Whitsunday's and Fraser Island

Hey there, the last week of our trip has been excellent, almost certainly the most expensive week of the trip but we've done some cool stuff. After checking out Bondi beach in Syndey we flew 3 hours north up to Airlie beach to do a 3 day sailing trip on a racing yacht 'freight train'.



We visited whitehaven beach which looked stunning from the lookout above it.



We also saw a great sunset here



We did some scuba diving here and also did a night dive which was pretty cool, we all piled into a little dingy with all our stuff on and backrolled out of the water with just a torch and a glowstick for light. I saw a squid which was cool but we had to abort the dive because the instructors torch failed but we got to finish our tanks the next morning so that worked out alright. We also did some great snorkelling on the reef and all our meals were cooked for us so it turned out to be a really fun three days.

From Airlie we hopped on an overnight bus to Hervey Bay which is the jumping off point for Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world. We had a good group of 8 lads and 2 girls in our 4.2L Toyota landcruiser and everyone that wanted to drive got a go. There's no tarmac roads, just sand tracks of varying quality, we got bogged a couple of times but did pretty well overall.

The first place of note we saw was Lake Wabby, possibly the most striking lake i've seen. The ocean around fraser is full of sharks and jellyfish so you can only swim in the lakes but there are about 6 and they're all beautiful.



We saw the 75 year old shipwreck of the Maheno



We had to cook our food in the evening at a base camp, the girls did more than their fair share.



Here's the jeep we used



The water in Lake Birabeen and Mackenzie was absolutely clear and great for swimming in, we spent the 3rd day swimming and attempting various flips.



So that was Fraser, we had a good laugh in the evenings as well and got back to Hervey Bay pretty tired. The next day we bused down to Noosa where we are now. We walked through the national park and saw Koalas, Parrots and Brush Turkeys.



Now we only have 2 days left in Australia, we fly to New Zealand on the 25th and we're hiring a car for about 25 days, we're both really looking forward to it!

(There are more photos on Flickr, click on any of the photos above to jump to the set page.)

Sydney

G'day

So last time i wrote we were about to do some surf lessons... well they were really good, both of us managed to get up pretty quickly (long boards) and enjoyed it thoroughly, we booked another lesson the next day and i managed to turn the board somewhat, an action very similar to snowboarding. The day after that we went to Nimbin. Nimbin was a dairy farm until the market dropped out in the 70's and all the farmers left. At the same time a load of hippies in melbourne and sydney were looking for somewhere to live as no one liked them much so they moved into Nimbin and it quickly became hippie central. We went and had a look, i think it would have been better to visit 30 years ago as now most of the hippies have gone leaving behind a few junkies who couldn't make it and a load of tourists but it was still fun. We also got a didgeridoo show from a guy who was advertising a coroboree (an aboriginal party) which was cool.

We got back from Nimbin and jumped on an overnight bus to Sydney (and saw the giant prawn binx) Sydney is great, i'm always happy wandering around big cities and syndey certainly fills that category. We've seen the opera house and bridge, went over to Manly on the ferry and we're off to Bondi once we get off the internet. We also went to the blue mountains which has some great views and rock formations. (Check the photos) We've also booked a flight to the Whitsunday coast and booked a 3 day sailing trip on a 65ft yacht which should be great, and we'll get to do a free scuba dive on the reef. Then we're off to Frazer island to self drive some 4x4 jeeps and camp out. We'll be in New Zealand before i know it!

Due to Flickr limitations i've put new photos in a new photos set and all the others in an old photo set. There's a link on the right to the sets page or click below for the new ones.

New Photos



Who'd be a koala eh???

Byron Bay

Hurrah, We've finally found some reasonably priced internet, about 1/6th of the cost at the last two hostels.

We're in Byron bay now which is much nicer than surfers paradise where we've just come from. Surfers was a bit like the costa del sol (i think, i've never been there) byron has much more character, there are lots of organic food shops and impromptu drumming sessions on the beach, that sort of thing. We're going for a surf lesson tomorrow, looking forward to it. They guarantee you'll surf a wave for 40m or you get your money back, sounds good. I think we'll stay here for about 5 nights and then have about 5 nights in sydney before we fly north, all the other towns between here and sydney don't sound interesting enough to bother getting off the bus for.

Hope you all had a good new years, and enjoy your remaining holiday. Also good luck to dave with all his travels as i believe he leaves today.

Australia

Suze and i came flying back into the western world on the 29th, it sucks. Everyone said singapore was expensive but we were paying 6 quid a night there and we're paying 11-15 per night here. After the financial high of entering vietnam and the asia for the next 10 weeks we've now gone through a financial comedown where we have to re-adjust to english prices, and it really is english prices, not just Aus ones.
We landed in Brisbane and spent one night there. It's a nice city but we didn't do a great deal as we were tired from the flight over and we were leaving the next morning. We've been in surfers paradise the last 3 nights which has been quite good, the beach is probably the best i've seen, 100m deep and about 6 miles long of perfect white sand, and no sunbeds. New years was cool, we saw fireworks on the beach with loads of people there. The weather is beautiful here, about 30 degrees and not too humid. We're off to byron bay today.

Apologies if the blog is a bit neglected, internet is expensive here!