18/10/10 The sand is almost gone

After a fun last night with all the Fraser Island crew I headed to Brisbane the next day. We dropped Arrin and Sarah in a small town called Noosa which if I had time, I would have also chosen to stay in as it reminded very much of Naples, Florida and is the stop to visit Australia zoo which unfortunately I had to miss out. But to make up for it the next day in my first morning in Brisbane (my first Oz city) I picked up Elise from the train having just flown from Hong Kong to come travelling with me for a week. Whilst in the city for almost three full days we enjoyed the Queensland museum where we acted like children measuring how far we can jump against a kangaroo and played a version of top trumps whilst learning about dangerous animals. We parted with cash so we could go on a hop-on hop-off bus tour round the city to the few tourists sights the city has with some amazing veiws looking over the very spread out city. the city infact has 2.2 million people only but has an area larger than sydney. For a special treat on Elise's first night in Oz we were meant to be meeting Christina's friend she had made whilst living here but at the last minute there was a change of plans so we still decided to dress up a go for a lovely meal. This was my first meal not in a hostel since arriving in the country and it was amazing. I started with a sushi cocktail then an amouse bouche of crocodile, main of kangaroo rump and finnished with a selection of deserts. The food was gorgeous and I finally got to try both crocodile and kanagaroo.
  We left Brisbane the next morning a kept heading down south drove through Surfers Paradise and past the five biggest theme parks in the country. The water park is the biggest in the world but because of time and money I just drooled looked at them rather than attending.
   We are currently in Byron bay a rather hippy town with a lot of surfers and grass skirts. We are spending 4 days here and I think I'm really gonna like the chilled out vibe. This morning we woke early to drive to Australia's most easterly point to see the sunrise. At the same time we watched dolphins and humpback whales frolick only kilometres off the coast which was fantastic. Today the plan is... no plan but as I have now officially booked my flights to Melbourne I am going to book one or two day tours for the time i'm there which i'm very excited about as I think I'm going to like Melbourne alot.

14/10/10 sailing, camping and eating testicles

I seem to be getting worse and worse at updating this but as I am now travelling with others constantly a night out with others seems much more inviting than rather unsocially writing my blog. But here is what I have done sinse Magnetic Isalnd....
My next stop was Airlie beach a tourist town where I stayed in av ery nice hostels with no bumk beds which used to be a hotel so very nice. Airlie beach is the gateway to the Whitsunday islands, a group of 74 islands just off the eastern ocast which I sailed round on an 83 foot x racing sail boat. I spent two days one night out at sea and with the help of lots of travel sick tablets I survived the choppy waves and sailing at over 45 degrees to the water. It was amazing to see one of the worlds best beaches "Whitehaven" and finally get to swim with a turtle. It was amazing and a good spot as none of the other members of the boat saw it, hopefully not my last time doing so. After our sailing adventure we enjoyed a great night out with the rest of the crew and then early the next day we were off to Kroombit.
Kroombit is an oz experience must where we slept the night on a working cattle ranch. We got the chance to learn to crack whips and then in the morning lassoo goats to take them out into the fields. At night we ate one of the goats from the farm which was goregeous and i even tried goat testicle which was a very new experience. It has been one of my favourite nights so far as I was with ag reat group and unusual expereince not the normal grey hound bus would have allowed for.
After Kroombit we left to come to Rainbow beach the gateway to Fraser Island. Fraser isalnd is the worlds largest sand island at 150km long with plenty of wildlife and fresh water lakes to enjoy. We camped just off the beach for two night in sand covered sleeping bags and no kind of sleeping mat. It was another great expereince but now tht I am back and still have sand in every nook and cranny I'm not sure I would rush back to do it tomorrow. We were constanlty on the lookout for dingos and these wild dogs can ravage a human to death is taunted. We were asked NEVER to leave and food and toothpaste or anything smelly outside the cars but after a cool box was stupidly left by a group of boys the first night on our second night there were around 10 dingo sigtings only metres away from us. During the day time we drove around in hardy 8 men four by fours along the "highway" also called the beach and visited the beautiful fresh water lake mckenzie with crystal clear water and white sand and trecked down a thigh high creek and other amazing locations. The island was hugely unusual but the camping in sand dunes is still not for me. i have just arrived back now and after cleaning the whole car, emptying sand out of tents sleeping back and cooking utensils I'm about to shower after three days and am sure to find a beach on my person. Tonight is a night out wherw we are doing our nails hair and attempting to look good but still eating just at the hostel and then off to Brisbane tomorrow where hopefully i'll meet elise in 48 hours.

3/10/10 Oz time!!!

After a fleating visit to Koh Samui which was not quite as awful as i was expecting I visited Singapore for 2 days. I was lucky enough to stay with the Milne's friends which was kind of them and it meant i had a comefortable air conditioned bed for those nights. I really enjoyed Singapore, it feels very much predominately multinational companies who have posted expats on to a new continent as everyones predominent language is english and westen toilets. I arrived on the evening of the singapore grand prix and although i think i could maybe hear roaring cars in the back ground I couldn't see much. I did indeed visit raffles hotel  and have a singapore sling where it was invented at a ridiculously high price but it's a cliche that must be done if in the city asd a tourist. I also visited their zoo which had every animal yu could ever expected from a zoo and was very well presented and the eanimals seemed well taken care of. Zipping back and forth on the subway system I also went to Sentosa island, a man made island which has recently opened a universal studios on it and houses a massive casino and resort. It was a very surreal place where the fountains danced to lights and had fire shooting out of them and, if possible, the streets were even cleaner than the city streets. Very odd, but had some amzing 360 veiws of the city. At night I was treated to dinner by jillian and jim who were puting me up and so we went to Clarke Quay where there were restaurants lining the river and spot lights on every of the surrounding skyscrapers, after dinner we went on a boat along the river to get an even better veiw and a close up look at the almost finnish marina sands resorts. which is a boat shaped hotel standing a three huge towers abover the city. Singapore was very nice but the unfriendliness of people reminded me of London and made me slightly unwelcome but i'd like to go back at some point.
  Then finnishing my asian leg of the trip I was off to Cairns, in the north east of australia. It is the gateway to the barrier reef so obviously i used my newly aquired PADI diving expertise to go for dive at the world renound area. It was phenominal, much much more to see and touch and be amazed by than Thailand and along with breakfast, lunch, two snorkel adventure trips and the glass bottomed boat it made up a great day to start my oz adventure. But, still no turtels, I went diving depper than any other guest on the boat but yet i still missed them even though some others saw them snorkelling in 2m deep water. Next time, hopefully I will be luckier. On my final day in cairns before leaving on my oz experience bus I had the oddest afternoon with a group of 20 ozzy rules footballers (who behaved much like rugby boys on tour) but were very friendly to me and bought me drinks. The following morning i was up at 5.30am to catch my first bus taking me down the coast to townsville where we then took the ferry accross to Magnetic island. On the way, we visited the Babinda boulders a raging rapids cut out of massive rocks and then a croc farm. At the croc farm the 5m long crocs were fed by hand and i held a baby croc, snake and pet the free roaming kangaroos. It was a rather strange place where deadly creatures were bread for gucci and got very close to, much smaller than them, keepers. After a very good first night last night with the group onmy bus, I enjoyed a day today of seeing wild koalas on a walk to the top of the island and sat beside the pool to get burnt againa nd enjoy the live DJ. To save money we are making dinner tonight and have bought very cheap wine which we will enjoy on the beach out of the eyes of the hostel bar trying to sell much more expensive alcohol.