part two.......

So frasers Island amazed us more than we could image and was as a proper tropical island. After getting back to the campsite and more importantly the van we decided to partake in a spot of tennis, 
to our surprise we had not completely forgotten how to play and if you started early enough it wasn't too hot so we had sucessfully found a new sport that could take over as the main pas-time as the surf has well and truely dried up and the beachs are tropical from now on up, not crashing 10ft waves that we like ;-).

Up very early the next morning for a long long drive, Aiming at getting to Airlie beach and more importantly the whitsundays island. This is also pretty much in the heart of the Great Barrier Reef. What a long drive it was, about 800km in one hit, we eventually got there in the evening. Learnt one major thing about driving at night in Australia unless you can drive with your head lights off dont bother. The front of the van was like a bug grave yard. Every type of bug had smashed against the front of the van at 100kph and let us tell you it make a mess. Subsequently with the carnage on the front of the van we just then attracted more bugs, the nice little buggers they are they like to eat there dead relatives!! So we had a problem. Nothing a couple of night of heavy rain didnt sort out though.
So with a huge pile of leaflets and a budget in mind we planned our trip out to the reef and around the whitsundays. We were up bright and early for the transfer coach to pick us up to be met by a man saying the trip had been cancelled that day, AWESOME. Apparently they couldn't get hold of us as we had no signal on our phone! So we re-arranged for the next day. We were up bright and early for the transfer coach to pick us up to be met by rain. Gutted, we decided to go for it though and see what it brings................ We snorkelled on the reef for about an hour, as you will have seen from the pics, due to a little thing called a marine jellyfish we had to wear these amazing suits, very telly tubbies!! Brightly couloured all in one. Sweet as if the fear of sharks wasn't bad enough! As the woman descirbed in the trip booking shop "Oh they are not so bad, first of all you dont know you have been stung for about half and hour, untill the infection starts to semi paralyse your arms, then you feel you chest caveing in and start to have convoltions, all whilst trying to swim" she laughed, we look pale (even with our tans) So we have to also look out for these as well (although you cant see them as they are see through). But in we went to the Great Barrier Reef. The coral was cool as ever but when we were clearly out of earshot of any patriotic aussies we both agreed egypt was better. Maybe because Egypt was the first coral we had seen or maybe because we were rained out of the water, kinda take the shine off it!! So on to the islands, que rain and swell................. Lots of rain falls and we hide from it, then as if the man in charge of the weather saw how unhappy we all were and cleared up the sky for perfect blue couple of hours on the beach. Bliss! The whitsundays just got a lot more appealing. Back on the boat, more swells from the random weather and a rough old boat trip back in to the harbour!! Great Barrier Reef - Tick

Moving further up the coast again we head towards Misson Beach, Yet another epic drive, It was becoming apparent to us that the nice little short drives of New South Wales days were 
long gone Queensland offers lots of amazing attractions but they are so far apart and the is literally a kangeroo and a tumble weed between them, Oh and very ocassionally a petrol station.
Mission beach was a very very quite little place, the campsite, town convience store, restaurant, petrol station, mechanic and single resident was all in the same building, Scary!! Still the 
campsite was nice and although you couldn't get in the sea the beach was huge and deserted! We relaxed for a couple of days and enjoyed the sunshine!

Next stop Cairns

We arrive at what looks like a trophey cabinet. It is actually the reception for the "best campsite in Australia" (Six years in a row) It was amazing, bouncing pillows, two tennis courts (suited us),
crazy golf, two pools, parks, basketball, garden chess, outdoor cinema, table tennis and our spot even came with a pub stly bench. We are home at what is officially a 5 star campsite! What to do in cairns, having seen so much country side on the way up we skipped the rainforest walks and sky cable car rides for what any young traveller would do - A BUNGY JUMP!
Arriving early we thought we would suss it out and watch a few. We decided to go up on at a time so we could A - watch from the bottom. B - video it (mainly to avoid having to by the extortionately 
priced videos and photos) I went first, I thought i was pretty calm, I could actually see the guy in front of me's t-shirt pounding with his heart, the video afterward actually showed me lokoing pretty nervous and taking what seemed like the worlds biggest breath.........5-4-3-2-1 and jump, was all you got then a plumet to the lake at the bottom, "small" shreak, i went in pretty deep and got soaked! Glad that wasn't the ground though. Big adreanaline kick and lea is straight up after me
Lets just say the girl before her must have felt like a right wimp, as lea's perfect swan dive crashed down the 60m with only a small scream (sounded like a ghost train sound effect) but both completely buzzing from it.
Well worth the money and we were both so glad we did it!

So.................................................

6006kms (boob we now call it) distance actual number!!!!

3072 baked beans (matt)

2189 m&m's (lea)

756 bites

379 backward grafton ozzies

18 tanks of petrol

17 campsites

5 flipflops

4 4gb full memory cards (geeeeks)

3 states

2 vans (rip shazam)

1 surfboard

0 moneys!

we are finally leaving Australia heading to sydney again for the next stop!! the adventure continues!!!

hope everyone is ok back in rainy england (it rains all the time here too!!!) missing you lots

love matt and lea

Dazy, Hazy and Lazy

So Grafton, Grafton, Grafton, ahh the place brings back such fond memories! As you are all aware we were stuck in Grafton, A place that if it was to put in the dictionary would be described as backwards. So we had checked out of the hotel to be met by the man at the garage with a self assuring smile that our van would be definately ready for lunch time that day. Lunch time = no van a promise that it will be 5 o'clock that day....................Sit and wait some more. 5 o'clock = no van and check back into the awesome motel. We decided best not to venture into the pub again so i could save face from the one armed man that was sure to be there!! So angry phone calls to the van people and the garage people and nothing was sorted...Sweet! We finally got so scared of the local people we literally sat in the garage waiting room just sitting and being a visual annoyance to the man that kept feeding us bull s#$t excusses. Eventually after three days of waiting (and hiding from the locals) Shazzam was given some serious CPR and she lived another day. Seems our annoying questions and waiting had paid off and the fat (didn't mention that before) balding man let us on our way/ Fixed it to get us out of his "hair". Joy the adventure continues...............

Heavy wheel spins and 120kph we were out of there without even looking back!

The plan was to try and get back to the original plan and save a day here and there. So we trying to power through and drive straight to the gold coast. Night fell and we stopped and Byron Bay (pretty famous) It was pretty much dark when we got there so we just pulled into the park and crashed. Relax we were back on track. Up early to see what Byron had to offer and it was a really cool place (if not a pricey) but the surf was good to watch (we had not time) and there was a really cool lighthouse up on the hill which seemed to attract alot of people! So after a morning roaming around we decided to continue to the gold coast.

Surfers paradise was the destination and we were properly looking forward to it. Our campsite we were heading too even had a crazy golf course! Lots of fun to come. However surfers paradise was not really that much like paradise. It was the biggest city we had come across in a long time. Several skyscrapers and eveything. It was pretty much a wash out. It was also huge, although there was lots of surf spots there were so far apart it was like driving for a couple of hours just to get to a decent beach. The caravan park was not on the sea as it was lead to be believed by the pictures and description in the book it was on a river and quite far north of everything. So get ready for it.......................................We snubbed the Gold Coast and mainly Surfers Paradise. Wiped off the itinerary, moving stright past.

So we arrive at Noosa, now in the sunshine coast and this was looking more like our cup of tea. Nice campsite lots of little beachs and a trendy little town, (with some pretty big name shops, i.e Hugo Boss) suddenly the reality of being on a backpakers budget was depressing. So we headed to the beach to revive our excitment for the surf!! The beach was really cool. Still pretty busy (school holidays again) but we found some little breaks and had our surf spot. The weather was becoming more and more mixed with tropical storms for hours then clear blue skies in the afternoons then rain again. Got us down abit because it get dark so early here you kinda have to make the most of the daylight. You will all be shocked to hear that our body clock now consists of getting up at 6:30 - 7 ish and going to bed at 9ish (well the going to bed isnt so much of a shock for those of you that knows lea's sleeping patterns) so we were really missing our mornings. We make a big decision towards our surfing careers and decide its time to sell our soft top surf board on and try and pick up a couple of cheap fiber glass ones. Big decisions coming ahead!! Lots of shopping around and we eventually go on lea's instint and get an amazing deal for it. Now comes the hard part trying to get the new ones......We rent some to give them a try and hope for good weather so we can use them!! Dreams come try and we were blessed with a short spell of good weather. So after shopping around abit and trying some differnt boards the following day the worst happens.................... (well not the worst there were no sharks involved) Lea picked her wave, rode her fate and lost, surfing right up onto the rocks, OUCH! Well not for her really more the board. To say the damage was light would be lying. Lots of nerves about what they would say at the hire shop when we return there board with a 20 inch gouge through the bottom of it. Worried scared (well lea was, my board was fine ;-)) we head back to the van to pack up and try and sort it out....................."STRUTH MATE WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR FISH" from afar a random man had picked us out of the crowd due to the injury (to the board) 'MAN MY SON IS GONNA SPEW" turns out he was the dad of the guys who hired us the board. I mean what are the chances, more importantly to us, why was this middle aged family man at the beach surfing in the middle of the week day, and not at work like most grown ups!! Any way after pretty mush telling us how trashed the board was and how much he thought it was gonna cost we were on our way........ Arriving at the hire place i take the good board in first, even before i got a hello, or gooday mate. "My dad already phoned me and told me about the fish" What the hell we got ratted out by his dad, Started to explain a little more why he wasn't at work!! So after a long wait and people telling me how messed up it was (all in surf language by the way, so i didnt understand most of it anyway) we got stung with a massive repair bill. Oh yeah a little detail i forgot to mention about this whole ordeal, Lea was abit to scared to face the people in the shop so i had to sort it all out, shocking display of burrying your head in the sand miss pike, but it worked out for the best in the end, They assumed Lea was hurt (who was i to correct them) and i got to blame Lea, as she wasn't there. Moving on...........

Next up was Frasers Island, a biggie, and we were both really looking forward to it. We had stayed longer in Noosa so we could try and let the bad weather pass for Frasers. We hit a long drive up to a place called Hervey Bay, Basically a town purpose built as a pass through to Frasers Island. Nothing special there much like a mediterrain holiday location. Lea enjoyed her first subway though, and loved it. Our campsite was really nice though. So we booked a one day trip in the end and decided not to camp on the island over night. Up early and ready for the long day adventuring.
Frasers was abosolutly amazing, the island is pretty mind blowing (the story of the island was very well told by the crazy man in the photo's, Captin Kangeroo) From the beach's to the Rainforest to the sand roads (that had to re-swept every day because the sand moves that much) The one day trip consisted of a small loop around the main attractions of the island. The road systems on the beach were pretty wierd and made us glad we hadn't opt'd fpr the self drive, the beach was the road and also the run way for the planes that was also the beach and people had right of way over the plane, busses and 4x4's!! Accident waiting to happen. Lake Mckenzie was by far the most amazing beach/lake i have ever been too. The water was spring water so you could pretty much drink it..................... part two coming later (we thought we'd lost this draft but we found it again! woo ........matts sarcastic comment here is "obviously!" oh yeh quickly have to say we have just done a bungy jump ahhhhhh crazy!!!)




lea chilling (hervey bay)


lea chilling (DHL)


rainbow beach (we took a short detour - lea (the nav) says its only a few mins away ended up being 2 hours......all cause she liked the name of the beach......matts isnt bitter!


wheres matt......


noosa beach full of spoilt rich ozzie kids!! ahhhhhh


us in the gorgeous lake makenzie - fraser island! bliss


lea splashing in a creek (fraser island)


us up the creek.......


the rainforrest (fraser island)

mother mn\



A real frozen shark at the shark exhibition airlie beach!!!ahhhhhhhhhh (si are you ok?)


Our new van!! and to stace and sam - is that


matts baby feet in talc! (fraser island)


lake makensie


another whale beaches at fraser island...... (lea had that smile on her face the whole time we were at fraser island lush!!)


whitsunday islands - whitehaven beach in the rain still pretty amazing!


please use your imagination for this one.......


matt takes a nap (the lago



oh no it got lea!


bit of a kodak moment for the website ;-) but stace inpaticular check out lea's dance moves!!!haha


lea on whitehaven beach (doing some kind of strip act?!)



the sun breaks through after the rainy start!! yay!!

lea splashing AGAIN!


white


us in our stinger suits!!!!!......................................


bit of an arty one - its been a while! (whitehaven beach!)


it all got to much for lea


"we have no jobs.....our pets heads are falling off........" so this is what we have been doing for the past 3 months!

P. Sherman, 42 Wallaby Way, Sydney

Hello People, Long time no new's! So how are things back home??

Well ventured to Merimbula to learn to surf, having speant quite a few lazy afternoons watching people on 10ft waves we had convinced ourselves it can't be that difficult!! How nieve were we! (well might have just been typical Loughran male attitude on my part). To build ourselves up to the surf lesson we decided to enjoy the luxury of the amazing campsite we were in. And spent a day lounging by the pool (we were the only people at the pool all day, so we aptly adopted it and called it our own) I had also decided in preperation for the surfing i had better crash some swimming in, topping out at a feable 10 lengths i was a little stirred at how hard this surfing lark was going to be!! Leanne by the way, simply sat by the side of the pool and continually laughed at my attempts of trying to recreate my year 6 school swimming lessons!!

The lesson all went well we had an early morning lesson, very very enjoyable, unfortunately it quickly became appartent to us, the instructor and the other person on the lesson (stacey by the way!! What are the chances) that we are not natural born surfers and being able to snowboard dosen't mean you can instantly surf!! Lots of falling over splashing around in the water and fighting against measly 3ft waves (feels like a brick wall hitting you when you are out there though) After 2 hours of surfing we decided we liked it and it was going to become our mission to become pro's by the time we leave OZ. At $50 dollars a day to hir the gear we also quickly decided it a good investment to by some gear. After a 2 hour session in the sea we crashed, (for those of you that know, the sleep that followed was close to the sleep that followed skiing return at christmas!!)

Spent the next few days in merimbula lounging by "our" pool and shooping around for some surf gear. With the purchase under our belts we headed straight to the beach to practice, Still not pro's!!

Left Merimbula for Batesman Bay, where we had booked into a nice campsite with a good pool and the beach...........Mix up there end and we couldn't get in, mini drama as it was Easter weekend and everywhere was rammed, we found the last spot in another site (not such a nice one) but hey we were in! The next few days the weather wasa a bit mixed up so we just got on with it and surfed in the rain and we also filled a pretty overcast afternoon with some local cinema action............My god was that everntfull. Imagine going to the cinema 15 years ago in England and thats what it was like, our TV & cinema system at home was close to the effort of screen two at the (ready for this) "bay city cinemas complex" (was actually only 2 screens, so complex might be over selling themselves abit) but for your rainy days back home "horton hears a who" is pretty funny. Ours was filled with kids. The biggest highlight for us of Batesman Bay was the internet cafe, it was run by what looked like a 15 year old kid (complete with headset and joystick) who's main clientele was his mates, As we were happily sat there checkingout flights to NZ lea heard a shout from behind us " I f-ing love this gun, man" shocked we turned around expecting some kind of small town store robbery, but instead we were met with no less the 10 kids all playing some internet war game against each other. Now we are geeks at the best of time's but some of the quotes that were coming out of this room were even to much for us. So we ran.

We head for Kiama, we stopped at a place for lunch outside Kiama called werri beach, (pretty famous surf beach) and it was such a cool little place we stopped over for a night. Even treated ourselves to dinner. Kiama was cool, lots of surf beachs ( Werri beach was very close to kiama in the end) and pretty little country side villages. We found a really good beach for beginners called 7 mile beach, by the name you can tell there was plenty of room for us to find our own little spot to practice. I got stuck in my first rip (thats where the tide pull's you out) leanne paniced as i tried my hardest to get back in (unfortunately my 10 lengths practice wasn't holding much ground against the current of the sea!!) We decided to do some touristy things in Kiama and go see the famous (hardly world famous, but OZ famous none the less) blowhole (...............insert your own rude joke if you wish) funnily enough the small one was bigger than the big one!! Wierd must be something to do with the water spinning the wrong way round the toilet!!

Next stop Sydney, Now bearing in mind all the advice we had been given about the driving in Sydney we were prepared for the worst...........London! Wasn't actually that bad i think the roads were worse than the drivers! Our campsite was on the north side so we decided to stop and Bondi beach on the way through. Bondi was cool, very trendi (see what i did there) and some great people watching. About as close to the posers of miami as you can get i think! Took a drive up oxford street (most of Sydney is named after England, and especially London) which had all the designer names on it and was a nice mix of oxford street and covent garden (England) with much better weather. We spent the first day driving around north Sydney's beach's looking for our surf spot. Palm beach was my fav (summer bay, Home and Away) but lea got stuck in the rip this time and knocked her for six straight away, so after a little surf there we decided to head on. This is where we found the gem (not my sister), Manly was a cool place, and we found our spot on the beach. Good waves, great people watching and a relativly up to date shopping town!! So we surfed the first day away. Still not pro's but standing up more freaquently on bigger waves now!!! Small steps We head to a small little spot on the river opposite the city for some night shots of the city and our real look at the skyline. Pretty good picture spot even though we were both shattered from the day in the sea!!

Up bright and early for our City day, jumped on a ferry and headed into the city, was a cool way in as we went right past the Opera house and Harbour bridge, needless to say the camera almost started working by its self. We had a casual stroll round the opera house before heading round the harbour to the Bridge where we had booked a climb!!!!!!!! So with all the gear strapped on, (amazing jumpsuits) and through more securty than at the airport we started the climb. The views at the top of the bridge were amazing and, unbroken 360 degree's on a sunny day and we could see for miles. The funny little guide (a mix between the penguin, from batman and a woman, wierd) gave us fact from head to toe and took tuns of pics of us (obviously no cameras were aloud) nearly 1500 steps later we were back on the ground and after a few moments of "jelly legs" (lactic acid build up made lea's legs resemble oscar's) we crashed out back outside the opera house for a well deserved beer. Passing through a weekend market at The Rocks, very trendy area between the bridge and the main harbour. So we pretty much just chilled out and watched the sun go down on the the city. Luckily it was the 80th Hour power out in the city that night so we sat and watch as they turned the light's off on the city!

This was offically our favourite day of the trip so far and the first time we have both thought (get ready for it parents) we could live here!!!

So our final day Sydney we decided to head back to Manly for a day back on the beach. It was the weekend now so it was much busier. People watching was at it's highest. Followed by more surfing. It was a bit like sardines in a can though as all the locals were out and not the 7 miles of empty learning space that we were used too. But none the less we found a spot and started, we now have a body board too so the person not surfing can mess around as well! As we were both enjoying the waves a feint tannoy system could be heard from the sea, but one word grabbed lea's ear SHARK. (I would like to add hear that the shark couldn't have caught up with lea if it wanted too) Like a dart lea was was flagging from the side, people had emptied out of the sea in seconds (althogh i was a little curious to see it) i too was out of the water with a shaking lea in my arms. Lots of people including us were just sitting on the shore staring out. Some nutters just carried on surfing with out a care in the world as a speed boat raced up and down the length of the beach. One man even decided to get in for a swim!! We sat and trembled for a while before following the surf school back in (we figured if they have taken a group of kids in it must be pretty safe) As we got it it suddenly dawned un us how many time we have got in un-patrolled beaches and how silly we were being!! Whoops (so mum's ignore the photo's of us in the sea by ourselves)

We left Sydney loving it completely. We headed north again to Port Macquire, which was originally just a stop over as we covered some ground to get to Brisbane. One leaflet however changed our stay, "Pet a Koala" being favoured over the Kangeroo we decided to give it a go and stop in. Port Macquire was really nice once we got here this little stop over place really surprised us. Petting a Koala and also feeding more Rock Wallabies, surfing and even seeing the Ironman entrants in training, The competition is this weekend, so we miss it but we still saw them all in warm up.Mental people, 225km triathalon, whislt we are bumming around on a surf board. I know which one i would rather be doing!

Moving on and heading north again towards the long awaited Gold Coast.......................We break down.

After 3000km Shazam is dead.

After being picked up by a tow truck and having me and lea share a bench seat in a pick up for 20ks with two slightly (please add lots of sarcasm) overweight mechanics, he actually said you (me) sit up there and put your missus on your lap, as he squeezed in after us sandwhiching us between them, (please try and think of the nutty professor when he gets fat again the car and thats what it was like). The funniest thing for me was when the rescue mechanic said yeah its f*#ked i'll call you a tow truck. Then twenty minutes later the same guy pulled up in a tow truck. It was like he radio'd himself in this little town and then came out himself. Wierd. Lea's highlight was the 25 min silence with 4 people in a cabin made for 2 1/2 people. Sat on my leg brushing against the fat smelly man next to her with every bump. (just cast your memory to everytime you have seen people in a tow truck with a face like thunder and thought to yourself i would hate to be there!!!!!!!!!!!!). Dad it was the altenator so it was fine once it was running, sound familiar!!

So we are in a place called Grafton between somewhere and nowhere trying to kill time as they call in a part from somewhere or nowhere. We checked into a pub/hotel/bookie's/restaurant last night (literally opposite the garage, hoping that as soon as we hear shazam fire up we can wheel spin out of here) Sitting at the bar last night i was called up (insert your own hillbilly OZ accent) "you holding the pool table" i said no (not knowing what the guy meant) he was challenging me, with a little fear of being hustled i entertained a game, he won!! Not knowing the local etiqutte i bought a game back, I won. He then asked lea if i was allowed to play a decider game. (rare thing a aussie man speaking directly to a woman, un-heard of in these parts) He won. Oh yeah i forgot to mention the man i was playing against was a bit drunk.............................................................and only had one arm!!!!!

I dont know what was funnier the fact i lost to a drunk one armed man or the situation!

So sitting waiting for shazam parts and we have truely topped out the activities for Grafton. Who knows whats next.............

Miss you all lots

Love to hear some family news

(Oh yeah for the record, i do NOT have a job in Sydney and sorry for the April fools mum, Love you)

Love matt and Lea xxx


Dead Shazam

Lea couldn't take anymore


Matt flapping as fast as he can
To stacey lea on the rocks reconstruction



Lea, I'm really doing it!!!
Oh yeah matt's put on abit of weight
At home in Shazam, by candle light
Rainy rainbow!
By the power of greyskull



Bondi beach, great lookout.
Only a spec on here but the coastle pacific highway
Lea found a tree, ran from the spiders though
Please no photos!
Matt, I'm really doing it!

Opera House (just about)
Sydney city
Sydney city (by night)
Matt, Home and away (please sing that bit)
Summer bay............closer each day!

Art opera house
Nice jump suits, at the top of the bridge
Lea at the rocks
Being stupid with a national landmark (opera house)
Being serious with a national landmark

Big love sis
Matt was painted on a rock
Port Macquire
Can you guess what it is yet!
Don't look behind you lea!