Okay, this is going to be a quick one, even though its been ages since I last updated.

Brief rundown of events since I last posted: spent a few days hanging out in Sydney drinking excessively with some English guys I met. Met family at airport and flew to Ballina. Spent a week over Christmas in Evan's Head, sleeping, surfing, and Christmassing. Flew down to Sydney, shopped with sisters, museumed with mum. Tomorrow night me and the girls are going to do the Sydney Harbour Bridge Climb, which takes approximately 3 hours, and is insanely high. I'm starting to feel ill. But it should be good. Hopefully. If we don't die. Oh god.

On Tuesday we're headed to Melbourne for a week, and then the fam is heading back to Canadia. So far we've had a great time, and no major fights (only minor bickering).

Hope everyone had a great Christmas, and happy New Year to all!

I would just like to say that in terms of sweat, Brisbane has nothing on Townsville. Townsville is the second biggest city in Queensland, but I think I can safely say it is ahead of Brisbane in the heat stakes. But how did I get to this incredibly hot place, you might ask?

After I left Rainbow Beach with Charlie and Mona, we headed north to Rockhampton. Rockhampton, besides being the beef capital of Queensland (and quite possible Australia! according to the tourist information centre), is halfway between Rainbow Beach and Airlie Beach. That is about all it has going for it. I would highly recommend avoiding it if possible. We met up with an Israeli couple who had a spare tent and spent the night being bitten by midges. Which can, apparently, get through screens. The next day, I looked like I had a weird skin disease, and was itchier than I've ever been in my life.

So we weren't sad to see the back of Rockhampton, and we headed to Airlie Beach. Once we got there, I checked into my hostel, where my bed was four stories up. Oh, the sweat! However, I was rewarded at the top with gorgeous, gorgeous air conditioning. That night we met up with a guy from our Fraser trip, Chris from Greece. The four of us met some Germans, and got pretty drunk.

Our first full day in Airlie was a bit of a bust. The guy at the travel agency told us about this great beach, where we could rent kayaks and paddle out to an island. After 45 minutes of driving, we got to the beach, only to discover that we couldn't rent kayaks, nor could we swim, due to the jellyfish. No problem, we thought, we'll head out to the amazing waterfalls the same travel agent told us about! Except that Australia is experiencing a massive drought, and the waterfall was a small trickle into an algae filled pond. Hmm. Time for a drink? We thought so!

The next day we checked out of our hostels and spent some time at the lagoon. Which is a sort of fake beach with chlorine water, where you can actually swim, because there are no jellyfish. After a few hours of that, we went to check in at the marina, in order to board our boat, the Tongarra. Altogether, there were 24 passengers on the boat, including a large, rather anti-social Irish contingent. The first night everyone got quite drunk, which can be rather dangerous on a boat. I have some pretty serious bruises, and some hilarious pictures.

Day two on the boat we got to go see one of the top ten beaches in the world on one of the Whitsunday islands (I can't remember which one, though, to be honest). It was gorgeous, though we could only swim with stinger suits on. In the afternoon we were taken to a little reef and got to do some snorkelling, which was very cool. Next up: more drinking!

The morning of our last day, we did some more scuba diving, and then sailed back into the harbour.

We all spent the night in Airlie Beach again (ah, the aircon!), and in the morning, Charlie, Mona, Chris and I headed up to Townsville. Today, Mona and I went for much needed haircuts, and then she and Charlie headed north to Cairns, while Chris did some scuba diving. I'll be here for another few days before flying down to Sydney to meet up with my family for Christmas (yay!). Hopefully it cools down a bit, though I won't be counting on it.

I'm back from Fraser Island, safe and sound!

Tuesday night we had a meeting and figured out who was in our group. The A-Team had: an Israeli couple, an Irish girl and a guy, a Greek guy, an Englishman, three Canadians (including me), and two American guys.

Wednesday morning we woke up early, and got our 4x4's packed up. We got to Fraser by about 10am, and our first stop was Lake Mackenzie. The road there was definitely on the bumpy side. Its a shockingly beautiful lake in the centre of the island. The beach is gorgeous white sand, and the turquoise water is perfectly clear. We had lunch there and swam for a while, and then we headed out. Our next stop was the Mareno ship wreck, which is a huge rusty hulk on the beach. Then we camped near there that night. I should note that part of our Tuesday night prep was figuring out how much booze to bring. Our group brought way more than anyone else (150 cans of Tooheys alone!). Everyone partied and had a good time that night, and most of us managed to get into our tents.

Thursday morning we were up at the crack of dawn, because once the sun's up, its too hot to sleep in a tent. And the sunrise was at 4.45am. Yeah, that's right. So we walked down to Eli Creek, which is a nice little fresh water creek you can walk down. I would have killed for an inner tube, because it has a gorgeous current.

Thursday afternoon we drove up to Indian Head, which is a rocky outcrop, where you can supposedly see sharks and turtles. We didn't see any, so we walked to the Champagne pools. They're kind of large tidal pools that the waves crash into, making it look like you're swimming in champagne. Sadly, its just salt water.

Thursday night we camped down near the trail to Lake Wabby, and finished all our booze. By about 9pm. That night the weather changed, and it rained all morning on Friday.

Once the rain let up a bit, we decided to make the trek to Lake Wabby, which is through a rain forest and then a desert of sand dunes (a field of sand dunes?). Its this tiny bright green lake in the middle of miles of sand. The water was gorgeous and we managed to get at least some of the sand off ourselves. After that, we had to speed to make it to the ferry, which we managed to just make.

So now I'm back in Rainbow Beach for a night or two, and then I've decided to catch a ride up to Airlie Beach with a guy from one of the other groups named Charlie. From there I'll take a four day sailing trip around the Whitsunday Islands, which is supposed to be incredible.

Hope everyone is doing well!

Heya!

I am now in Rainbow Beach, after a brief stint in Maroochydore. Maroochydore is part of the Sunshine Coast, so I thought it might be a fun place to hang out. However, it rained the whole time I was there! What is that about? Also, the hostel I was staying at wasn't the friendliest. So I took myself off to Rainbow, which is where my friend Jon and I will be going to Fraser Island from.

I arrived here last night, and met some German guys at the hostel bar (this place is full of Germans), and we proceeded to get quite drunk. Today me and the German contigent went to the beach, and worked on our tans, and did some body boarding. I think this evening we're going to do some drive to the headland or something? I haven't been paying enough attention, apparently. And then the theme at the hostel bar tonight is beach party, so that should be fun.

Lastly, I have to give a brief birthday mention to my sister Katie. I will call you tomorrow when it is you birthday in Canada, but it is December 2nd here in Oz, and I'm thinking of you!