Australia

Ok Ok I know I'm useless at keeping this updated, and it was sucha promising start too!
So we stayed in Brisbane for a while (2 and a half months) in which time we lived in Base Palace Backpackers hostel for a week (thanks to Scott and his discounted rates...not entirely above board but these are the things your Geordie friends will do for you!) then found an advert on share-accomodation.net which offered us a room in a very nice Queenslander house for $190 a week for both of us for 6 weeks which came inclusinve of a very graceful (not really) sausage dog called Ruby and a very timid and slightly schizophrenic terrier called Custard. It was great becasue is was only a 40 minute walk (or 10 minute bus) to the city where both me and clare had managed to get jobs. Clare scored a waitressing job in the best paying bar in town called Fridays and I got a very well paid job temping for the Queensland Nursing council doing admin for $20 an hour (better wages than at home and less effort involved) and we merrily worked for 37 hours a week and tried (and failed) to save money for the first four weeks. (Top money saving tip - visit the food courst just before they close and you can get dicounted food, usuually half price) To be honest the working and going out at weekends ended up making us feel like we were basically doing what we would have done back home so after a rushed decision we headed off one weekend to Byron Bay to try out surfing and to see the sea and nota man made lagoon in a city centre (i.e. Brisbanes South bank...approximately 70% kids pee we're told). It was amazing, it was the remedy we were in need of, it was beautiful, it was the kick start of our adventuring again! We stopped into a Tribal Travel (local backpackers holiday booking place) and managed, in 30 minutes before our bus took us back to Brisbane, to have entirely booked our last few weeks in Australia, making sure we hit all the highlights on our way round!
We handed our notices in a our respective palces of employment and began our saying our goodbyes (and had a samll gathering for my 30th birthday....our first BBQ in Oz and a night out!) before packing our bags and saying goodbye to the dogs and Jane (our hostess) before getting on the Premier bus (greyhound buses are notorious for breaking down and more expensive!) and heading to our first East coast destination Rainbow Beach. To be honest our first impression was not the best....we arrived at 7pm to a town with everything shut apart from one shop that shut at 7:30pm which we had to scamper up to to make sure we could eat that evening! We were in a very quaint backpackers called Pippies though so we were at least comfortable for the night. The next morning was a glorious day and we finally got to see the very small town in the daylight. It's really nothing to shout about, it is pretty off the beaten track however the beach is worth seeing. there is an aboriginal stroy relating to the beach which gets its name from the thousands of colours found in the cliffs surrounding the bay but it's long and I'll probably get it wrong (must google it) and it was lovely just to lie on the beach and run into the freezing cold water every so often and watch the 4x4's trundling along the sand.
We left Rainbow Beach that evening (we had a lot to fit into very few days!) and headed up to Hervey Bay which is the main jumping off point to Fraser Island (the largest sand Island in the world) where we were going on our self-drive (although neither of us can drive) 4x4 tour. We stayed a a very clean backpackers called Next and had also met up with Adam (Clare's university friend) on the bus up so we decided a celebration was in order and defied hostel law and drank some drinks in Adam's room to catch up for a while before trying to find somewhere to go in town (nowhere, everything seems to close at 11pm), but it was a nice walk around! In the morning it was a fruit breakfast on the beach before aome fribee-ing on the beach and some fish and chips (I just had chips) and some angry seagulls circling us and trying to steal our food. We then had to meet out Fraser Island group and have a safety talk (for anyone lucky enough to watch the Queensland offical safety video....it is hilarious and "Be Dingo Safe!"). We then had to do our shopping for 9 people ($20 each) in the shop next door, of which we managed to buy too little.
The next morning was 'Launch day', we packed up our 4x4 and headed to the ferry terminal and the adventure began! No one told us the weather was going to be rubbish....it was a hard drive and a miserable time was spent looking at Lake McKenzie for our first stop. We ran back to the 4x4 and decided we needed to find some cover so we could rummage in the Eskies (food containers) on the top of the truck. We found the only town on the island and used a bench outside the shop to hastily prepare cheese sandwiches, cuningly using two swiss army knives to butter the bread before doing the dangerous beach drive up to the aboriginal camp ground we were camping in on the first night. The tides are extrememly dangerous on Fraser Island and you can only drive up them on certain times of the day for fear of being swept out to sea...
We made it in one piece though and we lucky enough to be able to sleep in a rotunda rather than tents and we even got to build a massive camp fire which we shared with another group once the rain had stopped. It was a great first night with preparing our dinner and drinking goon (boxed Oz wine which is rahter too cheap and nasty) and sitting round a huge fire sharing stories and looking out for dingoes. Me and Adam decided at one time to go searching for firewood which led to an amusing incident of borrowing and axe from the aboriginals and deciding whther it was better to take wood to axe or axe to wood....being a woman I was right and the axe needed to go to the wood as the original need for an axe was that we were uable to lift the log we needed to chop!). Cue hilarious attempts to chop the log in front of another group of amused Germans... we eventually got enough fuel for the fire!
The Second day was much nicer in terms of weather, although it was a bit cloudy. We got up and had breakfast or cornflakes and other such hangover cures and got into the packed 4x4 and headed to Indian Head in a hurry (we were behind schedule and the tide was coming in FAST!). We got there unscathed and saw the breathtaking views from on top of Indian Head (a hike up the hill first) but the sea was too rough to see the whales and turtles usually visible in the sea below.
There was then the hard decision on whether to drive up to the Champagne Pools but due to our late arrial at Indian Head it was decided that it was too much of a risk so only 3 of us then decided to walk to 2km to see the Pools. they were spectacular but as we had missed low tide they were also a bit dangerous and we nearly got swept away! So we headed back to the 4x4, taking along with us on Clare's towel, what looked like a tarantula...cue hysterical twoel throwing and me carfully removing the 6 legged-half dead spider...which turned out to be a non-dangerous Huntsman.
We headed down to Eli Creek and waded down the crystal clear (and very cold) water creek and did more frisbee-ing before heading to our next campsite (where nasty rangers were willing to dish out harsh fines for noise after 9pm.
We set up our tents and set about making dinner of pasta and beans and any other food we had thought to buy and ate huge amounts before heading to the beach for more goon drinking (to avoid the ranger fines). After a few dune related peeing trips and some dingo scaremongering we deceided to head back to the campsite and hit the hay and be ready (on time) for day 3.
The best was saved for last.....beautiful weather and easy driving! We hit Lake Wabby first and it is well worht the 45 minute walk to see! It is just amazing....we swan on the lake and even took part in some dues boarding down the massive sand dune and into the lake before heading back to the 4x4 as quickly as possible so we could sample Lake McKenzie in nice weather. It was a completely different place than what we had seen on the first day and we were massively disappointed to only have 15 minutes of the lake (in which some very funny fastforwarded beach frisbee-ing and sunbathing took place) before heading abck to the ferry home.

It's been a long time since I've blogged and I apologize but things have been pretty hectic. We moved through the rest of South East Asia so quickly that we just didn't have time to keep you updated.
We're in Australia now, a little later than planned as our new found friends from South Africa begged us to go back to Koh Pangnan for another Full Moon Party which meant we had to change our flights to Oz.
We made it here though, after a long 12 hour flight with British Airways (not as good as Qantas!) to Sydney. It was a night flight and I unfortunately did not get any sleep so we landed at 6am, I was groggy and....COLD. We travelled in the usual style of shorts, flip flops and vest tops after spending a few hot days on the beach and in Bangkok to arrive in winter in Australia. It was a bit of a shock to the system but we're glad to report that Australians are mad if they think that the weather here ever gets cold...it only gets lukewarm compared to the UK!
We spent about an hour getting out of Sydney airport, due to their need to check everyone for wood items (because they don't have woodworm here apparently, and don't want it for obvious reasons!). We did have to remark that the customs people were really lovely and helpful, possibly due to having to deal with the stern faced Vietnamese previously.
We headed out at 7am to find somewhere we could store our luggage for the day and to find jumpers to wear. We successfully ditched our bags and walked through the city centre ona mission to find the Opera House and Habour Bridge. We stopped for a hearty breakfast of course and studied the maps we'd found for free and decided we were fit enough to walk the sights of the big city.
We literally kept walking in a straight line to find the world famous landmarks but it was all a bit surreal at 8am and we've also come to the conclusion that we're suffering from 'Landmark Viewing Fatigue' which means we no long 'ooooh' and 'ahhh' over the things we've been wanting to see for years. For exmaple, Clare's comments on the Harbour Bridge - "Oh, it's just a bigger version of the Tyne Bridge then..." and my comments on the Opera House - "Oh, it's a bit small really...and there are too many stairs...now where are the toilets?".
We took some pretty pictures though and killed some time sitting by the landmarks taking turns to snooze on the park benches and listening to the Aboriginal man play his digeridoo.
The reason we needed to kill so much time was because we were meeting Clare's cousin once she finished work at 5pm so it was a long wait when you're that tired and a bit disorientated.
Luckily, we survived the wait and met Nicola and she took us back to the suburbs (Hornsby) so we could stay there for a few nights and recouperate and doing plenty of laundry. It was great to just be able to take our time and relax and be in a house rather than a guesthouse. I remember the first night, sitting down to a home cooked dinner and sitting around a dining table and not having to pay...it was bliss!
We mostly hid in the suburbs for a few nights and tried to catch up on sleep and adjust our body clocks again before we hit the city again. We decided to check out Manly beach (tip from Nicola) rather than Bondi beach as it's a nicer area. And it was lovely....we stood and watched the surfers try and catch some waves and had a nice lunch and tried to find bargains in the surf shops (nothing is going to be as cheap as Bangkok!). We headed back on the commuter ferry at 5pm so we could see the sunset over the Harbour Bridge which people usually pay a lot of money to do on a private cruise and it was stunning.
The next night we said good bye and many thanks to Nicola and headed for a night in the city before catching our flight to Brisbane. It was a bit of a mistake...we wanted a bit of a night out and we got a big night out which ultimately led to a bit of a disaster of sorts! We managed to set an alarm to wake us up at an appropriate time to catch the flight...however, we forgot to change the alram clock to Oz time and so we slept in until 10:30am and our flight was at 11:10am... I was very optomistic that we could still make it but we only managed to get on t a train to the airport at 11:10am rather than the plane! It wasn't a complete distaster though, we had to pay a small charge to change us to the next flight (it was a popular morning for it according to the JetStar staff) and we were on our way to sunny Brisbane in search of jobs and cheap accommodation (and a few friends from home!).