Brisbane...

Brisbane is the first place in Australia that I felt I could live in. Being amongst the high rise buildings and the noise of traffic I felt right at home, making me realise how much of a city girl I really am and how much I miss London! I instantly loved this place and was sad I was only able to stay the one night. After an afternoon exploring and hanging out in the botanical gardens I met up with a friend of mine from London who now lives in Brisbane with her boyfriend. We went first for a free BBQ, then Emily took me to a really cool backpackers place where the bar looked over the whole city. After a quick stop for some fries at hungry jacks (which is just burger king, not sure why it is called that in Australia) Emily then took me to a really cool bar for a last drink before I went back to my hostel and she went home. It was great to catch up with her and she told me about the GOMA, a modern art gallery that I should visit the next morning before I got my bus, and so I did. It reminded me of a mixture of the Baltic in Newcastle and the Tate in London and had some great exhibitions on. After spending a good few hours in this place I completely lost track of time and ended up having to run back to catch my bus...oops.

Noosa...

After Rainbow Beach was a little place called Noosa, there wasn't really much to do here and the reason for me stopping here was to visit Australia Zoo, home if Steve Irwin. We got picked up in the morning by a huge coach with Steve on the side and watched an episode of The Crocodile Hunter on our way in. This zoo was a strange place, Steve Irwin is everywhere and talked about by everyone. Every Television in the place was showing a Croc Hunter episode and you could even get your picture taken with him, they super imposed you into a picture with him hugging an elephant, I found this a bit weird! The zoo was great though, I saw some cool animals I had never seen before and got to hand feed an elephant. Then there was the Croceseum, a place Steve had designed himself and named it so because there are crocs in there and you can see'um. Here they put on shows much like Steve used to do where they showed how the crocs launch out of the water to grab their prey. Of course no one could do it quite like Steve could but it was still pretty impressive. On the coach back they showed a very sad documentary about Steve's last months with interviews from his wife and daughter. Back at my hostel, feeling slightly somber from the documentary, my last night in Noosa was spent just chilling out with some of the people in my room and chatting about our travels.

Rainbow Beach and Fraser Island...

Rainbow Beach, quite a small place but I loved it. The beach was great and I spent most of my time there where I had some lessons in trying to swim in the surf. After a while I got the hang of it, or thought I did then I would get smacked in the face by a wave again getting dragged back to the shore with a mouth full of salt water. I only spent 3 nights here, somewhere to stay while I went off to visit Fraser Island. This was part of my trip I was really unsure about. Everyone had been telling me that the place is full of spiders, big, hairy spiders! Thankfully I have not yet seen a huntsman (touch wood) and Fraser Island was no exception. I saw quite a few big spiders but they were in webs in trees where I don't mind them, it is when they get into your bedroom or bathroom when I start to really freak out. After watching a really boring and kind of scary safety video about Fraser Island we set off. We had a convoy of 4 4x4 cars which I had my turn at driving. Luckily ours was an automatic so as we were bouncing about and trying to keep control of the wheel we didn't have to think about changing gears too. Driving on sand is hard, once you get stuck in the tracks of another vehicle it is very hard to get out. Our first stop on the island was Lake Mackenzie. I was in complete awe of this place, a beautiful fresh water lake high up in the hills, it is hard to believe it is not man made. We then headed to our campsite to pitch our tents before it got dark and discovered there was no toilet...uh oh! We were told that if we needed to go we would have to go in pairs with a flash light and squat around the corner away from the site. The reason we had to go in pairs, there ware dingos! The dingos were lingering around the campsite all night waiting for scraps of food, they were pretty harmless though and seemed to get scared away from simply shining your torch at them, this didn't stop them from stealing and eating someones flip flops in the night however. The next day, back in our cars we set off to a creek for a morning dip then off to a place called the Champagne Pools, so named because they are pools next to the sea and when a wave hit the rocks the water froths up just like champagne. This place was also beautiful but got kind of ruined by the rain, and it has rained pretty much everyday since! Our last night in the campsite was fun but I think everyone was ready to go back, sick of squatting, sleeping on the very uncomfortable ground and so sick of getting eaten alive by the marsh flies! And so back to Rainbow Beach where we all raced for a shower and spent our last night together with some good old goon!

1770, Agnes Waters...

After sadly leaving the Whitsundays behind me I headed to a place called Emu Park where I visited Great Keppel Island. Both of these places I'm sure at one point would have been a lovely place to stay but again due to the effects of the cyclone they were both pretty much dead so spent a few days relaxing by the beach with a book and was glad to leave and join people again when arriving into my next destination of 1770. Here I stayed at my favourite hostel so far, a place called Southern Cross run by some old hippies. None of the rooms locked and were given country names rather than numbers. I stayed in Sweden. I spent my first night here with a group of girls all travelling on their own too, we spent a good few hours sharing adventure stories and giving out tips. The next day was Scooteroo! What a great idea for a fun day out. I was in a group of about 50 people where we all got kitted out in leather jackets and helmets adorned with flames and covered ourselves with rub on tattoos, then to the bikes. The bikes were basically scooters all dressed up to look like Harley Davidsons. They came in all kinds of colours and designs so once each of us had picked our bike we were sent to do a few laps and get used to riding the thing. Unfortunately, just like I did on the bike in Thailand I kept trying to break with my feet and so eventually chickened out and hopped on the back of one of the guides bikes instead. My guide was a crazy Irish guy who informed me he had been riding bikes since he was 6 but this still provided me with no comfort when he was going ridiculously fast and performing tricks. At one point he put his feet over the handle bars, lay back against me and put his hands behind his head...terrifying but exciting! We rode for about 3 hours, seeing Kangaroos in the wild and watching the sun set. After a great but tiring day it was another early night for me back at the hostel...I am quite the party animal out here!