Fraser Island/Whitsunday Islands/Cairns

This is the end of Australia.

It has literally just sink in. After getting back from my last tour of a hectic 3 weeks I suppose tomorrow really is the time I leave Australia. Everyone always asks you when you're close to leaving whether or not you're 'ready' to go home and I still don't know the answer. Of course I miss everyone at home and of course I want to see more of the World and so the answer has to be somewhere in between I suppose. Either way, I'm 100% confident that this won't be the last time I travel and so maybe that's why it hasn't seemed to hit me yet.

Anyway... Why focus on the negative (the end of the trip), and focus on the positives. The last week, or however long it's been I truly have no idea, has been full of tours, starting with Fraser Island.

I won't lie to you, before the tour I had no idea what was happening due to the blur that the trips been but I'd spoken to a few people and knew that 4x4's and camping were involved with a few lakes in between. Despite that being my response since the event to fellow travelers who have asked me the same question - it is so much more than that somehow.

Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the World and our 3 day/2 night tour saw us self drive through the sandy beaches and bumps to several crystal clear lakes, 96% silicon sand, waterfalls, creeks, lookouts and springs, featuring the odd dingo, stingray and shark (maybe).

This all included 7am wake-up calls and a fair bit of driving which, admittedly, I was lucky to do considering you had to have held your licence for a year and I've been driving for 13 months now.

The trip itself was just incredibly well done. Not alone do you have time to see all the sights but due to the fact you are thrust in a car with 7 other people, no tour-guide's in the car, forced to cook for each other and share the snacks etc it just made for a tight family-style environment, made even better by the fact that I was the only guy which meant I never did any of the cooking - touch.

I was, again, very lucky in that the people in my car were a pretty awesome group to be fair, and featured its fair share of Europe. I think the final tally was 2 English, 3 Finnish, 1 Danish and 2 Irish  - probably the only ever group not to have a majority of either English and German people. My theory is that 90% of all travelers are from either Germany or England and that's not even an exaggeration.

After an amazing 3 days which ended in a pub quiz back on the main land (which once again, I didn't win.) we had actually a semi-relaxing couple of days which mainly included a 17 all-round coach journey up the coast and yes, this does count as relaxing in my book.

This culminated in another tour - the 3 day/2 night tour of the Whitsunday Islands... It was absolute luxury. The weather finally decided that it was going to get rid of all the clouds and be simply beautiful - ideal conditions for a boat.

To sum up the trip simply - we snorkeled 5 times over the 3 days and went to arguably the best beach in the world. In between we chilled out, drunk some goon and sunbathed on a boat - this is what Australia is all about. I genuinely don't think I need to explain this trip anymore... It was as simple as that with awesome food and some amazing marine life featuring spending half an hour snorkeling with a turtle.

It's also pretty impossible to put into words just how stunning Whitehaven beach is, I'd recommend Googling it to save me the embarrassment of failing to do it justice - simply amazing.

After another awesome 3 days and meeting more amazing people it was time to part ways with Tayla and make my last coach trip up the coast solo. Time boundaries were starting to come into play even more than usual and so this meant that I ended up getting back from the boat at midday, chilling until 8pm to get my overnight bus that arrived in Cairns (my last stop) at 6am - before skuba diving in the Great Barrier Reef at 7am.

Even though I ended up falling asleep on the boat a couple of times there was nothing that could stop me from enjoying such a fantastic experience. This day, surprise surprise, was another long day and included spending about 9 hours out on the reef itself and included another couple of snorkeling trips and a glass boat tour so despite my lack of sleep I still took the most of my opportunities and it's definitely another thing ticked off my bucket list and is the second of seven natural wonders of the World that I intend to see.

This brings me to today and yet another fantastic tour, this time to the rain forest region about an hour east of Cairns. It was yet another 7am wake-up call (I'd like to point out that I haven't woken up before 8 for at least a week and a half now so pity me???) that included stunning waterfalls with natural slip-slides, as well as being the home of the famous herbal essence adverts several years ago now which, of course, prompted an attempted hair flick from yours truly. Other stops included stunning rivers, lovely rainforest walks, volcanic-created creators, and huge lakes.

This trip was, not for the first time, made even better by a fantastic tour guide (probably my favourite in Australia - shoutout Jim) and meeting even more great people. It was a tour that I wasn't expecting huge things of but it really put the cherry on top of a fantastic trip and I couldn't be more thankful.

Even writing about how much I've done in the last x amount of days is making me ridiculously tired and I now look forward to a lay-in tomorrow!!!! Although this does mean checking-out of my hostel at 10am - bad times. I then have a few hours to kill which will give me time to actually explore Cairns a bit before flying over to Brisbane in the evening which has the luxury of being my home for the night (the airport that is) and then catching a 6am flight to Auckland where I will start my 2 week holiday - I cannot wait.

I hate saying goodbye's, more out of awkwardness than anything, but it has to be done unfortunately so I would like to say goodbye to the following...

1. My last remaining hoody (my fault - left on a boat)
2. My GoPro (my fault - took into water with the wrong case on - was absolutely gutted, sorry guys!)
3. My laptop charger (Gunna put this one down to travelling taking its toll - not my fault - yes!)

Not long to go now guys - I guess I'll see most of you all June time.

Sydney/Byron Bay/Surfers Paradise/Brisbane/Noosa

I didn't think it rained in Australia?

As you can probably assume from the title of this post, the past couple of weeks have been pretty hectic to say the least. Since I last wrote two weeks ago I've been in five cities/towns, two flash floods, had two surf lessons, seen over 20 dolphins, and walked 500 miles(maybe), and I'd walk 500 more.

I apologise for two things: 1) not writing in so long. As you can tell already its all been rather hectic and so in the very few periods I've had to sit down and write has always coincided with a lack of WiFi (which seems to be pretty common up the east coast for some reason - it's like they actually want people to talk to each other?) and 2) the length of this blog.

I suppose the best place to start is the beginning. It was a long long time ago and we'd just touched down in Sydney at the very inconvenient time of 8am. After yet another 4am wake-up call (the third in the space of two weeks) and a pretty bumpy flight meaning no sleep it was a fight to stay awake and take in Sydney - not that I'm complaining.

Being the pro-active type it took 5 minutes of checking in at the hostel before I'd decided to head to the standard tourist destination of the Harbour Bridge and the Opera house, two things that, despite being the thing to do in Sydney, didn't excite me all that much, after all once you've seen it in a photo it's not too much different in person right? Now I don't pretend to be knowledgeable in the slightest when it comes to architecture but I think it's safe to say that you don't appreciate the quality of the Opera house until you're there first hand. Maybe its because I wasn't expecting much but either way I was in awe in both of the famous landmarks and it was certainly a great way to start the week in Sydney.

I then found myself on a free walking tour once again which was essentially wondering around the city for four hours and getting my bearings which was largely beneficial after a few hours of walking around the suburb of Newtown which features my favourite tree in the world - genuinely.

The day after this saw a 2 hour train journey (which costs $2.50 because it was a Sunday) to the Blue Mountains. To travellers they are a must do and they have nowhere near the international recognition they deserve as they are simply stunning. It's tough to put into words how stunning the views were so I'm not going to even try - it was just awesome.

It was around this time that the rain started to fall, and I mean seriously fall. After confidently strolling out into the apocalyptic rain (whilst telling everyone how much I love the rain), and being wetter than I found myself after the shower that morning, I was at the Sydney Cricket Ground. It has arguably the most history surrounding it than any other ground and was one of the more interesting tours I've been on whilst also including a trip into the neighbouring football/rugby stadium which was basically brand new and featured the two largest 'big screens' in the Southern Hemisphere behind both goals. Unfortunately there was no game on while we were there although in reality any game that would have been held there would have been cancelled because of the rain anyway - it was that bad.

After my first attempt of braving the rain I retired and found myself playing far too many card games (and maybe drinking far too much) and meeting some really great people who were in the same situation as ourselves. We did find a few indoor activities around the city though, my favourite of which being called SkyZone. It is essentially trampolines everywhere. I'm talking on the walls, on the floor and everywhere in-between and it was great to roll back the years and act like a child - not for the first time believe it or not.

With two days left the rain finally cleared up after three solid days of downfall so we could finally do all of the outdoor activities that Sydney has to offer. The Thursday saw a day trip to Manley beach and the Friday was the day we finally went to the famous Bondi Beach. Unfortunately the beach itself had been pretty wrecked by the storms and so had entered rescue mode, featuring lots of diggers, but it didn't stop the scenery from being stunning and the walk to Coogee beach is probably the best coastal walk I've ever been on so all was good.

In conclusion Sydney was great. Not great as Melbourne but I feel like it's hard to say this with complete certainty when I spent two and a half months in one place and a week in the other. I've had this conversation with far too many people and have argued my point into the early hours of many mornings and have finally come to the conclusion that everyone falls in love with the city that they spend more time in. Sydney is probably better for tourists and Melbourne is better to live in - at least that's the compromise that I tend to come too and I can deal with that.

Coaches are now the main form of transport and due to tight deadlines, I have three weeks to get from Sydney to Cairns via a lot of places - hence the tight schedule.

The trip up the East Coast started in Byron Bay, the set of the Inbetweeners 2 and generally just an incredibly hippy place. The three days that we spent in Byron consisted of two surf lessons and a day of kayaking with dolphins and turtles. Unfortunately I didn't get out and see the town as much as I would have liked due to the physical toll that all of the activities take - however I don't think I was missing out that much. There was just about time to hire some bikes (which had no brakes) and do another coastal walk, culminating in a lighthouse that overlooked the whole of the town and more.

Surfers Paradise, where believe it or not the surf was awful (apparently), was the next destination. Surfers is essentially a holiday destination and was labled as a mini Miami because of what seems like out of proportion sky scrapers that just seem to pop up out of nowhere by the sea. All of the sky scrapers seemed to be residential or tourist based, along with the ridiculous amount of bars/restaurants and it was just in general a really weird place.

We thought we'd take the tourist option here and spent another day at the beach where it was ridiculously windy and caused far too much pain than going to the beach should endure before spending a day at the obligatory water park and Movie World located around the corner. I appear to forget that I'm 18 years of age sometimes.

We then spent a night in Brisbane. Having heard generally negative reviews about the place before hand from both travellers and locals alike we went into the place with low expectations. This, combined with the start of yet another storm which eventually saw a further two days of flash floods meant that I should of had a horrible time. However it ended up being the complete opposite. I found it really similar to Melbourne in both its lay-out and its culture and whilst there may have been a lack of tourist activities I found it a really beautiful little city. I also managed to find myself at the cricket stadium to take the tally up to 5 for the trip.

It was around this time that the flood water really started to take their toll. What was meant to be a two hour journey from Brisbane to Noosa eventually turned out to be a ten hour trip due to both traffic and closed roads. After spending 2 hours getting out of the city in ridiculous traffic along roads that may well have flooded most cars (we saw at least 3 submerged cars along the way) we finally ground to a halt with the news that we couldn't go forward because the road was flooded and we couldn't turn back because the road was about to flood. We had to wait it out. It was a shame considering we were on such a tight schedule but we didn't miss anything particular - it just meant that we had less time to explore.

This brings me to my current destination - Noosa. Noosa is another town which is based around its beach and river but it really is a lovely place for a bit of downtime. After yet another stunning walk through a national park and along the coast we had a riverboat tour to the Everglades lake - one of two fully reflective lakes in the world apparently, although I'm not sure I quite buy that stat. It was however a beautiful trip, filled with a lovely barbecue, and even though the return leg of canoeing was cancelled due to those pesky floods, it was still a lovely day out.

Sitting down and writing these things really does put into perspective how much I've been doing. With both time and money starting to run low I'm really trying to do as much as I can. I know it looks like I've been to every beach under the sun but it seems like that's what the East coast is about - it really is a stark contrast after being in major cities for so long.

Anyway, 1640 words later and I will let everyone get back to their days, until next time....