Fraser Island.....

Well we got back from Fraser Island a couple of days ago and what an experience it was! Driving the 4x4 over there was brilliant. There wasn't any tarmac roads, literally the whole trip was off road! It takes the best part of an hour to go about 15km though so it's not quick to get around the island. We did just over 300km while we were there but that included about 100km driving up the beach to Indian Heads.

We went to the most amazing lake while we were there called Lake McKenzie which had crystal clear water and brilliant white sandy beaches. It was a freshwater lake as well so no nasty creatures lurking in the depths. We took our snorkels down with us and went swimming with turtles. It was amazing. There were also Dingos walking around and bathing in the lake as well - quite weird just seeing them stroll around. Pictures will follow - I did a few today but it took 2 hours to get about 20 uploaded so we gave up as there are still 81 we need to do, so looking for an internet cafe that is a bit quicker. We are currently in a very small and very stereotypical outback ozzy town, so its not to be expected to have anything faster than standard broadband.

We also went up to a place called Indian Heads which is along 75 mile beach. From here we climbed to the top of this cliff to look out over the sea. We saw at least 15 sharks, 10 sting rays, a giant turtle, a few schools of fish and a few dolphins. We were certainly glad we didnt go fo a quick dip in the sea!

The first night camping was pretty uneventful and everything seemed to go to plan, but the second caused a few more problems starting with Jade getting bitten by a nasty little creature. It turned out it was a bull ant which are nearly an inch long and have huge pincers for killing insects and generally breaking stuff! She leant on it as she was getting out of her chair and it bit her. (They also jump as well!) Her whole hand swelled up and went blotchy, she got shooting pains going down her wrist, she got a big hard lump appear in the middle of her hand and it felt like it was on fire! By this time it was dark, and we didnt see what bit her. Paul and Laura headed off to the ranger station to see if they could help, but they were shut. Jade was in an enormous amount of pain and we had no idea whether the thing that bit her was poisonous or not. I had to go and find some aussies that might know what it was, and luckily there were some staying just across from us at the campsite (when I say campsite, it was just a small clearing in the middle of a forest so lots of creepy crawlies about). Luckily or unluckily for her, the woman was bitten by one the day before and jades symptons all matched what this lady had, so we could narrow it down to the Bull Ant. She gave us some antiseptic cream and ice for her hand which helped a bit, but it didnt start to calm down for over an hour and she still has a bit of the lump left now (3 days later). Thankfully the panic was over, but Jade was still in pain. Then it started absolutley p*ssing it down and guess what - our tents weren't as waterproof as they said they were on the box! Both ours and Paul & Laura's tent started leaking. Most of our stuff including bedding was getting wet but there wasnt really anything we could do, so just had to grin and bare it. All our stuff was soaking wet and covered in mud when we woke up in the morning so had to pack it all away as it was.
As we were driving around the southern lakes we had to clear a few trees that had fallen across the mud/sand roads as we were the first to drive down them that day. It was then that we saw a bloody great big Python laying across the road. After taking a couple of snaps I got a stick to give it a poke - as you do, and it slithered off into the bushes!
So we got to see quite a bit of wildlife while we were there and has also confirmed that we dont want to go camping in those tents again! :o)
We had a good fews hours of cleaning and drying all stuff when we got back which was a pain, but all part of the experience.
Next trip - the Whitsundays. I think we'll sleep on the boat for that one! :o)

Right enough waffling - hope I didnt bore you to death reading that!

Hope you are all well.
K&J
xxx

This week it has mostly been......hot! :o)

Well I'm glad to say that the wet weather has well and truly past and it has been scorching since Byron Bay. In fact I think it was Russell Crowe who sang away all the rain as it was sunny from then onwards.
The gig was pretty good in the fact that it was weird to be less than 3m away from a mega movie star and it was a really good atmosphere as it was such a small venue, but his songs were pretty crap. The rest of his band are hilarious, they are such a bunch of gimps! :o)

We've been to the weed capital of the south coast (purely to view I'll add) which was pretty weird. All the shops looked like they had been planted from the 60's and I got offered weed, skunk, ganja, mushies, cookies, grass and every other possible name for weed while we were there. It kind of got a bit annoying as I was offered it at least 12 times in about 10 mins! That was an experience to say the least. We didnt hang around there for too long as it was filled with BO stinking hippies and not really our scene.
While in Byron we also went horse riding along seven mile beach which was brilliant. I'd never done horse riding before, unless you include the pony trek I went on when I was in primary school, and Jade had been bugging me all the way through NZ to do it as well. Anyway we met a couple in Byron that we are now travelling up the Eact Coast with (Paul and Laura) that let it slip that they do horse riding along the beach just down from where we were staying and as soon as she heard that, we were pretty much doing it. I'm really glad we did though as it was such good fun and we had a really sunny clear day for it too. We also did some bare-back riding in the sea which was uncomfortable to say the least - still it's something I'm really glad to have done.

Since Byron we have travelling with Paul and Laura (who have a camper called Clive) and our next port of call was Surfer's Paradise in the Gold Coast. This place was really nice and full of theme parks. We only went to Wet'n'Wild which was an amazing water park. As I like to say and rarely fulfill, I will put photos up soon! ;o)

From there we went to Brisbane which is a place I think I could live. It's a really nice city with a really nice atmosphere. And it's damned hot for most of the year! It has a man made beach just acorss the river which gives a view of the whole city with the safety of there being no sharks! :o)

We took a trip to Australia Zoo when we left Brisbane which is Steve 'Crocodile Hunter' Irwins zoo. Saw some great live shows here and spent quite a while feeding the Kangaroos which Jade has fallen in love with. We managed to take about 100 photos of just feeding the kangas. Made me feel slightly guilty for eating Kangaroo saussies when we first arrived, but oh well!

We spent a night in Coolum on our way to Noosa which was really nice, but just another little surfy town. We are now in Noosa which is lovely. Lots of very rich people around here with houses on the river with massive power boats moored outside! We hired a boat for 3 hours yesterday and had a few tinnies and went fishing - great fun. Jade caught a fish and then freaked out because she then didnt know what to do with it, so I had to de-hook it and throw it back in the water. Paul caught one fish that had swallowed the hook so far that he had to stab it to death - he was going to eat it, but after we weighed up what we had to do to make it eatable, it would've left enough fish for about half a fish finger! :o)

Anyway, we are about to drive Ernie up to Hervey Bay as we have hired a 4x4 for a 3 day trip over to Fraser Island.

Hope that you are all well and I will try to update photos really soon!

Take care
K&J
xxx