The next day was our 6.5 hour drive back to Sydney. One the way down we stopped at one of the Hunter Valley Vineyards and had a tour on how to make wine, had lunch, and then the wine sampling began. Lets just say on the was to Sydney from Hunter Valley everyone was very merry. The wine supplied was endless, as much as you wanted they gave you. When we got to Sydney we drove to Macquarie Chair and has our Sydney Group Photo taken with a backdrop of the Harbour Bridge and Opera House. After that it was back to the hotel and time for the goodbyes :(. Lucky for facebook its been easy to stay in touch with everyone and share our photos. Sad the trip is over but just means now I ... read more

Today almost everyone signed up for the learn to surf option. I almost didn't go. Seriously hung over from the previous night been up for an 8:00 am surf was not high on the list of things I wanted to do. I'm so glad i did though. Most of us were in the same boat - struggling. We got the surfboards and has practice and theory first into the sand and then hit the water. It was really fun. I think everyone got up but everyone also went flying off too more times but it was fun and funny as. Totally worth doing. The rest of the day was pretty much spent on the beach, sleeping and shopping. That night almost all of us signed up for Dracula Cabaret Dinner. It was very entertaining. It takes ... read more

Today we travelled from Fraser to our Country Homestead Via Noosa. We had a few hours to explore Noosa at lunch and some time to shop. Noosa is a really nice little touristy beach town. After that we went to our country stay - Adora Downs. Apparently Contiki has changed the farm accomodation since then. I love it there i love being in the country. We had cabins boys in one girls in the other. The rooms were all different, some had one bed in a room other had 2, some 4 some 6. I scored a single room. Yay for privacy. I miss that most when i travel. So a night to myself did wounders. So nice to be able to hug the farm dogs too. Everyone was missing there pets back home. We had ... read more

We then travelled to Fraser Island via Harvey Bay where again we got to shop for food but no alco. I cant remember if it was today, or yesterday but one of our morning stops on our trip we went to Childers. Childers is a small farming town which is full of travellers who are there seasonally on the fruit picking trail around Australia. On June 23, 2000 the The Childers Palace Backpackers Hostel was deliberately put on fire. There was no where to escape the blaze and the fire killed 15 backpackers. Ten of the victims were sleeping in one room and four in another. There was only one exit from these adjoining rooms and it led directly to the narrow stairway where the flames swept up from below. There were no smoke alarms and ... read more

Day 1 Long Island Today i slept in until 10:45. Breakfast i just had noodles which I had brought over from the mainland. A group of us had books and magazines and spent most of the day sunbaking, reading, sleeping and swimming. Some people joined in on the water sports. There was waterskiing, jetskiing and donuts on offer. A few of us went on one of the hikes in late afternoon to "Humpty Rock". We thought there would be a look out at the other end of the island but it ended up just a big rock n that was it. I got attacked by a big wasp up there. Pretty funny. Theres supposd to be quite a few snakes on the island but we didn't see any. There were lots of wild bush turkey though. ... read more