the surf instructors.  They were your typical surf bums, long blonde hair with beards, one was even nicknamed Jesus (if I had to point someone out who looked like Jesus, it would most certainly be him)!  They were really friendly and even did our washing up for us (that is great service right there).

So we arrived in the afternoon so we stretched our legs along the beach, looking at cute little sand crabs before heading back for a great dinner, a couple of games of cards and bed.

The surf lesson began at 8 and a cooked breakfast was ready waiting for me at 7am (perfection).  We had a quick theory lesson with Jesus before getting our wetsuits.  I know I shouldn't blog about this because Graham will moan and probably slap me, but it will be worth telling you... It was absolutely hilarious to see Graham get into a wetsuit that was far too small for him (those of you who have ever worn wetsuits can picture and understand this).  Haha!

 Anyway, we surfed for a couple of hours.  It was fabulous because I could remember how to surf pretty well (Cookie, I know you would have been proud of me although the fat fingers did reoccur!) I managed to stand pretty much every time and Claire has photographic evidence which I will try to post as soon as I can, just so you know I am not fibbing!  The others did amazing too, especially as they only had a two hour lesson, they were standing at the end of it.  We are going to have an ace time practicing.

Once we surfed, we had another amazing meal before heading to Byron Bay.  Byron Bay is a little town with fabulous surf beaches (yay! I get to practice) and is full of surfers, hippies, musicians and artists so definately my kind of place.  We are planning to stay here for about four days before heading to our next destination.  Our hostel is pretty nice, we have our own room which is pretty nice.  Plus, clean showers, always a bonus!

 That's about all for now.  I have found this internet cafe which I am writing to you from easy enough so I will probably blog again soon.  Those of you with Skype, add me.   My username is sammypantha.  It will be good to chat to people from home!