Greeting boys and girls from sunny Australia!!

Boy is it hot here and its not even summer yet! we’re currently hiding out indoors but the aircon has packed up which is a nightmare!
Just about to get the photos updated but its a shame because the Sipadan diving pics look so amazing!
But Sam and I have been in Australia now since August, we haven’t travelled all that far yet, just been hanging about in Queensland started off arriving at Coolangatta on the Gold Coast and staying in Brisbane city. Wow that place isn’t cheap! Gone are the pond a night hostels and it was a harsh realization that the cheap old days were over. we stayed at a place called the chill backpackers which is a really nice place and one of the cheapest around, you can get a deal there for about $130 a week in a dorm room, if you want a private room you’re looking at $100 a night! I think not.

So with that we decided to get ourselves a camper van and head off while we still had a few pennies left! We bought the green machine from a French couple who had drawn a frog on the back with a marker pen, classy, it had to go and fast we didn’t want people thinking we were French. The van is awesome!! fully equipped with fridge and cooker and a bunderberg rum box for the car speakers :)

We travelled from Brisbane through the Tambourine Mountains which are beautiful and stayed the night at Rathdowne on one of the free campsites, it was here that we discovered our fantastic van was even better than we had at first thought, it has a cool retro awning on the side too!! awning-tastic.

We met up with a friend in Beenleigh and from there we haven’t gone very far! We’ve all had a bit of work coming in and so have ended up staying. The lads are working on the house of a nice Australian family decking their pool area and an endless list of other jobs, meanwhile I filled in for someone packing at a strawberry factory for a few days not good on the back and since have been working for an auctioneers, I need to stop buying the things though! We’ve been working markets at the weekend which are good fun and a great way to make some money.

We’ve been fishing at a few different places, best way to chill out after a day working in the heat is to sit by the beach or river side with a cold stubby. the lads have caught bream, jewfish, dartfish, and shovelnosed sharks which are beautiful looking things but also taste lovely!

We’ve been staying on out on acreage of the family who we’re working for, its been great for us a free place to hang out, swimming pool, internet and they keep feeding us, they’ve been fantastic to us. The amount of land people have here is amazing, our family has a 10 acre garden but many have 100+.

The wildlife is incredible, parrots flying about everywhere, dolphins in the bay and wild roo hanging about we’re loving it!! The weather is beautiful and the people are so friendly and relaxed we’ve met some really nice locals so far.

We had a trip down the coast to surfers paradise, Brunswick Heads and Byron Bay. Byron reminded me of Bali, its a nice place and the beach and sea is lovely there, its rammed with backpackers, shops and bars. To be honest its not what we’re after, we seen so many beaches that we’re not that fazed by them and so the countryside and outback is the place for us. We went up to the lighthouse there and were luckiy enough to see Humback Whales breaching all down the coast, definately need to try and go diving near them or whale watching at least.