Byron Bay...

After Brisbane I stopped in Surfers Paradise...far from paradise! I did not like this place at all and so will skip straight to the lovely Byron Bay. My first night here a group of us from the Oz Experience bus headed to the infamous Cheeky Monkeys for free food and lots of free drink followed by some dancing to cheesy music on the tables. Day 2 in Byron was pretty much spent in bed recovering. Day 3 I went on a day trip to Nimbins described as the Amsterdam of Australia. Where drugs are illegal but the police really do seem to turn a blind eye, the whole place stinks of weed. The town however is a really cute little place full of aging hippies. The bus ride to and from Nimbins was my highlight as we traveled in an amazing old bus similar to ones you see in films when they drive army men out to Vietnam all painted up in bright colours and blasting out some typical hippies tunes. That night there was a hippie style market in town and I decided to get a tarot card reading, good job I don't believe in that stuff as mine didn't paint my future out to be to great! The next morning I went to try out sea kayaking which didn't look too hard once you are out in the sea but getting through the waves looked pretty difficult and unfortunately the day I chose to go was a pretty bad day and the waves were huge! It took a really long time to get all the kayaks out and by the time it got to me and my partner the waves were even bigger so a guide hopped in made me sit in the middle and said he would get us out as it would be too difficult for 2 people who have never kayaked before. So off we went getting hit by 2 pretty big waves that through us all straight from the kayak, lucky I was wearing a helmet as I lost count of the amount of times I got smacked in the head by not only the other guys but the kayak itself. We dragged ourselves back on and were swiftly hit by another wave twice the size of the last one and I got sucked under the water for what felt like forever. By the time my life jacket bounced me back to the top I got hit by another huge wave, now really not happy and struggling to breath the guide threw me over his shoulder and swam me back to shore. The guide was so apologetic, gave us a full refund and insisted we come back to try again tomorrow for free despite it not being their fault at all, you can't help how big the waves are. Nervously I returned the next day bringing with me my new friend Marion. The waves were a lot smaller but we still managed to fall from the kayak and so I decided I was done, happy to have tried again but I was too scared to go in for yet another attempt. After at least 20 minutes worth of convincing one of the guides talked me into joining him in his kayak which I did, we got straight through the waves and had the best time out in the sea and even got to see a huge turtle catching some waves. My last couple of days in Byron Bay I spent mainly at the beach enjoying the last bit of sunshine I was to get in a while.

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!

Whitsundays...

After leaving Magnetic Island the next stop with the Oz Experience bus was Airlie beach, this is the place for sailing and the part of my trip I was probably most excited for. Our boat was called the Boomerang which was once a racing boat and had won a fair few races. There was 26 of us in total plus 3 crew members who stayed on the boat for 2 days and 2 nights. Before getting on the boat we had to throw our shoes in a bag as we were to be barefoot the whole time which I loved. The bottom of the boat was were our beds were, it was open plan and hot meaning the majority of people chose to sleep outside on the deck at night time. We had to help out raising and lowering the sails which was fun and quite comical, especially for me and my weak arms! We sailed for a good few hours and all got talking, I got talking to 2 guys on the boat who as it turned out were also from Durham and knew quite a few people I also knew, small world. Our first stop, we all got stinger suited up and got into the water to do a bit of snorkeling in the Great Barrier Reef. Back to the boat we had some good food and spent the night drinking and chatting on deck until we tired ourselves out and went to sleep. The next morning we got back into the sea for some more snorkeling and found Nemo! We then set sail to Whitsunday Island where we spent the afternoon on Whitehaven beach. This place was unreal, I have seen pictures and postcards and none of them do justice to seeing it for real. This beach had the whitest sand and clearest sea I have ever seen, I think we were all in awe of the sheer beauty of the place, just a shame we could only go into the sea wearing our stinger suits...stupid jellyfish! Once back on the boat we had yet more good food, drinks and chats before we all went to sleep on our last night on the boat. Our last morning saw just a few people go out for one last snorkel before we set sail back to Airlie Beach. As I said this was one of the things I was most excited for on my trip and went above and beyond me expectations, I had the most amazing time and was sad to be back on land.

Magnetic Island...

Next stop in Queensland was the lovely Magnetic Island, I wanted to stop at Mission beach but due to the sad effects of the cyclone it would not have been a good idea. So our bus stopped at Townsville which looked like a town from an old western and we got onto a ferry to take us across to the island. The 3 girls I was now travelling with all stayed in the same hostel and didn't do much on the first day as we arrived quite late in the afternoon so just got some food and drinks played a few games at the bar. The next day we got up early and went to hire out a car for the day. This car was amazing, we loved it! It can only be described as a Barbie car, small, topless and pink, lots of pink. We spent the day driving around where we could going for walks and checking out the quiet beaches, one of which we were the only people there...lovely! That night it was a full moon so our hostel held a sort of mini full moon party with buckets and neon paint although was nothing compared to the real one I went to in Thailand but was still good fun. The next morning we felt we had done everything you could really do on this small island so spent the morning relaxing in hammocks by the beach, not a bad way to spend the day is it?!?