28th November

---

This is probably my happiest day so far!!!

It started stressfully as I had a nightmare last night that I was on a pirate ship and I was suffocating under boxes (could be something to do with the fact that it was stormy outside and our room was flooding). I jumped out of bed and cried out "help" in a strangulated voice, and Darren and Heather both heard - Heather got up and made me go outside in the rain (evil girl, taking advantage of my dreaming state, only cos she wanted to go to the bathroom and didn't want to walk on the rain on her own!!!)

So this morning was a tired one, and then we had to sort out all the Ozexperience bookings, hostel bookings and activity bookings - aghhh! It took hours and was SOOOOO stressful! Got back really grumpy, my friends ran ahead and I schlepped behind - when I got there they locked the door on me, I was like NOOOOO cos just thought they were joking - then they opened it and screamed "SURPRISE!!!" and they'd decorated the whole bunk with streamers and "Happy Birthday" banners!!! They had all signed me a card and got me a "sock" thing (which I love!) to put my mobile phone in to keep it safe! (After my camera breaking, I guess they want to be doubly sure nothing else will go wrong). They also got me not one, but TWO birthday cakes - a caramel one and a white chocolate one!!!

I feel soooo loved hehe! I really have met the best group of friends in the world to travel with - they are a bunch of angels.

I thought they'd be annoyed I'd told a little white lie about my birthday, but this has turned out even better cos all 8 of us are in the same room now!

To top it all off, we were just outside eating cake when Aaron turned up!!! We had bumped into him in Cardwell a few days ago and he realised how much he missed us all, so we looked around and there he was! Back on Magnetic island!!! We all ran over screaming "AARON!!!" at him!

It's been an amazing day and I just can't have wished for more special people to spend my time here with :o)

Also, we hired a car for the day on Tuesday and got to go shopping and generally just zip around which was nice! It was a topless car, and had flame red seats. We named it "Magnum".

---