Brisbane!

All aboard the socialites transport known as the OZ Experience bus...Brisbane was next on the agenda for a 2 night stop! Brisbane is the 1st city we have hit along these shores and its refreshing not only because its a nice hip city.
A highly recommended pancake house seemed to be the first point of call after we had checked our bags into the hostel. The pancake house was amazing really as it was within a renovated church..."is this really the place we should be eating"???
At the end of the sweet and sickly meal the boys called for Baz (probably beacuse hes Irish) to gun (see off) a pot of maple syrup for $3...peer pressure strikes again and barry was now on a sugar high!
We were all hoping for a night out similar to that which is supplied by Leeds and we were optimistic hving heard alot about 'the Valley' - a haven for bars and clubs. We never found what we were looking for other than the local backpackers Down under Bar...which we found to be of great entertainment value the next evening!

Invloved were team drinking games. Deytrikh nominating himself to the front before anyone could raise a hand meant that the red team was quickly introduced with Mike and Charlotte (an english we knew quite well) making up the trio. 3 games of a semi explicit nature began and tied 1-1 with the green team we felt ready to win...unfortunatley this was not the case even though dach and mike put in stirling performances...you should be proud parents of these two young men, and Barrys for that matter has he was shouting morale support from the crowd!

Deytrikg met up with an old school mate he had not seen in 4yrs or so who was studying at university in brisbane which was good...but apart from that very little culture was seen apart from the local nightlife!

The Gold Coast awaites!

Noosa

We were really excited to get Noosa for a number of reasons...we had heard this is the first place along the East coast from Cairns that the surf is good...a sport we were all very keen to dabble in, one of our good mates form University (Old Andy) is a resident here, and our good freind Mike Lowe (the wannabe pilot...hes optimistic) was joining the wizards at this stage!

So we arrived in Noosa and discovered that the backpackers hostel we were staying in provided us with free surf board hire all week...perfect and the start of some great entertainment! We met up with Andy who seemed very well then headed off down the beach for some surf! We paddled out not having a clue what we were doing and began our surfing careers...1st day of surfing resulted in noone standing, however some valuble lessons we learnt mainly that waves can cause injury and make you end up on rocks (Hubbs)!

Our week in Noosa was amazing, Noosa is such a nice place, really good shops, food and fine weather! we surfed all week and more importantly made contact with old freinds!

When Mr Lowe joined the wizards and was introduced to the game of life, it resulted in him doing 350pressups in the first 24hrs of being initiated...a slow starter some may say...the noises he was making after 200 made us a little worried for his health!

Next stop Brisbane...the capital of Queensland!

Fraser Island

We arrived in Hervey Bay on 29/01/08 ready to hit Fraser Island the following day.

So we got up early and met everyone we would off roading with...the team consisted of us 3 lads, 2 german brothers an a dutch girl, we also had another jeep travelling with us...a load of young english boys and girls some who we had already met along our travels!

We took the ferry over to Fraser and i began the driving...was alot of fun bouncing aeround the tracks with everyone in the back hitting their heads on the roof...very amusing if you were in the front!

We made to our way to Lake Mcenzie which was amzing. A perfectly clear fesh water lake in the middle of this island made from sand out at sea! Deytrikh and hubbs swam across to the other side which was about 500m whislt the other guys remained wallowing in the shallows.

We then made our way to the first campsite out on the beach, as per usual we had some beers and wine and settled into a classic Australian BBQ whislt dingos patrolled the borders and ran off with one of Barry's vests!

Day 2 Fraser Island - today we drove the whole way up the 70km beach past the ship wreck and Eli Creek ( a fresh water creek), up past Indian head which had some amazing views overlooking the ocean and miles of sand. We stopped off at Champagne pools for lunch which are named after the waves hitting the rocks causing bubbles to flow into these larges rock pools...was good fun as the waves got bigger!

During our final day on Fraser we went to Lake Wabbi which is surrounded my steep sand dunes which provided us with a one on one rolly polly contest down into the lake!

That pretty much sums up our time on Fraser Island...was so much fun boosting down the beach in 4x4's, protected our stuff from dingos and bouncing around the inland tracks!

Bring on Noosa!!!