And so begins my trip up the coast...

After doing a lot of research I found an 18 day tour up the coast of Australia for a pretty good bargain so I booked it a few weeks ago and Dan decided to come along.  Wednesday morning Dan and I left Sydney on a ten hour bus ride to Wollongong.

Surf Camp

Once we arrived we were transported to surf camp where we spent the first two days of our trip.  We were exhausted from a mix of jet lag and waking up at 530am to catch the bus, so when we found out that our first surf lesson would be at 7am the following morning we were slightly caught off guard.  We were woken up at 6am the next morning to a knock on the door of our hostel hut.  Shortly after breakfast we were given wet suits and made our way to the beach which was a short walk away.  Aside from a short theory lesson we spent most of the time in the water practicing standing on the board.

After three lessons I have become pretty confident standing on the surf board.  I still need major work turning because for some reason I can only turn left, but I guess I'll just work on that more in the future.  Until then, surfers that happen to be on my left should watch out!

Byron Bay

Friday night we spent the night in Byron Bay, a town inhabited by tons of 18 year-olds with their parent's credit cards.  The town and beach was beautiful.

Surfer's Paradise

The next morning we left for Surfer's Paradise, a place that manages to live up to its name.

Camping on Fraser Island

From Surfer's Paradise we departed for another full day bus ride.  We arrived at Hervey Bay around dinnertime and were told we would be meeting the following morning at 6am to depart for Fraser Island (good thing I am a morning person!) on our 3 day, 2 night camping safari.  Fraser Island is the largest sand island in the world and the eastern most point in Australia.  Before departing we met the 20 other people we would be spending the next 3 days with.  We were separated into two camper vans, each with 11 people.  After electing certain team members to go food shopping we sat through a video about safety on the island.  Apparently there were two deaths just a week earlier on the island from a camper van overturning.  We would be off-roading in a 4x4 so toppling over is not that uncommon.  I paid very close attention on how to avoid dingos, where to swim to avoid sharks, and even learned how to properly bury any personal waste products deep under the sand and 5m from a stream.  Unfortunately I couldn't drive because I don't know how to drive stick shift (which is now on my list of things to learn!), but just sitting inside while the van drove through sand, rocks and water was pretty exhilarating.

The days were spent relaxing in the sun, swimming in clear water lakes and playing soccer and frisbee.  The nights (which began at 6pm since the days started at sunrise- we could only drive during low tide) consisted of drinking "goon" (boxed wine) on the beach and playing card games.  The island was absolutely gorgeous, the weather beautiful and the stars unlike anything I have ever seen.  Sleeping without a pillow was a little tough but I managed.

Our van with a mix of English, Scottish, Swedes, Norwegians, Israelis, Canadians and Americans (Dan and I) got along really well and after doing everything together for 3 days bonded a lot.  At the end I was thankful to finally shower the sand out of my hair, but I didn't want to leave, especially not for a 12 hour overnight bus ride to Airlie Beach.