From Fraser and beyond

Well, the journey south continues and still having the time of my life.

An important detail I left off the last update was that I passed the 500 mark in the roo corpse count!! The momentous occasions exact location was about 35km outside a town called Maryborough and she was a beauty! The roo spotting continued at pace but on hitting 547 I've now decided to stop, it would have been nice to make it to 1000 as I surely would've done if I manage to complete a full lap of this amazing country but all that death has finally got to me.

That said, I've eaten some great pieces of meat and on the mission of eating local specialties I ate Parrot fish at Hervey Bay. For those of you that don't know it the parrot fish is a multi coloured tropical fish that lives in and feeds on coral (think friend of Nemo!), I was surprised that they could sell it to be honest but there you go. For all you animal lovers out there you'll be pleased to hear it really didn't taste all that so I won't be repeating the experience.

So, what else is new? Fraser Island was brilliant, I was really lucky and got a great crowd to head out there with. Between chilling by beautiful lakes and on endless beaches, drinking stupid amounts of goon around camp fires and diving head first down sand dunes (again) we did some ridiculous driving down sand tracks and through wash outs at break neck speeds all along the beach.

On the down side, a slightly worrying side to Dave (Tim) is beginning to emerge, it would appear he has a strange fetish for toilet blocks! With ever increasing frequency the lad keeps taking young women into them as his private retreat of choice. Now I know dorm rooms full of people aren't what you call romantic, and the back of a big old car isn't especially comfortable, the deck of boats are awful cold and tents aren't all that private, but toilets ...

You now find me in Brisbane. Got here last Friday and quickly came to the conclusion that although nice, it wasn't the most impressive city in the world. However, after 5 consecutive nights getting ridiculously drunk and a trip to Australia Zoo (home of the crocodile hunter Steve Irwin to get photos with some not so dead roos) I'm beginning to like the place! As its the biggest city I've been to here in Oz its not surprising its the place I've met most people that I've bumped into before on my travels so have had a very entertaining time catching up over a few not so quiet drinks.

Planning a quiet night tonight before heading down to Surfers Paradise tomorrow morning though I've planned on quiet nights before. Hopefully at either Surfers or Byron Bay I'll be able to buy a cheap board and become the pro surfer I'm clearly destined to become!

Hope you're all safe and well.

Laters

Jonathan

Internet Cafe
Brisbane
Queensland
Australia

Big country, bigger ocean

G'day sport!!

First things first, I have to take back an earlier comment regarding the Germans. I'm sorry, you're not all bad, come back all is forgiven! I'll come to it later but the guilt was getting too much for me!

I love islands! after enjoying all that Cairns had to offer, including some terrible night clubs, a rather expensive trip to the dentist (had to have a compacted wisdom tooth forcibly removed), a couple of trips to the Casino (stupid I know but won $170 in total so...) and some great cliff diving at a place called the Crystal Cascade (trust me, diving from 10m feels great until your head hits the water!) I drove south (with Dave aka Tim Henman from west coast) and had my first real swim in the Pacific Ocean by doing some great snorkeling off Magnetic Island (don't really count the quick dip during my parabungy jump!) and then once again realized how unfit I was while cycling up and down the length of the island's east coast.

From Magnetic Island - beautiful place by the way - it was further south to Airlie Beach and the Whitsunday Islands on the British Defender, an 83 ft long yacht with a 113 ft mast. Amazing boat and even more amazing islands. Even more spectacular snorkeling, beautiful beaches, great people (about 20 of us - 50/50 male female split - some of whom were German and great fun!), sailing at ridiculous angles (boat was a racing yacht from the whitbread round the world race) and obviously plenty of jumping and diving in off the bow!.

Beyond the place itself we also saw humpback whales and massive green turtles from the boat, and snorkeled with a loggerhead turtle that was over a meter long , poisonous nudibranches, parrot fish, Napoleon rass (1.5 m long and only inches away from me), Emperor Angel fish, bat fish, butterfly fish, giant multi coloured clams and god knows what else I couldn't name but could literally reach out and touch!

I'm now at Hervey Bay from where I'll be taking a 4 wheel drive vehicle of some kind out around Fraser Island in a couple of days which should be entertaining (Fraser is apparently the worlds biggest sand island, sure Brucetta could handle it but no one else is quite so sure of her so....). After Fraser not sure on next move, seem to be managing to spend a stupid amount of cash but still need to learn to scuba dive, go whale watching, become a pro surfer at Byron Bay and then hit the bright lights of Sydney so have to start selling parts of my body I think!

Well, hope you're all having as much fun as I am, (hope today went well Noreen, sure it will of - sorry I couldn't be there!).

Laters

Jonathan

Escape Backpackers
Hervey Bay
Queensland
Oz.