Australia

So it was time for some R&R after all the excitement of The Whitsunday's and Fraser Island. We hit Brisbane and treated ourselves by actually staying in hotel after having spent the last 10 days sleeping on boats, buses and in tents - I have seriously never appreciated having a comfy bed and clean towels more. As it was the last few days of Rich, Jules and Lisa's holiday we decided to completely spoil ourselves and went to the award winning steak restaurant Cha Cha Char for..... award winning steak - really hit the spot!

The following morning, on the recommendation of Paul and Maz we went to visit Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. Its primarily a Koala Sanctuary but it also had all number of Australian themed animals including Kangaroos's, Cassowary's and various snakes and spiders. There was a massive Kangaroo enclosure you can go into and feed the Kangaroo's, it was very amusing watching a load of Japanese tourists chasing Roo's around the enclosure with massive camera's trying to capture the elusive action shot.

The highlight was obviously the Koala Bears and at the risk of sounding like a proper soft-lad they were undenyably cute! Apparently they sleep for 20 hours a day as their diet is made up solely of eucalyptus leaves which has very little calorie content so they have no energy to do anything else. When they aren't asleep they just chill out in the tree's. For a measly $15 you could have a picture taken with one so I coughed up and had my photo taken with Bertha.

Me & Betha

[u]Could this Koala be more chilled out?

After the other guys had gone home myself and Mark stayed in Brisbane for another 3 or 4 days just exploring the city and relaxing. We satisfied our cultural appetites by visiting the Queensland Museum, the Botanical Gardens and did the walking city tour recommended by Lonely Planet. We also met up for drinks with some of the people we had met on our Whitsunday's trip. On our final day we went to the Mt Coot-Tha lookout which promised to deliver a breathtaking panorama of Brisbane city. Unfortunately, just as we reached the top it started to piss it down so we sought shelter in the Thomas Brisbane Planetarium - I am now an absolute expert on the solar system.

All in all I really enjoyed Brisbane it's a pretty chilled out city (and Australia's 3rd largest Fact Fans) you can easily spend a fair number of days exploring, I'd recommend it.

Surfer's Paradise

Really didn't rate Surfers at all. We were going to pass through anyway so we figured we might as well stop off for a few days - we managed 24hrs. It's just one of those places which is full of massive high-rise hotels, tacky souvenir shops and hideously expensive bars. No one there seems to own any clothes either.

We did stay in a pretty good hostel and shared a dorm room with two nice lads from Bournemouth so we decided to go along to the hostel organised drinks night. We tried our best to have a good night but when everywhere you go is the sort of place where they are looking for volunteers to get naked for a round of appaulse I suddenly went all shy. We decided to leave the following morning.

Our next stop - Byron Bay

Hot on the heels of The Whitsunday's we were straight back on the Greyhound and down the coast to Hervey Bay ready for our Fraser Island - 3 day self drive safari.

Fraser Island is the worlds largest sand island measuring 120km by 15km and was created by thousands of years of longshore drift. Since 1990 the island has been protected as the Great Sandy National Park and in 1993 it was inscribed on the World Heritage List.

FACT: It contains more sand than the Sahara Desert (source: Paul, Reading)

Another early start, we were up at 6.30am for our first de-brief at the hostel. We were split into two groups, we had a really nice couple from Reading called Paul and Maz and two Danish girls along with us 5. After watching a video all about the island and how to avoid being savaged by a pack of wild Dingoes we had to decide on our shopping and alcohol lists (we were camping for the next two nights). It was just like being in Big Brother, but with it being so early and us being so knackered we just followed the recommended list. Paul and Maz went to go and buy all the food whilst the rest of us went down to the 4x4 rental place to collect all the camping equipment.

Rich and myself were assigned the job of checking off all the equipment which did mean having to count out 9 of everything (folks, knives, plates, cups etc) and then load it all on the roof. After a final talk on how to drive the Battle Bus (when to use 2WD, 4WD & Super-Tractor mode) and being issued a map of the island we headed down to the ferry to start our adventure.

The Battle Bus

Arriving on the island you can appreciate why they give you such a heavy duty vehicle, there are no roads at all only really deep sand tracks and the beach to drive along. We had been given a suggested itinery of what to see over the three days and decided to stick to that to make sure we saw all the main attractions. The highlights of the first day were Lake Wabby a fresh water lake which had vegetation running along one side and sand dunes on the other - a pretty amazing site and a shipwreck on the beach.

Shipwrecked

At 4pm we had to report into Base Camp where we would be staying for the two nights. We were greeted by the site manager, a very eccentric guy called Macca who talked at length of all the nasty spider and snakes which inhabit the island (funnily enough non of which was mentioned at the booking office). We then very painfully put up our tent which look 5 of us about 2 hours it was seriously like Dumber and even more stupid, you'll be amazed at how wrong we managed to get it. Paul, Rich and the girls made an awesome Banger & Mash for tea on the BBQ and we all got stuck well and truely into the Goon. Now I had no idea what Goon was until Fraser Island but if you can imagine the cheapest wine available which is only sold in 4 litre boxes, they have a very niche market of raging alcoholics who are treating themselves to a night off the Meths and hard up Backpackers. Having said that the Goon was flying down and we all made lots of fun "Spanking the Goon" (which is when the Goon is taken out of the box and you all take it in turns to spank the foil bag it comes in - probably makes more sense if you're Gooned)

Paul & Lisa man the BBQ

Gooned - Me, Jules and Maz

Suddenly there was a rustling in the undergrowth and we all thought we may be about to encounter our first Dingo attack but to our relief it was only Macca brandishing a massive torch doing his nightly spider watch. He enlightened us again to a catalogue of spider and snake attack tales delivered as only Macca could - we all decided there and then that Macca was a legend!

The following day, nursing significant Goon-heads we piled back into the Battle Bus for another day sightseeing the highlight being Indian Head. Indian Head is the top of a cliff overlooking one of the beaches but it is also an outcrop so you are quite far out at sea. From the top you can look down into the water and see Sharks, Mantra Rays and Dolphins (you can't swim in the sea at Fraser because you will either get eaten by a shark or pulled out to sea by a rip)

After hitting the on-site bottle shop for emergency Goon our second evening was spent exchanging scary stories back at base camp (very camping stylie!)

After packing up all our camping stuff which was a hell of alot easier than setting it all up we hit the road for your final day. The highlight of which was Lake McKenzie another of Fraser's fresh water lakes. It was a really hot day so there was no hesitation in wading in there for a cool off (it also works wonders for a Goon hangover)

The Gang

After dropping off all the camping gear we headed back to the hostel and were amazed to discover that we were still a Goon up so we headed over to the Chinese all you can eat buffet with Paul and Maz for a final spanking session. We all really enjoyed Fraser Island, it has definitely been the best thing we have done in Australia so far - such a unique place to visit.

Our next stop - Brisbane

We hopped on The Greyhound down to Airlie Beach in preparation for our Whitsunday's sailing extravaganza. We were pretty relieved to discover that Airlie Beach is a pretty lively beach resort so after checking into a hostel we headed out for a few schooners, bearing in mind we had a 6am alarm call the following morning to meet the crew.

The Whitsunday's are a collection of 74 islands set in the heart of Queensland's Great Barrier Reef the largest of these islands being Whitsunday Island. We had signed ourselves up for a fully chartered 3 day 2 night sailing and diving trip cruising around the islands aboard a vessel called "Kiana"

Ain't she a Beaut..?

We managed to get ourselves up on time and down to the marina where we met by John the resident dive instructor and crew member and the rest of the passengers. The majority of the other passengers were people roughly our age, also travelling and there were also few slightly older couples - all in all a good bunch.

After introductions we climbed aboard and the skipper Brent ran through the boat rules and various safety procedures - try not to get drunk and fall over board, we were only allowed to have one 2 min shower a day (anyone who knows me will appreciate how horrified I was at hearing this) and we were trained at how to use a marine toilet. Then Brent sparked the old girl up and we shimmied out of the marina. Unfortunately, the weather wasn't great so we weren't able to venture into the outer Barrier Reef so we headed for Hayman Island. It was pretty rough getting out there but it was pretty cool to be sat on deck as we crashed through the waves.

After a few hours we arrived at Hayman Island, anchored for the day, had lunch and then sat down for our first dive briefing. We were told at length of the dangers of the potentially fatal Box Jellyfish, one of the most deadly animals on earth - you don't need to be concerning yourself with Great Whites when these bad boys are in the ocean. The real bummer about the Box Jellyfish is that you don't even see it coming in the water until it's too late.

"You have virtually no chance of surviving the venomous sting, unless treated immediately. The pain is so excruciating and overwhelming that you would most likely go into shock and drown before reaching the shore." - nice

Me rocking a Stinger Suit

John went on to "highly recommend" we all use full length "Stinger Suits" complete with a hood to help protect ourselves - you have never seen people squeeze themselves into something so quickly in all your life! Our first dive wasn't great, I had never dived in such bad visibility (it was about 5 meters) so you had to really stick with your dive buddy but having said that it was really good experience and I even made myself a little friend.

Me with a Sea cucumber

The evening was spent chilling out on deck and appreciating the scenery, we saw some pretty awesome sunsets.

Sunset at Hayman Island

We had the smallest cabin ever which slept 6 of us (Mark, Rich, Jules, Lisa and myself) plus we had Shirley Valentine in with us too - a scouse divorcee. mid-forties, looking for love. Shirley went to bed at 8pm every night and snored like nothing on earth, kept us all awake and then complained the following morning about not sleeping too well!

On the second day Brent treated us to some proper sailing (we had previous been powered by a motor) So we got the sails up, gave the engine a rest and glided through the water like a hot knife through butter. We arrived at Dumbell Island by lunchtime and did two more dives that afternoon, the visibility was slightly better but will pretty poor. We did see some decent coral and sealife including an enormous Napoleon Fish called Elvis. Elvis is quite the celebrity of the Whitsunday's and has no quarms in coming over for a cuddle with divers and snorkellers.

Elvis

Our third and final day was spent at Whitehaven Beach. Now I know I absolutely raved about how amazing the Perhentian Islands were in Malaysia but Whitehaven Beach is the closest we have come to beating that.

Team "Kiana" at lookout over Whitehaven Beach

Enjoying Whitehaven Beach

And then we sailed back to the marina, I spent the afternoon finishing The Da Vinci Code on deck (I recon that Dan Brown could be onto a winner there..) It's also tradition that the crew and passengers all go out for drinks that night when you reach dry land. We ended up having a great final night... well I presume it was great.... I know there was Sambuca.

Our next stop - Fraser Island.

So we eventually managed to drag ourselves out of Asia and into Oz, although it was abit touch & go at Immigration. It appears my new Bohemian travelling look isn't to everyone's taste and suggests that I may be someone who carries a backpack full of unsavories. After a thorough searching of my bag and Marks trainers making a brief trip to quarantine for a scrub up we were welcomed into Oz with open arms. (mental note to self: smarten up general appearance and maybe run a razor over my chops more than once every 6 weeks to avoid this embarrassment in future)

Our first stop was Cairns, now there isn't anything particularly wrong with Cairns but there isn't anything particularly right with it either. It's essentially a purpose built holiday resort, abit like Blackpool but with better weather but bizarrely despite being on the coast - no beach. We did find ourselves a decent hostel and spent the next few days exploring, sampling the "colorful" nightlife on offer and an awful lot of time complaining like two old women about the price of just about everything. It's going to take us a while to get used to 1st world country prices again.

After a few days Jules (Mark's girlfriend) Rich and Lisa (2 of our mates from London) flew out to join us for a three week holiday. They were allowed 2 days to get over their jetlag and then it was time to move on.

Port Douglas

It's fair to say Port Douglas went down alot better than Cairns. It's a fairly small town popular with the well-heeled Aussie (so why we ended up there is abit concerning). The place itself has a real community vibe going on, everyone seems to know everyone else and spend alot of time hanging out chillin - I don't think anyone there has a job.

The main attraction of "Port" is it's easy access to the Barrier Reef so we wasted no time in signing ourselves up for some diving the following day. The company we had arranged to dive with had a brand spanking new boat with all the mod-cons so we cruised into the reef in fine style - very Port Douglas. We had all opted to do 3 dives so it was a pretty hectic day but all the crew were really organised so it all ran very smoothly.

Our dive boat

The first two dives were at the same site but exploring different parts of the reef. Obviously the main attraction is beautiful coral which was stunning but we also saw some excellent sea life we hadn't seen before. After lunch we did our third dive where we moved to a different site and were taken out on a small boat to the middle of the reef. We then spent the dive swimming back to the main dive boat against the current. It was pretty hard work but a good experience, plus we got to do a James Bond style backwards dive into the water which was cool. This was our best dive in terms of sightings. We saw all types of different fish - Stingrays, White-tip Sharks, Triggerfish, Parrotfish, Clownfish and Sea cucumbers. We all really enjoyed the day and were really chuffed to have dived the Great Barrier Reef - it was a great experience.

There was an underwater photographer taking photo's as we dived so I though I would have loads of wicked photo's to post on my blog. Unfortunately, I have never been the most photogenic guy and there wasn't a single decent shot out of seven he took. Infact, on each and every one there is a look of sheer, unparalled panic on my face. This was abit gutting for me as I always imaged myself looking alot more sexy whilst I'm diving.

Mission Beach

We began our journey south down the East Coast stopping off first at Mission Beach as it had been recommended by some Aussies we met ages ago in Vietnam. We got off the bus, checked into a hostel, went down to the beach and then wondered where the fu*k everyone else was...! I appreciate the place only has a population of 1,090 but we haven't seen a single other person in nearly 48 hours. I'm convinced we're being Punkt and Ashton Kutcher is going to appear from underneath a palm leaf any minute now.

We tried to escape today by booking a day trip to the nearby Dunk Island just so we could try and integrate ourselves back into some sort of normal community but "apparently" the boats weren't running (we're suspicious of the guy who runs the hostel - he has sneaky eye's). So we went for a rainforest trek instead. Apparently there are loads of sightings of the infamous Cassowary birds in the forest so we trekked for 3 hours, camera's poised, did it makes an appearance? Did it Fu*k..!

Our next stop - The Whitsunday's.