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Published: July 28th 2005
This was not one of the exhibits
This lizard was avoiding becoming the croc's lunchOur whistle-stop tour of Australia has thankfully slowed in pace a little and we're currently chilling out in Melbourne. Here's an update since the last blog:
After the magical sailing in the Whitsundays we were meant to be getting an overnight bus to Hervey Bay, but the thought of getting on a bus after 2 nights on a boat, with no shower and covered in salt from all the snorkelling was too much, and we postponed our bus trip to the next day and found accommodation in Airlie Beach for one last night. This also meant that we were able to join the rest of our group from the boat for a few drinks that evening, before everyone went their separate ways.
The next morning Graeme, Jamie and I caught a bus to Hervey Bay for our trip to Fraser Island. We got into Hervey Bay at 1.30am and had to be ready for the Fraser Island induction meeting at 6.30am - what fun! Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world, and we were doing a 2 night/3 day self-drive safari. This basically means that we were put in a group of 9 people and given
a 4-wheel drive toyota truck, and a lot of basic (for basic read rubbish) camping equipment, and sent to the island to have 3 days of fun exploring. Half asleep we watched videos on driving the truck, avoiding dingos and where to camp, then we piled into a bus and were taken to get our equipment before catching the ferry to the island.
Fraser Island is an interesting place, and we had a pretty good group, but it didn't turn out to be the highlight of our trip so far... It rained for a good part of the 3 days and it rained both nights, so our tent was wet both mornings (:-(), and there wasn't a lot to do in the rain. The best part for Graeme and I was that we were two of the four drivers in the group, and we had lots of fun driving the truck up the beach (the eastern beach is one of the main roads on the island) and over the bumpy, sandy inland tracks. I'm not sure how much fun it was for the non-drivers though!!
We got back to Hervey Bay completely exhausted and crashed into bed very
Lake Wabby on Fraser Island
Lake Wabby is being filled by sand at a rate of 1-2 metres each year early as we were getting the bus to Brisbane the next morning... We only had one night in Brisbane and didn't see too much of the city as we spent Saturday at Australia Zoo, home of the Crocodile Hunter (crikey!). Sadly we didn't see the man himself (although his image is everywhere!) but it was a good zoo, and we did see the live croc show in the Crocoseum - fantastic! Graeme also fulfilled one of his wishes in having his photo taken holding a koala - very cute!
We went straight from the zoo to Brisbane airport, where we were flying to Canberra and Jamie was leaving us to fly back to Sydney. Her holiday was almost over and she had a couple of days in Sydney before flying back to the US. We were sorry to part with her - we had a great trip together.
Graeme and I had about 36 hours in Canberra catching up with some of his family, before flying to Melbourne yesterday morning. We have broken with the backpacker tradition here and are staying in a studio apartment - we needed our own space for a while :-) We have a
Our last lunch on Fraser Island
We were down to bread, jam, chocolate spread and peanut butter. Yum! TV, a kitchen and our own bathroom, and it is cheaper than a double room in the YHA - got to be good!
We're in Melbourne for the rest of the week, before heading to Adelaide for a couple of days, then we're going into the red centre next week. We're really looking forward to that!
take care
love Jo and Graeme x
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Lewis
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More Koalas
That's the Koala in the middle, right?