This week saw us continuing our campervan-cruise down the East coast. After Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays we carried on down towards the ever-approaching Sydney, and the end of our journey. Some more highlights included:

St. Lawrence Wetlands – we only decided to stay here because it was free, but were gobsmacked when we turned up to find an almost 360 degree panorama of the flat wetlands with silhouetted mountains in the far distance. We sat and watched the sun go down whilst kangaroos hopped around not 100 yards away and birds of prey wheeled and swooped over the plain.

Fraser Island – this is another must-see on the travelling circuit, and was possibly the highlight of our trip. We did a 2 night 4-wheel-drive self-drive trip to the island, the largest sand island in the world, just off of the coast of Hervey Bay. In our group were an Ozzie couple – who we ended up getting on with famously – and 4 Japanese, only one of whom could speak a word of English; so we communicated through the age-old media of smiles and charades. Fraser Island is basically one big 4WD track which interlinks beautiful freshwater lakes, rangy beaches, unique rock formations, shifting sand dunes, a rusting skeletal shipwreck, and the only pure-bred Dingoes (wild dogs) left in Australia.
The 74k beach doubled up as a road, with ordinary road rules applying. The only difference was that small planes simultaneously used it as a landing strip! Elsewhere on the island the roads were completely unmade which meant the journeys were bone-rattling rides, but the destinations were delightful. The best of which was Lake Mackenzie, a marvellous freshwater lake with unimaginably clear water that was a deep turquoise for the first 20 yards, then fell away into a rich navy blue. It was good enough to drink; like a swimming pool without the chlorine or the sea without the salt.

We also met a British couple – Jamie & Heather – who were not in our group but were staying at the same hostel on Fraser. Jamie was a lawyer, writer, and borderline alcoholic! We all met up back on the mainland and the next two days were lost in a beery haze.

Noosa – a chic little town at the mouth of the Noosa river where the well-to-do launch their yachts from riverside dwellings and power-walking, for some reason, is inexplicably popular. Despite being a patent rip-off of a French Riviera town, it’s not without its charms; boutique designer stores and flash restaurants are en vogue, and there’s a national park with a stunning coastal walk where we saw a koala, a goanna (big lizard) and several – dozen – power-walkers!

Surfer’s Paradise – although not exactly a paradise in the traditional sense – an array of monolithic high-rise blocks and hotels leave it looking more Manhattan than Malibu – the Gold Coast City is still impressive. It boasts the highest residential tower block in the world, with each one being built incrementally taller than the last so as to obtain the lucrative ‘sea-view’. The beach is slightly more paradisical and obviously the waves are ‘gnarly’ enough to attract the eponymous surfers.

We also stopped in Brisbane to meet our friend Becky who had just flown over from England. As anyone who lives in Brisbane will tell you, there’s not much to do. But we went out for a night on the tiles and woke up in a flat inhabited by three Irishmen, about 2 hours away from our campervan! Less said about that the better. Anyway, Becky has been travelling in our ‘van with us for the past few days…

Nimbin – we had absolutely no idea what to expect from Nimbin, a small mountain town 60k inland from the coast, other than it was the site of the launch of hippy culture in Australia. It was perhaps the strangest town any of us had ever been to, inhabited entirely by aged hippies who probably hadn’t been home since the ’60s (or indeed washed!). They would sit outside their rainbow-painted shop fronts, staring into space, grinning, or wandering round in a state of stoned perplexity. Any conversation with them was at best slurred and at worst nonsenical. But – that said – they were really friendly people, and we ended up having a drink with two, River and Frank, who could have been a comedy double-act they were so unintentionally funny. Frank, for instance, was trying to get his guitar out of his car to play us a song. He’d tried every door in the car, including the boot, and was staring befuddled at his key, turning it round in his hands, before someone pointed out that it wasn’t his car! We were in stitches.

Sitting now in an internet cafe in Byron Bay but have only just arrived…to be continued!