... continued

Morning/Evening!

Packed up and headed for the ferry, with James in the driving seat. We were in a Toyota Landcruiser 4x4 with space for 3 in the front and 8 in the back. Landed on the island and headed for Central Station for a look about. Not much there so straight onto Lake Birrabeen which was absolutely beautiful. The water was stunningly clean and refreshing, with immaculate white sands on the shores. We left there all too soon and headed to another lake, can't remember the name, but it wasn't as good! Drove across the island to the beach and pitched our tents for the night. After some food we ended up having a few drinks and generally being a bit silly. It was so tempting to get into the sea but we'd been warned a million times that we would be eaten by tiger sharks so we stayed well away! There were loads of dingos wandering around too. One girl who fell asleep on the beach awoke to one licking her face. Nice.

Anyway, the next morning the guys walked out to Lake Wabby (I missed this cos I didn't hear them go), came back, and then we all jumped into the truck and headed up north to Indian head. I was driving along the beach for the first 40mins or so. Definitely a bit tricky at high tide with no hard, wet sand to drive on but good fun. Took a couple of hours to get up there. Climbed up the rocks and looked out to sea for aforementioned sharks - no luck there but plenty of turtles to be seen. Around up to champagne pools, disappointing, and then back down past the Maheno shipwreck and a freshwater creek to the same campsite. Slightly less drunken evening =)

Last day on Fraser saw us head up to a viewpoint of Lake Wabby and then on to Lake MacKenzie. This is the lake that everyone raves about, but I honestly preferred Birrabeen as it was pretty similar but far less crowded. Spent a good couple of hours there and then back over to the mainland. Fraser was a stunning island but I reckon you need more than a couple of days to have a proper explore! The structure of our tour was too rigid to allow us to do this - most of the group were disappointed with that as we all purposely chose a self drive tour to allow us to see a bit more. Somewhere to return to in the future! Also, I had an eye infection all weekend which was less than fun when there was nowhere to wash and we were camping on the beach. Yum.

After Fraser we spent the night in Hervey Bay then drove down to Noosa, giving a lift to Mike from Holland who was part of our group. Turned out to be a pretty boring place, but had a look around the shops and bought some new shorts to replace some that were too beaten up from Fraser to bother rescuing and a rash vest. Tried to find some nightlife with Mike, but failed miserably so retired to Betty quite early.

We left for Mooloolaba the next morning to meet up with Bruce for a final time. Spent a chilled day wandering around and watching the surfers from the balcony of the surf club. Up early the next day to get to a dive shop. Yep, we finally managed to get the 3 of us together for a dive! This dive would the HMAS Brisbane, a battleship sunk 3 yrs ago after being made diver friendly. We were the only guests on the boat which was really cool - the day before they'd taken out 3 boats! A short 15min boat ride got us there and we all got kitted up. I was wearing a 7mm wetsuit because the water was a rather chilly 21 degrees. 7 minutes into the dive and at about 20m underwater, there was a loud BANG. Looked around and checked that everyone was ok. Then I heard a loud bubbling. Everyone still ok. Brain clicks on and I realise therefore that the air must be coming from me. What a genius! James came over to me, grabbed hold of me and handed me his spare regulator. Turns out the low pressure inflator hose on my BCD had burst! Luckily I was in the company of 3 instructors and Bruce, a very experienced divemaster so I couldn't have been in better hands. One of the dive guides came over and I switched to his regulator, but then he realised he didn't have a spare for himself (naughty!) and had to grab the spare from the other guide. After a lot of switching of regulators, dive guide Michelle took hold of me and dragged me up to the surface. A quick change of gear and a many exclamations of, "I've never seen anything like that before!" I was back in the water to finish the orientation of the wreck. No worries!

We regrouped on the boat and had an hour on the surface. Man it was cold. Hopped back in and this time we were able to penetrate the wreck.It was absolutely incredible. We went through tiny escape hatches and tunnels, into the captains quarters, boiler rooms... saw the KILL and SURVIVE buttons... very cool. Not much room to manoeuvre at all and pretty challenging. As it was only 3 years old there wasn't too much in the way of life there - lots of little fish and the startings of a reef. Saw some octopi and lionfish. In about 20 years it will be an amazing site - definitely one to revisit! I must say that after the second dive I had a bit of a delayed stress reaction but it was all ok. Few hugs and all was sorted!

Said goodbye to Bruce for the final time - he's off to sea for 4 months now, travelling to Antactica and the Galapagos and drove off to Moffat Beach. Spent a restless night in Betty due to a massive thunderstorm...

Next day we headed to Australia Zoo, home of the late Steve Irwin. Saw lots of animals, fed an elephant, stroked a koala... came away with the feeling that they were putting across a really good message to the Aussie people about protecting their native wildlife. Another thunderstrom cut our visit short. Drove up into the glass mountains national park with the hope of some good views in the morning, but the cloud didn't lift.

Bypassed Brisbane and headed straight for Surfer's Paradise. Turned out to be a characterless concrete jungle so we spent about 2 hours there before running away. I managed to buy a bikini to replace one that was stolen from Koala's in Hervey Bay so at least we accomplished something! Drove down to Byron Bay, and that's where we are now!

Bit of an epic there. Hopefully I'll keep on top of it a bit more in the future!