From Cool Bananas to Big Bananas ...

After all that excitement, we needed a break - and what better place to take one than the idyllic and relatively undiscovered 'Agnes Water'?! With uninterrupted sunshine, 9km of pristeen beach, nothing around but a few shops and very cheap surf lessons courtesy of 'Cool 'Bananas' it didn't take much persuasion to extend our stay - the fact we found a fully equipped villa with private pool for virtually the same price as a backpackers hostel made it a no-brainer! But alas, adventure beckons...

Tales from a small island

With a sci-fi feel, Landrovers, SUVs and buses with towering wheel bases and fat chunky tyres race across white sandy beaches to refuel at petrol pumps amidst the rainforest.

At 120km long by 15km wide and with more sand than the Sahara desert, Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world. It has 200 freshwater lakes, abundant rainforests, sandblows up to 224m tall and one of the brightest night skies in Australia, no wonder it's known to local Aborigines as 'k'gari' (paradise). The only drawbacks are the lethal undertows and man-eating sharks that make swimming a definite no-no, and the deadly dingoes, although there are only 130 of these left following cullings after the fatal mauling of a child in 2001.

From the moment our bus drove off the ferry straight onto the beach, we knew this was going to be one of the highlights of our trip. Over the sandblows, through the rainforests and onto the 120km long beach - amazing. Hot work, we stopped to swim through Eli Creek - a 6.5km freshwater creek pumping 4.5 million litres of water per hour (makes you question Australia's water shortage!) before visiting the 'Maheno' shipwreck (a liner converted to a hospital ship during WW1 that crashed here in 1935). The first day's activities ended with a walk/climb to the top of 'Indian Heads' (a 65m high rock formation where we got to watch breaching Humpbacks, Bull Sharks, Dolphins, Turtles and Manta Rays mingling in the sea below) before retiring to our camp on Cathedral Beach for a bbq and some star gazing.

Unable to sleep after being woken by the scratching noises around the tent (which could've been dingoes but Steve refused to go and look), we thought we might as well get up to see the sunrise at around 5.30am - it was spectacular so we took lots of photos especially for Nick P...

Back on the road early, these intrepid explorers took a 3.6km bushwalk and sandblow climb to swim in the crystal waters of 'Lake Wabby', as well as a 1.8km trek through the 'Wangoolga Creek' rainforest before their picnic lunch at 'Central Station'. The adventure ended with a swim at the beautiful rainwater filled 'Lake Birrabeen' (which also doubles as somewhere to clean jewellery with its fine sand - leading to the embarrassing and very loud question by a dutch guy at the bus station the next day - ''sho Shteve, how is your ring dish mornink?!'') before the ferry took us back to reality, well 'Hervey Bay'...
... hmmm 'Hervey Bay' - 'God's waiting room' is a good description with residents' age averaging around 98 and zimmer friendly streets!

Star spotting

Moving on from the 'departure lounge' to Noosa, one of Australia's most exclusive resorts where the stars are said to mingle with the surfers. Obviously not when we were there, though not sure we'd recognise them anyhow! Noosa was very nice with lots of bars, restaurants etc but was a little bit full of itself!

'Bris-Vegas'

And so to Brisbane, Australia's 3rd city where there's something for everyone - theme parks, casinos, beaches, shops, restaurants, national parks, mountains and of course, 'Surfer's Paradise'! Our first impression wasn't good as we checked into the prison like Palace Embassy right in the midst of the city (not the best place to be we discovered). Appalled by the hostel, and frightened by the dodgy night atmosphere of the area, we went to the late night showing of 'The Devil Wears Prada' to escape.

A new day, a new hostel and a new start in Brisbane, which was actually quite nice. We strolled around the 'South Bank' with its cafes, museums and pretty gardens, we ventured into the 'West End' with its cool bars and restaurants and ended the day in 'The Valley' with its trendy boutiques and 'Chinatown' restaurants. The only downside was the big storm we got caught in!

To get the most out of the Brisbane surrounds, we hired a car and headed out to the Coolangatta YHA - 'a perfect base to explore Surfers and discover the Hinterlands' ... whilst Coolangatta may live up to that description, the hostel was far from the perfect anything! Dirty, badly laid out, practically on the airport runway and with zero security, the final straw was getting stuck in the room as we hadn't realised the door locked automatically when closed and there was no way to open it from the inside - erm were we to sleep with the door open?!?! By chance a cleaner passed the room and let us out, enabling Ali to be let loose on reception (to the question ''why is it only ever you English that complain?''). We got our money back and moved on, again, only to spend the rest of the day driving up and down the coast looking for somewhere to stay - a tough mission on a bank holiday weekend during the school holidays! Still we got to see 'Surfer's Paradise' (Blackpool with palm trees) and drive on the Indy 300 street circuit which was being prepared for the big race.

Another day, but another disappointment as we trekked through various national parks in the Gold Coast hinterland to see waterfalls that resembled dripping taps, caves that were more like overhanging rocks and rainforests that didn't have proper tracks. To top off the day Ali got herself a new friend - a bush tick firmly attached to her scalp!!! We managed to detach it with no serious side effects - we hope!

A new day, a new state!

To counter the disappointment, Springbrook National Park across the border in NSW was cool, with the 'Natural Bridge' waterfall and glow worm cave, 'Purlingbrook Falls' - a 100m high waterfall, and the 'Best of All' lookout which not only looked over the 'McPherson Range' (remnants of the huge volcano that was 'Mt Warning') but also boasted one of the oldest trees in the world - a 2,000 year old Beech.

Taking advantage of our car, we went the long way to Byron Bay via a little village called 'Nimbin'. Australia's original hippy village, it's a very relaxed and colourful place with a museum that opens 'whenever' and a shop called 'Bringabong' - nothing to do with the abundance of smokable substances freely on offer we're sure! Needless to say, it was full of druggie drop-outs, complete weirdos and hippies!

Byron itself was lovely, beautiful beaches mixed with nice bars and restaurants and a great atmosphere - we were only sorry we couldn't stay longer :-(

Big bananas...

And finally to 'Coffs Harbour', the home of the 'Big Banana' - a cr*p theme park in the loosest sense of the term 'theme park' (its reputation was so bad we didn't bother going despite it being free!).

Coffs itself was lovely and the hostel 'Aussitel' was the best we've stayed in with helpful staff, clean rooms and a great location. A great place to chill, we didn't do too much - walked over to 'Muttonbird Island' to see the breaching humpbacks (they're following us down the coast), watched performers at the 'International Festival of Buskers', chilled on 'Moonee Beach' (yes, we did see a moony) and ate at some nice restaurants, oh and were involved in a crash when a car decided to play chicken with our bus - the car was a write-off but fortunately nobody was injured, just delayed by a few hours whilst the police sorted it all out.